Welcome to another episode of CC: Anime, Capsule Computers Anime Podcast! In our twenty third episode, the CC: Anime crew discuss the latest anime and manga news, our thoughts on the Space Dandy global broadcasts, J-Stars Victory VS, Darker Than Black’s spiritual succesor, the new Pokemon movie, Crunchyroll introducing manga, as well as answering your questions and announcing the winner of our Chihayafuru competition.
Cast: Luke Halliday, Travis Bruno, Frank Inglese, Kane Bugeja and Phil Federico
We hope you enjoy CC: Anime Episode 23, be sure to let us know what you think.
Nagi no Asukara continues to focus on friendship and character development rather than throwing a spanner in the works with Episode 4. That’s not to say that things aren’t moving toward uncertain times, as we see with Uroko-sama and Chisaki in particular later in this episode. The previous episode wrapped things up nicely, with all the guys and girls putting away hostility and getting along with each other. However, in an “uh-oh” moment we also found out Akari’s boyfriend has a child from a previous relationship, and that kid and a friend demand Hikari to break them up.
The episode begins with Hikari refusing to meddle in his sister’s affairs for the two kids, Miuna and Sayu. He makes quite a big impression on the daughter, Miuna, with his stoic principles of not playing dirty. The next day during class it becomes obvious that tensions between the Sea People from the village Shioshishio and land dwellers from the surface still run high. Especially between kids in the classroom. During a home economics class, the friends have to share their food with another group, leading Manaka to offer her plate to a couple of mean-looking surface kids.
This doesn’t go down well, and it ends with poor Manaka on the ground and the plate of food all over the floor. Call me old fashioned but I can’t even imagine a guy pushing a girl over while she’s carrying something, even as kids in middle school. Tsumugu steps in and tells them to apologise (you’re doing it again!), catching Manaka’s attention. The friends go check up on their hand-made, wooden offering to the Sea God, making eye contact with the two boys who caused a scene earlier on the way. Once they arrive, the whole thing looks as if it went to the dogs. Naturally, Hikari is led to believe those same guys did it and shoulder charges them both into the lockers. While Hikari blames them for the act, they escape punishment by the principal and Hikari storms off home with Manaka in pursuit.
This leaves Chisaki and Kaname alone, and I have to admit I find these moments the most interesting. These two have really intriguing chemistry going on. While Chisaki is jealous of Manaka’s cuteness and personality, Kaname just tells her to be herself but he also pokes fun at her. While cleaning the wooden offering they discover the graffiti has Sayu’s name on it (not too clever, Sayu!), ruling out their classmates’ involvement but Chisaki wants to keep this a secret. Why? Because she wants to protect Hikari from taking the blame of wrongful accusation.
It’s almost awkward seeing these two talk in private only for Chisaki to show she’s still head over heels for Hikari, secretly. The question is, what does Kaname want? He seems to be the most cluey out of the friends and yet we haven’t got an inkling of his true feelings so far in the series. Tsumugu comes in at this point and suggests they shouldn’t keep this a secret, causing Chisaki to snap at him and run away.
In the meantime, Manaka and Hikari save Akari’s boyfriend from drowning when he decides to visit the village in faulty diving gear. While Hikari accuses the guy of having an affair, the truth is his “other” partner is already dead. Miuna’s mother (who was from the sea) passed away, and so of course she feels at odds with her brother finding a replacement. We see a pretty interesting conversation between Akari and Uroko-sama where rather than worshipping him, she is really informal around him. While their talk does nothing to ease Akari’s worries, Uroko-sama’s musings to himself reveals that the Sea God is trying to prevent the people of the sea from disappearing to the surface. While it seems inevitable they will “die out” due to land dweller-mixing, it seems they’re not allowed. Not yet, apparently.
Manaka is clearly changing. We learn from an honest conversation between the two that she doesn’t want to be the timid girl at the back that Hikari always protects, but wants protect him herself instead. They bump into Miuna who declares she ruined the wooden maiden, defending Sayu. After that Hikari and Manaka apologise to the boys at school, getting on their knees in a humiliating gesture. They in-turn say sorry for pushing Manaka over. While they’re reconciling their differences, Kaname notices Sayu outside and confronts her for the trouble she caused. Here is another element on the importance of friendship, just in case we didn’t have enough already. We find out that the bond between Sayu and Miuno runs deep, and that Miuno always looks out for her.
One more apology later (they do that a lot here!) we’re reminded that all is not well, once again. Chisaki is clearly troubled by her desire to want to protect Hikari but she is feeling hardly relevant at this point. Here’s hoping her pent-up frustration doesn’t turn into contempt or lead her into a downward spiral. Come on Kaname, snap her out of it by stepping up to the plate!
While gamers in North America still have a week to wait until they can get their hands on the latest game from NIS America, gamers down in Australia and New Zealand can run out to the store right now and pick up The Guided Fate Paradox or download it directly from the PlayStation 3 of course as the game is now available in those countries.
A number of screenshots and trailers have been released for the game so far but for those who don’t know, The Guided Fate Paradox follows the story of a high school student who becomes a god after winning a lottery and must now travel through the “Copy World” to make changes to the world and help make people’s wishes come true, all while some sinister force is working in the background.
Over the weekend NIS America has announced that they have picked up the license to not only release The Eccentric Family in North America but they have also put the anime up for streaming on both Hulu and Crunchyroll. Currently no details about when or how The Eccentric Family will be released in North America.
For those who don’t know, The Eccentric Family aired last season and it takes place in a world where humans, tanuki, and tengu live together. When the head of the tanuki society is suddenly turned into soup, his four sons continue to live a relatively happy life until a number of occurrences put them to the test and may reveal the truth about their father’s demise.
If you happened to pay attention to the last anime season, you may have noticed that a certain anime called Danganronpa was part of it. Well if you didn’t watch it, then we have some great news for you as the game that the anime is adapted from is currently being localized for release in the West and the first English screenshots for it have been released.
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc’s screenshots can be seen below where players can also find introduction images to each of the characters that will be in the game, except for the main character oddly enough. Of course, even if you did check out the anime and have spoiled yourself, now we’ll have a chance to see how everything unfolds in greater detail when Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc is released by NIS America on the Vita in early 2014.
Kill la Kill Episode 4: Dawn of a Miserable Morning
So it’s been established by this point that Kill la Kill is insane. We’ve got super powered fabric, a school following a totalitarian regime and students who accept all of this in their daily lives…also there’s a dog in a hoodie. Well my friends, Episode 4 takes the cake and throws it straight into Ryuko’s face, diverging a little from the previous episode in it’s most over the top, insanity driven story yet. Can you survive?
We all know that being late to class is a bad thing. Not only do you miss out on that precious knowledge, but you also interrupt the class and people ask you why you were late. It’s a whole thing. So, naturally, in a school where everything is turned up way past eleven, tardiness carries a little more weight to it. In what is known as “No-Late Day” the No-Star students of Honnouji Academy must put their school life on the line and make it to school before the bell rings. Being the sadistic people they are, Satsuki’s lackeys lace the entire city with a plethora of traps to whittle down the pack of poor students. Imagine a theme park, only with a lot more spikes…and crocodiles.
Still, it’s not the most embarrassing thing she’s worn
As if matters weren’t bad enough, Mako’s mother has decided on this morning, at 4am mind you, to wash Senketsu. Ryuko is naturally panicked at this revelation, as Senketsu prays for help as he is wrung, batted and ironed…though he finds the last one kind of nice. Deciding that her pyjamas are good enough, Mako drags Ryuko into the mass of students, beginning their perilous journey. This episode does a great job of showing just how over the top the series is whilst also providing information about what is considered the norm for the poor students. As ridiculous as all of the traps are, they show just how sadistic the higher starred students are, turning a simple trip to school into a no holds barred game show from hell. Not only that, it also show just how much control they have over the entirety of the city, transforming the streets into walkways of drill and tigers without any repercussions. Satsuki is one damn powerful student president.
The only way to travel
After picking up fellow student Maiko Ogure, who injured her arm in the trials, the three girls proceed through all manner of traps, tricks and obstacles. Alongside this, Mako’s father and brother, along with Guts, attempt to deliver Senkestu to Ryuko. Sounds simple enough right? Nope. Due to some accidental…slippage, Ryuko’s pants ride a little lower than they should whenever Mako’s family gets close. Being the anime guys the are, they naturally become distracted and ram into a wall at 60km/h…so yeah. Duty to deliver said uniform is passed from father, to son, to dog as their wandering eyes put them out of commission. Typical anime stuff.
This episode also shows us a little more of Senketsu as a character and not just a powerful piece of clothing. He is a lot more animated than he has been before and presents a more comedic character, playing the straight man amidst the chaos as Ryuko does. It is also revealed that Senkestsu can be awake in his regular mode and that only Ryuko can hear him when he speaks. After some events which I will leave unspoiled, though I’m sure you’ll guess watching the episode, Senketsu notes how he specifically likes Ryuko’s blood.
Everybody has their limits
Overall, Episode 4 followed a style closer to Panty and Stocking than Gurren Lagann. Throughout the entirety of the episode, the characters are presented in chibi forms of varying detail, immediately letting you know that this isn’t going to be a serious story…well, a less serious story than usual. The visual style of the episode imbues humour into every scene, even when things get intense. Though those moments are few and far between this episode. This is also definitely a tale where Mako is in her element, smiling through the number of dangerous trials and continuing to be cute and oblivious. So sit back and relax as Kill la Kill takes you on a journey of trickery, insanity and deus ex machinas. By this point do you really expect anything else?
Tiger & Bunny: The Beginning Studio:Sunrise Publisher: Viz Media Format: DVD, Blu-ray (Reviewed) Release Date: October 1, 2013 Price: $24.98 – Available Here
Overview While Tiger & Bunny may have had an excellent first season, Sunrise has yet to provide a follow-up season and instead they have focused on bringing out a couple of movies. The first of these movies happens to be Tiger & Bunny: The Beginning. Now with a rather large following in the West and Viz bringing the movie to North America, is it worth picking up?
Story For those who don’t know, in the world of Tiger & Bunny a few select people have developed special abilities. These people are called NEXT and while some abilities are useless, many NEXT have turned to a life of crime with their new found powers and the best way to take down a super powered criminal is with a superhero, thus Hero TV has been formed.
Hero TV follows the exploits of a number of super heroes that have been sponsored by various companies around Sternbild City as they rescue innocents, capture criminals, and compete against one another to see who will be the “King of Heroes” by accumulating the most points by performing the aforementioned acts more than the rest of the heroes.
The veteran hero Wild Tiger, also known as Kotetsu Kaburagi, has been struggling in the rankings in recent seasons as his sense of justice often gets in the way of actually successfully capturing criminals and he often leaves swathes of destruction in his wake thanks to his NEXT ability which increases his physical abilities a hundredfold for a five minute span.
At the close of the last season, a new hero saves Kotetsu from danger and is introduced as a new hero named Barnaby Brooks Jr. Kotetsu then learns that his company has been bought out and he must now report to a new hero sponsor, but things only get worse when he learns that he will be the assisting member in the first ever hero team where he must work with Barnaby who happens to share the same NEXT ability that he does.
Now if that introduction sounds familiar there is a good reason for that, and that reason happens to be because Tiger & Bunny: The Beginning is half introduction of already seen material and half new material. The first half of the movie basically runs through the first few episodes of the Tiger & Bunny anime series with only a few re-done sequences which take a look at how Kotetsu lost his wife and another look at how the heroes interacted with one another which wasn’t shown in the series.
Outside of that, the entire first half serves as somewhat of an introduction to new viewers, but almost entirely repeats things returning fans have seen at this point. Even the introduction falls short in a number of areas as anyone looking to get into Tiger & Bunny will need to watch the full series to follow a number of plot points which are only hinted at in this movie.
As for the second half of the movie, we see Kotetsu, Barnaby and the rest of the heroes track down a new NEXT criminal who has stolen a precious item. While this sequence works nicely to show how the trust between Kotetsu and Barnaby is being built and how the heroes are at odds with one another, it is a rather simple case with little actual development outside of the minor trust building.
This means that while it is nice to catch a look at some new scenes, such as seeing Rock Bison’s NEXT ability outside of his armor, a look at Blue Rose’s costume change, and other little snippets, Tiger & Bunny: The Beginning feels like a recap with an extended episode tacked on at the end as it serves very little purpose in the overall story of Tiger & Bunny that viewers have come to know at this point in time.
Visuals Although the story might not be the most enthralling for returning fans, one thing that Tiger & Bunny: The Beginning excels at is some rather stunning looking animation. Outside of the extra special features, it must be said that the Blu-ray for this movie is highly suggested thanks to the extensive amount of detail that Sunrise has put into almost every aspect of this movie.
The wide-ranging color palette works to the benefit of the movie, especially in the latter half and the meshing of CG costumes and standard animation continues to impress throughout the film. The company has also resisted the urge to simply re-use old footage and have redone the first part of the film from scratch with everything from the highly detailed city of Sternbild to the outfits and powers that the characters use looking gorgeous on screen.
Audio As one would expect, Viz Media has been able to retain all of the original voice actors who handled the English dub for the anime series and they have reprised their roles to perfection. Kotetsu and Barnaby’s banter still plays well in English and even though the company chose to dub Blue Rose’s tiny performance into English the song is handled well. Of course for those who wish for it, the Japanese audio track is also available.
The same themes from the anime have been re-used for Tiger & Bunny: The Beginning and while it is nice to hear these old tracks, they probably could have used some revisions or made a little more impactful as the only truly striking musical moment occurs during Kotetsu’s memory of his wife. As for the opening and ending themes, they have been changed up for the movie with “Linear Blue wo Kiki Nagara” by Unison Square Garden and “Earth Diver” by Novels taking their respective places.
Extras As far as bonus features go, Tiger & Bunny: The Beginning actually comes with an entire Blu-ray full of extra content. On the first disc which contains the movie there is a standard collection of bonuses such as a special pilot trailer and the original pilot trailer, the promo video, commercial collection and theatrical commercials all presented in Japanese. Also found on this disc are the clean versions of the opening and ending themes as well as a “Weekly Hero Countdown” which features the top five heroes as voted on by the fans.
The second disc which is focused entirely on extras features the World Premiere Event which is over two hours long and features not only performances by a number of bands but also appearances by cosplayed actors, the voice actors themselves and much more, making it a real treat for fans of the series. Following that there is a few minute long US Premiere Event, a highlight reel from Anime Expo 2012, a few images of production art as well as a Japanese Ustream special digest.
Overall If there is anywhere that Tiger & Bunny: The Beginning delivers it is with its visuals and bonus content offered. Sadly outside of that, a new look at some of the heroes and an emotional moment for Kotetsu, the movie only offers about forty minutes of new footage which sadly feels like an extended episode which adds little to the franchise. While the English cast does a great job with the characters, it is sad to see that the movie offers little more than a return of a familiar cast to fans and a poor introduction for newcomers.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Disney Interactive have re-introduced their popular Facebook game, Words of Wonder to the App Store for iOS devices, and announced that the puzzler will be available soon for Android.
Words of Wonder invites players to explore a storybook universe, whilst helping Watson the Owl break the grey curse; by creating words, matching letters, overcoming obstacles and completing the story to reclaim colour and animation within the magical pages.
Words of Wonder features:
More than 70 levels at launch, with monthly content updates
Play a single game across Facebook and mobile devices
Verse Facebook friends to compete for high scores
Unlock new power-ups and strategic score bonuses
Supports English, French, Italian, German and Spanish
Enter the storybook world and discover Words of Wonder on iPhone and iPad herefor free now!
Bohemia Interactive and Andrew Gluck (a.k.a. Dslyexci) released a new SITREP (SITuation REPort) video on ArmA 3 today. The video highlights the upcoming single player campaign slated for release on October 31st and new tools for modders. Additionally, Gluck covers the how ArmA 3 has grown in the last decade.
ArmA 3 is the latest title in Bohemia Interactive’s long string of combat simulators. The game takes players to the islands of Altis and Stratis, which cover over 290 km² of territory. Players will have access to over 20 vehicles that will take them around the sea, land, and air. The game’s armory is stocked with over 40 different real life weapons to use. Steam Workshop is fully integrated into the mod tools, which allow modders to create the scenarios of their dreams and players to access new content all the time.
Rain Dance Studios, the indie developers behind Between Me and the Night, had big news to start off their IndieGoGo campaign. Experienced musicians Chipzel and David García are joining the team to provide two distinct soundtracks. David García will be handling the main soundtrack and all the sound effects. His past experience includes work on Deadlight and Rime. Chipzel is a popular chiptune artist found on Bandcamp. He will providing the soundtrack for the playable arcade games found in Between Me and the Night.
Between Me and the Nightis an adventure game exploring the fine lines separating sanity and madness. The game is based on the day and night cycle, with players safe to explore during the day while chased by nightmarish monsters in the evening.
The team is seeking $70,000 USD at the official IndieGoGo page to complete the game. The completed game will have no DLCs and is currently on Steam Greenlight.
While gamers in North America still have a week to wait until they can get their hands on the latest game from 
Over the weekend 
