Harlzen's Vacant Mind.

Guilds

2008-06-25T07:14:15Z

I've been in a gaming guild for a long time. I didn't really think about how long until it looked like the guild was about to fade away to nothing. The charismatic and well liked guild leader picked Vanguard (doesn't matter if you don't know it) as the game with the brightest future and we packed up shop in WoW and moved (having done the same when leaving the original Everquest). The game was a commercial disaster with the employee's pretty much all being taken out to the parking lot and fired a couple of months after release. Technical issues and the very low number of subscribers causing the game to fail to reach its potential. As the game faded so did the guild, with people who didn't want to play silently slipping away rather than rock the boat by opposing those who still championed the potential of vanguard. I was one of those who slipped away, but then I realised I didn't really give a shit what game we ended up playing, or whether the people in the guild got their final confirmation I'm excessively verbose, I didn't want to lose touch with some of these people I'd known for up to 10 years.

So after mulling it over (a lot), overcoming my urge to stay the hell out of it, I finally got up at 5:00am and coughed this out when the current raid leader asked about alternatives and there was only silence. Part of my commitment was forming a guild in the game I was most interested in (WoW, and yes we are recruiting) but most was trying to convince others that the people come first while the games are ephemeral and fade over time.

This is long, geeky and fairly specialized to those who play online RPG's. It's really rare that I get such a passion to express something though, so I thought I'd put it here just in case someone else found it interesting. It's also not specific to my guild. I think having a group of gamers than span multiple MMORPG's (which differ from most games in having a strong social aspect) is a good model I'd like to see more of. It tends to require having played multiple MMORPG's though, and realising each will fade in time, which a lot of the people who started in WoW won't have seen yet. In the text SA is the guild initials, VG is vanguard, Conan is "age of conan" which as I write this is the hot new game on the scene, though already showing signs of holes behind the facade and novelty.

Disclaimer: Posting too damn early in the morning.

It is fairly distressing to see that a guild that once fielded a raidforce of 60-70 people and had well over 100 active members has faded to the point where a thread like this gets no response. Clearly the idea of saying "if you are in SA you must be playing this game" isn't going to keep the guild going if not enough people are motivated to progress in that game and recruitment can't make up the shortfall. It worked in EQ, and even WoW because both of those were absolutely dominant for a time. There's a lot more alternatives out there now.

And you know, that's just human nature. I think most SA people enjoy gaming with the friends they've made over the years but interest in particular games will ebb and flow as time passes. The current policy just means that when people want to try a new game they either leave the guild or fade away.

I'd much rather *know* if SA people are having a ball and kicking ass in some game. It gives me the option to go and join them, gives them a potential stream of recruits they know or at least lets me follow their adventures and learn about the game. And if some of the people or new recruits in that game want to also keep progressing in the game I'm interested in then win-win.

"If VG falls over"... SA's presence in Vanguard only ends when the last SA member un-subscribes or leaves the guild with no one to pass the guild master title on to. If you are committed to the game and SA having a presence there then you need to work on recruiting, in general and from SA people in other games, the ease of both being determined by how well the game is doing and how much enticing content it has to offer. It's still much easier to recruit if you have a large pool of SA members and new recruits from other more actively growing games who will know it exists as an option. If the game has a lean period and people leave to try "shiny new game X" then that's a little sad for those who love that game but as long as the guild is alive those gamers can always come back and pick up right where they left off when new content presents itself or the shine wears off game X (and it always will for some).

Some people won't wait of course. If the game you love can't field a raid force then each player has to consider whether they continue gaming as SA to keep the flag aloft, whether they leave the guild *in that game* to join another that can field a raid force or whether they move to another game where SA can field a raid force. There's not much the guild can do about that, each player has to make their own decision. At least having SA existing in multiple games means the guild as a whole continues and ideally grows.

Within the wider SA population there will be a hard-core group who thrive on progression. The actual members will vary a bit as RL intervenes and interest in any particular game ebbs and flows. The fact that the guild exists in multiple games does not stop these people forming and moving as a group as long as raid leader and guild leader are not seen as the same thing. And when they move a lot of people will follow their lead which helps one or two games gain critical raid mass. The larger the guild population the more of these raid groups we could support.

It will be disappointing to be the guild leader in a game which hasn't attracted a raid group and can't field one itself. The lack of activity will make recruiting hard and lots of the people you recruit might end up leaving for other guilds or other games. That's just the way it is though, you can't make a guild policy which will stop it.

For myself I am committed to keeping an SA presence in WoW, my gaming focus for the foreseeable future. While I might like everyone in SA (past and present) to move to WoW I realise there's no chance of that happening and it probably wouldn't be good for the guild long term if it did. I'd be delighted if we had a raid force in SA:WoW, I still think the game can boast some of the best raid content the genre has to offer, but that's not something that can be created by policy or writing long forum posts. It will be determined by how many members we have and what games they want to play. Of course the fact I care about SA as a whole more than raid progression in game X might be a good quality for a guild leader just as it is a bad quality for a raid leader :)

If we see SA:Conan, SA:Vanguard, SA:EQ2 or SA:Whatever I would like to think we can still be members of one extended family. I, as a gamer, want to follow your adventures. If I want to experience those games I would want to experience them with people I know and trust to be good gamers. I don't expect to automatically get a raid spot, or even full membership, but recruitment can be a lot smoother when there is past history. Naturally SA:WoW extends exactly that offer to any in SA:AnyGame .... why would we not?

The other person who gets a say is the maintainer of these forums. These are great forums and they've done a lot to keep the guild together. If there are multiple chapters then shared forums would be at the core of keeping the different groups in contact. And heck, I really want to know how people whose judgement I trust are finding Conan.

Crazy times....

2008-06-13T07:57:48Z

Well, it has been interesting. Motorola has made its inglorious exit from Perth leaving me unemployed. The biggest shame is that the talent they had here in Perth was top class. If they'd simply said "go out, get work, generate some revenue" the center could have so easily been profitable even without doing any Motorola work. But then ultimately the whole issue is a near total failure of strategy and leadership at higher levels. Thankfully given their pitiful market share in Oz I'm not in too much danger of noticing the remainder of their continued existence. Most of the people from Moto Perth went on and got better jobs, many for Australian companies, so really it hasn't been that bad a thing.

It's not a bad time to be unemployed though, gives me a chance to finally close the PHD issue one way or another. Don't ask how it's going and I promise not to go on about it.

Something else.... oh yeah, got married to a rather wonderful partner who just leaves an aching gap in my life when she's not here. The day went really well I think other than a sleepy version of me combining with the idea that a blade shave was a good part of the ritual to make a generous blood offering. Many thanks to all those who helped and added to the event, I hope you had a good time. As someone warned the whole thing passed by so fast and I know I didn't get to talk with all the people I wanted to. The only annoyance is all the fun music we had to play didn't happen. The restaurant said the sound system broke but I just reckon it was a comment on our taste in music.

I'm playing WoW again with my beloved wife and gaming together is even sweeter than I thought it might be. The best part is that no-one feels excluded by it and the activity becomes something we can share. We sorta balance as well, I like discussing the strategy of the game and playing support characters while she likes wreaking havoc on anything that may drop shinies. I'm not really interested in how this might reflect our relationship. I am once again amazed by WoWs addictive nature that it could even snare her given her previous gaming experience was almost entirely pop-cap games and be-jewelled.

Lastly, DJ Shadow & Cut Chemist "The hard Sell (Encore)". A bizarre mix crafted live on stage from obscure antique vinyl. Quite possibly not to everyones taste but I adore it. Especially after the absolutely crap last album from DJ. Shadow "The Outsider" which I had to give away for fear its aura of crappiness would infect me.

harlzen @ 2008-02-06T10:24:00

2008-02-06T01:52:23Z

A chair... a simple device on which to sit, how complex can it become.

Then you discover that there are effectively two types of chair in the world. The reasonably simple "padded board" chairs from officeworks at about 100-300$. All made in China, all looking fairly similar and lots of reports of breakage on web-sites. This is what I sit on currently and it's starting to give some alarming creaking noises.

Then there is another world. A strange place where 1000$ and more counts as a perfectly reasonably price for a chair. Symbols of dotcom excess like the Aeron and others from mysterious brands like Sedus, teknion and steelcase. Overly engineered, lots of curving metal, tensioned mesh, cryptically arranged levers and knobs, and fancy mechanical hearts allowing things like dynamically controlled recline. Heck, for a lot of them I have no idea how much they cost because the web-sites generally ask you to e-mail them so you can find out the actual price!

They might well be comfortable, sturdy and ergonomic enough to justify that price, although I suspect they have huge profit margins since the businesses are going to write part of the cost off on tax anyway. It would certainly be interesting to have an experimental sit. After all, you can't exactly feel the comfort of a chair from a picture. Good luck being able to do so in Perth though, most of these manufacturers don't even have Australian offices or distributors, let along anything in Western Australia. When I was young and innocent I assumed that if you have the money you'd be able to buy the product you wanted. Now I'm beginning to realize what is actually available (especially in WA) is only a tiny subset.

Is there a sweet spot somewhere in the middle, that's actually available? I haven't found it yet...

Dante Valentine

2007-12-30T05:52:04Z

A mind-wrenching series of books about a walking basket case and her tedious internal conflicts. There are occasional interludes of story in which a variety of people much cooler than she is "give her space" while protecting her from anything that would distract from her internal bitching and self loathing. She's meant to be the worlds greatest necromance, which from a story point of view means she's legally entitled to goth it up, but isn't actually useful. Her primary ability is annoying people with a complete lack of empathy, subtlety, self-preservation or ability to plan beyond the immediate. Having been converted into a hedaira (demon for "bit on the side") she has immense personal power which lets her brag about her golden skin and recover more quickly when she has a super-powered tantrum.

Sailor Moon (Season 1)

2007-04-23T15:08:12Z

There are probably a bunch of anime which have just had waaaay too much influence amongst western anime fans. So much influence that one begins to wonder, despite the apparent failings of the material itself, just what managed to grab peoples minds. Three that stand out would have to be dragonball, sailor moon and probably pokemon. Titles that were huge in Asia, like doreamon, don't necessarily register, anime was largely invisible in that far off pre-robotech time. Pokemon probably doesn't really count either, it's continuing flurry of game tie-ins and merchandise make it obvious. But what of titles like Sailor moon? The title that launched a million cos-play disasters?

Well, having found good quality material to watch (and the original stuff, not the recut for US tv terror) I was still happy to let it sit and brood on a shelf. The idea of subjecting myself to such an immense number of episodes, of a dated series, aimed at young Japanese girls and best known for having an intensely irritating lead character was easily avoidable. However finding someone crazy enough to volunteer to watch the first season with me tipped the balance. It's going to take a while though.

So have I worked out what it is about this show that has given it such durability? Not really, but a couple of things do come to mind.

- The first is that the show ages quite reasonably. The action is all posing and repeated animation sequences after all, and the rest is just character work which doesn't really need flashy animation to work. The music is quite good, watching the three leads bounce off one another can be entertaining and Usagi's voice really is capable of peeling paint.

- The enemy fields a dark queen who goes a long way towards suggesting secret plans, even though she doesn't do a whole heap. She has a sequence of bishounen generals, disposed of when they fail too often / get boring, who have somewhat different tactics. And those generals summon a freakish monster of the week for the girls to defeat. The action itself is boring, the girls really don't have an immense range of tactical options (poor ami and her unexciting bubble-bath attack) but it does get a decent sense of horror / threat going. The monsters are pretty nasty looking, some of their schemes are quite cruel and it honestly does seem like they are doing their best to really splatter the sailor senshi. They almost remind me of devilman, and are really quite shounen monsters for such a series. Was sailor moon the first magical girl show to have truly monstrous opponents? I know the first magical girl series did not have such oppositional focus.

- Usagi is immensely annoying. This does help somewhat to draw other people, including the other sailors, out as they react to her being off the wall. But I also wonder if her being so boyish, and flawed, is actually part of her popularity. Did her flaws allow fans to see her as someone they could potentially replace? Or is it that she's such an antithesis to the ideal Japanese female that it was all rather exciting at the time? She certainly is somewhat impressive in the scope of her flaws, especially her interactions with her mother.

- And of course, there's the outfits. Near naked transformation sequences, suspiciously busty 14 year olds and extremely short skirts yet relatively simple designs and an extremely recognisable motif go a long way to explain the cosplay popularity. This is assisted by the fact that much of the action consists of nicely staged, but relatively static, poses.

I must say, however, that the eye-catch still scares me. When entering into the adverts a spotlight scans the screen until it highlights sailor moon. That's fine, no problem, but the all male chorus of "sailoooor mooooon" when she is highlighted is frightening. It reeks of fanboy, and those rather older than 14.

Oh well, will be interesting... I hope.

Also bought myself a keyboard. 60$ US + the same in postage (ouch!) in order to buy a modern reproduction of a 20+ year old keyboard from the one place that still makes them. I hope they're as good as I remember them!

Vanguard.... not.

2007-04-16T14:40:11Z

I'm currently playing Vanguard, the little MMORPG that couldn't. Well, playing is actually a little bit generous. Instead after the regular patch through the middle of every WA evening I still had enough time to fit in four opportunities for the game to crash. A little freeze and then you're back at the desk top. The game isn't even capable enough to detect an error, it just falls over without a sound. This is actually a new opportunity, the game was initially stable (but so sluggish) and each patch has introduced ever more instabilities as the developers hack around in a desperate attempt to streamline the beast. What a mess.

The joke is that this game took 5 years of development and consumed 30 million US dollars yet it's still a mess. An engine that doesn't work, immense amounts of empty scenery that seems haphazardly and randomly constructed and so little content that the only universal thing is the emptiness. I can see someone enjoyed making the cities, they're huge, which means they're not realistic and combined with the lack of content means they're not fun. The only challenge is finding your way out of them and never visiting again. The dungeons are much the same, endless huge caves full of a handful of mob models. Each element in the game is carefully tuned to grind you to the edge of tedium. The end game... well, it's just not there yet. The developers are desperately trying to keep people busy while they work out what the plan is, but with the low numbers they'll run out of money and time before they achieve anything novel.

So why am I playing? because my friends in Melbourne are, and a MMORPG is a good way to keep in contact with em. I just wish they'd picked some other virtual world to occupy.

The Outsider...

2006-10-17T14:25:04Z

My web page has vanished. It'll be back soon. The web hosting has always been a little bit odd. Friend of a friend of a friend with no direct communication. So things like the current example, where the page just vanishes without warning, tend to happen. Going to be getting some new hosting somewhat closer to home and a little bit more featured. Ideally some more reviews as well... some blogs to come on what's been keeping me occupied in the place of writing some, outside of my everpresent slackness and the shock of being a sarariman.

I've also been listening to the DJ shadow album. It certainly is different, and there's no shortage of people ripping into it for lacking character, being regressive and schizophrenic in the sounds it includes. I think the main difference is that this isn't really a DJ shadow album at all. Sure, he produced it, but his touch is submerged far into the background, possibly to avoid competing with all the guest artists who take the starring roles in the tracks. Thus if it was sold as a compilation album, a bunch of artists, it would probably get a much fairer judgement. I'd still hate it, because rapping about "the hood" just doesn't interest me and Hyphy sounds like some weird and stupid hip-hop derivative, but then that wouldn't matter because I wouldn't have bought it. However if you buy it as a DJ shadow album you're struggling to hear any signature, new or old, coming through the music on this CD. Thus, ultimately, while it might not suck in an absolute sense it's certainly a form of false advertising and one to avoid buying on the strength of his name.

The new Cut Chemist album, "The Audience is listening" is pretty damn cool though, especially on a portable player. And lemon jelly continues to amuse.

Babes, breasts... and much bouncing ensues.

2006-09-24T10:32:52Z

I'm busy trying to work out if I am hypocritical. More specifically I went with a group of people to see Dead or Alive. I'd like to specifically state I didn't organise it, that would be anarch_kitty who has actually played at least one of the source games... and presumably wanted to see the mockery that would result when it was adapted for the big screen. I've never played them myself, but I knew they somehow managed to combine buxom babes, brutal combat and a nice game of volleyball. So in essence I didn't actually care about the source, I just expected a mindless movie with lots of female fight scenes. And I got exactly what I expected, it's really dumb, especially the "secret plot" to make the ultimate sunglasses of doom. However it was also sort of enjoyable because I expected it to be much worse than it actually was, I didn't really care about the material and it all moved reasonably fast without taking itself too seriously. The real question is why was it only snakes on a plane that triggered revulsion. Context? Expectations? ... or perhaps I'm more easily amused by odd looking women pretending to be martial artists than snakes biting people. I think it had a lot to do with the fact that SOAP was being hyped outside of its own value.

On the music front I've run into something fantastically good, "Lemon Jelly" are an awfully entertaining band. Clever, varied but eminently listenable songs that sink happily into your subconscious. Although I must admit a slight preference for their first two albums over their more recent work.

I've also run into something pretty dire. I liked DJ Shadow's music a lot. Notice the tense, his latest CD "The Outsider" is quite a change. The music is much much cruder, and most of the tracks are dominated by rappers droning on and on about whatever the hell it is that keeps rappers entertained. I guess if you wanted a rap album you might be happy, but musically it's an empty wasteland. Blah, I hate being disappointed by an artist I thought I could trust.

Happy birthday j3ffu, thanks for the invite =)

Snakes, Planes... and much biting ensues.

2006-08-25T14:41:15Z

Just got back from Dinner and a movie. The dinner was surprisingly good, the Herdsman Lake Tavern looks like one of those immense barns of a place that rely on cheap food and no competition. In practice though the food was fast and not bad at all, although they do seem to have a tendency to want to deep fry everything. Of course the dinner was made much more pleasant with good company.... oh yeah, and beer.

Not much could save the movie though... the audience was silent and focused on the movie. I think they were waiting for Samuel L. Jackson to say his one memorable line. Meanwhile the movie was entirely focused on snakes biting people. There was a plot, or at least some sort of thin layer to tie the gaps together, but basically if the idea of watching people getting bitten to death by snakes doesn't amuse you then you've got no real reason to see this trash. It's certainly not much of a horror or suspense flick since everything is set up so obviously that you know what is going to happen way in advance. And the characterisation, blah, even outside of those existing only to be snake-food they were almost entirely superfluous, with virtually nothing they did actually meaning anything or making any difference. It may want to be a cult movie, but it just isn't smart enough to be anything more than a passing fad.

I swear the problem is that the American movie industry has a "quota" of movies they have to produce that's actually higher than the stories they have to tell... which is why even the shallowest joke, seemingly the product of an extended and boozy lunch, gets extended into a motion picture. I guess the same thing happens in anime, but I still believe that manga (and the bizarre people who occupy that culture) give them a much richer field to tap.

Experiment: lamb and rice noodle salad.

2006-08-20T07:39:02Z

Tried a new recipe which has been pronounced edible and practical!

First I took two lamb chump chops (though beef would probably work as well or better, and chicken if you spice it a little) and cut the meat from the bone and fat... this really reduces the amount! so three chops might have worked better. This gets marinated in Teriyaki sauce and lemon juice while you mess with the other ingredients. At the end it gets pan fried and a couple of pine nuts thrown in when its cooked. This is going to be the taste and protein boost.

The vegetable load is spring onions, bean sprouts and bok-choy. The bok choy was chopped into strips and blanched (stalk first, then leaves). I didn't blanch the bean sprouts but AK suggested it probably would have worked well to reduce their "metalic" taste". The bulk of the meal is rice vermicelli, which is just too damn easy to prepare. I used 100g, but 150g would probably have been better. These all get mixed together in a bowl so the vegetables are mixed in with the noodles. This is an excellent opportunity to burn your hands on blanched bok-choy.

To finish put the cooked lamb on top then drizzle a sauce of vinegar, lemon juice, sugar and soy (used raw soy sauce here, because we still had some) over the top.

Finally, and most vital, let your adorable partner wash up while you finish up the glass of rather nice plum wine you were drinking during the meal. (We work on the one cooks, one washes principal... though AK raises many an eyebrow at my profligacy at causing kitchen chaos).

Heat Guy J

2006-07-20T13:06:37Z

A friend at work, discovering I was into anime, offered me a title from his personal collection. The rather mysterious "Heat Guy J". Not mysterious because it's rare or exotic, it had a well funded commercial release, but interesting because it seems to have bypassed all the anime fan's I know. Some knew the title, but not much more.

And I can sort of see why. It has very decent production values showing a substantial investment in it. The backgrounds are almost excessively bright and crisp, obviously computer assisted and having a wonderful time of it. Although they do tend to over-use some of the scenery. The setting is some massive metropolis of the near future. And we are following two characters who are special police tasked with finding crimes before they happen. One is young, cynical and cool, while the other is a towering muscleman in a long black coat (his partner being in white). The large guy is J, the legendary heat guy, and the only legal "machine" (ie. android) in the city. He's super-powered, quite taken with doing huge leaps to get around, but he's not super bright. His "wit" is the endless repetition of rather silly aphorisms which make him sound like a 2$ positive thinking book. He also spends a remarkable amount of time getting his butt kicked, he's a bit of a tactical dunce for all his power.

Between them they tackle one crime after another in this big city with a rotten under-belly... although in reality the main crime they face is the really atrocious writing. It lacks energy, enthusiasm or even logic to a quite alarming degree. Some of the stories we've seen so far, 9 episodes in, have been laugh out loud bad with huge plot holes and weirdly lifeless scenes and dialogue... action too when it comes to that, there's something odd about it (very checked, it always seem to stop short). Also impressive is that their detective work seems to center around asking one old guy meditating in a darkened shop who tells them, seemingly free of charge, all the information they need to know. There's not a great deal of backstory either, or they are being really stingy. What is the history behind this odd city or the characters we follow? no idea. This makes it all feel as if they were too busy playing with the visuals to bother too much about the story logic. Indeed the entire thing feels a lot like a tech demo, an experiment in how to integrate computers into animation, rather than something the creators actually cared about that much. Either that or it's just trying too hard to be cool and is thus afraid to risk experimenting with what they have.

Put simply it's really pretty, but it is also an empty shell yearning to be filled with some energy and life. There's much better stuff out there. Still there are also 17 more episodes (although the anarchic-feline is fading fast) so it could get better... but my hope is not great, they seem too happy to just go through the motions.

The lead characters bike is sort of cool though, I will admit that, but I'd take the one out of FFVII-Advent Children rather.... geeze I must review that, it was such a damn fun film. Exactly the sort of exciting drama and action Heat Guy-J misses.

harlzen @ 2006-07-12T20:36:00

2006-07-12T12:43:13Z

I'm going to collect some bits and pieces from my cooking experiments.

Fresh Rice Ribbon noodles: These noodles are packed with a bit of oil to help them separate, but since they're kept refrigerated they tend to clump together. Don't freeze them, or it is downright impossible to seperate them. They are actually pre-cooked, so they basically need to be warmed through to allow them to seperate and then just heated to eat. I used boiling water to separate them which meant the outer noodles got over-cooked and sloppy.

Still, some instant daschi, miso paste and a bit of instant tom yum mix (I'm such a wimp, it says to use 2 table-spoons and I use 2 tea-spoons) make a quick and tasty broth to use as a base.

New Review: Noir

2006-07-10T14:42:53Z

A new review up... finally. Well, it's not even a new review, I had an old review of Noir but it was based on only 6 episodes. I gave it a worthy, because it seemed to have a really cool start rich with promise, but as I watched I realised how shallow and dull much of the content is. It was really quite a struggle finishing the damn thing. But it was a title I'd never share with Anarch-kitty, so it was good to get it done.

Hm, I guess the review won't be going up immediately... the ftp server isn't talking to me. My bad for ignoring it for so long?

Also saw this anime music video which impressed me rather a lot,
Tra~la~la. Not only does the total over-the-top dramatics of Utena translate well into this format the cutting is brilliant and the sense of humor is rich.

I also got an e-mail from JDM4RSH giving me a good piece of his mind for dissing
Transformers: The Movie. What I really wanted to get across is that you first have to accept the core premise, which is obviously and transparently derived from their toy merchandising, before you can actually appreciate the anime at all. I think quite a few anime fans won't make that leap, being turned off by the very concept of it, so it was worth mentioning. I didn't actually mind the movie (junk planet aside) and I think that was expressed in the closer of the review.

I have some other anime related posts I've ignored for too long. I'll get to those soon, it also gives me more grist so at least my journal isn't as inactive as my page.

I often wondered why I'd started Noir so often but never actually finished it so I
could write a review. Thanks to three weeks stuck in Adelaide with not that much
else to do in the evenings I now know why. By way of color I'll also mention that
this review is written some number of thousand feet in the air... in a seat carefully
calculated to be just too small to be comfortable.

Synopsis

Imagine coming back to consciousness in a high school room, and having almost total
amnesia... absolutely no idea of who you truly are. Kirika, a young school girl is
having just this experience. In fact she's not entirely sure she's even really
Kirika, she has a school ID in her pocket with that name on it, but she also recognizes
immediately that it's fake. It seems that while her memories are lost her skills are
intact, and most of them seem to revolve around how to efficiently kill people, which
don't seem like the skills a high school girl should have gained. She also has the
memory of a contact, Mireille Bouquet... although a deadly and secretive assassin is
perhaps not the ideal person to be asking for help.

Indeed Mireille's idea of mercy is to not kill her until Kirika can regain
her memory. It quickly becomes apparent that the two are somehow linked. Kirika
carries a antique watch which Mireille recognises from a tragedy in her own past.
Meanwhile both realise the strange engraved image, of two women wielding swords,
has some deeper meaning. They're right, but they're going to have to work out what
that meaning is, and how they fit into it, in a hurry. The reason being that all of
a sudden there's a lot of shadowy figures packing guns and not even remotely
interested in talking things over. It seems they've stumbled onto some frightening
and huge conspiracy, and all they know is it wants them dead.

Review

In simple terms the driving energy of this title is not even remotely difficult to
determine. Two girls, one young and one more mature, combine innocent appearance,
feminine nature and intensely skilled cold-blooded killers in a single package. This
is what I call "Girls with guns" and the driving essence of such titles is generally
the juxtaposition between cute young girls and extreme violence. It sounds silly, but
it generally manages to catch the male audience pretty reliably, after all they like
looking at girls and action... why not combine the two?

It's a pretty hard formula to fail with, after all depicting sexy and cool females is
one of the foundations of anime. It's rather impressive therefore that this title fails
so resoundingly at it. Kirika is, when all is said and done, sort of plain and boring.
She starts at a disadvantage of course, Amnesia is great as a plot device but it puts
rather a damper on character development. She's very passive and has to wait on the story
to give her a purpose, and the story can't really do that without giving away the
"secret" that underpins it. Her lack of motivation combines with her plain character design
and lifeless voice to make her feel undeveloped and dull.

This leaves Mireille carrying much of the dramatic weight... but sadly she's only
marginally deeper. We get to see, far too many times, one tragic event from her past
but that's not nearly enough to build a character on. She is clearly intended to be
an extremely experienced investigator and assassin, after all she still has her memories,
but there's little sign of it. She types at a computer to sometimes pick up a clue
needed to push the story forward, but there's no real feeling of her having much of
a goal, or doing much investigation or planning to better their chances.
Indeed this is true of both of them, their idea of planning an assault is to just walk
in the front door and kill everything that moves. Against superior numbers they depend
mostly on luck, and secondly on their firearms skills, rather than actually thinking things
through. Once again, there's no particular feeling of character or personality coming
through in her depiction... and of course there's not much in the way of dialogue
between the two of them.

Okay, so the character work is sort of dull. That would be okay if the action is hot.
All they really have to do is be cool and deadly in some exciting action sequences.
Once again the creators push new boundaries in just how completely they fail in this
regard. I've already pointed out that they don't plan, use varied equipment, or even
particularly work as a team which reduces much of the complexity from the action.
Meanwhile the gun-play has all the raw excitement of a cheap carnival shooting gallery.
faceless extras pop out of windows and doorways just in time to catch a single bullet
from the character who "sensed" they were coming. On the rare occasions the enemy get
to shoot back the lead characters seem absolutely unconcerned, certain in the fact
that they are not going to get hit. There's no sense of threat, of tension.... it's
insanely boring. I don't think I've ever seen such a competently produced anime that
manages to suck any excitement out of every scene. Now I understand why it took so long
to actually finish this title.

Even so, I held onto some hope that it would all be worth it in the end, hopeless
optimist that I am. I sat through the dull and repetitive action. I became bored
with the characters and moderately amused at the creators trying to bring forth some
psychological drama with them. This largely seemed to involve one or the other
character going into shock or moody silence, neither of which were terribly
interesting. I was also impressed that so many of their targets were ultimately
accepting of their imminent assassination. "okay, you can kill me now" is really
not what I expected, and drained the scenes of any intensity. Come to think of it
all the deaths where instant, bloodless and painless. In any case I waited,
reasonably patiently, for the secret behind it all to be revealed, the legend known
as Noir that lies at the heart of the secret society called the Soldats. I won't
spoil it, because I largely couldn't be bothered typing it up, but my suspicions
were confirmed.... it wasn't even remotely worth the wait. I guess I can spoil the
ultimate reward for this secret and shadowy ritual, which was a nice cup of tea.

It really is an unusual title, though primarily only to anime reviewers and those with
masochistic tastes. How they took one of the simplest foundations, were gifted with
perfectly decent production resources, and managed to make such a insipid and soul-less
waste of time is an interesting question. Although Anarch-kitty informed me the same
production team did Madlax where, from what I remember, they managed to duplicate the
feat. In any case I Hope my summary is clear enough, this is a title to be actively
avoided... there's much much better stuff out there.

Production

I've already touched on most elements of the production. It's quite decent, clearly
somewhat budget restrained as environments and action tend to go easy on movement.
I've seen good stories told with less though, and I daresay it makes for some quite
decent looking stills on the box cover. Pretty much everything else is average though.
Character art, technical design, environments and action are all unremarkable and
uninspiring. They do get some points for novelty with the show being set in the
Mediterranean. I assume the voices are decent, but with such average dialogue it's
hard to tell. The music is notable in bucking the trend and being rich and varied.
The Ali project provide a catchy opening song and a lot of solid ambient music which
draws from the background environment while helping to set the immediate scene. I can
certainly recommend watching the opening titles, but that's about as far as I'd go.

My ears.... so good.

2006-05-31T13:40:57Z

From the opening of Texhnohalyze the soundtrack steps easily into the back of your mind and starts happily pounding on the walls. It's damn fine stuff, potently driving but without being boring like so much of the beat driven music is. And some of the individual sounds from which it is constructed, like the sort of "back-scrape" in "Guardian Angel" are complex and delightful in their own way.

And thanks to the fact that a certain feline has an awe inspiring taste in music I got to listen to some more. So nice to make the discovery that the first taste wasn't some sort of fluke. I like, and I want more... but where would one go to find it in perth I wonder?

Hope... has gone.

2006-05-15T13:48:36Z

So says Lady Death, from the astoundingly average animated movie of the same name. A movie that's not even bad enough to laugh at, it's just soo awfully average, showing clearly the near complete lack of sophistication or imagination on the part of those who brought it into being. It's not anime either, since the script is entirely western (Carl Macek gives rise to another obscenity!), the animation is korean and the funding is ADV showing what it thinks of its own customers taste. It's just very lame, boring and highly derivative... I swear the end battle reminded me an awful lot of diablo! I'll probably write a short review, but only to make it clear that this is neither anime nor something worth actually watching.

Anime Reviews ... why I've done none.

2006-05-07T02:12:10Z

It's partly because I'm soo busy, lots of thesis re-work I should be doing in addition to
something far more enjoyable (a.... a.... girlfriend omgwtf!). The other reason is that I
was blessed by the heavens with a girlfriend who enjoys anime... and brings a substantial
personal collection into the deal. As a result I have just been struck by shock and awe
at the immense number of new titles I have the possibility of reviewing. And unlike the normal
random selection I use an intelligent and tasteful mind has already done the initial choosing.

Speaking of random selection, here's a review that's been waiting in the wings unfinished for
quite a while now. I liked the initial thrust of it, that dead leaves is more like a universal
art-house animation, and thus not particularly anime or interesting. But I realised the review
also makes an assumption about context... how much art house animation is there in Japan? is it
another sub-culture of its own that I just haven't experienced? after all, only a narrow subset
of anime makes it out here (especially commercially!). I'm not sure how I'd actually be able to
know the answer to that question, so the review may well be up for some dramatic revisions.

That said... it wasn't that great an anime.

Another random sampler piece found by using my careful selection criteria. Namely
if it's anime I'll watch it.

Synopsis

The show opens with two people coming into existence. One is a naked male with a
old-style portable television in place of his head, and is thus cunningly named Retro.
The one who has been applying concussive maintenance (eg hitting him until he works)
is a female with a large red spot over one eye, earning her the name Pandy. They don't
know who they are, remember how they got here, or even exactly where here is. However
since there are things they need, with clothes being the most pressing, they decide to
take them.. and it seems they still retain their mastery of violence and death, and a
casual attitude to random application of the same. However when they are caught, and
sent to the notorious \"dead leaves\" prison they find a place every bit as violent as
themselves... and which seems strangely familiar.

Review

A one paragraph synopsis. This is a subtle hint that the story isn't exactly that complex.
However in this case even one paragraph is perhaps being generous, this title really isn't
that interested in telling a story or developing characters. Instead it is primarily a
technical piece, exploring the possibilities of a particular style of animation. As such
its much more focused on style and movement... and large servings of animated violence which
allow the creators to experiment.

The particular style is a paradoxyical choice. This title basically explores the "arthouse"
animation style. I suspect that this style (and I make no claim to deep knowledge of
the genre) evolved in an environment where animation aimed at a mature audience was largely
non-existent. As such the work had to rely on a strong visual style, mature content and
ideally strong writing to make up for the limitations on budget and availability of skilled
animators. It's certainly influence by anime, and has become much more practical with the
advent of computer assistance. I would indicate Aeon Flux as a high quality example
of this type of animation, and have also seen a lot of much weaker examples at various
animation festivals.

So how to treat this title? The first thing is to observe that, by anime standards, the
animation is incredibly rough. The low frame detail, extremely low frame count and brutal
editing feels somewhat like a flash animation... or perhaps an intentional attempt to trigger
eplileptic seizures in the susceptible. It is extremely jarring, using an immense number of
visual tricks to add energy, and incidentally cover up its technical limitations. The character
design is likewise simplistic, exaggerated and the vast majority of the characters are meaningless
and disposable. Taken as a total package it doesn't even particularly feel like anime. The
style is international, and thus neutral, and the presentation owes as much to the arthouse
anime mentioned earlier as it does to the Japanese anime style. Even the content, which is
as rough as the animation, feels like a lot of the fringe animations I have seen which are
so desperate to make an impression that they explore the boundaries of bad taste.

It is possible to assume that the energy, roughness and irreverent content of international
arthouse animation might be quite an exciting new experience for a Japanese audience. After
all, to that audience anime is the stable and familiar foundation. However for an anime fan
outside Japan it is anime that is exotic and interesting, and thus breaking the traditions
of the media is not nearly as exciting. Put in even simpler terms this title left me feeling
pretty unimpressed. It certainly is energetic, reasonably watchable once you adjust to the
rather horrible animation, but not particularly interesting. The plot is largely pointless,
the characters other than the two mains just a shifting mass of freakish monstrosities and
the action is hampered by the technical limitations they've chosen to adopt. If this was by
a small start-up studio in England, I'd be pretty impressed, but coming from Production I.G.
I'm not... especially when it is being sold as a full price DVD release.

Production

This is the focus of the show, the production style, but I can't find it in myself to be that
interested. The character artwork is basic, jarring angular lines, primitive curves and flat
color. And this is for the mains, the lesser characters are just a menagerie of doodles whose
primary purpose is as cannon fodder. Shadows are deep and motion is agressively overacted and
extremely jumpy from frame to frame, as well as having heavy re-use. I assume they had a lot
of fun planning it out, and some of that energy comes through in the action, but ultimately it
is shallow, pretty ugly and unrewarding. Even the complexity of the action scenes fades fairly
quickly. The initial fight during the chase with the faceless police drones is probably the
strongest in the series, while some of the later ones are just flashy and silly. The voice
acting is extremely agressive as well, which
does fit the style but also grates after a while. The actress doing Pandy was allowed to be a
little bit more laid back in her delivery which made a big difference in giving the character
some depth. The music is very much in the background, which is somewhat surprising, and doesn't
really vary much to match the scene. It's basically just a beat in the background.

Other Reviews

There's a
review from Mike Toole at Anime Jump! who is perhaps over qualified to find the good in this
show. He tends to favor shows with high energy and rich style, and he admires these things in
this show. I differ in that I didn't like the art style, even looking at the capture on his page
repulse me, which left only the wafer thin content (3.5/5).

Mmm, a bright Perth Sunday and a long yum-cha ahead, loved one by my side... life is very sweet.

ahah

2006-05-04T12:54:12Z

Anime Meta-Review

html! That makes things a lot easier, I assumed it would have it's own obscure format... although an lj-cut sounds somewhat painful.

... as you can see, just playing. No content here!

Placing a stake...

2006-05-04T12:32:46Z

Once it was impossible to know the mind of women... now you just have to read their journals. Although apparently I'm in-line to get a "thick black line drawn right through me". It sounds a lot like the sort of thing that involves swarthy men, concrete footwear and impromptu early morning swims.

I'm also the author of the anime meta review (amr.nextstudio.net) although recently I've been spending my time increasing my list of material I have to review, rather than actually writing reviews. I figure my backlog takes me safely towards 2010. I've been watching a fair bit though, Karin and Blood+ which have outstayed their welcome and a bunch of other more interesting titles... I really need to get a review down for Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, that was just good fun, as was dokkoida.

Ah well, it will be fun exploring what role, if any, a livejournal can play.