How Japan Views Politics

Something someone showed me from CollegeHumor.com

Some of you may have noticed GaHG pretty much being dead for the whole month. Well here's news: IT'S ALIVE AND KICKIN'!

Yeah, pretty much all of this can be blamed on post-Christmas Break laze

Delayed Reaction!

Yeah, I know Youmacon was a little under a month ago but it appears that Post Con Depression has finally gotten to me.

Honestly, I'd have to say that Youmacon this year was one of the happiest moments of my life so far. Those were the shortest three days I've ever seen before. To all the awesome people I met and hung out with there: I miss you all so much!

This video made me tear up a little bit:

Princess Robot Bubblegum

It was inevitable that mainstream media would eventually take notices of the cliches rampant in a lot of anime. Here's part of the first wave.

Still Not Convinced About Youmacon?

Yeah, yeah, some of you are thinking "SHUT UP ABOUT YOUMACON ALREADY!", but trust me, it's worth babbling on about. You'll also probably never hear a word of it again a few weeks down the road.

If you're still wondering about Youmacon, here's a video put together by the local Detroit news:

Youmacon 2009 News + Contest

It is officially one week (well, not date exactly) until Youmacon will be happening. Pretty much all of us here at Gentlemen and Hand Grenades will be there at least one of the days there. So if you see us, feel free to say "hi". I'll be Dan Hibiki on Friday, Keroro from Sgt. Frog on Saturday and The Hunter from Left 4 Dead on Sunday.

In fact, stopping us will tie into a contest we're having. If you talk to us and want to be part in the contest, stop us and say "Marmalade" and mention the contest and you'll receive a random prize from us. Could be anything ranging from a copy of Norton Gaming Edition to a little vial with a Boxelder Bug in it to an old hard disk I have lying around to last year's program guide. And if you want (though I doubt we're to this point yet) we can sign it for you.*

Along with the contest, there will be a plethora of videos and pictures taken by us at the con and maybe an interview or two with one of the guests.

If you're interested in going, the entry fee is $20 for Friday and Sunday and $25 for Saturday. Thursday night is free though. See you there!

*People I know are exempt, offer not valid in Hawaii, see back for details.

Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm Review. Believe it!

Are you ready for a storm? How about ninjas? How about if we put those two things together and have an ultimate ninja storm? Sounds pretty cool, right? Well, in Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm for the Playstation 3, you too can experience the joy of being a ninja with special ninja powers fighting other ninjas for the position of being the best ninja ever.

Okay, that’s probably not really accurate. While it does not really give real ninjas justice, this game will be good if you like Naruto. If you don’t like the license, well… Just don’t read this then.

If you happen to not know the anime, Naruto is about a boy who strives to become the top ninja in his village, also known as a hokage. However, he has a demon fox that pretty much gives him powers when he’s in a pinch. Over the course of the series, he makes a lot of friends, and blah. That’s pretty much all you need to learn at this point.

This is because the people over at Bandai Namco and Cyber 2 Connect decided to put the story of this game in the first series rather than the later, much more mature, second. From episodes 1-135, this game is pretty much a refresher course for fans and a primer for newbies or (if you’re like me), people that miss a bunch of episodes and want to know what happened in a nutshell. You’ll find the whole story in its mission mode (separated by its arcs).

The main mode (as there are really only two, the latter being a versus mode) is Ultimate mission mode, in which you control Naruto to explore the vast Leaf Village (the main hub) and complete missions. You can either play flashback missions (which, as aforementioned, are basically a retelling of the series), or free missions (which are unlocked by talking to various people). Unfortunately, instead of successively completing flashback missions (which are the only way you can unlock other characters), you must play free missions to fulfill the “experience needed” requirement. This builds into artificial length, which I don’t really like. However, some of the free missions are creative, such as playing a game of hide-and-go-seek or fighting matches under special conditions. Because of the length added (my English teacher told me never to start a sentence with because, but oh well), the story mode will easily take 8-11 hours to complete, and another few to complete every free mission.

The graphics, in short, are truly amazing. This is the equivalent of what would happen if the creators of Naruto decided to change the animation to 2D. It just looks stunning and fluid, as I only experienced frame rate drops a couple of rare times. The character models look really detailed as well (I mean, as detailed as anime can get), and the scenery is just gorgeous.

Unlike its predecessors (the surprisingly decent Ultimate Ninja PS2 series) that had you fighting on a 2D plane, this game has two players fighting it out on a 3D arena. Most of the attacks are performed by mashing the circle button, which I find pretty easy to learn, which equals more accessible. However, there are other techniques you can use as well, such as throwing projectiles, or summoning support characters. While the size of the playing fields can cause many time outs in two-player games, it can be fun solo.

The main meat and potatoes of the fighting are the jutsus (special attacks). Provided you have the energy (chakra, which can be charged up), using the triangle button followed by the circle button, players can use signature attacks from the anime. Pressing the triangle button a second time enables the ultimate jutsu, which are cutscene based super attacks. Both players must enter a string of buttons (or you can change this to spinning the control stick or mashing a button), and if the attacking player wins, he or she gets to continue the attack. If the defending player wins, he or she dodges the attack and suffers little to no damage. While I did enjoy this, I found that only one ultimate jutsu per character was limiting, and later matches were won just by spamming the ultimate justu button.

The other problem I had were the lack of new characters. I know that this is the first series of Naruto and everything, and the publishers were focusing on flagship characters ( the game has a roster of the 25 most noticeable characters in the series, from the obvious genin 9 and most of their mentors to just one of the sound ninja five, Kimmimaro), but I was really hoping for more. While some of the other characters are available as downloadable support (free, I might add), I really felt that the game could have easily put in five to ten more to tell the story correctly. An inclusion of the rest of the Sound Ninja five as well as perhaps Haku and Zabuza would have been great.

One last thing to add is the inclusion of a Japanese audio track. If you’re a Japanese purist (I, by all means, am not), you’ll love the addition of Naruto… in Japanese! While the English audio works, you could try out the wonders of other voice actors saying their lines.

While limited special moves, artificial length, and a basic lineup of characters (not to mention this is Naruto) may limit appeal for this game, it’s perhaps the most definitive version of an anime license I’ve seen. If you’re a fan of the series, like anime, or even remotely care about pretty graphics, Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm is right up your alley. And even if it isn’t, hey, you’ll always have Street Fighter 4.

Score: 8/10

Ok Fine, One More For The Road

I know I said that I would be going today (and I still am), but I'm having some problems sleeping right now. See, I fell asleep around midnight. When I awoke, I begin having thoughts of "Well, time to finish packing" and "Time to make myself some breakfast". About that moment, I decide to see what time it was and looked at my clock (which is about 20 min slow because of a power outage) and see something I did not expect: 2:00 am.

"%@#$%!", I exclaim. It appears that I was only asleep for no more than two hours. I tried going back to sleep, but I eventually gave up as the thing that keeps me awake more than anything is sleep itself.

Out of boredom I begin browsing the internet, checking my email, facebook and the such. During my browsing, I come upon and article from Kotaku (and yes, one of my goals is to diversify my gaming news sites) about something I wrote of not too long ago.

It appears that the IRL Gundam built in Japan has also taken a step into the virtual world as well. To celebrate the 30th anneversery of the Gundam franchise, a virtual replica of the Gundam statue will be added to PS3 Home from today until July 23rd.

Hey I'll get to play Left 4 Dead 2 at Comic Con...

(Story originaly from Inside-Games.Jp, Via Kotaku)

Deals of the Month - July 2009

One of the things I've been thinking about doing for a while now was do a monthly post about deals with Video Games, Anime/Manga, Computers Parts & Software and other cool things. Sort of like what LifeHacker does, except not restricted to tech stuff.

Right now, Borders is having a BIG sale on CDs and DVDs. The DVDs are going on sale for about $7, and the CDs for about $8. I'm going to just talk about the DVDs right now, just because what exactly is on sale.

Basically, the deals for this month are anime:

• First up is Dragon Ball Z: Vageto Saga II - Saiyan Invasion
• Next is Hellsing Volume 1: Impure Souls
• Another good one on sale is Samurai Champloo Volume 1
• If you're into Basketball, then you'll like the famous Slam Dunk series
• I've never watched Air Master, but I've heard some good things about it
• Lastly is the infamous Rozen Maiden anime
  

So that's what Japan's been doing

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Gundam franchise, a life-size Mobile Suit in Japan's Shiokaze Park. Oddly enough, it'll only be up for two months. One would think that with all that effort to build it, it'd be up for longer than that. Must be a Japanese thing.

Sadly, the only parts of the Mobile Suit that moves is the head, along with little mists that come out from various parts. I for one, would have loved to see a real, fully-functional giant robot. It'd sure show North Korea who's boss, that's for sure.

(From DannyChoo.com)