Various Thoughts

Well it certainly took me a while to get around to watching Shana ‘s second season. I’m not quite sure why I was putting if off for so long since I liked season one… ah well, on to the episodes.

Episode one starts out sort of like Code Geass R2 ‘s episode one. Only, instead of the main character having amnesia, it seems like all the other characters have amnesia. Yuji starts to really notice the discrepancies with the world after some various past events are replayed followed by some peculiar behavior from people he talks to. After some testing, he realizes that the world is apparently located in his own mind, and manages to break out of it to find that he’s in the middle of a battle with an allegedly weak Tomogara (Mare ). It would seem that she caused him to fall into that ‘dream’ and that doing that to him is part of some larger plan, based on how she smiles as Shana quickly cuts her down.

Episode two has Shana asking Yuji’s mom to teach her how to make a bento , as she got somewhat jealous after watching him eat the bento Yazumi made for him. And is it just me, or does Shana sound younger then she did in season one? Anyway, while that is going on, Yuji is off being trained by Wilhelmina while the side effects from his link with Hecate last season are explained. Namely; he now has power the equivalent of a Crimson Lord floating around inside him. Later on, Mare from last episode appears again and tosses Shana, Yuji, and Yazumi back into the dream world where she tries (and fails) to steal the Reigi Maigo inside of Yuji. The episode ends with a new student who bears a striking resemblance to Hecate transferring into the school.

Assassin’s Creed is a very interesting game, particularly the part about the story being Sci-fi instead of Fantasy.

It starts out easily enough, with both a tutorial mission, and an introductory mission where Altaïr already has all his abilities. Then some storyline events occur that cause you to lose your abilities and you’ll have to win them back. This is accomplished by performing a series of eight assassinations in three cities (Acre, Jerusalem, and Damascus).

The first time you enter the Kingdom and Cities will be something of a treat, but they get old rather fast as you’re forced to revisit them two more times. I think this section of the game would’ve been far better if you were able to do three assassinations in one city, then three in another, and then the last three in the third. The way it’s currently set-up is far too repetitious.

Thankfully, the storyline and mechanics are interesting enough to offset the above issue (horse-riding was implemented particularly well). There are five different weapons at your disposal by the end of the game; Fists, Hidden Blade, Sword, Short Sword, and Throwing Knives. Fists are only useful against Interrogation targets. The Hidden Blade is incredibly useful just about everywhere since it insta-kills if it hits, and I only found out toward the end of the game that you can counter-attack with it out to get an insta-kill while already in combat. The Sword is powerful but slow, and I preferred using the Short Blade everywhere except for fighting the first couple of enemies following the completion of your last assassination (they have so much health that it takes far too long to deliver a fatal blow). It’s much faster than the Sword, though it does less damage, and also gives you the option of using Throwing Knives while wielding it. The last weapon, the Throwing Knives, are incredibly useful since they act just like a ranged Hidden Blade that cannot be blocked.

Even with only four weapons, the combat is incredibly varied with quite a few different maneuvers and attack/kill animations. I tended to avoid combat for the majority of the game, during the investigations leading up to the assassinations, because it slowed that process down rather badly. As such, I was rather refreshed by the last few chapters of near-continuous large scale combat. If you’ve been cutting your way through the cities the entire game however, the ending series of battles will probably bore you.

I liked the game quite a bit all-in-all. The lead-up to the assassinations was horribly repetitious, but the originality of the storyline combined with the variety of the combat system easily outweighs that issue.

In twenty-three, the UN Forces launch a second attack on the Ptolemaios. This attack goes a touch worse than the last one thanks to both the new equipment introduced by the GN Arms and the newly unlocked Trans-AM system. Al-Saachez makes his presence felt using his stolen Throne Gundam to briefly turn the tide of the battle, but the UN is forced to retreat after Lockon launches in the GN Armor to destroy their transports. Before he can destroy them all, Ali appears to engage him in a deathmath… it would seem that Lockon has inherited Setsuna’s vendetta.

Episode twenty-four has Alejandro joining the fight against Celestial Being in a gigantic mobile-armor (Alvatore) apparently created from thin air. The Alvatore proceeds to do one thing, and one thing only: fire extremely powerful long-distance blasts of energy that destroy everything in their path. The UN forces take some heavy losses, losing almost all of their counterfeit Solar Furnace powered suits, but Celestial Being loses a significant amount of people as well…. There’s lots of death in this episode, and it ends with Setsuna attacking the Alvatore head-on.

The last episode of season one, twenty-five, starts out with a bang. Allelujah makes peace with Hallelujah in order to unlock their true super-soldier abilities. Basically, their speed and reaction time doubles due to the effective use of two brains and personalities at once. While they’re off fighting the Colonial and Lieutenant (apparently the last of the UN’s counterfeit SF units), Setsuna is busy engaging the Alvatore. After a short but brutal fight, the Alvatore falls, making Allelujah/Hallelujah the last person still in battle. But wait! The Alvatore didn’t really fall, and it’s back for round two… where it’s destroyed thanks to the Trans-AM system and the anti-GN Field equipment on the Exia. And just as everything appears to have settled down, Graham Aker appears from limbo with his finally finished modified flag-fighter and basically rips a weaken Setsuna to pieces. This scene somewhat resembles the Kira/Shinn encounter from Gundam SEED Destiny, only it’s a touch more random and nonsensical. With that, the timelime jumps four years into the future, where Celestial Being’s mission has been completed; the Earth has come together with just a single military forces, the Earth Federation.

Final Thoughts: Well, the first half or so of the series sucked pretty bad and it overused previous story/plot ideas rather heavily, but I think the ending made up for it a bit. One of the few (only?) innovations this installment of the Gundam series brought was a lack of repetitious stock animations. Overused stock animations has long been the bane of the Gundam franchise, and it’s nice to see that particular eyesore dealt with. One other thing I noticed was that during Setsuna’s battle with the Alvatore, when the Exia was docked with the GN Arms, seemed to bear quite the resemblance to Fei’s Xenogears Gear from Xenogears… so I’m rather curious to see if they go further in that direction in Season two.

The first three-fourths of episode twenty aren’t very interesting, and mostly deal with the impact recent events have had on the civilian trio of Saji, his sister, and Louise… and how the three world powers plan to take advantage of the counterfeit solar furnace technology that was leaked to them last episode. The last five minutes or so reveal the power of the newly united Earth forces’ Gundams as they repel an attack by the Trinities, and unveil a bit more about Alejandro Corner’s master plan.

Twenty-one has the UN forces launching surprise attacks on both of Celestial Being’s bases; Ptolemaios and the Trinity’s ground headquarters. The Ptolemaios’ crew does a good job holding off the overwhelming force sent against them, until they lose their backup systems due to Corner’s tampering with Veda. Sumeragi planned for this though, and switches the Gundams over to the newly created, Veda-independent, system that Feldt and Christina were working on. Even with this alternate system in place, things aren’t looking good until Lasse appears with the GN Arms and forces the UN Suits to retreat.

Episode twenty-three focuses a bit on the Trinities, and how their situation is far more dire then that of the Ptolemaios’. Since their Gundams are equipped with counterfiet Solar Furnaces, and they no longer have a base to recharge at, they’ll eventually run out of energy completely. Back up in space, Setsuna (with Lockon and Sumeragi’s support) decides to intervene in the UN’s attack on the Trinities. Meanwhile, Ali approaches the Trinities on his own, and proceeds to kill Michael, steal his Throne Gundam, and even manage to destroy Johann’s Gundam. His goal to eliminate all the siblings is only foiled by Setsuna’s timely arrival.

This section of the series introduces the new Gundams and their pilots, as well as sets the stage for Celestial Being’s downfall. The new Gundams were apparently created by a traitor to the organization, who pillaged the remains of their destroyed base orbiting Jupiter. They’re piloted by a group of siblings (Johann, Michael, and Nina Trinity ) whose origins are mostly unknown.

These Throne Gundams are generally more powerful then the normal Gundams, but they must be recharged over time as they cannot produce an unlimited amount of energy. In addition to the technical differences, their pilots also have a drastically different idea of what should be done to end war, and kill anyone even tenuously attached to making war (soldier or civilian) without any hesitation.

After Nina Trinity spontaneously murders an entire wedding party due to being bored, Setsuna and Tieria decide that the Throne Gundams have gone too far and their pilots are not true Gundam Meisters, and attempt to destroy them. Tieria almost succeeds using Nadleeh ‘s trial system, which can shut down any Gundam connected to Veda , but gets secretly stopped by Alejandro Corner for unknown reasons.

Everything goes more or less the same way it’s been going for the majority of the series, with some group attempting to create a war, and Celestial Being breaking it up. This time around it’s that mercenary-captain (Ali) from Setsuna‘s past stirring up trouble in Azadistan. This arc, as befitting the location, is mostly focused on Setsuna, his past, his beliefs, and his growing connection with Marina Ismail, Azadistan’s queen. All it really did for me though was give flashbacks to FMP!, which depicted this type of plotline far better.

Celestial Being gets a large publicity boost following the successful resolution of that mini-crisis, which forces the three main world powers to start working together on a method to capture/negate them. They come up with a plan to hold a large joint military operation at an abandoned depleted uranium facility to lure the Gundams into a trap. Not having much choice in the matter, the Gundams fly right into it.

Allelujah and Lockon find themselves being bombarded into the ground by nearly 1000 enemy mobile suits, while Setsuna and Tieria were being held in reserve waiting for confirmation of the trap’s existence. Even after they join the battle though, things don’t precisely start to look up… since both the Union and HRL had been holding their elite units in reserve as well. Fifteen hours of bombardment go by with the Gundams basically sitting there and taking it. Why don’t they retreat? Why don’t they fight back? Who can say?

Well, the world powers’ elite forces head in shortly following the extended bombardment and quickly take down the weakened Gundams. And just as everything appears lost, a new, previously unseen, Gundam appears from the sky.

Things definitely seem to be getting more interesting now, even though the storyline formula isn’t deviating much from previous Gundam installments.

This is a three-part OVA series that takes place after episode 43 of Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles. I’m not sure if this completely replaces the remaining episodes of the series, or if it’s simply meant to fit in between 43 & 44.

The story unfolds in an alternate Tokyo where extremely caustic acid rain falls from the sky, dissolving buildings and mutating wildlife. When the protagonists arrive, there are only two groups of people left alive, both camped out in buildings above the only sources of fresh-water. This world’s problems, however, are not the main focus of the series (though they do play a large part in episode three). No, the main focus is the awakening of the original Syaoran and the way this affects the clone Syaoran.

The pacing and actions scenes are rather well done, and the opening theme song (Synchronicity, by Yuki Kajiura and Yui Makino) is fantastic. Episode three is particularly nice in the way it shows off a side of Sakura that’s not normally seen. Personally, I think the series might be a bit better off if she took the initiative more often.

All-in-all I have to say that this is a perfect addition to the series, far better than that horrific side-story movie that was released.

A few days back, I wandered into the local Blockbuster on a time-wasting whim. After wandering around for a while, and noting the rather insane prices for Blu-Ray discs, I started searching through the Used 3/$20 rack.

I kind-of wanted to see if they had Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, but I instead stumbled across Species: The Awakening. Having not known that there was a fourth movie in the series, I grabbed that as well as Species III and the special edition of Species. Sadly, there was no Species II there. Also hidden in the rack were two movies I had never heard of before; Shoot ‘Em Up and Skinwalkers. Since they looked mildly interesting, I grabbed them as well as Resident Evil: Extinction.

Out of the above, I had already seen (and liked) Species, Species III, and Extinction. I just got around to watching Shoot ‘Em Up now, and can safely say that it is both utter crap and a complete waste of $6.50. I’ve since heard some rather bad things about Skinwalkers, so I don’t have much hope of that being good, but hopefully Awakening will make the trip semi-worthwhile.

The terrorists didn’t last long, as information gathered on them by the Union and AEU is leaked to the Gundams, who quickly wipe them out. Things then move along rather quickly as the HRL now appears to be the only major superpower still interested in directly fighting Celestial Being. They launch an ambitious space-based plan to capture one or more of the Gundams by using millions of tiny satellite communication devices to determine where they are by noting areas of communication blackout.

This plan to find them works perfectly, and the HRL quickly launches forces to catch them off guard. The super-soldier lieutenant is part of the main force, and her proximity ends up knocking Allelujah of the fight long enough to be temporarily captured. Tieria is then overwhelmed by the remaining forces and is forced to reveal Virtue’s alternate form far earlier then was originally planned. Back with Allelujah, his alternate personality (Hallelujah) takes over and goes on something of a killing spree, and convinces Allelujah that the organization creating the super-soldiers should be Celestial Being’s next target. The attack goes more or less unchallenged and ends up being a large publicity boost following the release of information regarding the super-soldier program.

I’m still rather ambivalent about the series. On the one hand, Allelujah is proving to have a bit more depth to his character, but on the other, Setsuna is becoming more like Heero (revealing his identity to the princess). I think the real problem with this series is that the pacing is off…. It just comes across as bland when compared to, say, Code Geass R2.

Now this, is a very interesting book. The Host, by Stephenie Meyer, tells the story of an Earth inhabited by an alien species of peaceful parasitic beings (something of a contradiction, yes). They travel from world to world, attaching themselves to any intelligent lifeforms they come across in a search for both new experiences and to eradicate what they view as destructive or wasteful actions.

The storyline picks up some time after the aliens’ (called ‘souls’) arrival, when there are very few ‘wild’ humans left, and one of the few remaining has just been captured. This woman’s name is Melanie, and she is to be implanted so that the rest of the resistance fighters can be found. The soul chosen for this job, named ‘Wanderer’ for her apparent inability to stay on one planet for longer then a single lifetime (Earth will be her ninth), almost immediately discovers that Humans are different in one significant way from the other species the souls have attached themselves to; their personalities and minds don’t always disappear after the soul takes control of the body.

Wanderer finds Melanie still very much aware and active inside her head, blocking the memories that would reveal the few other free humans she knows of. As time passes, Wanderer starts to come over to Melanie’s view of things, and detaches herself from the other souls to undertake a journey to find Melanie’s brother and the man she loves (who Wanderer, thanks to Melanie’s memories, now loves as well). Of course, finding them is only the beginning, as they have no reason to believe that Melanie is still ‘alive’ inside Wanderer’s head.

The book is definitely character driven, with the changing relationships and reactions moving the story along at a variable pace. There is no sense of rush or outside tension, as it takes place after the occupation is essentially long over, and ‘time’ flows by mostly unnoticed.

Meyer has done a fantastic job of creating several original alien species, while still managing to make the story Human at heart. I hope she continues this series, though I’m not quite sure where the story could go that would be more interesting than the dual conversations and love ‘triangle’ contained in this book.