I wish I knew how to begin this review. I usually enter with some common thing a reader can relate to, then go into my opening statements and opinions about the anime I’m reviewing. However I can’t seem to come up with anything meaningful this time around to properly describe exactly what the anime “Papuwa” is, except this:

Crack.

Pure awesome and silly crack.

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Interesting little video that’s circulating the net is one that was featured on X-Play that tackles the topic of video game violence and its effect on children. The perk of this comes in the fact that Doctors Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olson discuss the fully-encompassing figures that revolve around video games, and even go so far as to mention that research showed kids that didn’t play video games at all are as much at risk for developing emotional problems as those who played too much. Certainly sounds much more balanced that some other rants made by politicians that all video games are bad for kids.

Check it out:

Quick bit of news from the resident Castlevaniac; it would appear that Konami has registered a title and logo for their supposed upcoming new Nintendo DS title – Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia. Though no official word has been announced by the gaming giant, Konami has indeed been confirmed to have registered the title name. (screenshot courtesy of Gamefront) This is, of course, all speculation until Konami actually releases an official statement.

The term Ecclesia means “a gathering of those summoned”, though as is well known with other Castlevania games, a title doesn’t need to necessarily have anything to do with the actual game. (Harmony of Dissonance for example had neither). There is also no account of this having anything to do with the supposed leaked game images that I reported on a few months ago, though the silvery design of the logo does match up with the previous images in Japanese.

Late April Fools? Konami holding out on fans? Who knows. All I hope is that this is a precursor to actual official news on *any* Castlevania game in the works being released in the very near future. Any tidbit I find out about I’ll be sure to pass on to you.

I hadn’t intended to write a review for this particular DVD, and in fact hadn’t originally sought to watch it at all. However as fate would have it, I was given the opportunity to view this exotically eye-catching anime through a sheer twist of fate, and boredom of myself and a friend.

I had no idea what to expect going into the anime, except that I’d seen commercials for the DVD release on the Sci-Fi channel whilst in-between my bouts of Ani-Monday. (which is, I can only guess, a newer version of the older Saturday Anime the channel used to show) The visuals represented by said commercial were, to say the least, incredibly pretty and were enough to pique my interests. A few weeks later, I manage to get my hands on a friend’s rental copy of the 2-disc feature, and plopped down.
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I don’t watch the Tyra Banks Show, simply because it’s Tyra Banks and I have no interest in anything she says, as it tends to come out sounding like the adults in Peanuts cartoons to me. However I happened to watch a little clip from the show that had a segment on “Decoding Your Man”, where a poor hapless gamer geek is verbally castrated by his girlfriend and Tyra both. Then to add insult to injury, “Gaming Goddess” Morgan Webb is brought in as the expert opinion.

Here’s the clip:

Basically, Webb disses and degrades the very genre that gave her the popularity and stardom she [unfortunately for us] now enjoys. Rather than helping the girlfriend understand why her guy plays video games like he does and come to a mutual agreement, Webb re-enforces the girlfriend’s desire to all-out change her man altogether as she sees fit. Morgan spouts a whole lot of nonsense about gaming genres and tries sounding like some kind of psychologist on the subject, and fails miserably. I had little regard for Webb to begin with, since I see her as being a poser when it comes to trying to act like some kind of gaming expert. This just knocks any respect I had for her down to 0% as she proves she’s just another bimbo who thinks she knows her stuff, but instead is just flailing her ego around.

Guys, not all women are like this. Honestly. This is a poor representation of women understanding guys, and more importantly understanding gaming. This video is just an estrogen-filled globe of stereotyping on all gamers as being “obsessed” with their games. Obviously this is not true, as the majority are casual in their gaming exploits. If more women took the time to try and get inside their guys heads and understand their man, rather than control him and mold him into their own personal plaything, then there would be alot more happy gamers out there with happy girlfriends.

You all got a peak over a week ago of the Sonic Unleashed video leaked onto the internet. After a stir up on SEGA’s part over the video and various screenshot images being posted on numerous blogs, the bigwigs decided to cut the attempted cover-up charade and just come clean by formally announcing that the game is indeed real and upcoming.

Because we didn’t know that already.

Making use of the aptly titled “Hedgehog Engine” to deliver a supposed combination of oldschool gameplay with 3D graphics, Sonic Unleashed is being claimed as the new way to infuse the series with an injection of it’s past glory. (a over-used claim already tried with Sonic Next-Gen and Sonic and the Secret Rings)

“Sonic Unleashed will introduce a new, unexpected storyline along with innovative gameplay that compliments traditional skills and features, allowing players to experiment and engage in new ways.” says Vice President of Marketing at SEGA of America, Sean Ratcliffe.

If they’ve decided to dub the already notorious news about Sonic changing into a were-hedgehog as “new and unexpected”, then I guess they hit the nail on the head, though probably not in the positive way they meant. Regardless, the game is slated for a release during the holidays for Xbox 360, PS3, PS2, and Wii.

You have got to give props to IGN for their ability to create pretty convincing fakes. It appears as a April Fools joke, the media news giant released a supposed “World Debut” of a live-action Legend of Zelda film trailer to trick fans.

It also appears they have way too much time on their hands to make such a realistic full-length trailer for a movie that’s not, in fact, real. But, kudos to them.

Last weekend, many poweteers attended the ever exciting Anime Boston convention. (and subsequently became engrossed in the massive line waits for registration and pre-registration alike, but that’s neither here nor there) After the convention having come and gone, to keep my little brain from going into withdrawal after being thrown back into the mediocrity that is normal everyday life, I began thinking of just exactly what life lessons anime and manga have passed on to geeks like myself. (and are sometimes taken way too much to heart by more “enthused” geeks of the genre, in which case they should be put out of our misery)

So of course, I had to write a compilation of such thoughts, and share with the world. Slight spoilers for some series.

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