Various Thoughts

This movie is the sequel to the Armitage III series or the Armitage III: Poly-Matrix all-in-one movie.

It opens with an unnamed military organization’s assault on a cyborg/android research facility of some kind located on Earth. As the faculty is engulfed in a giant antimatter explosion, a woman (Armitage?) on Mars gets a seemingly telepathic vision of the destruction via one of its staff. She seems to recognize the facility as one having a connection to ‘the third’ line of androids. So, yeah, I guess it is Armitage… though she looks rather different.

Next we have Sylibus picking his and Armitage’s daughter (Yoko) up from school and heading home. It should be noted that Yoko doesn’t really look like either of them. Shortly after a little birthday scene for Yoko, Armitage dons her hooker gear and heads off to Earth to investigate the earlier explosion.

While she’s ‘investigating’ (read: spontaneously attacking suspitious-looking people), Sylibus gets caught up in an anti-ocean, pro-Earth, attack at the refinery/plower-plant he works at. Him being who he is, he’s able to stop it single-handedly with only a few minor ingeries. Unfortunately, the terrorist group that attack seemed to be made up of humans and robots, and the ones that he killed just so happened to be the humans of the group. So, as a result, he’s put under police investigation and ends up in a very public spectacle. Armitage seems to be unaware of this side-story as she tracks down the General responsible for the earlier attack, and while with him meets the one seemingly behind the plot; the vice president of one of Earth’s robitics companies (Demetrio). Cutting back to Sylibus, he’s been asked by the Prime Minister to head to Earth as his Summit reprisentative to help get the Robot Rights bill passed. It would seem that he’s known as the ‘hero of Mars’ thanks to the final battle at the end of the OVA series and the Prime Minister wants to use that reputation to help pass the bill. He agrees, and heads to Earth with Yoko.

Demetrio sees Sylibus’ arrival, and immediately launches his counterattack; kidnap Yoko and use her to force him to vote against the bill. Sylibus capitulates to Demetrio’s demands and abstains from the vote, causing the bill to fail. Armitage, having just witnessed this on TV, is totally shocked. Complicating matters further, the person (Mouse) that has repaired her from her disaterous confrontation in the General’s penthouse turns out to be a double-agent and sells her build data to Demetrio. He’s interested in her ability to give birth though, and that’s the only information missing from what Mouse gives him. He’s quite upset by this developement and so has his two Armitage clones mindrape him for the information. Mouse never found it to begin with though, and so Demetrio decides that he’ll have to use Yoko to get the information.

Sylbius heads to the meeting spot to pick up his daughter only to find out that, Surprise!, Demetrio has no intention of ever giving her back and has his men attempt to kill him. Armitage manages to track him down just as he’s about to be ripped appart by an attack hellicopter. The battle of Armitage vs. Helicopter is decided in about five seconds as she kills the pilot with a single shot. Now reunited, they decide to go storm the Robitics Corporation’s headquarters and rescue Yoko while Mouse releases Armitage’s memory data over the news system in order to ruin Demetrio and show the truth behind the explosion at the beginning of the movie.

This miniseries is a bit like a combination of Ergo Proxy and Ghost in the Shell from a plot standpoint. It takes place on Mars during the middle of the beginnings of a conflict between humans and extremely human-like robots. Many humans believe that since they’ve now settled Mars they no longer have any real need for the robots there, and so have started to try to phase them out of existence. The robots, meanwhile, have advanced to the point where there are models in which only the brain (AKA: the A.I.) is mechanical, with the rest of the body being completely biological, and are nearly indistinguishable from normal humans.

The story follows two main characters. The first is Detective Sylibus, who has just been transfered to the Mars police department from Chicago. It would seem he lost both his last partner and his leg in a car accident with a robotic terrorist of some sort back on Earth. He had to get a cybernetic leg to replace the one he lost, and the entire experience has left him with a strong dislike, bordering on hatred, of robots in general. The second is Naomi Armitage, his new partner, who’s a rather esoteric member of the police force that seems to have carte blanche to do just about whatever she wants and seems to have a personal investment in the recent string of robot ‘murders’.

The series opens with the murder of the last well-known country singer who just so happens to be a highly advanced, and illegal, robot. Sylibus is tasked with tracking down the manufacturer of this particular robot as his first assignment on Mars. The two of them make a strange pairing, as she’s damn-near miniature and dressed not all that dissimilar to a hooker while he resembles a retired linebacker and looks every bit the no-nonsense Detective. As they investigate, Sylibus begins to suspect that the reason Armitage is so interested and emotional about this particular case is due to her being a robot herself. A suspicion that turns out to be well-founded. Over the course of the series, as the investigation into the killings of the third line of humanoid robots continue, Armitage and Sylibus grow closer as they discover the thirds’ purpose and how Armitage fits into it all.

This series bears quite a few similarities to Ghost in the Shell. So much so that I wonder if this may have been based on the manga version. So if you liked that movie, you’ll probably like this miniseries as well.

Episode ten opens with the episode that every series dealing with school-life seems incapable of going without (even Code Geass has it); the lead-up to the school festival. The main focus of this particular festival seems to be to elect the ‘PPP’, otherwise known as the ‘Prince and Princess of the Party’. The requirements for being selected as the PPP seem to change each year, and all of them seem arbitrary. If I had to guess, I would assume that Priecia and Hyaweh end up winning. Speaking of those two, they end up almost having a nighttime duel as Priecia’s feelings continue to wildly fluctuate, being stopped by the Duke… who just so happens to have been lurking around campus at night. He informs them that this year’s PPP will be selected based on acting ability, and wouldn’t you know it, Fel happen to be putting on a Romantic play and wanted them to star in it.

Eleven is the school festival itself. The method of choosing who will get to play the princess is revealed right at the beginning; whomever manages to acquire the breastplates the parts must wear (and have it fit them) first will be chosen. I think the series has officially fallen irretrievably below the ‘barely watchable’ mark right about now. In a shocking twist, Filia manages to steal the breastplate from Priecia at the last moment to become the princess to Hyaweh’s prince. Filia knows how Priecia really feels though, and trades roles with her just before the play starts.

Well… with two essentially worthless fanservice episodes down, surely the final episode might attempt to explain what was going on way back in the first episode… right? Anyway, the episode starts with the school’s final knight test, the duel, which just so happens to be between Priecia and Hyaweh. The duel is overseen by the leader of the Tempiri Knights (Judas), who seems to be quite interested in Hyaweh’s rumored Angel-slaying abilities and well aware of the unique properties of his sword. And then what happens? Why, the duel is completely skipped and the timeline jumps to the graduation ceremony and various final squad assignments. Hyaweh ends up assigned to the Tempiri knights thanks to Judas, who seems to not only be well aware of his celestial origins but is betting on his abilities to turn the tide against an immanent invading enemy force led by Darkness Knight. Priecia is busy revealing the secrets of her past to Hyaweh and clinging to him only to be interrupted when, just like all the other times they start getting close to one another; enemies appear. This would seem to be the cause of the school’s destruction mentioned back in episode one. During the battle, Duke faces down Darkness Knight while Hyaweh and Priecia unite to unlock his sword’s powers… which seem to be based on the technology of some ancient humans who are floating around the planet on a satellite of some sort.

And that was the end. Nine of the episodes merely serve to explain who the group of protagonists were, how they got together, and why Hyaweh’s sword can kill the Angels. What a horrid waste of time.

What is Mugen? Simply put, it’s a free 2D fighting engine that allows total user customizability. Everything from the fighters, to the stages, to the front-end and hud graphics can be altered to fit your personal preferences. There is something of a learning curve though, and it’s not exactly up to ‘plug-and-play’ standards. You have to do a bit of work to get the most out of it.

Wondering where to start? There are basically three options for the new Mugen player:

1. Get the game engine and various addons and characters piece by piece.
2. Download one of the big ‘warehouse’ all-in-one torrents and just start playing.
3. A hybrid of the above two methods.

There are basically two sites you should be aware of for options #1 & 3:

RandomSelect – Download the main game engine here. Assuming your computer has been built sometime within the past 5 years, you’ll want to grab the Mugen Plus version. There are also Linux and DOS versions.

Mugen Wiki – After you’ve got the engine, you’ll want to jump over here to grab the hi-res select screen and the Fighter’s Factory program. The first’s use should be obvious, while Fighter’s Factory makes viewing new characters much easier (very few, if any, come with screenshots).

With the basics out of the way, you’re now free to populate your game with characters, stages, and other customizations. There are three main sites for finding these things; the aforementioned Mugen Wiki, the Mugen-Infantry, and E-snips. The first two have the very real problem of not hosting direct downloads, instead pointing you at the author’s homepage (which may or may not still have the relevant download). E-snips, however, almost appears as if it were tailor-made for distributing this game’s user-content. MUGENDomain’s 1,000 characters was particularly useful.

If all that seems like too much work, there’s always option #2; get it all at once. There’s really only one main option for this, and that’s to grab the Mugen 100% Hardcore Reloaded torrent. Despite it’s name, there’s no sexual content to be found in it… that’s located elsewhere (more on that later). Personally, I advise setting up the main engine, lifebars, and selectscreen yourself by picking up specific files, and then just transferring the useful characters and stages from the Torrent to that installation. From there you can hunt down any specific characters you’d particularly want to play with using E-snips or Mugen-Infantry.

But what if you don’t want a normal fighting game, and instead want something a touch more… exotic? Well, there are three main ways to turn your normal fighting game into a hentai fighting game. The easiest is identical to option #2 above; download an all-in-one version. I’ve seen two. The first is called Queen of Fighters, can be found in Torrent form, and is the inferior of the two. It’s bad enough that it uses the low-res version of Mugen, but the real problem is that it only has simple nude versions of regular characters and some really pathetic original characters (though the ‘victim’ was a bit of a surprise). As for stages; almost all of them include either sprite or real porn and are of questionable quality.

The other all-in-one hentai option is Sex Mugen, which can be found as a direct download in the main body of Mechanical Vampyre’s Rare Mugen Chars Too E-snips folder. The all-in-one version uses Mugen Plus as the base and includes numerous hi-res stages. The lifebars could use an upgrade, but other than that it’s a very nice starter package. It has a decent variety of characters, though some are of questionable quality. The main attraction of this version is that you can immediately start playing after unzipping it without having any notable issues. If you simply must get to the sprite sex immediately, this would be your best option.

The third option, for those that either don’t have the space for multiple Mugen installations or just want a touch of hentai every now and again, is to grab Kuromaru and Slime compatible versions of whatever fighters you normally have installed and then add the Kuromaru and Slime characters to your roster. This method leaves your Mugen game looking perfectly innocuous… until Kuromaru or Slime are chosen to fight. For this method you’ll want to browse through Mechanical Vampyre‘s two E-snips folders, as he has the most recent versions of Kuromaru and Slime, as well as a boatload of characters that were made compatible with their attacks (or you can poach the Sex Mugen installation). There are various other rare characters scattered throughout the folders as well, so you may end up finding some interesting normal characters as well. Another place is Kuromaru’s Den, though that doesn’t have as many characters as MV’s. You could also browse around the Mugan Image Board for a slightly more… organic… experience with the hentai side of Mugen.

It’s raining in episode seven and Hyaweh is missing his umbrella thanks to Bridget. Filia offers to let him share hers, only to find out that it’s missing as well. Priecia offers to share her’s with Hyaweh while Kagura makes her yuri tendencies known by grabbing Filia. This isn’t exactly a selfless gesture on her part though, as she uses the opportunity to flat-out ask him if he loves her. This catches him totally off-guard and after he responds in the affirmative, she responds that she hates him just as much as he loves her. This troubles him quite a bit, and he spends most of the next day thinking about it as the majority of the school heads off into their debut battle at a fort on the empire’s border. To complicate matters further, this battle turns out to be a trap set by the Sablum forces who have used the fort as a sacrifice to summon an Angel.

Episode eight picks up as the battered students return to the school and Karin gives her report to the Duke. He seems rather interested that Hyaweh was able to kill the Angel and tells Karin to keep an eye on him. Bridget, who’s eavesdropping on the conversation, takes this to mean that Hyaweh is the actual inheritor to the throne and changes her plans accordingly. Speaking of Hyaweh; he’s over in the infirmary from the wounds sustained during the Angel fight. Priecia seems none the worse for wear and is on her way to visit him when she overhears the tail-end of Karin’s conversation about him. Mistakenly believing that he’ll never recover, she runs off into town in a depression where she becomes easy prey for some would-be rapists. She narrowly escapes this fate thanks to the intervention of a wandering gardener-priestess (Theresa)… the very same gardener-priestess that also happens to be known as Sister Hell.

Nine has Karin, Kagura, Bridget, and Filia wandering around the town in search of Priecia, who’s still staying at Theresa’s church. Back at the school, the Duke is having a midnight rendezvous with the head of the Mage Guild. It would seem that she’s been acting as a spy inside the Sablum empire up until this point and has just recently returned. Their discussion eventually moves to Hyaweh, and it’s revealed that both he and his sword came to the planet on a ‘shooting star’. Next on the list of revelations is the history behind what turned Theresa into Sister Hell and how Karin fits into her backstory. After a lengthy battle between Karin, Sister Hell, and Priecia, Darkness Knight crashes the party looking for the boy who killed the Angel. Priecia goes on the offensive while Hyaweh is busy trying to get his sword to awake, and the pocketwatch she wears around her neck (the same one from that flashback back at the beginning of the series) gets exposed as she’s knocked away. Seeing the watch causes memories to stir in th e Knight’s head and gives Hyaweh the opportunity to use the dagger he got from him to split open his helmet. Priecia glances at his semi-exposed face through the bursts of rampaging energy and seems to recognize him as the missing King.

Well, it would appear that that flashback in the first episode dealt with the King, Queen, and her brother, and not Priecia and her brother as I originally thought. Exactly how that dark-haired kid turned into first the King, and then Darkness Knight, is a rather large mystery though.

The fouth episode picks up the day after the ninja attack. The archer (Kagura) that saved Priecia at the end of last episode is now apparently stalking her, and it’s driving her to distraction. Finally reaching her breaking point, she confronts the Duke and asks him who Kagura is and why she’s following her. And the answer would seem to be that he contacted her and asked her to be Priecia’s bodyguard. The next day, Priecia challenges Kagura to a duel; if she wins Kagura will have to keep her distance, and if Kagura wins then she can stay as close as she wants. The duel gets interrupted when the gym catches on fire thanks to Bridget’s botched assassination attempt, and Karin ends up having to put out the blaze. Afterward, Kagura decides to accept Priecia’s request and protect her from afar… although ‘afar’, to her, happens to mean ‘roughly 10 feet away’.

Episode five opens with a history lesson at the school that explains a bit more of the kingdom’s backstory. In the next scene, due to being distracted by thoughts of Hyaweh, she’s utterly defeated by Karen in a sparring match. Things progress to a night meeting between Priecia, Hyaweh, and Kagura as Hyaweh explains what he’s learned about using prism magic and explains some details about his past. It would seem that he was once saved from an Angel attack by the earlier introduced Darkness Knight, who left him a dagger and told him that words alone were weak and would not allow him to protect the ones he loved. Will there be a final battle between Hyaweh and Darkness Knight? I think there will.

The next episode has Fel suggesting that they (her, Hyaweh, his sister, Priecia, and Kagura) head over to the capital on their day off to have some fun, since all they’ve been doing up to this point is study or train. Priecia is reluctant at first, but gives in after Kagura expresses interest in going. Bridget inserts herself into the group as well in the hopes of finding some confirmation that Priecia really is the princess that she’s been tasked with eliminating. The excursion turns into a date between Hyaweh and Priecia after they get separated from the rest of the group. True to form though, just as the romantic mood starts to build… *poof*, ninjas. They manage to abduct Priecia after poisoning Hyaweh with a throwing dagger, and Fel returns to the school using a flight spell to notify Karin what’s happened. With Karin’s help they manage to rescue Priecia, and Bridget pursues the retreating ninja to figure out why they’re trying to capture her when she’s been sent to kill her.

The first episode of Prism Ark opens at night in the desert. The two main characters of the series (Hyaweh and Priecia) are introduced, and a general outline of what’s going on starts to form as they discuss future plans while the rest of their squad sleeps. It would seem that they come from a place called ’Wind Land’ and are here in the desert to invade the holy land (Resrexion) of an enemy kingdom (Sablum). Hyaweh is a knight-in-training while Priecia seems to be a warrior princess of some sort. Just as the romantic mood starts to reach its peak… enemies pop out of the sand and attack. I wonder if this will be a theme? The scene switches to a explanatory narrative that details the pertinent kingdoms of the world and the relevant past events that have shaped the present time, as well as gives some basic background on Priecia. Glimpses of the continuing battle in the dessert interrupt the narrative from time to time, giving a nice contrast to the exposition.

Episode two takes place at some interminably earlier date and opens with the King of Sablum giving a motivational speech to his followers. He’s interrupted by the arrival of the mercenaries Darkness Knight and Sister Hell, who make some disparaging comments that provoke the King into sending an assassin into Wind Land’s capital (Rosenberg) to kill the royal heir. The scene switches Rosenberg, where Priecia is filming a recruitment film for the knight school and quite a bit of exposition covering the current state of affairs is given. The assassin sent to kill the Wind Land’s heir, and who goes by the name Bridget while in Wind Land, is introduced next, and she seems… rather incompetent:

Priecia arrives at the new student dedication ceremony a bit late and runs into Hyaweh, who mistakes her as another student and drags her off to the entrance hall despite her protests. Back in that very entrance hall, Bridget is mistaken as the princess because her hair is braided and causes a rather large scene that Priecia has to deal with after she arrives. She’s none to happy about this and Hyaweh has to intervene in order to stop her from hurting Bridget in retaliation for tarnishing her name and reputation.

Episode three picks up right where two left off, with Hyaweh easily dodging everything Priecia throws at him. After being declared the victor, he’s asked to be the student representative and give a speech. He’s not much of a speech giver though and tries to persuade Karen (the main instructor) to have mercy on him… only to inadvertently trigger a fight with her when he accidentally pulls down her skirt/dress. The scene cuts to Bridget who’s wandering the halls. It seems the little energetic girl (Fel) who first mistook her to be the princess is going to be her roommate. Fel then proceeds to give some backstory on Karin. Hyaweh and Priecia end up sitting next to each other in class the next day, though I have not the slightest clue why Priecia is even in class since she’s supposedly already an accomplished fighter/gladiator. Thus begins their fated relationship.

Eh… I’m not sure about this series. The storyline certainly isn’t original, the character design certainly isn’t original, and the fanservice (while not as blatant as that in, say, Rosario + Vampire) is noticeable and somewhat out of place. So far this seems ‘barely watchable’ at best.

This is a series about the relationship between Yuki (a vampire attack survivor), Zero (another vampire attack survivor), and Kaname (a pure-blood vampire) as they all attend a private boarding school meant to allow humans and vampires to coexist peacefully together.

Yuki, at first glance, appears to be nothing but an average 15 year old girl. Kaname saved from a vampire attack 10 years earlier and brought her to live with the school’s headmaster, who raised her as his own daughter. Nothing is known about her life prior to that attack, as her memory is a complete blank. Zero’s family was killed by vampires four years before the series starts, and he harbors a deep-seated hatred for them as a result. However, there’s more to his hatred than there at first seems, as he did not survive that attack unscathed. Kaname is a pure-blood vampire, and his desire to coexist with the humans is the main reason for the school’s existence.

The school is divided into a ‘day class’ made up of humans, and a ‘night class’ made up of vampires. Yuki and Zero, being the headmaster’s wards and knowing of the vampires’ existence, serve as the school’s enforcers. They try to make sure that the humans stay unaware that the night class is made up of vampires and that the vampires don’t attack the humans. The vampires of this series are quite different from traditional vampires. While they do need blood to survive, that’s about the only similarity they share. Sunlight doesn’t affect them and their powers are specific to the individual and seem to take the form of psionics, such as pyrokinesis, telekinesis, and cryokinesis.

As the series progresses, Yuki grows closer to Kaname while trying to get Zero to open up to her. Zero, meanwhile, has to deal with the ever increasing pressure the legacy of the attack four years ago left him while doing his best to keep it a secret from Yuki. The situation reaches it’s breaking point early on, and the majority of the series focuses on Zero as he comes to terms with his past and what he’s become viewed through Yuki’s eyes.

It’s a touch on the melodramatic side, but I think that the series was well done; there’s no rampant fanservice and the characters all stay true to their given personalities. The narrative flows along at a comfortable pace and important bits of backstory tend to be revealed at just the right times. The flashbacks regarding Zero and Ichiru’s relationship with Shizuka Hiou got somewhat out of hand toward the end though.

The second installment of the xxxHolic series continues more or less where the first left off. This part of the series seems to focus far more on Watanuki’s development as a character and the growing relationship between him and Dōmeki than on the people who seek Yūko out for help. It also seems that the various problems that Yūko’s asked to solve, as well as the solutions to them, have taken a decidedly tragic cast to them. Most end on a note that could best be described as melancholy; superficially good, but tinged with a hint of sorrow. Comparible to those found in Jigoku Shōjo.

The series has two main subplots that serve as a backdrop, and sometimes an impetus, for Watanuki’s changing views:

• The truth behind Himawari and the apparent bad luck she brings.
• The story behind a young girl with abilities similar to Watanuki’s.

The first comes to a head toward the end of the series after Watanuki nearly dies falling through a window on the second floor of the school, while the second is resolved over the course of a few episodes around the midpoint. Both serve to broaden his perceptions of the world and people in general, and by the end, he seems to have finally begun to understand what Yūko’s been attempting to do by immersing him in her work.

Eleven opens with Yoshi waking up, surprised to find out that he still exists. Honestly, I’m not sure why he’s all that surprised considering that Sakura’s anti-aging wish certainly survived the first tree’s death, so it would not be much of a stretch to assume that her wish for a family would survive the second one’s death. Anzu’s wish did not survive the withering though, and her memory begins to deteriorate. Yoshi sees this as a sign that he too will deteriorate over time… almost exactly like the Torches in Shakugan no Shana. Yume does her best to continue her cheerful façade, but she seems to know that they may not have as much time as she would have wished after having witnessed the death of the sakura tree the last episode. Meanwhile, Otome has immersed herself in trying to find a way to stop Yoshi from fading, but by the end of the episode, her and Yume are the only ones who still remember who he is.

Episode twelve has Otome continuing her desperate research while Yume tries to make the most of their limited time by asking Yoshi out on a date. At the end of the day, she brings him to the roof of the school and reveals that she has visions of the future through her dreams and that she had already known that this would happen long ago. It was the reason she had tried to keep her distance from him earlier in their lives. And after a tearful confession of her true feelings for him on the rooftop, she tells him to go see Otome before it’s too late… and he reaches her at the withered sakura tree just in time to say goodbye.

Well now, after the last episode’s poignant ending, what exactly is left? The final episode would seem to be an epilogue, and takes place two months after twelve’s final scene. It’s spring again and the new school year has just started, and it would seem that now even Yume and Otome have forgotten that Yoshiyuki had ever existed. That seems to be an act they’re both putting on though, as Otome opens her notebook following her speech to the new students and it’s filled with noting but Yoshi’s name repeated again and again. Yume, meanwhile, has apparently been retracing the steps she took on her date with in the hopes that he may reappear. Back at the withered sakura tree, spring has restored enough of its life for Sakura’s awareness to return. She takes the opportunity to explore the island as a group of sakura petals and see what the island is like now that it has returned to its natural state. As she’s watching Yoshi’s old friends however, she notices that they seem to be recalling Yoshi’s existence, although only as an absence, a void.

Otome returns to the tree the next day, as she has done every day for the last two months, in the hopes that it will have granted her wish and that Yoshi will have reappeared. Seeing that it still hasn’t, she vows that as long as Yoshi continues to not exist, she will continue to remember him solely to spite the tree’s very existence. Sakura witnesses this in a state something akin to shock and tries to reason with the tree, pouring what’s left of her will and power into an attempt to restore Yoshi’s existence and answer all the strong feelings still left for him. An attempt which succeeds. Though not without cost, as the tree, and Sakura and Junichi along with it, disappears after having spent the last of its power.