The newly released 31st volume of Kenta Shinohara’s popular SKET Dance manga has announced that the series will reach its climax in its upcoming 32nd volume.
SKET Dance has been serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump magazine since 2006 and after a monumental 7 year run will be reaching its climax in its next and final volume. The series has already spawned an anime series which wrapped up its run at 77 episodes in length in September last year.
It is certainly sad to see SKET Dance end, but it is undoubtedly exciting for fans of the series to see what Shinohara’s next work will be. Be sure to let us know what you think of SKET Dance nearing it’s conclusion in the comments section below.
Namco Bandai has recently announced a new entrant in the increasingly large Tekken series. The latest title is Tekken Revolution and will be exclusive to the Playstation 3 console. Tekken Revolution is being developed by the internal Tekken team at Namco Bandai and will a return to one on one fighting as opposed to the tag team action seen in Tekken Tag Tournament 2.
Let’s start with the good news about this game. First off the game will be free to play, which is a first for the Tekken series core fighting titles. Another first for the series is the inclusion of a level up system that focues on three key attributes; strength, endurance and vigor. The new system will allow players to focus on making a character suited to their play style, with advantages in offense, defense, or a mixture of both. Players will be able to train and battle against AI opponents in arcade mode or battle online against other humans in both Ranked and Player Matches. New inclusions to combat are new Special Arts and Critical Arts moves, that have been designed to help newcomers deliver fearsome attacks as well as allowing advanced players to develop new strategies with their favourite characters.
As one would expect, as a free to play title there are a few drawbacks. One of these is that the roster has been reduced severely from the 50 plus fighters included in Tekken Tag Tournamnet 2. The game will begin with a cast of eight characters and more will be available for download in the future. Confirmed characters so far include Jin, Kazuya, King, Paul, Lili, Marhsall, Asuka, Steve, Alisa and Lars. It is unclear as of yet which eight characters will be in the starting roster come day one, but it is mostly likely to be the 8 mainly featured in the trailer. It is unknown if Tekken Revolution will have any story sequences or bonus modes at this point, but it does not seem likely given that the game is being given away and seems to focus solely on the fighting.
Tekken Revolution will be releasing on June 11, so eager fans of the fighting genre only have to wait a couple of days before they can get their hands on some free to play action. The game will be available exclusively from the PlayStation Store as a downloadable title. You can check out the reveal trailer embedded below.
The RPG and 2D shooter game welcomes players to a fantasy world engulfed by hordes of demons from hell. Battlebow: Shoot The Demons features four character classes to choose from; Crossbowman, Archeress, Sorceress or Artilleryman. In order to defeat the demons, players must level up the character by collecting items that offer a vast array of weaponry and magic spells, including explosive arrows, cannonballs and lightnings.
The 1.2.0 update will bring improved visuals with full resolution of bigger mid-bosses, daily rewards of gold and sapphires, new high-level and special items, such as the Rune of Arcane (200% XP bonus) that helps players progress to endgame and purchasing recommendations at the shop tailored to your character and their current level.
Check out the original trailer below and prepare for Battlebow!
Buso Renkin Studio: Xebec Publisher: Madman Format: DVD Release Date: 22nd May 2013 Price:$59.95 – Available Here
Overview
When I think of Alchemy I always think of two particular series’; one is the legendary Full Metal Alchemist and the other is the Shonen Jump’s very own Buso Renkin, not in that order either. From the great mind of Nobuhiro Watsuki, the man who created Rurouni Kenshin, Buso Renkin was originally a manga that twisted the myths of Alchemists and threw it into the modern age. Mr. Watsuki, while originally making the series, thought it would be his final Shonen manga so he put everything he had into it and I personally think you can feel that vibe watching the Anime.
My God! H-he’s beautiful!
Story
This series has a special place in my heart because of it’s crazy take on Alchemy and the story that surrounds it. Let me set a little scene: It’s a typical Shonen manga through and through. We follow the life of schoolboy Kazuki Muto who, up until the opening scene of the first episode, lived a pretty normal life with his friends and his little sister. One night he hears a scream from an abandoned warehouse behind his school, he wanders back there and is inevitably killed by a monster which he later finds out is called a homunculus. Don’t despair though because he is revived by a young alchemist called Tokiko who places an alchemic weapon called a “Kakugane” in the part of his body that originally held his heart. From then on he learns of the power that comes with his new life and is thrown into the world of Alchemists, fighting both homunculus and fellow Alchemists. That’s the basic synopsis and, like a lot of Shonen series’, it get’s pretty crazy and epic. The story of this series was, by far, the bast part of it! The way that the story bends and shapes is great. We see a nobody grow into a hero of such a high calibre while all the while risking his life, I know, I know, it’s the same in every Shonen series but when that series has such an incredible story you don’t necessarily care how typical it is. Yes, granted, there isn’t a great deal of character development and yes the only characters that actually matter are the ones, basically, on the front cover of the DVD but it doesn’t matter! Alchemy doesn’t often get touched story wise, we don’t tend to see it around much, and the fact that Buso Renkin found a way to place it in modern times is incredible.
No. Everyone. Stop laughing. Seriously. Just…leave him alone…he’s weird we know…just…
The introduction of characters was actually pretty good; apart from one or two most characters had a reason to be there and most characters make a return when you least expect it. The escalation of events, I think, would win anyone over. They found a way to make a young boy into a superhuman, moon fighting (watch the series), juggernaut of a warrior. The way the characters and their powers were written and the way they come into play was also great. We see a lot of characters fighting and reacting in ways that we probably would have never thought and it does relate well to the characters personalities and the way they’ve learnt throughout. One quote from Tokiko was “what he lacks in power he makes up for in intelligence“, now I paraphrase of course but that’s the example right there. The characters think outside the box and nothing is entirely black and white which is fresh to see. It’s so hard to write this because the things I loved about the story I really can’t say because they would spoil too much. I’ll leave you with one small thought to take away: In Buso Renkin…what goes around comes back around and it’s flippin’ great!
Visuals
This series is quite a dated series. Now it’s not extremely bad or anything, don’t get the wrong idea, but when you’re watching series’ from this season you can’t help but compare. The animation isn’t sloppy, it isn’t crummy, it’s a little bit stiff at times but the way they animated some of the fight scenes really makes up for the lack of animation during the “idol scenes“. The characters are designed really well, the weapons, the uniforms…the…butterfly man. Ok look! HE wasn’t that well designed and he does have an older counterpart somewhere in the series but I really can’t take away points for that, I’ve learnt that there’s always “that guy” in every Anime series. The backgrounds were pretty standard; they looked nice but they didn’t really blow me away. At some points in time CGI was used, very little CGI, only for a scene or two but they really could’ve done without but it didn’t take away from the series.
The red makes it go faster…no seriously…it does…
Audio
I watched this series both in Japanese and English, I alternated because the English was fairly bad, I felt like there was no heart put into it so I flipped over to the Japanese side and it was on par with a lot of other Animes. It’s something that can easily be fixed by changed language but for people like me that enjoy a bit of Anime dub it really puts a dampen on the series. It’s not like the voice actors weren’t given a chance to shine either. It just didn’t hit home for me. The sound effects were normal, not bad. The music was actually really good! It was a mix between normal rock music and 80’s electric guitar. It was kind of funky at times but you had to listen hard because it was usually interrupted by an explosion or character talking/screaming.
Bro you’ve got something on your chest the-oh! Oh you got it? Ok no problems.
Extras
Very basic extras. Basically we have Audio Commentaries on a few episodes, we have a Behind The Scenes Feature and we’ve got some trailers. Pretty simple, pretty standard. We also have a bit of art inside the cover of the DVD case of the main characters. It was a normal release, if it had been a special edition I would be upset that it lacked but this was just a normal release.
Turns out I was wrong…ORANGE makes it go faster. Who’d have thought?
Overall
Buso Renkin is definitely for the Shonen-loving audience to say the least. It lives up to all the expectations you give to a series like it and it leaves you fairly satisfied. It’s also a good one for all you fans of Rurouni Kenshin, it has a lot of throwbacks to the series and fans tend to follow the creators because of their style. Look it does lack in some places, it’s a few years old, it’s English voice acting isn’t that great and there’s a man in a tight leotard that flutters around with butterfly wings but you can easily change it to Japanese, look past it’s dated animation and turn away from the screen when Papillon turns up (that’s the butterfly). All in all: It’s got style, it’s got grace, it’s got a kid with an energy lance, can you really ask for more?
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Japanese publisher Kadokawa recently began streaming the second promotional video, along with two short television commercials, for the anime adaptation of Yuki Kodama’s manga Blood Lad. As with the previous trailer, the videos feature the song “ViViD” by May’n, which will be used as the series opening theme. The trailers are also narrated by Staz, the otaku vampire protagonist, who will be joined by a plethora of weird and wonderful characters:
Staz – Ryota Ohsaka
Fuyumi Yanagi – Iori Nomizu
Wolf – Takuma Terashima
Mamejiro – Chiwa Saito
Blood D. Bloods – Ryohei Kimura
Deck – Taichi Komesu
Blood T. Liz – Yuuka Nanri
Mimic Yoshida – Kazutomi Yamamoto
Papladom Achim – Koji Yusa
The anime, to be produced by Brains Base, will also feature “BLOODY HOLIC” by Yuuka Nanri as its ending theme and is set to premiere on Japanese television on July 7th. For more information, visit the official site and make sure you check out the trailers below to get a taste for Blood Lad.
The Skylanders phenomena are set to continue, as Activision has announced a release date of October 13th for the latest installment in the series, Skylanders Swap Force. The Skylanders franchise has enjoyed massive success on all platforms, giving players the unique ability to bring their beloved collectible figurines to life within the game. Skylanders Swap Force will feature 32 new characters, with 16 of them making up the new Swap Force element, literally adding a new twist to the franchise.
The new Skylanders will feature interchangeable tops and bottoms, allowing players to modify and build their own characters with abilities to suit their own gameplay. As with Skylanders Giants, all characters are forward compatible, meaning all your existing Skylanders can be used within Swap Force. This time around, Vicarious Visions will be responsible for the Console versions of the game, while Heroes of Ruin and Beenox will handle the 3DS and Wii versions respectively. Original creator Toys For Bob are taking a well earned rest on this one.
Autobots, transform and roll out… In style! Paramaount Pictures have given us a snapshot of two new Autobots from the upcoming movie; Transformers 4. We know the identity of one of these Autobots, but the other is still unconfirmed. The first one, who’s beefy military tactical vehicle form you can check out above, is Hound. Back in the days of the Transformers animated series, Hound was the Autobot’s primary scout, and played a major role in the creation of the Dinobots.
The Next Autobot’s ride is a pretty slick Lamborghini Aventador LP 700-4. We don’t know the identity of this mysterious new Autobot, but I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that it might be Sunstreaker. Fans of the original cartoon will recognize Sunstreaker as the twin-brother of Sideswipe, and that he regularly took the form of a Lamborghini.
These are the is the fifth and sixth confirmed Autobots, after Optimus Prime and two unknowns were revealed, followed by the unveiling of Bumblebee’s redesign. We will know for sure in the coming months who the unconfirmed Autobots will be, but in the mean time let me know in the comments below who you think this new Lamborghini is, and for all the Transformers news as it becomes available be sure to stay tuned to Capsule Computers.
In a rather saddening move, EA and/or BioWare have determined that there is a need to close the Australian servers for their Star WarsMMORPG, Star Wars: The Old Republic. What’s odd about this is that EA actually launched Australian servers for the game during it’s launch period, and also had a proper Australian launch for the title.
What’s interesting about this move is that players that have been playing the game since before it’s official Australian launch, is that these players will likely recognise the servers that they’re being transferred to are the ones where the majority of players were transferred from initially.
Australian Players can expect their characters to be moved from the following servers, to the servers also listed:
All remaining characters will be consolidated into the following servers in a few months:
Dalborra -> The Harbinger
Master Dar’Nala -> The Bastion
Gav Daragon -> Bergeren Colony
However, EA and Bioware have also given players the option to select which server they wish to be transferred to should they choose to do it within an alotted timeframe, see below:
Please follow the instructions below to begin your free character transfer:
Go to your “My Account” page by clicking on your username in the top right corner of SWTOR.com
On the left hand side, scroll down to Character Transfer
Once there, select your current APAC server and then the character you wish to transfer
Now select your destination server (where you want to move your character)
Press the transfer button
Oddly, there is no explicit time frame set, with the notice that players will have received is listing the time period as: “This will occur sometime in the next few months.”
Make sure you get your character transferred to the server you want before it’s too late.
Today EA Sports released a new trailer for NHL 14 and the highlight of this video is how much effort the company has put into revamping the game’s fighting system. For quite a few games now, EA’s NHL fights have always been first person and rather stiff but from the looks of this new trailer they will appear similar to those that we actually see in a real hockey game.
Players will start a fight right after a hit or something similar and the rest of the players on the team will remain on the ice and jostle each other around as the two combatants duke it out. The Fight Night engine has been implemented to make these bouts as realistic as possible and bruises, cuts and other injuries have also been added to provide more realism when players duke it out this September when NHL 14 is set to be released.
Today Atlus USA announced that they are planning some DLC releases for Shin Megami Tensei IV when it launches in North America on July 16th. However don’t be too worried, a lot of this DLC will be free for a little bit.
First there will be three custom looks that the player can use on the protagonist to alter his look and these custom outfits will be permanently free to download. Alongside that there will also be some armor that will be free for the first month. The armor is called the Platinum Surcoat Set and it will provide some early bonus stats to help players get off the ground. After the first month this DLC will cost $1.
Finally there will be an additional map pack available at launch to help players grind experience points to make their characters stronger. This DLC is going to cost $2 at launch and will remain that price permanently. It is worth noting that this is not all the DLC Atlus has planned for the game and they are planning to reveal more details closer to launch.
The newly released 31st volume of Kenta Shinohara’s popular SKET Dance manga has announced that the series will reach its climax in its upcoming 32nd volume.
