Worldwide streaming

Recently, Gonzo studio announced that they will be releasing a whole of two brand new series, available from April 4th and 5th. As a new initiative from the studio's side, the series will be available for online streaming on Youtube, Crunchyroll and BOST TV on the same day as the episodes will be aired in Japan, completely free of charge (although the studio did mention a fee-based download of high-resolution episodes in their press release). And to top it all off, the episodes will be subtitled, instantly making this the first international streaming release.

This is all great and exciting news, but why are they doing something like this? Officially, they're doing it for all of their fans around the world. But their true motive is to eliminate the continuously growing threat of fansubbers. Now, I'm somewhat familiar with what the studios are thinking as I was part of a group trying to license several series, and honestly I'm surprised that they kept this waiting for that long. Up until not too long ago, several studios refused to acknowledge the existence of fansubbers - resulting in the parting of Geneon Entertainment (USA) in September 2007. Maybe this will bring about a new era for the animated world.

Moving on, what are these two new series all about? First off, airing Fridag 4th April, we have...

Tower of Druaga, the Aegis of Uruk

The Summer of "Anu": In a summer once every five years, demons in the mysterious Tower of Druaga lose their powers due to the magic spell cast by a god named "Anu". King Gilgamesh, ruler of the kingdom Uruk, uses the appearance of demons as an excuse to invade the tower and find out the construct's secrets. As 80 years passed, the Uruk army managed to fight back the demons and built a fortress city and safe haven on the very first floor of Druaga - Metz Kier. Thus begins the story of a warrior named Gil who, finding companions along the way, embarks on a quest for the fabled Blue Crystal Rod, a powerful artifact rumored to be in the highest floor of Druaga. However, other competitors, including the kingdom of Uruk itself, want the treasure, all for their own reasons.

And airing Saturday 5th April, we have...

Blassreiter -genetic-

Set in the near-future, in a town in Germany. There have been incidents of dead people coming back to life, transforming into "grotesque shadows", and attacking people. Living people show up who can transform themselves into demons whenever they want. They used to be regular humans, but when they gained this power to transform, people rejected them and called them demons. But they still use their powers, each for his own reason. However, they cannot deny their fate: to fight in a deadly battle royal with others who have turned into demons.

Eureka Seven

To be honest, I wasn't very optimistic when I first started watching this anime. I really had my doubts. I mean, it has robots in it! Now, I'm not denying that mecha can be cool. Just look at Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion. That's one of my current favourites (even though the second season is taking too long coming out). But even though the "robots" in this anime resemble mecha, they're far from. Unlike I first believed, this show turned out to be a science fiction and I was really getting carried away after watching the first episode. At episode 26 I decided to buy the DVD's for this series, which is rare coming from me.

The story revolves around the fourteen-year-old Renton Thurston, the son of a military researcher who died saving the world. He lives a boring life, in a boring city, in a boring home along with his grandfather. He's your average boy who loves lifting - a sport which is similar to that of surfing except it's on air. However, just as soon as the gloomy mood is set, a seemingly out-of-place KLF ("Kraft Light Fighter") comes crashing into his home, wrecking everything in its way. The pilot, a girl named Eureka, requests the Thurston's to repair the massive weapon and the story begins...

Throughout the anime, you follow Renton and Eureka and their feelings for eachother, which grows by every step towards the end. It's an amazingly complex story, but the story-telling style makes up for the confusion some of the details may bring about. The characters of the main cast has some obvious personality development throughout the show and each episode leaves you begging for more.

The show was aired from 07:00-07:30 Japan time, which I find odd. I may have overformulated the theme of the anime a bit since this is not a romance, in any way. Of course there's a few relationships going on between the members of the main cast, but besides that there's barely anything other than violence. A lot of it. But I think that's the beauty of it: you don't have to like mecha or the lot of fighting scenes to like this anime. I'm a special case since I like a lot of odd things, but this anime really caught my attention.

All in all, it has a great plot, some awesome character development and a great soundtrack. 10/10 from me! And kudos to the team behind BONES for making such an awesome anime.

Key's Visual Novel (CLANNAD)

Now, I've played a lot of visual novels - I admit that. But this game has to be among my favourites. While it did take a while to install, it was worth the wait. And fortunately, due to the many people I know, I was able to get it with an almost complete translation. In any case, skipping past the boring introduction of the gamemakers themselves, let me explain how come this is such an awesome game.

First of all, the characters are all voiced! If you have a computer that can handle the game and you yourself understand a good amount of Japanese, you hardly need a translation. The only character not voiced would be you. Now, I'm not entirely sure about this but it would seem that even though you can choose your own name for your character, his name will still be Okazaki Tomoya (岡崎朋や) throughout the game. But why would you want to change his name, anyway...?

Story-wise, I think it's very interesting. While there's no real animation happening throughout the game, something always happens that will make you want to keep on playing even after several hours of clicking through the conversations. Once in a while, you get a few options to choose from; mostly, though, it's whenever an optional scene occurs - meaning, that it's not something you actually have to go through to understand what's going on.

Okazaki Tomoya (the character you play) is a delinquent, so he rarely pays attention in class. Which, in one way or another, probably is a good thing since the game would get boring otherwise. While playing, you learn a lot about his personality and his background, and sooner or later you will start to notice the changes he ends up going through. By interacting with a lot of other people, both at school and outside of school, you learn a thing or two about everyone else. I especially like the scenes with Sunohara. Okazaki seems to enjoy tormenting the poor boy and yet he sees him as a friend. I've had a lot of good laughs because of that.

Like always, Key's character design is awesome and the images used in the game couldn't be richer in detail. I recently discovered that Key already released their sixth game, Little Busters!, which was made for the same audience as CLANNAD. They later released another version with adult content, called Little Busters! Ecstacy.

Although Key's music hasn't scored a first place on my top 10 yet, it's dangerously close, coming in on a clingy second-place just before Kajiura Yuki's huge bg collection. Just like their previous games, the music end up being used for the following anime - a big plus, if you ask me. The music sets the mood and it catches the feelings of the characters pretty well. And let's not forget the wonderful Riya who did the opening song for not only the game, but also the anime. All in all, I'm giving it a 10/10.

You can grab the game as well as the complete OST collection by following the links below. Have fun!

CLANNAD download
CLANNAD translation patch
CLANNAD menu explanation
CLANNAD Original Soundtrack [Megaupload]

Identity check-up

What a surprise: another blog, for another reason, at another time. Maybe I really should stick with just one of 'em, for the heck of it. In any case, I'm not all convinced how well this will work out but at least I seem more up for the job, than with my previous blogs.

For those of you that don't know me, the name's Haruhi. I've been stalking my parents for 18 long years and, however sad it may seem, I'm still stuck in the godforsaken grasslands of Denmark. I'm currently playing the role of a busy college student - though, wait a moment... I am a busy college student!

Normally, one cannot attend more than one course at the same time, however I seem to be an exception at that. At the moment, I'm not only taken the courses to become a multimedia integrator but also the courses needed to become needed to become a web integrator. All in all, I'm working with computers on a daily basis.

In my free time, I enjoy a nice game or two - at least when I'm not messing around with graphics or anime for that matter. However, Anime Kita - an anime club - requires most of my attention due to my position as the club's president.

I suppose that's all there's to it. If I feel like telling anything else, it will probably show up in some of my later entries.