Currently Watching - Chivalry of a Failed Knight

One of the few 2015 Anime that I watched this year was Chivalry of A Failed Knight (The Worst One)

A total of 12 episodes and the series follows the usual Shonen/Action Tournament Anime. Follows the life and battles of Kurogane Ikki. He is indeed the titular "Failed Knight"/ The Worst One because among all the students in the school with Sword-magic, he can't enchant his sword with magic. be it elemental or otherwise. The school gives him a student rating of F (the best being an A-rank).
Most of the usual RPG elementals tropes are here (Fire, Water, Lightning).



The art direction for the last two episodes goes really out there as it takes a Grey, Black, and white with hints of red, blue, and yellow in select objects or characters. The actual picture quality of  show goes into a "Grindhouse" mode where you can see more noise and pop in the picture like it was and old film. Something odd to be sure and really got my attention...

J-list asks about the oldest Anime title you have ever seen

Anime then and now. So, what's the oldest anime you've watched?
Posted by J-List on Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Took me a few minutes to think of an answer and the oldest Anime I've ever seen is either a few episodes from the Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, or Lupin The Third  series that originally aired back in the early 1970s. I am going off of Anime News Network's date info. 

The Samurai Pizza Cats are now on Crunchy Roll!

Three cats that operate a Delivery service and hero business to stop The Big Cheese. Probably one of the few English dubs that give a pass to no matter how much it changed from the original Japanese script. Mainly due to the fact that the characters in the show are anthropomorphic cats and other animals that talk like humans and the three protagonists don battle armor and launch out of a cannon.

I haven't watched the show since 2000 so the heavy pop culture references might make this an odd watch for younger Anime fans.  You can find the show on Crunchyroll's site at the time of this post, the first 18 episodes of the show are viewable for free, while the rest of the episodes are locked away for paid Premium CR users. Thanks Crunchyroll and Discotek Media for making this happen.

My opinon on the FF VII Remake gameplay trailer

I just finished watching the first gameplay trailer for the highly-anticipated Final Fantasy VII remake by Square-Enix and here are my main thoughts and hopes for any upcoming trailers.

The graphics looked good. Seems like the team working on FF VII remake is using the same high-end toolbox as the FF XV team. It's going to be fun exploring the slums and Golden Saucer with the new graphics and camera prospective.

The Action RPG like battles are ok with me. It was all about the limit break and Materia System that really stood out to me in the original game anyway. After playing several hours of Kingdom Hearts and FF Dissida, I'm quite alright with a more fluid combat system.  This gameplay trailer didn't really show the Materia system/menu at all. Only showed the first mission, with Cloud and Barret, so view of what Tifa or Red XIII and the rest of the gang look like.

One could hope that there would be another Viewtiful Joe or Okami

もしもぼくが続編を作らせてもらえるとしたらどれがいいですか…？ If II can make a sequel, which one do you want to see?

— 神谷英樹 Hideki Kamiya (@PG_kamiya) November 24, 2015

Hideki Kamiya directed the original Devil May Cry game and the more recent Bayonetta games that Platinum Games has developed. I casted my vote and gave it to Okami but either Okami or Viewtifiul Joe sequel would be ok with me. 

The Legend of Zelda representing video game music on a talk show

Video Game concert tours have been happening outside of Japan since the mid 2000s Thanks to people in the Industry like Tommy Tallarico and Nobuo Uematsu. Today there are big three  video game related concert series that I know of.

• Distant Worlds (Final Fantasy) 
• Video Games Live ( A mix of Japanese and Western developed games) 
• Symphony of the Goddesses (The Legend of Zelda)

Earlier this month The Legend of Zelda music was performed on the CBS Late Show hosted by Stephen Colbert. It's standard length as far as far as late night talk show musical guests go, so it must have been difficult for the arranger of the piece to condense 25 years of musical history with into just 4 minutes. Watch the video after the break.