Month: June 2006

Here are some quick-ease:

• Onechanbara 2 came in the mail today. Much to my surprise, I haven’t touched it yet. Why?

• Well, I spent most of today in some kind of stupor, which involved sleeping, cutting grass or reading “the funny books.”

• On the bright side, I finally finished my long-awaited (by millions) review of the first volume of Baian: The Assassin, the 90’s made for TV movie versions of the acupuncturist assassin story starring Ken Watanabe.

• Super Script with Wesley Woo Woo is going well.

• John and I have two more episodes left in the second season of 24, which is awesome. The best part of this is that it means we get to rent and play through the semi-recent PS2 game that takes place between this and season three.

• Number one thing I learned today: In the mid-70s, when HK comics were at their height of basically pirating Japanese comics in either the form of translation or reimagining, Doraemon was presented to the ding dong kids as who else, Ding Dong.

There’s nothing like a new sentai series to make me want to eat cocoa puffs and buy toys. The latest addition to the tradition is Go Go Sentai Boukenger… and it’s pretty awesome!

Much like but not necessarily to the extent of old British men, Japanese people love to go on adventures. This holds true for the multi-colored boys and girls of Boukenger as they help Toei launch a series that adds tomb raiding and treasure hunting to the expected mecha action.

The team hunts after special hazardous treasures known as “Preciouses” and usually ends up engaging in battle with whatever dead civilization they’ve just awakened as a result.

Okay, true confessions: At the time I originally wrote this I had only watched the first episode, but that seemed like the formula to me (for the record, I was mostly right). The special effects are in the typically awkward late 90s-present style of CG/traditional models mish-mashing, but are pretty good overall. There’s enough tangible FX action to keep the dream alive. This also seems to be the first series shot in 16×9 (as opposed to the widescreen stretching that TV-Nihon started inexplicably doing with some of their previous projects).

I think I’ll keep up with this one, but if you want to watch it, there’s already a handful of episodes out (I’m a little behind). You can get them here.

Farting around trying to come up with scenes for the script. 3:32am: Not much luck so far. What’s that temporary cure for writer’s block? Oh yeah, ordering another Simple 2000 PS2 budget title!

Today’s culprit is Onechanbara 2. Although most would have added it to the cart because of the zombie-slashing japper-nese chickadee on the box, I was sold per usual at NCSX’s typically elegant write-up. Specifically:

A B-movie song plays in the background where a woman occasionally moans out, “Yeah, C’mon” and wails “uuuhuuwooah”

The mailman also finally brought me Zombie Vs. Ambulance and Sega Ages 2500: Gunstar Heroes Treasure Box (including Alien Soldier and the JP and EU versions of Dynamite Headdy). I’m still pretty obsessed with Chikyuu Boeigun 2 for the moment, though.

I don’t think energy drinks work on me very well, though I’ve come to really enjoy the taste. I guess I just need to drink a lot of them. I think I’m going to pop another can of Monster and see what happens. I’d love to actually get a scene done tonight, but I keep trashing what I write. I have to constantly tell myself that the deadline is sooner than it really is so Wes and I can crank this shit out like the golden, beautiful egg it is and spend a lot of time polishing it (the turd).

I HOPE YOU’RE READY FOR A TOADALLY AWESOME POST, BROTHER!

I’ve been playing the hell out of Chikyuu Boeigun 2 since it came in the mail earlier today. All that I have to say about it is summed up perfectly by this one paragraph on NCSX’s page, the bold portion of which sums up video-gaming in one inquisitive sentence.

“As ants are killed and blown up, they’ll drop health power-ups, armor, and additional weaponry to pick up. What are they doing with such useful items? The ants attack by biting with their mandibles but a quick gamer may avoid their jaws by running underneath an ant or hiding near a tank or building.”