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Nathan

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Blog Entries posted by Nathan

  1. Nathan
    Before I start I want to mention that any words underlined like this are words that have an explanation on my glossary page so you may want to have a look at that if you don't understand those words.
    So I've wanted to do this for a while, that is write about anime and manga, but it doesn't really belong as an article, nor does it exactly fit in with the theme of the rest of the site. Eventually it occurred to me that it would be perfect for a blog. And I recently started watching the perfect series to kick this off for this site since even if your not a fan of anime or manga if your on this site you're probably a fan of The Elder Scrolls series (which are fantasy RPGs) or your a remnant of the old Runescape Clan (which is an MMORPG) so Sword Art Online is a good fit.
    Sword Art Online was initially going to be Reki Kawahara's competition entry for ASCII Media Works' Dengeki Game Novel Prize, but he ended up exceeding the word limit so he published it online instead and ended up writing more volumes and a few short stories. He entered the competition again with a different work called "Accel World" and won the grand prize. ASCII Media Works asked to not only publish Accel World but also Sword Art Online, and so it was published as a light novel and was no longer available online. It has since been adapted into several manga series and an anime and even a game. At first I was confused by the order of the different versions and what differences in the story they had. It turns out its not that complicated. Basically the novel currently consists of 6 story arcs (across 12 volumes), there is a different manga series for each arc and the anime covers the first 2 arcs. The game is an original story on what might have happened if the first arc had turned out differently. Okay that sounds confusing, but its actually not as bad as it sounds especially once you're further in the series.
    The anime (which I have watched through completely) consists of 25 episodes and is fairly recent, having only started and finished late last 2012. Its yet to be given an english dub (if it does end up getting one) however it has been subtitled in english and is being streamed officially by a few sites at the moment (I know crunchyroll has the entire series and madman, which has the distribution rights for Australia, has begun streaming before they have a DVD release) which is great because it means you can support the creators of the anime (rather than getting it illegally) without having to pay huge anime prices for the DVD, in fact it shouldn't cost you a thing.
    So the story starts in the year 2022, when the worlds first Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (VRMMORPG) is released. If your like me you may have be thinking about how unoriginal the topic of Virtual Reality Games are, and how they've never really been explored that well, but bare with me, as I will explain in a moment this series actually does things quite well. Anyway Sword Art Online (SAO for short) is the worlds first VRMMORPG and has a very limited initial release to only 10,000 players after a beta test of 1000 beta testers. At the beginning of the first episode the main character Kazuto Kirigaya (more often referred to by his username, Kirito) is teaching another player how to fight within the game since he was one of the lucky people to be selected for Beta testing and has a better understanding of the game. Shortly afterwards they realize the log out button is missing. For a moment they assume this must just be a bug, and reflect on how such a big bug could impact on the future sales of the game, until there is a system announcement and they are force teleported to the center of the the Town of Beginnings along with all the other players. The creator of SAO, Kayaba Akihiko, appears and announces that its not a bug and that the system was designed to trap them in there, and the only way to escape is to clear all 100 floors and pass the game, furthermore if you die in the game you die in reality as well.
    Real life death in a virtual reality game isn't exactly a new concept, in fact its been the plot of several movies and books etc but I've always found those stories quite poorly thought out or at least poorly explained. For example they rarely do a very good job of explaining how death in the game causes death in the real world, however in this series they explain very clearly how the same system that reads and blocks signals from the brain (so that you can run in the game without running into a wall in the real world for example) and that sends signals to the brain to show the world, can just as easily trigger certain parts of the brain to deactivate it, thus killing you. The other issue I've always had is why doesn't someone in the real world just notice somethings wrong and remove the player, and sometimes they explain this by something like time isn't moving in reality (which is stupid) but again they explain in SAO that attempting to remove the device triggers the same response that kills the brain. Okay again, not exactly new, similar stuff has been done before but how do people in the real world know that removing the device will kill you and the thing is in Sword Art Online the general public don't initially know, but as Kayaba Akihiko announces 200 people had already died this way within the first moments of the game so people quickly learned.
    So basically I really enjoyed the way they explained the theory behind everything that's going on in SAO, but I also really like some of the themes they explore. Firstly I think its quite obvious that the author understood games on a personal level. There's also issues of prejudice (similar to racism) towards the Beta players by other players for supposedly not sharing information. Then even in this world where death is real there are still Player Killers (PKers) and people gradually work out how to exploit the system to do things like kill people in safe zones without them being able to put up a fight. The other thing is despite being a fantasy game, SAO doesn't allow players to use magic and they even mention in the series how risky that is for an RPG but it works perfectly and its something that is eventually explored in later story arcs.
    The graphics and design of the characters as well as the SAO world is amazing heck even the way the menus look and work is awesome. I was very quickly reminded of all the praise Skyrim got for its amazing expansive Mountain landscape when I saw all the landscape of SAO and just how massive that world is. The buildings and towns and even the dungeons all look amazing and like they really fit in as well as looking realistic and you can tell a lot of work has been put into it.
    One issue I had was that a lot of time seems to be skipped between episodes, they seem to clear about 10 floors between most episodes and within 15 episodes 2 years has passed. But its also understandable why they did it to quote the anime "Every gamer knows how boring it is to watch someone else play an RPG". This is possibly more an issue in the anime, rather than the novel and manga. I've only just started reading the novel but I feel like it's quite possible that it fills the gaps in a bit more.
    Something I thought was quite interesting was although SAO is such a short anime it used the extra side stories (which don't necessarily fit in with the rest of the series from what I've heard). Usually I really hate fillers but in SAO they work. They don't stand out from the rest of the series as being different like most fillers do and they actually add to the character development.
    Anyway I really enjoyed this series and highly recommend it.
  2. Nathan

    RWBY Review

    By Nathan,

    RWBY (pronounced Ruby) is the latest series from Roosterteeth Productions, the creators of popular web series such as; Red vs Blue, a comedy series created in the Halo game engine now in its 11th season; RT Shorts, A series of skits featuring some of the Staff members; RT Podcast, formally known as the Drunk Tank and has topped the iTunes charts several times; and much more.
    RWBY is a very different venture for Roosterteeth as it ventures into the anime style. Whether or not it is technically an anime (due to the fact that its not produced in Japan and is mostly CG animation) it is definitely worth watching. The show was thought up and directed by Monty Oum, who you may know as being the person who created Haloid, Dead Fantasy and responsible for most of the animation in the later seasons of Red vs Blue. Before the series had even started to air the show had already gathered a wide fan base and even cosplayers, not just because of the loyal fans of RoosterTeeth but also because of the 4 trailers that were released introducing each of the main characters.

    So Talking about Characters
    The show gets its name from the four main characters, four girls who each represent the colours Red, White, Black and Yellow. (Click on the characters name to see the trailer)

    Ruby Rose - The main character of the series and the first to be revealed through the trailers. She is a young girl who resembles Red Riding Hood. She wields a giant scythe that also functions as a sniper rifle. She is a really bright and cheerful character, but she is quite awkward and has difficulty interacting with people.


    Weiss Schnee - The Second character to be revealed, Weiss is young Heiress to a large company that seems to be pivotal to the series. Weiss uses a special rapier which has a revolving chamber that appears to give the sword different effects. Weiss acts very self entitled and important, and feels others should treat her in accordance with her stature.


    Blake Belladonna - Blake is the third character. Blake seems to be a very talented fighter and uses a katana, which can transform into a pistol on a chain that resembles a japanese sickle (kama). Blake is a mysterious character who is very quiet and reserved. As such we know very little about her at this stage in the series.


    Yang Xiao Long - Yang was the last of the main characters to be revealed through the trailers and is also Ruby's older sister. She uses gauntlets with barrels for bullets and can shoot explosive rounds when she punches. She is usually incredibly cheerful and confident and doesn't usually take things seriously. She clearly really cares for her little sister but her Brute Force also applies to the way she tries to help Ruby.

    There are obviously many more characters, but I felt like introducing these characters is far more important, probably even more important than talking about the plot.

    Sounds
    RWBY has an amazing Original Soundtrack by Jeff Williams who has done music for several Roosterteeth productions for the last several years. Up until the last trailer there was little to no dialogue but because of the way the music complemented the scenes it really wasn't necessary.
    One of the main things RWBY is criticized for is its voice acting but personally I don't think the voice acting is that bad even if it is done by Roosterteeth Staff. I believe a lot of people formed their own vision of the characters and their personalities from the trailers and since the actual personalities didn't much up with what people had formed by themselves neither did the voices. Something that really supports this is that when Yangs trailer was released people were really disappointed by high pitched Ruby's voice was when she spoke for the first time saying it didn't match her character but obviously at that point we knew very little about her character and it turns out she's younger than the other characters and she's a chirpy and energetic character so a high pitched voice works fine.
    The other reason people criticize the voice acting, at least from the anime fans, is that they are american voice actors not Japanese. This is a pretty stupid criticism to make since the company is American and the target audience are primarily from English speaking countries. There are a number of anime fans who suggest that because the Japanese voice actors are "better" (which is obviously subjective) the Japanese voice actors should do the voices in English as well, but if you've ever heard a Japanese voice actor trying to speak in English you will know how ridiculous that would be, I've watched non-dubbed anime where a character will say about one sentence in English and despite knowing very little about the Japanese language I feel like I would have had a better chance of understanding if they had just said it in their native language.
    You also have to remember that despite Roosterteeth being over 10 years old and having over 40 employees they are still technically a small business and so they can't afford to hire voice actors for every character, especially since they produce so many different series.
    <h1>Conclusion</h1>
    Most episodes last for about 5 minutes (rather than the standard anime length of 22 minutes) and although it would be great if they were longer they do manage to fit a lot into those 5 minutes and still keep a good pace. Once again you have to remember that they are a relatively small company compared to most Anime companies, and again they have several different productions being released at once. The other thing to remember is that Production started months in advance and as this is a new production and such a different style to past ones that they could never have known it would be so popular, and it would have been a waste of time and effort if they were to produce 30 minute episodes that nobody watched.
    Overall I really love this series, its probably my favourite Roosterteeth series and I'd recommend it to anyone who is slightly interested. One of the great things about it being produced outside of Japan is that the references are more likely to be understood by a western audience. I purposely didn't discuss the plot, simply because there is so little out at the moment and what I know of the plot doesn't really give a great indication of the kind of series this is, but it seems to fit into a similar genre as red vs blue with a lot of comedy moments but also an action based plot line.
    Episodes are free to watch on Roosterteeth.com and as of recently Crunchyroll.com and new episodes are released every Friday and as of writing this there are 6 episodes so far. The DVD and Blu-Ray's are available for Pre-Order on Roosterteeth.com and will ship on November 12th (which I believe is the same day as the final episode) with a bunch of special features. I believe the full series will be about movie length somewhere around 90 minutes.
    If your watching this series comment what you think of it (no spoilers) and if your interested but want to know more just ask and I'll be happy to answer.
  3. Nathan

    Glossary

    By Nathan,

    There are several terms in Japanese (like most languages) that don't really have a direct English equivalent and instead need to be explained a bit more. So instead of explaining the full thing every time I want to use such a word in my blog entries I'll just use that word an then have a list of all those words and what they mean here. I would recommend just using this to refer to words that you might not understand rather than reading the whole thing.
    Anime and Manga

    A lot of people who aren't very familiar with anime and manga probably don't know the difference so I thought it was worth mentioning here. Put simply manga are Japanese comics whilst Anime refers to the same style but with moving images, including but not limited to cartoons.Fillers Although fillers exist in Western media they aren't really known about as much as they are in Anime and Manga. A filler is an episode, or story arc that is not part of the original manga and are generally not considered as part of the "official" story line or "canon".
    Demographics
    Manga (and sometimes anime) is broken into several different demographics which target different audiences. This is useful for manga because various titles will all be published within a single issue of a magazine (such as Shonen Jump) and basically makes it quite clear how appropriate it is for different age groups.
    The demographics include:
    Kodomomuke: (or Kodomo) is aimed towards children, and are often very moralistic and teach children how to behave. Popular examples include Digimon, Hamtaro and Pokemon.
    Shonen: (or Shounen, ShÅnen) Which arguably is the most popular demographic is targeted towards young males (roughly between the ages of 10 and 18) but tends to be enjoyed by a lot more people outside of that age and gender group. It is categorized by high-action and often humourous plots and attractive female characters. It also often has a main character who has an ongoing desire to better themselves (or become stronger). Popular examples include Dragonball, Naruto and One Piece.
    Shojo: (or Shoujo, ShÅjo) is basically the oppopsite of Shonen and is aimed at young females (roughly between the ages of 10 and 18). They are often categorized by a strong focus on human and romantic relationships and emotions. Popular examples include Sailor Moon, Fruits Basket and Vampire Knight.
    Seinen: The word Seinen means "young man" and its target audience is males roughly between 18 and 30 (though there are some Seinen manga aimed at businessman well into their 40's). In my opinion this demographic shows the most variation between different titles with subject matter ranging from expiremental, to the mundane, to pornographic. Because it generally focuses on storyline and character development rather than action it is often confused with Shojo. Popular examples include Vagabond, Hellsing and Elfen Lied
    Josei: The word Josei means "woman","female" or "womanhood" and the demographic is generally written and targeted at women, and is essentially the female equivalent to Seinen. It tends to be written about adult women and is similar to a restrained and more realistic version of Shojo.

    To keep this as simple as possible I will add to it when I use new Japanese words in my blog.
  4. Nathan

    Hacking Recovery

    By Nathan,

    So I was hacked a few days ago, when I found out I planned on getting rid of all my stuff and starting a new account, Thankfully everyone in the cc at the time discouraged me from doing that and I decided to atleast wait till I had calmed down (it wasn't just the being hacked thing either there were a few other things that were on my mind as well, it was just the thing that sent me over the edge). I was so unable to think straight that even though i suspected it was a keylogger or something I hadn't done any virus scans and it was only when someone in the cc insisted I clean my computer that I actually went and did it.
    As expected it was full of malware, hopefully I got rid of all of it. So for the last few days I've been changing all my passwords, creating different email addresses for different things (previously it all ended up in one place) which was a priority since my credit card and stuff could potentially have been at risk. Still working on a few things to make sure its as secure as possible but so far I think I'm pretty safe.
    So yeah...I'm not going to quit runescape, in fact I'm not even going to create a new account (or atleast not as my main) and I can't thank you guys who were discouraging me from doing that the other day. Its going to take a while to recover since they took everything that was decent, all my money, my dragon hatchet (which was my main source of income), 2 sets of rune armor (one trimmed), dragon helm, platelegs, scimitar, dagger++, EVERYTHING. There's one place that I don't think they've checked that might have a decent amount of valuable stuff, so I'm really hoping thats fine.
    Its kind of ridiculous how thorough they were. I mean they managed to log in as me in a few seconds (which is stupid surely Jagex should be more suspicious of someone logging in as me on a completely different computer with a completely different IP as 5 seconds ago and every other time I've logged in) and I had logged back in within 10 minutes, I still have no idea why they left me with a heap of seeds and bird nests in my inventory as well as giving me a few emeralds, I mean its nothing compared to what I had but why bother doing that?
    Oh well, I'll try and log in soon but I'm going to be a lot slower for a while and it might be hard for me to get back into it but I'll do it. (Plus uni starts back next week [edit: no it doesn't it starts back in a bit over a week from now.]
  5. Nathan

    My return

    By Nathan,

    So, Finally returned to Runescape and to the clan
    For a while I've considered rejoining the clan but I couldn't find it since the old website was down (with no link to the new one) and through searching TRR or the Runescape Rebelz all I could find were old recruitment posts which linked to the old website (ironically many of them were posted by me from my time in the Recruitment Team). Similarly I thought about playing Runescape again but I really wanted my old account back (I'd forgotten the password) and I sent recovery requests several times but never even got a response until the last time I sent one and I was immediately sent a link to change my password at about the same time I decided to search for the clan on the official Clan list thing, and found it instantly so I decided to rejoin. And here I am.
    Unfortunately I haven't been able to do much on Runescape yet since my Bank account is far beyond the F2P limits (and theres nothing I really want to get rid of) so I won't be doing much until I get Members, (which I intend to do soon). My crappy computer doesn't really help either. Once that is all done I plan to do a lot more in the clan since I no longer have to work around school hours (I still have uni but I can be a lot more flexible about that).
    Its funny to think that TRR was actually what got me interested in Manga/Anime when there was a post about it and Death Note was mentioned so I decided to watch that and now I'm a huge manga fan (yes I have even gone to conventions, all though both times it was mainly because members of the RoosterTeeth Staff went).
    So yeah...brief explanation of what's been happening with me since leaving the clan, I really look forward to catching up with all the old clan members I remember as well as meeting newer ones
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