Month: August 2012

Tonight somehow ended up turning into an all-nighter, and I’d like to blame some of that on the sheer enthusiasm that beamed straight from SAGCCX’s latest translated episodes of Game Center CX.

For those who don’t know, Game Center CX is pretty much the best show ever. Comedian/host Shinya Arino, AKA The Kacho (Section Chief), is tasked with completing old games, mostly from the Famicom/NES era. When I first got into the show I was so taken by its spirit that I crafted a glowing love letter article for the Otaku USA site. The latest two-parter, available for torrent and direct download via the translators’ facebook page, is none other than the notorious Battletoads.

The best part of these episodes isn’t just watching Arino struggle through the monumental challenge of completing this beast, but watching him do so with an unwavering smile and positive attitude. Some of the challenges beat him down and leave him hoisting a white flag, but he declared Battletoads “the most fun game of 2011” and boldly called it a “must-buy” while cracking up. Even starting over from scratch countless times after every available continue had been used didn’t destroy that fighting spirit. It’s a sight to behold.

I can’t recommend the show enough if you like games at all, and strongly encourage putting down some pre-order payola on Discotek Media’s upcoming DVD box, which actually features subtitles by the SA folks in addition to the dub that played on Kotaku. It only features the game challenge sections due to rights issues—which is a shame because the other segments of the show are a blast—but it’s worth supporting.

If you ever want to feel good about your whole life situation, sit down and watch a couple dozen episodes of the Fist of the North Star TV series. That’s basically what I spent 90% of the weekend doing, and it even managed to make lying in a pool of sweat in my sweltering jungle of a bedroom seem like some kind of sweet paradise.

I finally bought all the sets, and they’ve already managed to warp my malleable mind in new ways. I think I’m on episode 43 or so now. I’ve never seen this far into the show, and I only have the first five volumes of the color manga releases. Fist of the North Star is mostly interested in taking Kenshiro’s tale of loss and rage and twisting it down a spiraling staircase of savagery. The series brazenly spits in the face of geography. There’s no way to tell how far Kenshiro has traveled, unless you just want to gauge it as “really, really far.”

That sounds about right. Every city looks roughly the same. The closest Kenshiro’s journey comes to any semblance of geography is a wide shot of the city of Cassandra, famous for its prison in which the mighty Ken Oh, AKA Raoh, has locked up all the mightiest martial arts practitioners. The wind whistles with the sound of devils crying. One can imagine there was some kind of traveling involved in going from A to B to C(assandra), where this dude runs shit.

Yea, that’s the Warden of the prison. He’s massive. Which brings me to another thing Fist of the North Star doesn’t give one rip about: Scale. In one frame a dude will tower over Kenshiro at roughly 30 feet tall, stand at 9 feet in the next, only to return to the 25-30 foot range a moment later. It’s great. Did Buronson or Tetsuo Hara ever get to the reason behind all the super-size dudes in the series? I don’t really want to know, just curious. Maybe it’s radiation, or maybe these dudes just got hella buff after the nuke dropped.

Anyone who’s seen more than a few episodes knows that Kenshiro’s shirt ripping off is a great piece of recycled animation used in almost every fight. No, really, here’s a montage someone made:

In one episode there’s this really casual shot of Kenshiro repairing one of his shoes while he pines over his recently lost love, Yuria. A quick scene of him sewing together his favorite shirt would have shut a lot of people up, but maybe I just haven’t gotten to that episode yet.

Back in 2007, as a few of you may recall, I started hosting a podcast called Robotronic Dynamite. It’s now nothing more than a fart in the Internet wind, but I’m sure a few fans out there have fond memories of our boisterous game and movie discussions. Lucky for you, then, that Joe Shieh, john william, and I have recently returned to the world of audio-eroticism.

There was a long period after Robotronic Dynamite during which I swore I wouldn’t be on another podcast, especially hosting. Thankfully, those duties now fall to former RD member and Games ‘a Crackin’ host john william, who adds some bearded, Portland-based spit-shine to our sexy new podcast, The AV Boyz.

What are “AV Boyz,” you ask? Well, obviously they’re “boyz,” and the AV implies their forms are crystallized from the very essence of both audio and visual entertainment. The formats sometimes collide to create an object known as games, and at other times they coalesce into movies. They even occasionally become “books,” ancient stories told on pieces of paper that can be found in tombs, crypts, and other mysterious forbidden places.

If any of these things sound remotely interesting to you, we now have 5 episodes in the can, not including the 0 episode that started it all. Subscribe on iTunes, download or listen to it directly, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, check us out on Stitcher, and more to come! We’re spreading like STDs… SUPER TUBULAR DUDES.