Started Watching: Infinite Stratos

Having recently just finished watching  Hi-sCool Seha Girls I decided to go with a Mecha show that I initially skipped over due to bad reviews  I was seeing online even among the hardcore robot/mecha fans online.

What intrigued me about the show is that the Mech angle in this show revolves around "Power Armor" that only the female gender can activate and operate. The only exception being out main protagonist named Ichika Onimura.  This actually reminds me of two other shows from the past. Macross Frontier and Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure.  The slimness of the power suits remind with of Macross Frontier in the way how the Pilot school suits allow students to fly and  had a strong school setting.  Dual! features a man being able to fight in  a robot mean for a female pilot.

Only a few episodes in an the Fanservice is really difficult to ignore. Happens often and the "camera" likes to focus and linger on the moments. It doesn't help when the main focus of the plot is how Onimura is the only guy in an all-girl school. Every girl in his class (an in the school at points) are always trying to get Onimura's attention. The real saving point for me so far is that the Power armor suits  are interesting to look at and mech designer actually makes the fighting suits have different color schemes and combat systems.


Having paused my viewing at episode 4, there is a more serious sub-plot going on that I hope develops in the 8 remaining episodes. Something that adds to the combat-sport use of the mech suits.

Hi-sCool Seha Girls episodes 5-8

This set of episodes start off with possibly the weakest one in the entire series.  Dreamcast, Saturn and Mega Drive are tasked with trying to come up with new games by using an existing property. In this case "Puyo Puyo". An old puzzle game made by sega.  Never really played this game  since I was more into Tetris and  the various clones.  The only Sega puzzle game I actually did play in the arcade was a Sakura Taisen/Wars themed puzzle game.

Seems there are Puyo, Puyo related games released for current smartphones but only available in Japan.


Moving onto episode 6 ...

We get to see a fairly more modern Sega game. Border Break, A mech/combat game. released in Japan and Asia about 5 years ago  Showing that while Sega may no longer be making home console systems they still do develop Arcade machines. From  how it looked in the show, it seems like an evolution the Virtual-On  game series. This episode gave me that Halo Red vs Blue vibe (early seasons)  so much! if you  enjoy that show you might find this episode interesting.


Click on to read episode 7 and 8 thoughts.

Even more bad press for Warner Bros. Interactive

It has not been a very favorable few months for Warner Brothers' "games" division because the PC (Windows) ports of two big releases of 2015 have had serious bugs.   The most recent one being Batman: Arkham Knight which was released  today. According to the Wikipedia page for Arkham Knight the PC port of the last Batman game was done by Iron Galaxy Studios. Most notable for their ports of older Capcom games.  

Read this article on PC Gamer...

The previous disaster was with the release of Mortal kombat X for PC/Windows back in April. MK X was definitely the more severe release due to the issue of base game content not being initially accessible and the major problem of  Save Game data getting lost due to a patch. That was by a different 3rd party studio called High Voltage Software.  I've actually visited this place a while back.

It's especially sad to hear about these issues because both of these 3rd party developers that ported MK X and Arkham Knight are based in the state of Illinois.While I like the fact that Warner Bros. Interactive is giving these Illinois-based game development studios a chance  to work on big games, as  a gamer you just wish for a cleaner release you know?

If you still plan on playing the game on PC remember to get the latest drivers for your Nvidia or AMD video cards (links can be found in the PC gamer article above).

Final Day of the 2015 Steam Summer Sale - Anime games still discounted

Today June 21st is the final day of Steams big summer sale and a whole lot of the Anime related games that were featured last week are still on sale.

• Both Naruto Shippudden games being published by Bandai Namco
• Dragon Ball Xenoverse also published by Bandai Namco 
• Valkyria Chronicles published by Sega 
•  The first of 4 chapters of the Visual Novel Higurashi: When They Cry was released in English  last month 

At the time of this post there are just over 20 hours left in the Steam summer sale so if you were holding now is you last chance to pick up tittles on your wishlist. 

If you want Shenmue III you will need to help fund it

Not a mean joke. Can the Internet do it again? Fund a game by the original creator. The last time Shenmue was seen was way back in 2002. Going to be using the latest Unreal game engine. I don't know how difficult it was for Mr. Suzuki to get the series name and stuff from Sega but it is really cool nonetheless.


This was announced/launched during the Sony E3 2015  presentation earlier tonight. Quite the aggressive funding goal at 2 Million US Dollars.    PS4 and Windows PC (if it gets funded)


I really hope  one of the features this game comes with are recap videos. When Shenmue II was ported over to the original XBOX it came with a bonus DVD that had the cut scenes from Shenmue I... Oh there it is Unlocked if funding reaches 2.5 million. I'm really just interested in continuing the story that was left at with Shenmue II.

Quick thoughts on the Dragon Ball Super teaser

Probably the most interesting this really short teaser video was that it includes the characters from  the Battle of the Gods movie from last year. This is seems like a new thing because most of the movie characters either end up being one-offs or only get brought back for specials and stuff. That or they were already established in the original series

Does this also mean that Goku will be transforming into god form during the new series?

Note that Trunks and Goten are getting into trouble and they're still fairly young so this will take place prior to episode 286? End of the Buu Saga but prior to the final time jump in DBZ.

Summer Steam sale 2015 has begun and includes two Anime related games

The Annual Steam Summer sale started today and surprisingly two games featured on the front page are worth talking about. first up is for all of you Naruto/Shippudden fans out there Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution  is 66% off, making it just under $20.00 USD. This game was released on Steam last September. Aside from the large playable roster, playing as Mecha-Naruto is downright odd.

If I remember it right Mecha Naruto can be seen in episodes 376 and 377 of the Anime. The previous game ... Ninja Storm 3 Full Burst is also on sale for much less (under $10.00) 


Naruto Shippudden Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution

Ninja Storm 3: Full Burst

The other game was originally a Sony PS3 Exclusive  and received a Windows/PC port to the surprise and joy of many. Valkyria Chronicles, Released in November of last year, can be had for $5.00 USD.  Good game if you like a  military-themed, turn-based strategy game.  I kind of cheating with this one because the Anime was made after the Video game.

At the time of this posting the titles mentioned above will be on sale for the next 40 hours.

Nintendo will be live streaming the 2015 Nintendo World Championships!

The news I was hoping to see and read from Nintendo at some point. Nintendo is live streaming the 2015 Nintendo World Championship Finals  this coming Sunday (6/14).

The #NWC are this Sunday, 6/14! We’ll be kicking off the big event with a Treehouse Live pre-show at 2:35 p.m. PT pic.twitter.com/ErKATxVPfS

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) June 8, 2015

   They had to give out the times in Pacific Time but I live in Illinois so we have to convert this into Central US time. Which ends up being:

4:35 PM for the Treehouse live show
5:00 PM  for the NWC main event

I'm probably going to have watch the pre-show, to find out who the player from Illinois is. Will be rooting for them to win it of course.  

Impressions on Hi-sCool Seha Girls episodes 2-4 fighting and dancing

I watched the initial episode earlier this year and after putting this series on hold for a good while I decided to continue watching by binge watching the next few episodes. Since each episode is short (just over 11 minutes w/ the intro/outro) it's easier to do than other shows.


The second episode of  Hi-sCool Seha Girls is dedicated to Sega's 3D fighting series "Virtua Fighter". The animators recreate the original graphics and animations. Dreamcast, Saturn and Mega Drive look so much better in comparison. I'm guessing this is why We have CGI main characters. Goes better when the girls go into the other Sega game worlds...

The Otaku No Video kickstarter is raising funds

The funding requirement is considerably lower than what was needed to fund Bubblegum Crisis coming to Blu-ray in North Amerca.  With 20 days left I would be surprised if it doesn't meet the minimum goal.