For those that felt like the last season of Zero no Tsukaima, Zero no Tsukaima: Princess no Rondo left too many questions unanswered then you will be happy to hear that Zero no Tsukaima will be getting one more and supposedly final anime series which will wrap up the story. This news comes on the wrap-around jacket of the light novel’s manga adaptation.
This announcement also comes shortly after the writer of the light novel series, Noboru Yamaguchi, said that the light novels would be ending next year. For those who are curious as to what Zero no Tsukaima is, it is an anime with romance and harem tendencies that focuses around a boy who was summoned from Earth to a magical land by a girl with the nickname “Louise the Zero” due to her initial poor skill with magic.
In October, Zero no Tsukaima Kessakusen will air and contain certain episodes from the past three anime series to help refresh viewers on what they will be watching. Noboru Yamaguchi stated on his twitter that the series would air sometime in 2012, most likely coinciding with the finale of the light novels or shortly after.
When THQ first announced the existence of UFC Undisputed 3 at E3, everyone knew that the company would be adding some enhancements to the title. Today in a new trailer released by THQ, which you can see below, we can see some of those new features right now. First off there are plenty of new attacks as well as ways to avoid being hit, but c’mon MMA and especially the UFC is all about beating your opponent into a quivering pile of muscle in the center of the octagon right?
Something also shown off was a variety of new submission moves and maneuvers which means that not only can you punch and kick people in a new way, but also attempt to break their limbs or choke them unconscious as well… Sounds like quite a violent sport huh? Good thing its all just a video game right…?
Spice and Wolf Season 2 Studio: Brains Base Publisher/Localization: Madman / FUNimation Genre: Romance, Economics, Drama, Fantasy Release Date: August 30, 2011 Price: $59.95 Blu-ray 0r DVD – ORDER NOW
Overview:
Many anime can be remembered for their protagonists, their storyline or even their premise. But few can be remembered for all of these things. Spice and Wolf was a series that began as a light novel in 2006 by Isuna Hasekura. The light novel series was then adapted into a manga and then finally into an anime series. The series has already seen one successful season and now Spice and Wolf Season 2 graces North American shores with its presence. Picking up shortly after where the first season left off, how does Spice and Wolf’s unique blend of economics, romance and drama transfer to the second season?
Story:
Spice and Wolf Season 2 includes both the original video animation that was released separately from the rest of the series in Japan, as well as the next twelve episodes in the series. This means that the first episode, otherwise known as Episode 00, focuses on Holo, Lawrence and Norah as they celebrate their success during the finale of Season 1, and Holo shows off her jealous side.
Moving past the OVA, Spice and Wolf continues to follow the same storyline as the first season, with Lawrence and the wise wolf Holo traveling through the countryside in search of Holo’s original home. Along the way however, Lawrence, a trader and merchant who still is trying to make money on his journey, ends up entering some dangerous business deals that threaten not only to leave him bankrupt but also separate the two forever.
The storyline is broken up into roughly two story arcs. The arcs themselves each focus heavily on the separation that may occur between Holo and Lawrence should things go south. While this may seem repetitive while you are reading this, it is actually much to the shows benefit as not only do we get to see Lawrence’s haggling and merchant skills shine as he tries to predict the rise and fall of prices on the market and even backhandedly try to swing things his way, we also see the true feelings that hide behind Lawrence’s desperation.
Spice and Wolf may be a series that focuses heavily on economics and drama, but one of the best things this series has which many have attempted to do but failed, is create a slow burning romance story that will leave the viewer eager to see what will happen next as Holo and Lawrence’s interact with one another and their relationship reaches a new level despite the fact that he is a human and she is a wolf-deity.
The romantic aspect that continues to build up and the anticipation of fans wanting to see Holo and Lawrence journey continue with one another becomes the perfect piece to the dramatic puzzle that Spice and Wolf puts together. As earlier I mentioned that the focus of most of the problems that they encounter involve separating the two forever, either through Holo testing Lawrence or Holo being sold off to pay for Lawrence’s failed dealings.
By having the slow burning romance between Holo and Lawrence be the focus of the story whenever there is down time in the drama, viewers will tend to feel tense as things begin to look bad for the two of them. The drama itself tends to focus heavily around developing the two characters Holo and Lawrence and their interactions with one another are always priceless, especially whenever Lawrence manages to make Holo blush.
Artwork:
The first season of Spice and Wolf was animated by Imagin, but for the second season the studio behind the animation is a company named Brains Base. Despite this change however the characters don’t appear to have changed very much overall, though Holo’s tail seems to be a bit off in places, but often does a good job showing her true emotions.
The color palette used is best described rustic and it compliments both the medieval setting and the feel of the story very well. The background settings of the towns occasionally feel a little bit too similar to one another, and after you’ve seen one you’ve seen all of them. This monotonous town design is broken up by a few festivals that are thrown every once in a while which help provide a dash of color to the town and provide Holo more chances to drink.
The animation quality is very well done and I only occasionally noticed a small dip in facial expression quality when the characters were viewed from a distance. Besides that however, the animation is extremely smooth and even side characters or non-important crowd fillers are well drawn and don’t detract from the quality.
During a few times in the series, Holo will appear nude. However her nudity isn’t actually present for fan-service purposes nor are there any actual nipples shown so there is really no need for censorship as the anime itself provides nothing to truly “censor.” Continuing with Holo, while she is not wearing her disguise, paying attention to her tail and her ears are truly a delight as special care seems to have gone into making sure they always respond to her emotions or reveal how she feels inside despite her stubbornness.
Audio:
As with past FUNimation releases, Spice and Wolf Season 2 retains both the original Japanese language as well as the English dub. In the original Japanese dub, Holo’s voice actress Ami Koshimizu provides one of the best performances in anime that you could act for. Especially when she is paired with Holo’s haughty and better-than-thou personality, it creates a masterpiece at work. The English voice actress which takes over for Koshimizu is Briane Palencia. Briane provides an excellent job by not only conveying the same presence as the Japanese Holo, but her slight accent makes Holo truly sound just like the deity she is.
The rest of the cast is suitably well voiced, Lawrence’s authoritative voice sounds well when haggling and negotiating a deal but occasionally sounds out of place for softer moments of the story. Besides the voice acting, the background music is subtle and has a medieval styled them about itself. This means that you will be hearing old timey instruments used to accent certain moments of drama or comedy.
As for the opening and ending themes we have “Mitsu no Yoake” by Akino Arai and the ending theme is “Perfect World” by Rocky Chack. The opening theme is very slow paced and the animation works quite flawlessly with the song and is something the viewer will gladly be able to sit through each episode. “Perfect World” is similar to the first season’s song as not only is it played alongside simple drawings and animation of the characters. It is interesting to see the different pictures displayed to the song, but can be otherwise forgettable and not as appealing as the opening song.
Characters:
As in the first season, the only two characters which are focused on and receive any character development are Holo and Lawrence. Lawrence is a traveling merchant who uses his intelligence and connections to try and make deals that will make him a profit. He dreams of making enough money to be able to open up a shop of his own and quit traveling. In the first season, Lawrence wasn’t given much character development outside of being an intelligent merchant, but this time around he can be seen as a man struggling with his feelings for a certain wolf-deity while also trying to turn a buck or two.
The other main character is the Heroine Holo. “The Wise Wolf” Holo as she calls herself was a wolf-deity who used to provide healthy grain harvests for a town that worshipped her. But now she is traveling alongside Lawrence in an effort to see the world and also find her hometown. She is a very mischievous character who not only messes around with Lawrence through simple actions but sometimes appears to work against him to test his resolve. Holo begins to understand the fact that she is a wolf-deity and that the person she is developing feelings for’s life will be over in a blink of an eye compared to her own existence.
The romance between these two characters is perhaps one of the best you can find in the fantasy-romance genre in recent years. Even though Lawrence can appear a bit idiotic to Holo’s feelings and Holo often denies her actions and blushes, their relationship can best be compared to that of a young couple. They are unsure of how to advance, but their chemistry is perfect which makes the slow-burning romance of Spice and Wolf its biggest highlight.
Extras:
As per standard in a FUNimation release, you have your standard anime trailers for upcoming or recently released anime. Also included is a clean version of the opening and ending song which is actually quite a treat in this case as the opening animation is a sight to behold.
Besides these two standard inclusions to the discs, there are also two pieces of extra “with Holo” content. The two pieces of content can be best seen as “advice” but also provide a bit of out of character time to watch Holo and her strange antics. The first is “Studying with Holo” where she describes a little bit about the world such as their food and other things, while the second is “Stretching with Holo, Yoitz Style” wherein Holo explains how she keeps herself and her tail in shape. This can be seen as a bit on the fan-service side but also for comedic purpose as well.
Overall:
Spice and Wolf Season 2 does everything that fans of the first season would have wanted. It spends a reasonable amount of time on Lawrence’s trading and the economics of their world, but also focuses heavily on developing the budding relationship between Holo and Lawrence. The biggest highlights to Season 2 are the character developments that take place and the romance. There is little action to be had, much less than the first season, but the long conversations are still prevalent. There are a lot of moments where the show may become slow simply due to heavy focus on the economical side of things, but Spice and Wolf Season 2 not only meets Season 1’s expectations but surpasses them.
You may not have heard of Freeplay, but Freeplay is Australia’s longest running independent games festival (since 2004) exploring the intersection of indie development, culture, arts and education. It’s a five day long festival celebrating the industry and its full of gamers, workshops, debates, discussions panels and everything revolving around independent games development. There’s also healthy competition in the scene and this years winners you can find below.
Event organiser Paul Callaghan had this to say about the festival “The awards reflect both the values of the festival and the wide range of projects being created locally and overseas,”. Feel free to check out the winning games below.
While many other third-party publishers are still wary over which direction Nintendo’s 3DS is heading, Ubisoft are very happy with the current price drop, reporting an eight fold sales increase. Ubisofts European marketing and sales director Geoffrey Sardin reported to Gamesindustry that the company was “very pleased with the development.” The same could be said for managing director of Ubisofts German division, Ralf Wirsing who attributes the increase directly to the price drop.
Despite Ubisofts enthusiasm, many other third party publishers are not, with an anonymous source saying the 3DS success rests on the shoulders of Nintendo’s first party titles such as Mario 7 and Super Mario 3D Land. Retailers have also responded to the lack of interest in the 3DS, being very cautious with initial and repeat order quantities. The anonymous source boldly goes on to say that if Nintendo fail to sell this holiday season the 3DS is finished as a hand held device.
In last weeks UK sales charts the 3DS platform had one game in the top forty despite the device being sold at up to half price in many retailers following its international price reduction.
Earlier this weekend Sega revealed when gamers can expect to see the futuristic human vs robot squad based shooter. The company revealed on the game’s official website that the title will be released on February 14th of next year in North America and February 17th of next year in Europe. The game will be available for both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3.
Binary Domain places the gamer in charge of a team of military specialists and will make them face off against an army of advanced robots that will continue to fight even after having their limbs blown off by gunfire, and also have some of the best looking enemy damage mechanics I’ve seen in a long time for a third person shooter.
Perhaps in commemoration of Gears of War 3 going gold, or perhaps because the game will be released in a month, Epic Games and Microsoft have revealed what the opening cinematic will be for Gears of War 3. You could either choose to wait until the game comes out on September 20th, or you can catch the video below now and catch a little bit of insight as to what has happened in the Gears universe since the second game.
The video is voiced over by Anya Stroud and she tells the account of everything that has happened in Gears of War since the first title, all the way up until she explains that the rest of humanity is now on the run and either choosing to escape back to the mainland or stay on the boats as they battle against the Lambent.
While the deadline to have purchased and connected your Nintendo 3DS to the eShop has long since passed, potential 3DS Ambassadors never actually received any notification that they managed to be registered as such. These early adopters were sitting relatively blind, hoping that their 3DS was registered without a hitch and that they would be eligible for 20 free games.
Well you won’t have to be blind any longer because Nintendo has recently launched a tool that they are calling the Nintendo 3DS Ambassador Eligibility checker. Users will need to type in the serial code on the back of their Nintendo 3DS into the required field on the website and then push enter. The checker will then verify whether or not you are a currently registered Ambassador. You can find Nintendo’s 3DS Ambassador Eligibility checker here.
After experiencing a dry month for the eShop, it appears a brighter future is on the horizon. Nintendo have now announced two original Game Boy games that will be headed to the 3DS Virtual Console in Q4 of 2011, and they are none other than Metroid II: Return of Samus and Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins.
Since the launch of the eShop, I have now had 2 out of the four titles I craved either announced or released on the Virtual Console (those being Kirby’s DreamLand and now Metroid II), and now I am just patiently waiting for the arrival of Shantae and Warioland to be fulfilled. Even though it wasn’t on my list, Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins still was a fantastic title for the Game Boy, and it looks like the eShop is finally starting to pick up a bit. Once Nintendo release an official date for both, we will sure to bring you an update so stay tuned!
Mark it, Dude. Another one bites the dust as part of my achievement challenge in which I am doing one game’s achievements to 100% each month. Nine months gone and I’m sorry to say it’s a bit of a soft one this month: Googly Eyes.
For those of you who don’t know what Googly Eyes is, it’s an innovative piece of (free) software for Kinect as part of the Kinect Fun Labs hub for these snippets of light-hearted entertainment. It allows you to transform your belongings into puppets by rendering them onscreen, adding a pair of googly eyes and giving your lifeless objects some more personality. You can then jump around and move to make them move. Of course, the novelty wears off quickly, but at first it’s a great laugh. The downloadable game has 8 achievements for a total of 50 gamerpoints, and although it is a fairly easy one for me this month, acting as a stop-gap and a rest while I am preoccupied by other things, it’s surprising how quickly you run out of items to turn into goofy bean-bags onscreen for the 25 puppets achievement!
Hopefully next month for September I should be back with something a little more substantial. Here’s how my progress so far sits with this months triumph added to the list:
December 2010 Harm’s Way 200/200
January 2011 Faery: Legends of Avalon 200/200
February 2011 Spare Parts 200/200
March 2011 Fist of the North Star: Ken’s Rage 1000/1000
April 2011 Doritos Crash Course 200/200
May 2011 Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime 200/200
June 2011 TRON: Evolution 1000/1000
July 2011 Lazy Raiders 200/200
August 2011 Googly Eyes 50/50
As always, let me know how your achievements are going in the comments if you have any recommendations, tips or support. Currently, I am eyeing the full 200/200 on Hexic HD, a beloved puzzler of mine. However, although I am only one achievement away, it’s a real toughie: surrounding a single piece with a flower of Black Pearls. This won’t make any sense for those who haven’t touched the game which comes free on all Xbox 360 hard drives, but those who have played it a bit will understand just how difficult this is.
