アクセル.ワールド

Accel World, a new anime based on a light novel by the same name. It’s been a while since I’m interested deeply into an anime, and I can say that I am officially addicted to Accel World. How addicted? Let’s just say I have watched the anime episodes at least three to four times back to back, and re-read the manga over and over. Not sure how long my attention span would last, but so far, this is THE anime in my brain. Heck, I even start to lose interest in Kamen Rider, my usual top notch franchise for my attention. You can tell since I replaced my Kamen Rider avatar with Haru.

So, what is this all about? Let’s start with the background, the technology, which is incredibly interesting by itself especially for a gadget geek like me. The story takes place in the year 2046. In this year, the technology to create a virtual reality directly fed into your brain is commonplace. Think Google glasses + The Matrix. Instead of glasses, the device is attached behind the neck like a collar. The device creates a virtual desktop space in front of the user’s vision where he/she can interact with a PC-like OS UI (complete with file manager, windows, email clients, viewing pictures and videos, sending and receiving files, etc). User interacts with the UI just like having a computer in front of them, where they use their fingers to touch and move the UI components. From a 3rd party point a view, the user will look like he/she is typing/moving around his/her fingers on thin air. This neuro link interface can connect to another interface via wired or wireless connection. According to the story, wired connection bypassed the built-in firewall, and only used with people that trust each other (eg. family members, lovers) as one can do malicious things without the user knowing (also portrayed in the story). The interface can also connect to a greater network (eg. a school or hospital intranet), and to the “global network,” presumably the evolution of the internet. Connecting to the global network is optional, but it is used for many things, including transferring funds and gaming. Intranets like the school network can offer their own virtual environment, even something that akin to MMORPG where students design and use avatars to interact with each other, even playing games, all in a virtual world.

In this world, CCTV cameras are also common place, especially in schools. Although not fully explored, cars are also very tightly controlled with an AI for safety to the point that accidents are rare, although there are ways to defeat the system.

Amongst the young people, exists an underground fighting game called Brain Burst. This game is not known to the adults as one of the requirements is that the user being equipped with a neuro link interface since birth. The game software basically overclock the human heart’s “clockspeed” to speed up brain activity a thousand time over, thus the user is in an accelerated state where he/she is outside the normal time plane and the world around him/her seem to freeze/incredibly slowed down. This ability called burst link, and the players are called burst linkers. This ability allows the user to gain advantage in many things in real life, but using this ability requires burst point, which is only obtainable through fighting other burst linkers.

Now to the characters. The main character is a chubby kid named Haruyuki Arita (Haru) that is frequently bullied in school. His escape venue is the virtual world, where despite his avatar being a cute pig, his activity and movements have no restriction and he is the top scorer of the in-game squash game. His performance piqued the interest of Kuroyukihime, his senpai and vice president of the student council. She invited Haru to install the Brain Burst program, allowing him to gain the burst link ability, and also fight as Silver Crow, his fighting avatar.

To a casual anime viewer, this is just the typical fighting anime (main character that is starting weak and going through pain and gain fighting stronger and stronger opponents). But for some reason, this franchise captivates me. Not too sure why. Is it the tech involved? Many western fiction often paint our future world as grim and doom despite the advance technology (Star Trek being the exception, which is why I love that franchise too). Japanese fiction seems to have a more positive spin on the future world of technology, as shown how the neuro link devices used in education and student interaction in this anime (compare this to the likes of Blade Runner, The Matrix, or Minority Report). Is it the cute characters? Is it the story itself? The great voice actors? Kuroyukihime is pretty much the staple of a loli (yeah, tons of you-know-what doujins are already made). Coupled with Chiyu-chan, Haru’s childhood friend, and future characters, it’s akin to the typical school/cute harem genre. Haru’s pig avatar is adorable too. I’m a sucker to anime depicting romantic school life.

I’m also a sucker to highly touching moments, which this anime has plenty of. In fact, here is one of the best scene in the anime so far:

Is it the awesome soundtrack? Just listen to the BGM of the clip above. The even more awesome OP and ED songs? The opening theme song is “Chase the World” by may’n. The ending theme song is “→unfinished→” by KOTOKO. Both are highly addictive fast-paced songs. I made an AMV using the opening song, reflecting the technology in Accel World, Haruyuki’s life in real and virtual world, his introduction to Kuroyukihime, funny and touching moments with Chiyu-chan, and his fight against his other best friend turned enemy, Takumu.

I’ll be following this franchise with a passion. Heck, I even signed up for Hulu Plus just to be able to watch the latest episode ahead of the fansubbers. I already ordered/pre-ordered the OP and ED CDs. The anime is fansubbed by plenty of groups (or you can catch it via Hulu Plus). The manga has also been translated. The light novel has partial translations here and there. The you-know-what doujins are plentiful. I couldn’t get the songs out of my head. It’s official, I’m addicted to Accel World! ^_^

By the way, I got the avatar from this pixiv user. Pixiv has a ton of cute drawings, but of course, tread carefully, as there are a ton of NSFW pictures too. 😉

 

70000 People Detective Nitobe

Finally, another drama that’s funny and interesting. 🙂 Viva fansub!

70000 People Detective Nitobe is a story about a girl taking pictures and blogging every single thing she finds. She has more than 70000 followers on her blog. One day, she’s on a bus and found a murdered man. She starts blogging about it, and while the police thought that she’s the suspect, thanks to her taking pictures of the scene and her 70000 followers commenting on her blog, she not only figured out the true culprit, she even prevented them form running away (apparently the taxi driver that the suspects took is a follower of her blog too, LOL) and revealed the true story behind the crime. Note that this is not a serious drama, it’s more like light comedy/detective drama.

So, we have this, and Sunao ni Narenakute, both portraying the use of social networking on the web (blogging, twitter) as useful and fun tools. This is in contrast of American mainstream media entertainment that seems to only portray social networking as a place for sex offenders/terrorists/criminals, that the internet is “bad.” Thank you J-Dorama. 🙂

Now, where would J-Dorama be without Apple:

There you go, a black Macbook prominently displayed to show Apple’s logo. LOL. Sure, none of the cellphones used are iPhones (as Nitobe has to be able to compose her blog without looking, thus phones with a physical keypad is crucial), but voila, Apple is invading J-Dorama. No Kamen Rider yet though, at least in Episode 1. 🙂

 

Ponyo, Kamen Rider W/Decade Movie War 2010 Movies Impressions

I’ll start with Ponyo.
I finally got the chance to watch Ponyo on DVD, an anime by Hayao Miyazaki. Looking at the DVD released by Disney, I see Japanese audio being available, so that’s good. Now, this is Disney, which if you realize, changes a lot of the dialogs in Miyazaki’s movies for the English dub, and even add dialogs not in the original Japanese version. Sure, some of them are subtle, but I think many of the changes make the scenes and characters have different feel and mood than the original. Same thing with Ponyo. When I first watching it, I picked Japanese audio, but the subtitle chosen was for the English dub. I immediately noticed how the subtitle said different things than the audio. I mean one example in one scene, Sousuke says how Ponyo likes ham, and Lisa, Sousuke’s mom said “Just like me” in Japanese, but the English dub said “So she thinks she’s human?” WTF? Another scene, Sousuke said “Yokatta,” but the dub said “It’s my fault.” Again, WTF? Yeah, that’s Disney changing stuff around. More proof that US localization have close to zero respect to the original sources.

Now, switching to the real subtitle for the Japanese audio, it actually is pretty good. I’m biased towards fansub a lot of times because official licensors usually “localize” the subtitle too much, but this one is very good and accurate, other than missing honorifics.

As a movie, Ponyo is the typical cutesy and the innocence of kids. There’s no good guys vs bad guys. All you feel is how cute Sousuke and Ponyo from start to finish. Some say there’s an environmental message. Sure, but it’s not really played out in a significant way (unlike Avatar). The focus remains on how cute the kids are.

So, I’m enjoying the movie. Cute movie, good subtitle, all is great, until the credits roll. Instead of the cutesy Japanese song, I’m listening to the English dub of the song. WTF? I thought I push a button that changed the audio to the English dub. But no, it’s still on the Japanese audio track. Yeah, Disney CUT the Japanese song out, replacing it with the English dub song, coupled with the horrible remix version in the end. WTF? This is a big FAIL! So legally, there’s no way for you to enjoy a complete Japanese Ponyo movie per the original. This is like Disney saying, hey, go pirate the movie instead. Finding Ponyo on bittorrent is not that hard at all, and there are HD uploads too!

Buying Disney’s Ponyo on DVD:
Pros:
-Very good subtitle quality for the Japanese audio
Cons:
-You’re paying for an incomplete movie, with the Japanese song cut out completely
-It costs you money
-The subtitle placement is a bit obnoxious. Too high up and the fonts take quite a bit of screen space.

Downloading Ponyo from Bittorrent:
Pros:
-Cost you nothing
-You get a complete movie. Japanese song intact.
-Subtitle font and placement are ideal, just like most fansub.
Cons:
-The subtitle quality may vary, but still doesn’t stray far from the original dialogue.

Yeah, there you go. You can pay for an incomplete version of the movie, or download a complete one for free. Which one would you choose? Disney, you suck. What’s wrong with the Japanese song? Are you afraid that people will find it to be superior than your lame remix? Ponyo is an awesomely cute movie, but huge FAIL on Disney.

Next is Kamen Rider W/Decade Movie War 2010.
LOL. Yeah, a stark contrast to Ponyo. I literally watched this right after Ponyo. Kamen Rider W/Decade Movie War 2010 is a double movie featuring the latest Kamen Rider W and the conclusion of Kamen Rider Douchebag… I mean Decade.

Anyway, this movie is set up to be the conclusion for Kamen Rider Decade after the cliff-hanger ending on the series, and the movie starts off with Decade kicking SkyRider, Super 1, and Kabuto’s ass. Wait, WTF? Yeah, that’s not how the series ended. In the series, it ended with Decade fighting the original universe’s (sans the original Kuuga) Riders. So, were SkyRider, Super 1, and Kabuto original or alternate versions? It doesn’t make sense, and throughout the movie, it seems that they were alternate versions as Seto Koji (original Kiva) appeared after Decade destroyed all the alternate Riders (so presumably the original Riders were not destroyed by Decade). If you’re not confused enough, none of the teased scenes shown on the last episode of the series (Tsukasa drowning, Natsumi with a machine gun, etc) were actually in the movie itself. LOL.

So, wait, what happened then between the series end and this movie? Who knows. My speculation is that when Decade was fighting with the original Riders, he was probably told again by Seto Koji that in order to revive everybody and restore all the universes, he needs to destroy all those alternate Riders (creation cannot come without destruction), with the consequences of Decade himself cease to exist once everything turned back to normal. And Tsukasa decided to take that risk, and then pretended to be the “bad” guy as the destroyer so Natsumi would hate him and finish him off.

Sounds kinda deep huh, for a franchise targeted towards kids. Alas, this is the weakness of the movie itself as there are too many holes in the plot. How did Tsukasa befriended the Yuriko/Tackle? How did Yuusuke (alternate Kuuga) regained his consciousness after being bitten by Kivala at the end of the series? Oh, and no cameos from the original Riders other than Seto Koji. Yeah, poor fanservice imo, and certainly doesn’t help the Swiss cheese plots and story.

Mid-way through the movie, they switched to W. On W, it gave us a background on the events before the first episode of Kamen Rider W, and a super cool fedora-wearing-Rider called Skull, which is actually Shotaro’s mentor himself. W’s segment in this movie is well done. It offers quite a bit of backstory to W (eg. the origin of Shotaro’s one liner “Count your sins”). I’m liking W more and more, as it doesn’t seem to leave as many holes in their plot/story as previous Kamen Rider series.

The last part of the movie, where W went to the middle of Decade’s battle and teamed up, is obviously just a last attempt for fanservice. Decade separated W into 2 individual form (Cyclone-Cyclone and Joker-Joker), and did a triple Rider kick. Not that satisfying really.

In short, just a so so attempt to finish Decade, but a great backstory for W.