Letter Bee – 16, 17
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I’m one day shy of being three weeks behind, but it’s better late than never right? As such, I’ll keep the discussion on these two episodes fairly brief.
Final Fantasy XIII: Linear… ?
Vanille’s name is pronounced “Vaneel” in English and not “Vanilla“ 「ヴァニラ」. o_O
I’m sure anyone who’s bothered to look up some initial reactions to this game will know that (vocal) Japanese gamers have criticized it for being too linear and not playing like an RPG. Somehow, promoting that thought quickly became the “cool thing” to do by people who haven’t even played the game themselves. Well I wasn’t the least bit fazed by those concerns and was intent on finding out first-hand if it’s even a problem.
More “editorial-like” discussion after the jump… ** No Spoilers **
Final Fantasy XIII: Overall Thoughts
Lightning strikes much more than twice.
Introduction
Had my shipment arrived during the Christmas break like I was hoping, I would’ve probably blogged Final Fantasy XIII from start to finish like any other anime series here. I was ready to shell out $250 for an HD PVR just to do so too. Ever since the NES days, Final Fantasy has been about the story first and foremost to me, with improvements to the gameplay mechanics and graphics just adding to the overall experience. For that reason, it seems like it would’ve been a worthwhile blogging venture, especially when a lot of people imported the game with little-to-no understanding of Japanese.
When I was younger, I played a lot of Japanese games with much less understanding of the language than I have now, and found that a lot of the experience/enjoyment was simply lost in translation. As such, I thought I’d supplement what I didn’t have during the pre-Internet era, but the opportunity slipped by since I was late arriving to the FFXIII party. In lieu of chapter-by-chapter coverage, I figured some spoiler-free hands-on impressions would suffice, or at least, that’s what our resident site owner has been insisting that I do ever since I told him I preordered it.
More after the jump…
Letter Bee – 15
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「愛の逃避行」 (Ai no Touhikou)
“The Elopement”
Lag sure has a knack for sticking his nose in other people’s business, something I only find tolerable because he’s a naive kid. His sense of righteousness left a man heartbroken this time around and he didn’t have anything to say to make him feel better either. The credits just started scrolling shortly after.
K-ON! – OVA
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「ライブハウス！」 (Raibu Hausu!)
“Live House!”
We know there’s a second season sometime down the road, but we have the 14th DVD/Blu-ray-only episode to tide us over until then. Included with the 7th volume is the extra live house episode that follows up where the TV series left off.
Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu – 02
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「ユリとバラと保健体育」 (Yuri to Bara to Hokentaiiku)
“Lilies, Roses, and Physical Education”
Now if there’s one series I think everyone should be watching this season, it would be BakaTest. Much like the premiere that I was showering in praises, the second episode has Akihisa and class F back into the thick of things with another summoning war.
Omamori Himari – 02
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「海ねこスクランブル」 (Umineko Sukuranburu)
“Seagull Scramble”
It’s only the second week and we already have a beach episode. Not only that, there’s bikini shopping with Himari prior to heading there and some Malboro-like tentacle action before it’s all said and done. Needless to say, they sure don’t beat around the bush when it comes to the fan-service.
Chu-Bra!! – 02
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「この胸のふくらみを」 (Kono Mune no Fukurami wo)
“This Swelling Chest”
Well this second episode took a turn that I wasn’t expecting. I thought we were going to have sketchy middle school underwear jokes again, but it turned about to be a semi-serious depiction of the insecurities and embarrassment girls feel when their bodies are developing.