Figma Shikinami Asuka Langley Test Plugsuit Ver. by Max Factory

Received today, Figma Shikinami Asuka Langley Test Plugsuit Ver. by Max Factory.

Since I'm quite angry with it, I'll begin the review with the most glaring fault:

What the heck is that!? I complained about how Figma Mari breast piece was sort of disjointed from the rest of the body, but this is too much! Is not a solid piece, but a hollow chunk of rubber hanging there with a vaguely form resembling a breast!

This is the first time I feel cheated buying a figma, since the promotional shots are completely different from the final product.

Okay, after the rant let's proceed with the rest of the review.

Asuka comes with three faces (smiling, embarrassed and yelling), 11 hands (one of them holding a cell phone), the creepy doll (pictured above) and two different sets of hairs, one with movable twintails and the other fixed.

Holding the cell phone. The smiling face is a bit too neutral for a hot blooded character like Asuka.

Angry face and another shot of how bad the breasts looks in almost every angle.

Back shot and the fitting ashamed face.

And like Mari, she also comes with a full cockpit.

I'm not too fond of Asuka's overkill fanservice plugsuit, but with those ugly breasts this figma became my second least favorite one (the worst is Drossel Gizmo ver.), even when Asuka is my favorite Evangelion character.
I hope Max Factory will release a "normal plugsuit version" with a better sculpt.

Kara no Kyoukai Blu-ray Disc Box

Today I received Kara no Kyoukai Blu-ray Disc Box:

The box is pretty big (aprox. 30cm x 30cm x 5cm) and is pretty similar to the novel's limited edition.

Inside there are the blu-ray discs and an artbook called Visual Chronicle. Both have a velvet-like texture that is easily marked with fingerprints.

The seven chapters are each in a blu-ray disc, as well as the 8th Special Disc.

The Visual Chronicle contains all the illustrations from each movie dvd covers, theatrical posters (each piece with the personal comment by Takeuchi or Sudou Tomonori, the main illustrators) as well as an interview with Nasu, Takeuchi and Sakamoto Maaya.

Announcement posters for the theater screening.

The cover and the special postcard from the limited edition version of each movie.

A rather long interview between Nasu, Takeuchi and Sakamoto (Shiki voice actress).

Each movie theatrical poster.

And the covers for the regular dvd editions.

Each chapter is contained in a blu-ray disc, without any extra besides the manners commercial. It have subtitle options in Japanese and in English.

I'm not an expert in blu-ray quality image, upscales and stuff, but the movies have a pretty visible smudged effect in the border lines, something like a translucent black glow.

Shiki in the 3rd movie.

Azaka in the 6th movie.

Is not really visible in the pics because those are photos taken in front of the TV, but compared to the dvd releases, the image have a sharper look and crisp colors, but in the outlines of the characters seems like a saturation of the Photoshop sharpen filter. I don't know if this is an usual technique for anime not drawn originally in HQ, because that effect doesn't appear in the final chapter, clearly done with the blu-ray edition in mind.

The final chapter, called Kara no Kyoukai, is featured in the special disc. This was the last chapter in the novel and is a 30 minutes talk between Shiki and Mikiya in a snowy road. Well, is mostly a monologue by Shiki, explaining issues like the human personality and origin.

Despite being only Shiki and Mikiya talking for 30 minutes in the very same scenario, the quality is astonishing and really shines in BD.

In the same disc there's also included Kara no Kyoukai Remix -Gate of seventh heaven-, a recap movie of the first 6 chapters that includes a single newly done scene. Each chapter uses the respective theme song as the background music, so is like an hour long video-clip.

This is the only new scene in Remix.

And the last extra is a special TV program that was aired to promote the seventh movie. Is mostly a recap of all the previous movies, but with short interviews to ufotable's crew.



I didn't re-watched all the movies yet, but it seems that are not retouched or edited, except for the glaring mistake in the 7th movie:

Unlike the scene in the dvd version, this time Shiki's thumb IS missing.

To complete the set of dvd versions that I already own, I also purchased the dvd version of the last chapter.

It doesn't have any of the extras of the BD version, and after seeing it in high definition is hard to return to dvd quality...

Comparison shot:

DVD version.

BD version (picture taken at the TV screen, so in fact it have a way better quality than that)

Newtype February '11

In a whim, I ordered Newtype February '11 issue at Hobby Search.

I usually don't buy Newtype. I hardly watch anime nowadays, so if I buy a magazine is usually Comptiq or Comp Ace.
The main reason was because it included a T-shirt featuring Irisviel and suit Saber drawn by Takeuchi:


There is no new information about TYPE-MOON projects because it was already revealed in the TYPE-MOON Ace 6 (that I didn't received yet because the package is still held for customs clearance).

The anime of Fate/Zero (yay!) will be airing this year. The animation studio this time will be ufotable (double yay!)

The character designs are pretty close to Takeuchi's originals. I always thought that the designs for the anime version of Fate/stay night were a bit off, without being a Shingetsutan Tsukihime level...

Girls' Work will be an anime, too, with Takenashi Eri as the character designer. I'm not sure if the visual novel will be also released along the anime or the VN was canceled and re-launched as an anime...

The epilogue chapter of Kara No Kyoukai and the limited BD box set was already released. I expect to receive my copy today or tomorrow morning.

The ova Carnival Phantasm will be released this summer, and if we judge with the picture will be loosely based in Takenashi Eri's anthology manga Take Moon. Is true that Phantasmoon originally appeared on Take Moon, but Magical Amber not (that version was drawn by Takenashi for the Character Material) and Magical Caren an Kaleido Ruby are not even designed by her...

Figma Makinami Mari Illustrious New Plugsuit Ver. by Max Factory

Received a while back, today I opened Figma Makinami Mari Illustrious New Plugsuit Ver. by Max Factory.

Mari appears in the Evangelion movie with too different plugsuits; a green one at the beginning and a pink one at the end. Max Factory opted to start the Evangelion figma line with the newer character with her newer (and more stylish) plugsuit.

Mari's accessories consist in three faces (smiling, grinning and a "beast mode" face), 11 hands, two different sets of twintails (one normal and the other with the tails in front of her shoulders), a set of small parts to change to green the red parts of the plugsuit, and the most impressive part is a complete interior of the Eva cockpit.

The control levers are movable, and the legs zone can move horizontally as well. There are two figma bases included, one to use with the cockpit and one for the figure.

Most of the figma is made of rubber like plastic to be more similar to the synthetic-like textures of the plugsuit. The neck is, like Rider figma, double jointed and hidden in part by the neck part of the plugsuit.

The worst part of the figure is the torso area. The breast are separated from the rest of the body in order to move, but leaving a massive and clearly visible gap making an ugly "flying breast" effect.

Smiling face.

Grinning face.

The glasses are attached to the hair part, but can be easily removed.

The Beast mode. Green eyed yelling face, the dot of the plugsuit can be turned green via a very small piece, and the wrist parts can be changed with alternate parts with green dots instead of red. The hair part is the alternate one, too.

Ghost Trick

Last weekend I bought Ghost Trick for NDS, and a couple of days ago I finished it.

In summary, Ghost Trick is a visual novel with a puzzle segment in each of the 18 chapters, but the puzzle is mostly cosmetic since the story is the main focus.

You play as Sissel, an amnesic ghost with a special power to manipulate small objects and go back in time 4 minutes before the dead of any recently deceased person besides himself. With that power he must find who is and why was killed, and he have time until dawn before disappears from this world.

Is hard to not compare it with the Ace Attorney games, not only because the developer of both series is Takumi Shuu, but also because like the AA games, the main charm of the game is the quite unique characters, each with distinctive quirks and behaviors, and see how interact with each other in a seemingly unconnected way, until you see the full picture in the last episode.

The story is pretty good, with several plots twist. Some of them are pretty evident (I figured Sissel identity at the end of the chapter six, and is one of the last revelations in the game) but some of them are totally unexpected (like the identity of the ghost that explains your powers at the beginning).

When a characters speaks, like most of the visual novels, a 2D image of the character is shown, but when appearing "on screen" they are modeled in 3D with astonishingly fluid animations. This aspect and the stylish character designs gives a really edgy feel to the game.

The puzzles consists most of the time to save a character from his/her death, manipulating the objects that you can possess. Even if you fail, you can go back in time 4 minutes and redo the situation, but the puzzles are fairly obvious, with only one way of solving them and usually you can do it with the first attempt. As usual with this kind of games, it rather short (about 10 hours) and have zero to none replayability value.

Since most of the fun is to know the truth at the same time as the main character, I won't spoil all the characters, only the ones you'll find early in the game.

Sissel

The main character. He regains consciousness and find himself as a ghost, dead and without any memory of who is he or how was killed. Despite his looks, he's not as sarcastic as Phoenix Wright and usually is pretty naive.

Lynne

The main heroine is this vivacious detective that have a more than passing resemblance to Gurren Lagann's Yoko. Seems to be the the only witness of Sissel murder, and is the first person that you need to help to literally escape from the death in hand of a hitman.

Kamile

Known as Kanon in Japan, she's a little girl living with Lynne. She's pretty smart for her age and is the second character that you need to save.

Missile

Kamile and Lynne little dog. In order to help his masters, he becomes one of the main characters later in game.

Valkyria Chronicles 2 finished

Today I completely finished Valkyria Chronicles 2, after 4 months.

The main game doesn't take much time (I finished it in late September), but in the post-game you need to do A LOT of grinding in order to get all the medals. I also got all the potentials for the 62 characters available, all the titles (except for 3 that needs the multiplayer mode), all the 197 missions A ranked and with at least one of each enemy ace weapon, including the DLC ones.

That medal made me suffer a lot...

Comparing it with Valkyria Chronicles, the gameplay has been improved mostly because you can choose the leaders, the tank is much more customizable (and you can choose to not deploy it), there are 20 3rd tier classes (albeit some being way more useful than others)... However, VC1 had little to no grinding, while VC2 has way too much: you'll have to grind to get enemy ace weapons (each can have up to 3 different drops, 2 of them weapons), you'll have to farm the credits to class change each character, and the worst of it is to farm materials and weapons parts to build weapons in R&D (there are weapons parts that are dropped in only one mission, and you need to beat it over 15 times in order to get all the parts required).
At the end the game gets very repetitive and tedious, because not only you need to repeat the same missions over and over but because the non-story missions are very similar and in the same few locations...

There's also a problem with the character models. Despite the game being good looking for a PSP game, the character models uses only one male body and one female body regardless the height and weight of the character, with terrible results:

Selvaria, a busty female with a height of 175cm, shares the exact same body with Aliasse, a 150cm flat-chested loli.

The reward for all the grinding are two characters. The first one, acquired once you get 20 medals, is Juliana:

Unlocked Juliana (blue) versus Story mode Juliana (red). The pinkish shield is way more fitting for the character.

The reward for getting all the medals is Leon Hardins, the missing older brother of the main character:

Despite being the "ultimate character", is a rather mediocre lancer...

Finally, this is the top 12 in my deployment list:

Not counting the main characters Avan and Zeri, the first male character in the list is Largo, at the 23th place.

Next step: wait for the upcoming Valkyria Chronicles 3, that supposedly will fix all the bad traits of this game.