Anime Reviews + Any Recommendations?March 25, 2013 by

Hey everyone!

I haven't seen much anime, but I've been trying to get into it for a while now. So far, I've seen three animes, which are Kuroko no Basuke, Sword Art Online, and Fate/stay Night. All of them are pretty great, and I'll be talking about them separately in this blog. So let's start with Kuroko no Basuke, shall we?

Kuroko no Basuke:

Kuroko no Basuke is about a teenager named Kuroko, who in middle school was one of the legendary Generation of Miracles, a basketball team who dominated every opponent they came into contact with. Kuroko was the oddball out of the group, known as the phantom man. His name made sense, as few people actually knew he was on the team. After they all graduate from middle school, each of the members go to different high schools to play with their basketball teams. Kuroko went to Seirin High, a new, unknown school, which is strange considering his other teammates went to well known, highly skilled schools. Here is where Kuroko meets Kagami, a very talented basketball player from America. Kagami wants to become the number one player in Japan, but Kuroko doubts this considering Kagami does not know the true strength of the other Generation of Miracles members. Kuroko says he will be his "light", making a pact with Kagami to defeat the other Generation of Miracles members.

The character development in this anime is incredible. You get to know each of the Seirin team members, (with the exception of three first years that never play :P ) from all of their weaknesses, strengths, and personalities. This is definitely one of the highlights to this anime, and why I kept watching. Another strong aspect was the basketball matches. All of them are extremely intense, and you'll probably be biting your nails at the last seconds of matches. This anime isn't the most realistic when talking about basketball., and Kuroko's abilities make this pretty obvious. But in my opinion I think it's better this way. It just makes matches more fun to watch. There's even some comedic moments in the anime. . Kuroko seemingly appears out of nowhere to other people, and this happens very often. This leads to some hilarious events during the anime.

Kuroko no Basuke was the first anime I've ever finished, and I have to say, it was simply fantastic. With amazing character development, intense basketball matches, and comedic moments, it's incredible from start to finish. It just makes happy to know it's getting another season.

Score: 9.6

Sword Art Online:

Sword Art Online is about a Virtual Reality MMO, called Sword Art Online (what a surprise). It becomes very anticipated to the public, and when the game finally comes out, thousands buy it. But everything is not what it seems. The creator of the game, Kayaba Akihiko, tells everyone that no one is able to log out, and can only leave after they beat all 100 floors of the game. But here's where things get crazy. If your in-game avatar dies, you die in real life. The main character is Kirito, who was a beta player in Sword Art Online. He sets out on the journey on beating the sadistic game and reuniting with the real world with the help from other players.

The story is really good, with Kirito focusing on surviving the deadly game while meeting other players. He becomes attached to some of these players, which makes it even more interesting knowing they could die. This is what I loved about Sword Art Online. The connection Kirito has with some of the players is very strong, with one of these events so touching it made me cry. The second half of this anime is where things start getting uninteresting. The second half wasn't as developed as the first, with reasons that I can't say because they would be spoilers. There is surprisingly not that many battles. Yes, battles are very good when they show up, but it just leaves us wanting more, which never happens. The anime focuses more on Kirito interacting with other people, which is nice, but the setting is in an MMO, and you expect more battles because of this.

Overall, Sword Art Online is a great anime. It has a strong first half and a great focus on characters, but the second half is where it starts to go downhill. Also, it feels like there should have been more battles, but we only get a few. With a second season coming, they can maybe fix what was wrong about the second half.

Score: 9.2

Fate/stay Night:

Fate/stay Night is about the Holy Grail War, a war which includes seven servants, who are reincarnations of famous heroes from different eras. They have masters, who are mages that control them. The rules are simple, kill every servant or master until you and your servant are the last ones standing. Winning will grant you the Holy Grail, which allows you to wish for anything. The Holy Grail War is usually every 60 years, but this one has started much earlier than the others, just 10 years since the fourth one. The main character is Shiro Emiya, one of the masters in this war. He isn't as skilled as the other masters, but with his servant Saber, he sets out on winning the Holy Grail War.

This anime takes a while to get good, with the beginning just explaining what the Holy Grail War is all about. But it starts to get really good near the ending, but I won't tell you guys about that because of spoilers. One of the best things about this anime is the battles. All of them are very cinematic and fun to watch. The transformation of Shiro becoming a strong character is also fun to watch, with him being weak in the beginning. He is the helpful kind of person, but is worthless at the start of the war, so it's great to see the evolution of this character.

Fate/stay Night is a good anime, but doesn't really grab your attention in the beginning. But if you give it a chance, you'll find an anime that has incredible battles, a great transformation of the main character, and a fantastic final episodes. There's even a prequel to Fate/stay Night, called Fate/Zero. I just finished the first season, and I'm loving it even more than Fate/stay Night. Either way, Fate/stay Night is an anime that many would enjoy.

Score: 8.6

These are the only animes I've seen so far, and I want to see even more. I made a list of few notable "must watch" animes, like Death Note, Cowboy Bebop, and Code Geass, but maybe I'm missing some. Now here's where you guys come in. Tell me your recommendations for some animes. To be honest, I don't care what genre of anime it is, but don't recommend any that are REALLY gory.

I hope you enjoyed this blog, and see you guys later!

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What's your stupidest moment in gaming?March 5, 2013 by

We've all had that moment. The moment where you say to yourself, "Why the hell didn't I know this last time?!".

I've had a few moments like this, but my most infamous has to be a part in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. I still remember it pretty fondly after all these years. It was during Chapter 5, trying to get into Pirate's Grotto. To do this, you must solve a simple puzzle with two skull rocks. After this, a hole appears right above the door that is used to access Pirate's Grotto. At first, I was pretty confused. Do I jump in it? Do I smash it with my hammer? I had no idea at the time. With no clue on how to figure it out, I went back to the beginning of the chapter, where I asked all the toads to see if they knew what to do. They didn't help at all. I went back to the hole once again do everything I could, with no avail. All I wanted to do is just keep playing this wonderful game, but this part just didn't let that happen for me. And then I remembered the worst part about this.


I was stuck on the island.


When the chapter began, I was shipwrecked with my crew. We were forced to survive on the island, with no way out, and no one seemingly on their way to save us. The only way I could have returned to Rougeport was to defeat Cortez, which meant beating the chapter. But before that, I had to get through the door...

After trying for more than 2 hours, I just gave up. Not just with the door, but with the entire game. And you might think, "oh, it will only be a few weeks until he goes back to it". Nope! MUCH longer than that! 6 months to be exact. An entire six months! This part of the game made me so frustrated that I just didn't want to load the game on my Gamecube to be reminded about this part I couldn't get past.

But one day, I gave the game another chance. I walked through the treacherous jungle once again, defeating Piranha Plants and Fuzzies as I went on. Then, I was in front of the door. When I saw it for the millionth time, I noticed something I never noticed before. A bomb sign. After seeing this, I immediately took out Bobbery, and threw him at the hole. After this was just an explosion. The door, which was inaccessible for so long, was finally open. I sprang up into the air, with only joy on my face. I finally entered Pirate's Grotto, where I saved and battled some enemies. Unfortunately, I died pretty quickly by this enemies. But give me a break, I was only 10 at the time!


At least I finally got through that part.


Now that I told my embarrassing story, it's your turn! Please tell me in the comments about your most embarrassing/stupidest moment from video games! Can't wait to see all the fail!

And for the people curious to see the part on video, here it is: (It starts at 8:30)

And here's some pink for Ross:

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