Makigumo

Mad Catz Fightstick Soul Edition: first impressions

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 23:07:35 MST

I thought I’d do something a little different and write about a gaming toy. Mad Catz doesn’t exactly have a pedigree of high quality peripherals, but their Tournament Edition Fightstick arcade sticks have garnered a lot of praise. Gamers loved the Sanwa-made buttons and stick, and found it easy to modify. After Soulcalibur V was announced, Mad Catz revealed a special edition of their Fightstick with Soulcalibur art and a slightly different button layout. I didn’t even know this had been released, but I felt like maybe it was time to upgrade my existing arcade stick. It arrived today, and I put it through a few hours of light testing.

I’m not a competitive Soulcalibur player as far as organized competition is concerned; I don’t go to tournaments or even meet-ups. But in a casual setting, among my group of friends, I do play to win and want to get the most out of the game. While an arcade stick doesn’t make me a better player, it does make it easier for me to hit the right inputs. I feel like it’s an improved level of control over a gamepad, and makes me a little more involved in the game.

My first arcade stick was a birthday present: Hori’s Soulcalibur III-themed Real Arcade Pro. While it did not have authentic arcade components, it was still a high quality stick that I put a lot of hours into. When I made the switch to the PlayStation 3, I got an adapter for the Hori stick. The setup worked better than I had hoped, though I would experience occasional glitchiness with simultaneous inputs. Really I could have easily just lived with it, but with the impending release of Soulcalibur V and a desire for shiny new things, I put down some cash on Mad Catz’s stick.

The packaging was pretty straightforward. It had flaps that were held in place by magnets, and opened in a petal-style that was pretty cool. The inside is sparse. You just get protective foam padding, the stick itself, and a small paper instruction sheet.

The stick looks and feels great. All the parts are smooth, meaning it will eventually get pretty grimy. The plastic housing is pretty strong except for one area near the top that flexes. It’s in a section where my hands don’t touch, so I don’t think this will become a problem.

Mad Catz elected to go with Namco’s traditional button layout, which suits Soulcalibur better than their standard layout. The face buttons (square/A, triangle/B, and circle/K) are all on the top row, meaning your index, middle, and ring fingers can always rest on the attack buttons. Then X/G is on the bottom for your thumb. They’re nicely labeled, though newbies will want to get familiar with how A/B/K/G are bound. Also in convenient reach is the A+B+K button, which will be used for Critical Edge moves in SCV.

There is also a convenient control unit that provides turbo functionality, a PS button, a three-way switch for the stick, and a lock/unlock switch. The lock/unlock switch can disable the control and start/select buttons to prevent interruptions to your game, but I find it pretty unnecessary. Those buttons are far enough out of the way that you shouldn’t be hitting them by accident. The three-way switch can set the stick to stand in for either the d-pad, right analog stick, or left analog stick. Again, I have a hard time thinking of a use for this.

At the front of the unit are the start and select buttons, as well as a compartment to house the cable. The cable is 15 ft long, plenty for most setups. The flap feels a little flimsy but you probably won’t be messing with it too much.

Mad Catz made modability a priority, so the various panels are easy to remove. The bottom has removable rubber feet as well.

Compared to the Hori stick, they’re roughly the same size though the Mad Catz stick is thinner. The weight is about equal. It has a nice heft but isn’t so heavy that you’ll have a hard time passing it around. Well, none of my friends use arcade sticks so that’s not really a problem for me anyway.

As you can see, the button spacing is a little tighter on the Hori stick. Also the A and B buttons are at a slightly steeper angle than on the Mad Catz stick. Both of these things are important to me as my primary in Soulcalibur IV is Yoshimitsu. His Manji Carve Fist can be difficult to execute, and depends somewhat on the orientation of these two buttons.

Playtesting took the form of an extended session in the training mode. I didn’t notice any major improvements over the Hori stick, although I was able to pull off guard impacts with better consistency. On the Hori stick, low GIs were a bit of a crapshoot. They feel more responsive on the Mad Catz stick.

I would say the Mad Catz stick seems to have more sensitive buttons. The travel is very slight before the input registers, which actually threw me off my game. There were a lot of moments where the button would register before the stick clicked into place, giving me an attack with no directional input. In a match, this can be disastrous. There were also times where my finger would brush a button slightly in the middle of an input string, only to have that register as a button press and interrupt the string. I’m not sure if I can adjust to this extreme sensitivity. Hopefully, over time, I’ll be able to make the mental adjustments.

Eventually I was able to get more consistent with Yoshimitsu’s iMCF, though I still have trouble executing strings that lead into it. I suspect this is more a problem with me than the stick, though. Overall Mad Catz has a good quality product which will hopefully last a long time. It doesn’t blow away the Hori stick, but it does cost less and have more PS3-specific amenities. Unfortunately I ordered the stick before I heard about the Hit Box, which would seem ideal for Soulcalibur with the exception of maybe one or two characters. Guess I’ll have to wait until next year.

Why SOPA and PIPA are pointless and terribad

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 21:40:43 MST

I’d like to stop ranting about cartoons and plastic boobies for a second to talk about the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act. They are two stupid, pointless, dangerous bills being pushed by the entertainment industry to protect their own intellectual properties. You should write your Congressmen and Senators to tell them these bills totally suck, and if they pass I probably won’t be able to write about cartoons and plastic boobies.

Look, the internet is never at any moment an exemplar of human virtue. But it is a vast place where anyone can have a voice and express him or herself, and every once in a while, something actually worth expressing shows up. This only happens because there are relatively few barriers standing between you and the content you want to put up or consume.

SOPA and PIPA put the power to (try to) control the internet into the hands of a few people, and they want to protect their timeless works of art such as Drive Angry. They will be given the power to sue and shut down websites that host infringing material, except the bills have such vague definitions of “infringing” that it could include anything from screenshots to incidental background audio.

Nicolas Cage is never incidental.

Trust me, you don’t want to live on an internet like this. And in order to enforce their will, the government will be given authority to tamper with the internet’s DNS system. Do you trust the government with the power to mess with the very core of the internet? I mean Obama’s a cool dude but I don’t think your average government official can tell a DNS server from a different machine that also has a fancy name.

What SOPA will do is mess with honest people and make the internet suck for them, like those FBI warnings in front of DVDs or games that won’t let you play unless you have an internet connection. And yet those very titles still wind up somewhere online for download. Attempts to stop piracy always fail. Why? Because humans are smart. Content owners pay very smart people a lot of money to write digital rights management software. But there are six billion other humans on the planet, and chances are one or more of them are smarter than that guy. SOPA presents a significantly less sophisticated challenge to pirates than digital rights management, and they will (easily) be able to get around its provisions.

Will SOPA benefit all the poor starving artists whose lives are being ruined by pirates? No, it just helps the publishers that take a cut of their earnings to perform services that artists can do themselves. Are artists even hurt that much by piracy? Louis C.K. notably sold his latest stand-up comedy special online as a download, without any form of copy protection. He made a million bucks in eleven days. Yeah, people were free to share and download the video all they wanted. But Louis still got very rich, and he didn’t need any of the protections granted by SOPA and PIPA. People love his work and want to pay for it.

The good news is that both bills have been delayed for the time being. I doubt the Supreme Court would uphold SOPA’s constitutionality anyway should it be challenged. But it’s important to protest these things because content owners will keep trying. They are dinosaurs trying to use the law to force upon us a business model that no longer works in the modern age. So get up on your tweeters and facebooks and tell them they’re totally lame.

But seriously you guys, Nicolas Cage.

Figure Review: Charlotte E. Yeager by Alter

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 17:25:27 MST

As I’ve often lamented, the problem with most women is that they don’t have airplanes for legs. There are many benefits to having airplane legs: increased mobility, making cool noises when you’re getting ready to go, and having a great excuse for not ever wearing pants. It’s strange that it’s 2012 and scientists haven’t yet figured out a way to combine miniature airplanes with women’s legs. So for the time being, we’ll have to leave that in the fictional world of Strike Witches.

Alter is bringing that world a little closer to reality with their 1/8-scale Strike Witches figures. I have all the witches released so far except for Yoshika, who is my least favorite witch. Maybe for the sake of completeness I’ll get her one day, but my squadron will remain one short for the foreseeable future. One of my favorite witches is Charlotte E. Yeager (Shirley), so I was all too happy to pick up this figure.

I admit, Alter really did put her boobs right in your face. I guess they know the show’s audience. I didn’t think the pose was all that special at first, but after shooting it from various angles, I’ve come to appreciate the sense of motion it conveys. From the side, it looks like she’s stopping. If you get her from a low angle, it looks like he’s zooming ahead. Much like a certain Will Ferrell character, she just wants to go fast.

Another thing I noticed about the pose is its similarity to Alter’s Mercedes figure. Bent over, giant weapon in the left hand, in flight, glancing to their left. That’s yet another trend; probably more than half of my figures are looking to their left. Must be something pretty awesome over there.

This is not the most amazingly detailed figure Alter has ever produced. The quality’s good, no doubt about it, but it’s not the sort of showcase figure you’re used to seeing from them. Her striker unit (add that to the list of names to call your dong) looks great, but her uniform looks sparse and simplistic. Her BAR looks a bit fake to boot. I might actually try slipping on one of the 1/6-scale rifles I got from Hot Toys. Shirley would look pretty sweet with a an H&K PSG1, I think.

The one major flaw I have to complain about is the way she mounts onto the base. This is accomplished by a metal peg which connects to holes on the bottom of her striker unit and on the base itself. While this setup is sturdy enough for their Sanya and Asuka figures, it’s very loose and wobbly for Shirley. If the figure does somehow end up falling, it’s going to dive forward and potentially off any shelf it’s sitting on.

The strike witches, with their peculiar combination of fetish traits, make for interesting character designs. I feel like Alter didn’t really handle these to the best of their ability. Girls with animal ears, giant guns, and airplane legs should really stand out on your shelf. Somehow, this one doesn’t.

I set up a rim light to give Shirley’s, erm, equipment a bit more shine. I fitted it with a grid to prevent spill onto the background.

The cloudlike background was mostly accidental. I was playing around with blue gels and noticed that they didn’t illuminate the backdrop evenly. The way I positioned them happened to produce some lighter blue and white layers, so I kept it.

Truth be told I almost tossed out all 80-plus photos in the set. I decided to keep the ones that looked most sky-ish. I had been trying various lighting schemes and gels to get a more sunset-y look, but couldn’t come up with a good way of keeping the key light from spilling onto the backdrop.

This figure was fun to shoot, because you discover certain angles that convey different feelings. This picture seems to be capturing Shirley while doing combat maneuvers. Compare this to number nine below, which looks like she’s stopped to scout out the area. Then the last one has more of a sense of lightheartedness, bringing out her carefree nature.

A game about (almost) nothing: Limbo review

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 17:13:27 MST

Playdead’s Limbo is a remarkable game in that it takes the barest minimum of what makes a game, and does so much with it. Of all the minimalist games I can think of, Limbo is the most minimal. It’s two-dimensional. There are three total controls (move, jump, grab). There’s hardly a soundtrack. There isn’t even any color. Despite all this it manages to be much more than the sum of its parts. It’s a clever puzzle-platformer that evokes many emotions: fear, disgust, sadness, longing, and also a fair amount of joy. All of this without a single spoken word or piece of explanatory text.

The main design approach of Limbo is to let players figure things out for themselves, a philosophy successfully embraced by developers such as Valve. Game mechanics are introduced in their simplest form, and then iterated upon later in the game. Meanwhile audio and visual cues help the player move through each puzzle. In a game like this, the level design is able to teach you everything you need to know. The player’s experience never needs to be interrupted (a concept I’ll revisit when I review Catherine), so there is a totality of immersion.

What struck me about the game is the way it has almost no plot, but somehow still makes you utterly engrossed in the story. Without dialogue, explanatory text, and a few sequences which can only technically be called cut scenes, there is very little storytelling in Limbo. But the aesthetics, atmosphere, and pacing of the game enable you to imagine the story as you progress.

The world of Limbo is a hostile and gruesome one. Though you play the role of a young boy searching for his sister, there is nothing innocent about the environment. It’s a shock when you die for the first time. The suddenness and brutality, and the fact that it happens to a young child, color the rest of the game. As you progress you’ll run into macabre sights such as rotting corpses and worms that latch onto your head and control your mind. All of this puts mortality on the forefront in an unsettling and jarring manner, perhaps indicative of something the boy once experienced.

Personally I would love it if there was a website purely made up of people’s interpretations of the game. Playdead intentionally left the story open-ended, but the imagery used in the game (particularly the ending) allowed my mind to build a bleak and nightmarish narrative as I progressed. In fact I do think Limbo is a dying dream of sorts, filled with fear about the unknown that lies ahead. The title screen, beginning, and end are all linked. I think the game takes us from the end of the story to the beginning.

The only thing I disliked was the abrupt ending, not because it didn’t provide closure, but because it didn’t give me enough time to finish the narrative in my mind. For a game that does such an excellent job of inspiring me to envision my own story, the way it cuts to black and rolls the credits really took me out of it. But the fact that this is my complaint says a lot about the game.

I generally prefer stories to be told to me. Anything that gets me to write a story in my head, and then makes me think about it as if it were all scripted, must be something special. I think Braid and the first Portal had a lot of this. In other media, films such as Mulholland Dr. and Alien did this. It’s also why I love Evangelion and Haibane Renmei. Limbo, like those works, help you experience a rich, meaningful narrative of your own invention. It is designed to inspire your creativity. Its genius is our genius. So if you ever find yourself being concerned about the state of modern game design, remember that Limbo exists, and feel better.

Figure Review: Xiao-Mei by Max Factory

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 22:25:27 MST

It’s been a while since I last did a full on review, so I went to my shelf to see what I could shoot. Max Factory’s Xiao-Mei stood out because she’s so damn adorable. How could you not like that Tony Taka face? Xiao-Mei hails from Shining Hearts, which has been getting a lot of exposure recently in the figure world. I haven’t played any of the Shining games but they must be big in Japan.

Obviously this figure represents one of Max Factory’s more conventional offerings, much like the Mari figure they made a while ago. Nothing fancy, just a cat girl and her skimpy outfit.

Normally I’m not big on cat girls but Xiao-Mei’s not half bad. Her “nyaa” expression looks too much like she’s asking for a fist bump, which entertains me much more than it should. I also like her legs. Asymmetrical stockings are stupid, but creamy thighs and a tight ass are not. The girl’s also full of ribbons; try to find them all!

The craftsmanship is, well, Max Factory. Spot-on sculpt, generally no paint issues although some parts of the trim aren’t colored on the lines. There is a slight pearly finish on the clothing which lends a nice satin sheen to the figure. I’m also a fan of the soft skin shading and the excellent capturing of the Tony face.

Unfortunately, Xiao-Mei has been on my shelf for a while, so there was a lot of dust in the photos. Some spot healing helped but yeah... she’s dusty. I did wipe her down thoroughly with a microfiber cloth... three times... looks like Xiao-Mei’s going to need a bath.

I like how Xiao-Mei looks revealing, but the outfit still leaves something to the imagination. She’s not sticking her ass out like Supergirl is (what a whore). Up until recently, I considered it a good buy. I’m not familiar with the Shining series, so I don’t think I’ll be getting any more of these figures. It was an easy choice to live with, but then Kotobukiya revealed their own Xiao-Mei and... it just looks better. It probably won’t have the high build quality of Max’s version, but the pose is just more interesting. Le sigh.

If you’re interested, I included some details about the setup for this shoot at the bottom. For once I remembered to take pictures of it!

Bump it.

The hip ribbon is my favorite detail on any figure ever.

Hair buns too! Princess Leia would have looked a lot less stupid if she wore a skimpy Chinese dress.

Pardon the lint. It’s hard to spot it as I wear glasses, and they pretty much kill my ability to see really small particles up close. Seriously, that’s a real thing.

Armpit for Mikatan. Wouldn’t it be awesome if she read Makigumo?

The setup is pretty basic as I have very little room to work with. The background was just white paper held up by a foam core board with as much light thrown onto it as possible. Xiao-Mei was lit by my very fancy and professional-looking softbox along with a fill light. Tabletop tripods are great for product photography, as they let you make the best of your available space. A combination of good framing and cropping can hide a surprisingly crowded setup.

The flashes in back were at -2 1/3 stops, adjusted by 1/3 stop or so depending on the aperture I was using. The fill light was at -6 stops (further reduced by a filter) and the softbox was at -2 stops. The softbox had to be really bright because the light is so diffuse. ETTL is wholly incapable of dealing with this setup so I didn’t even bother—manual all the way.

Of course just having a bunch of bright flashes in close proximity to the subject will introduce a lot of light spill. I had a few accessories to help control the light in back. Here’s a reflector that I used as a gobo, which blocks any light that would travel to the foreground.

My softbox is pretty much my go-to lighting option. Of course there are certainly myriad creative ways to light a figure that look great. I find that a soft, even light is a good baseline. As a relative beginner, I try to at least get that right.

A second flash on minimum power with a heavy frost filter provides a fill light. Keeping it close to the figure—like, a few inches away—will soften the light. Light beams are less parallel the closer they are to their origin, because they radiate spherically. So a flash far away gives harsh shadows, while a flash up close will give softer light.

Here’s the mini softbox I used for the other background light. The opaque sides act like a snoot, preventing light from spilling onto the figure (didn’t have a second gobo handy). A lot of these accessories can be DIY projects, but I ended up breaking all of mine so I just bought sturdier ones. I’m terrible at DIY.

Finally we see some Pedco Ultrapods. They’re cheap, portable, mostly sturdy, and can grip onto table legs, lamp posts, poles, and whatnot thanks to a velcro strap feature. I just wish they were a little heavier, because the weight of the flash can easily tip it over.

Super Serial: Persona 4: The Animation episodes 4-7

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 23:19:18 MST

Teddie better keep his dirty bear hands off my precious Yukiko.

You know what I love? Persona 4. Since the last time I checked in, the show has been very enjoyable. I like that its heroes are flawed, and I like the uplifting but not overly idealized message. It loses something by not having the interactivity of the game, but without having to run around randomly generated dungeons, the story moves along more briskly.

Episode four resolves Yukiko’s (voiced by Ami Koshimizu, AKA Holo!) story. I sympathize with her for feeling powerless to run her own life, and for having her future laid out by her parents. The burden of expectation can be a tough one to carry, and sometimes the easy way out is just to abide. I feel that Yukiko’s realization that she had to buck up and find her own way was a meaningful lesson.

Episode five gives a little filler, but does give us Kanae Ito (Saten-san) as Ai Ebi...hara. I played through this social link in the game, but don’t remember her being such a bitch. Maybe it’s been too long? Ultimately, she becomes a little more pitiable.

This episode was mostly just a diversion with little consequence. It partially gets across the essence of the social links from the game, but I’d prefer this not to be the primary way in which the show does it. The point of social links was to get the player to become friends with the game’s characters. I think instead of filler episodes where Yuu gets dragged around in exasperation by various side characters, the writers should focus more on Yuu as a character. He’s still kind of a blank slate right now, so showing his personality through his burgeoning friendships would help the show much more.

Why yes Margaret, I do like it better when it’s just the two of us.

The sixth episode launches into the somewhat controversial story arc involving Kanji. I really like Kanji as a character, though he has taken criticism for essentially not being gay enough. Kanji’s story ends with him saying something to the effect of it’s not about guys and girls, but more about him wanting to fit in and be accepted. You know what, Kanji? It is about guys and girls. Your shadow betrays you.

And that would have been fine, but something about Japanese humor loves to treat homosexuality as a punchline. Maybe I’m missing something here. If the story isn’t about Kanji being gay, then what’s up with his shadow?

Anyway, I don’t think “gay” works out very well as a joke here. You have to be really good in order to pull that off (see: Louis C.K.). But the show is actually surprisingly adept at humor otherwise, from episode six’s food delivery scene to the way it kind of pokes fun at its own video game roots. It makes me okay with being asked to laugh at the over the top muscly men (okay, it is kind of funny).

So... this post puts me at... two weeks behind! Damn it, Skyrim!

Re-shoot of Creators' Labo Asuka Langley Soryu by Yamato

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 00:46:58 MST

Sometimes, we half-ass things just to get them done. Makigumo is pretty much the embodiment of that. Okay, not really; here I don’t get things done because I don’t like half-assing with this site. But still, sometimes I rush a post just to get it out because I’m particularly enthusiastic about it, or because I feel obligated to. I did a review of Yamato’s Asuka Langley Soryu a long time ago, but it was rushed. I didn’t really like anything about the pictures I shot for the figure. It’s such a great looking piece that I felt I owed it a better set of photos. So now that I have some spare time, I decided to redo the shoot.

I’d like to get a little introspective for a bit. Generally I’m not a perfectionist, but I do get really OCD about some things. With Makigumo and my anime reviews, I found myself not being able to go forward because I was so caught up with revisiting the past, making sure all my old reviews are as perfect as they can be. With these types of things, I find it really hard to say to myself “okay, maybe I laid a turd once or twice, but it’s time to learn from it and go on.” I usually get into the mindset of revisiting the past and making sure the turd never gets laid, although not in the literal Terminator time-traveling sense. Since the site re-design, I’ve been trying to keep moving forward in case this place should ever hit the big time (hah).

Some things, though, deserve to be looked at time and time again. I was really enthusiastic about Yamato’s Asuka figure because it’s a unique take on the character from one of my favorite artists (before Kotobukiya started milking his work like crazy). But in my enthusiasm, I just took a shitty set of photos. That never sat right with me, even though I was still learning the art at the time. I moved on, took better photos, took worse photos, and generally tried not to think too much about that particular set. But it was all in vain. Asuka deserves a better shoot. I felt that I owed the figure a decent set of pictures, at least.

Comparing these to the old photo set... well there is no comparison. What changed? Just about everything except the figure itself: backdrop, camera, lens, technique, and lighting. Since getting my DSLR I’ve really embraced the control and versatility you get with flash photography. Here you see the combined effect of four flashes; two to light the figure, and two for the background.

The backdrop is a roll of plain white paper, with the colors coming from gel filters on my flashes. Using four flashes, I’ve been experimenting with various combinations of gels and other modifiers. It kind of makes shooting with ETTL into a nightmare, but I got the right balance of flash output after a lot of tweaking. I took at least 40 photos but only ended up using 10.

The old set had some noticeable barrel distortion thanks to the extremely short focal length that I used (equivalent to 25mm on full-frame). I didn’t have enough space to be able to shoot at a normal focal length and still capture the entire figure; I had to go with my widest lens, which resulted in a little bit of distortion. A tilt-shift lens would have helped me a lot for the full-body shots as it would have let me shoot from a lower position while keeping the perspective head-on.

Another concern I had was that the background paper was really wrinkly. I had to set the aperture so that the depth of field would encompass most of the figure while sufficiently blurring out the background. Good thing there are DOF calculators readily available for smartphones.

Obviously the lighting demands the most time and attention. I wanted the background to look distinct from the figure. This is where the versatility of having a few off-camera flashes really helps. I toned down the power of the background flashes to get richer colors out of the orange and red gels. One foreground flash was fitted with a softbox, and another placed at a distance to act as a fill. Well, it didn’t really fill in the shadows, but it did eliminate one very distinct shadow that kept appearing on Asuka’s face.

Of course this isn’t the greatest figure photography ever, but at least it looks like some planning and thought went into this set. And I guess that’s something.

There is one flaw that I missed in the initial review that almost ruins the entire figure. It’s so subtle that you may not notice it even after studying the photos closely. But once you see it, it kind of messes up the whole thing. I still love this figure overall but yeah... that really should have been fixed. Hopefully it’s limited to my sample, and is not that way on everyone’s figure.

Drake of Persia: Uncharted 3 single-player review

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 20:48:41 MST

DISCLAIMER: before you read, understand that I DO NOT HATE THIS GAME. So don’t send me any emails about it, don’t post comments about it. I DO NOT HATE THIS GAME.

Uncharted 3 can be summed up in one sentence: it does everything Uncharted 2 does, then amps up the set pieces tenfold. But maybe this isn’t as much of a winning formula as Naughty Dog thought it would be. Though I’ll always have a special spot in my heart for the Uncharted franchise, somehow I felt that this latest installment lacked magic. It’s a game where every part is good, but the product is still less than the sum of its parts.

It would be absurd to suggest that Uncharted 3 is a bad game in absolute terms. My complaint is more along the lines of criticizing a product that’s very good, but refuses to evolve. It’s understandable; Naughty Dog made a splash with Uncharted, then established themselves as a premier console developer with Uncharted 2. Why change up a formula that works? That said, I know this is a team capable of pushing past even the greatness of Uncharted 2. You get glimpses of that throughout Drake’s Deception, but ultimately the game doesn’t commit. Seeing what could be, and then being pushed back into the realm of the familiar, well that’s just a sobering experience. And if there’s one thing Uncharted shouldn’t be, it’s sobering.

Creative writers are often told “show, don’t tell”. Uncharted 2 took that to the next level: play, don’t show. Set pieces that would have been cut scenes or QTEs in other games became fully playable. I can’t describe the incredible awe and amazement I felt during the hotel collapse. In any other game from that year, I would have sat back and been content just watching it happen. In Uncharted 2, I was inside the freaking building. I had bad guys to dispatch. Furniture was sliding all over the place. The whole room was crumbling around me, and then I had to save my own ass. That was what made Uncharted 2 magical, new, and interesting. And on top of that, it had some thematic depth and genuinely good characters.

Uncharted 3 takes the idea of “playing the set piece” to a whole new level. The scope and scale of the game’s signature moments are just astonishing. Take your pick: the ship, the plane, the ending, the beginning, pretty much everything makes you want to stand rapt, eyes wide, mouth open, mind overloaded with the epicness of it all. Paradoxically you still need to be involved in the moment; you’ll have decisions to make, waves of bad guys to take down, and friends to look out for (well, you don’t actually have to protect your teammates, but I tried to anyway). This quality is a hallmark of Uncharted and it’s just amazing in Drake’s Deception.

It’s when you’re not in the middle of all that, that you start to think “damn it, Naughty Dog, you’re still doing this?” Honestly, how many games do we need where the good guy shoots down wave after wave of anonymous enemies with assault rifles? Aren’t we past this yet? I’ve told my friends that Uncharted 3 doesn’t need to be a third person shooter. Batman: Arkham Asylum had a no guns, no killing design that worked great and reinforced the mood of the game and the character of Batman. Why can’t Uncharted do the same? Drake would be even more likable if he wasn’t also a mass-murderer.

Naughty Dog implemented an improved unarmed combat system, which I enjoyed. I used it a lot, and found myself not missing the shooting at all. You don’t even pick up a gun until you’re well into the game. So Naughty Dog is smart enough to be able to design a game around not shooting and killing. But why didn’t they? After the first hour or so, it’s 100% balls to the wall shooter. Why does everything have to be a shooter? Drake’s latest outing can easily see him dispatching foes by brawling, by trickery, and by using the environment. Yet the go-to option is still to murder them with an implausibly ready supply of guns and ammunition. Naughty Dog could have joined Rocksteady Studios in the charge to get us away from “shooting is the default option”. Could have, but didn’t.

Another thing that bothered me is how long segments tended to stretch on. As if there wasn’t enough grandeur overdose, Naughty Dog did everything they could to lengthen your stay in some of the areas. In a game with a twisting plot, keeping a narrative pace would be important. Instead you often get bogged down doing repetitive tasks with little logic motivating them. Why have three shootouts in this level? Why the long footchases? Why do I have to fight that guy again? Sometimes it’s just a constant escalation of danger, to the point where even Drake acknowledges that it’s getting ridiculous (and by then we’re already way past the point of reason or plausibility). You know it’s ridiculous, Naughty Dog, so why do it?

In terms of the story and writing, Uncharted 3 is a mixed bag. Where did the witty banter between characters go? What happened to Drake’s smart-ass personality? Both those things are present in spurts, but they didn’t define the experience nearly as much as in Uncharted 2. Drake seems somber, and that’s just weird. Actually I think those are the biggest things I missed in the game. There’s more of everything else, but a little less personality—and that takes away some of the Uncharted magic.

Despite my criticisms, though, the writing team still does a lot right with the story. It’s a globe-spanning adventure to solve the mystery of another of Sir Francis Drake’s voyages. Beyond that there are threads that examine Nathan Drake’s past, Victor Sullivan, and the Naughty Dog trademark fable about power corrupting. Between the unfortunately long stretches of shooting, we see a lot of what Nate is made of, and I love it. His relationship with Elena remains among the all-time great video game romances, and it’s pulled off without a single romantic cliche (I counted). And then there’s Sully, the focal point of the game. Drake’s Deception isn’t necessarily about how Drake and Sully met, and how close they are. It’s about imparting some of that friendship onto you. It’s about having that friendship be integral to the overall experience, and in that respect it’s a success. Motivating you through every minute of the game is your desire to protect your friend.

From a game design standpoint, we see a little experimentation from Naughty Dog that made me wonder “why isn’t the whole game like this?” I felt that the gameplay and story worked best during the parts where Naughty Dog went away from designing a third-person shooter. The bits involving hallucinogens, for example, were genuinely creepy and distressing. The scenes where Drake wanders the desert perfectly capture a sense of hopelessness and desperation. Why couldn’t the game go more along those lines? Uncharted 3 is at its best when you’re not shooting, so why put so much shooting into the game?

Other problems I had with the gameplay are relatively minor. I found myself struggling with the controls a lot. With increased interactivity comes increased confusion on Drake’s part; the controls sometimes did a traversal move when I wanted a combat action, and vice versa. Need to dive for cover to avoid a sniper? Nope, you decided to grapple a guy instead. Both actions use the circle button. The gunplay seems worse, both as a function of the controls and the map design. For some reason the aim sensitivity never seemed right. I used to be able to get headshots with regularity, but it’s harder in Drake’s Deception. Similarly, Among Thieves had maps that encouraged movement and tactical thinking. Drake’s Deception starts almost every shootout in an isolated, covered area—i.e. the best tactical move is usually to stay where you started and shoot until you win. The enemy AI is pretty good most of the time, as they’ll execute flanking maneuvers and use suppression and bounding tactics. I was pissed off the first time a machine gunner forced me to stay in cover while a shotgun guy snuck up and killed me. Then I realized it’s a pretty cool thing to see in a single-player game.

Anyway, I think it’s time to wrap up this long-winded, rambling review of Uncharted 3. It’s a good game that’s great in many moments, but that contrast is a little too stark. You start to wish it was great in every moment because it easily could have been. Fairly or not, I expected even more from Naughty Dog. I think they had the wrong priorities and made the wrong sacrifices. So while Uncharted 3 is a top Playstation 3 game and one of the best games of 2011, it could have been transcendent. It could have been something that people can talk about for a decade, like Half-Life 2. You see a glimmer of that game, but only a glimmer. So in a strange way, Drake’s Deception really is the best title for it.

Remember that disclaimer? I DO NOT HATE THIS GAME. I know on the internet, not loving 100% usually means completely despising, but not this time.

Super Serial: Persona 4: The Animation episodes 2 and 3

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 13:41:55 MDT

While watching Persona 4, I’m reminded of just how much my decisions shaped the game. It’s strange to see the protagonist making decisions and speaking out on his own. Yuu Narukami is certainly no Cmdr. Riker (that’s what I named him). No, nothing you do in the game changes the plot until the very end, but it does shape the flavor of the game. The choices you make go a long way to define your character, so it’s strange to watch essentially the same story except with that control taken out of your hands.

Teddie’s design seems to have been changed to look cuter and less freaky.

Another thing the anime loses is something that really made Persona 4 special: social links. I’m not just talking about the friendships between the main characters, but rather the fact that the game forced you to make them. It forced you to put work into actually becoming friends with the others. I initially did the social links just to power up Cmdr. Riker, but eventually did all of them because I enjoyed it.

Social links are a game mechanic that, in my opinion, the anime has no hope of replicating. Even if they pop up the little graphic that says Yuu Narukami has leveled up his relationship with whoever, I will still not have had any involvement in that accomplishment. That does take away something from what made Persona 4 so special.

What the anime does have, though, is pace. It won’t be hampered or tainted by the expectation that it should get you into the game right away, and all these long cut scenes can just be skipped (to people who criticized P4 for that... what exactly did you think you were playing?). Episodes two and three move you along the story efficiently, building further on established characters while also setting the stage for Yukiko’s side plot.

A good reminder of how batshit crazy the creature designs in this game are.

I like that the anime doesn’t shy away from the difficult themes of the game. We see Yousuke and Chie wrestling with their flaws, and they are actually flaws. In the world of anime, a “flaw” is usually along the lines of “he’s weak” or “he’s a coward”—really just generalized traits treated more as bullet points rather than aspects of the character worth exploring. Not so here. Chie’s shadow taunts her by questioning the authenticity of her friendship with Yukiko. Does Chie genuinely care about Yukiko, or does Chie just take advantage of Yukiko’s meekness to make herself look better?

The answer: it’s kind of both. Even after realizing this, we aren’t told that Chie has conquered this flaw and now she’s totally 100% real with Yukiko. Instead, she accepts that she will have that selfish, exploitative side to her. Receiving her persona, then, is a symbolic event: she has identified a weakness in herself, and now has the power to work to overcome it.

That is the brilliance of Persona 4’s story. While many things are cartoonish about it, its treatment of its characters is not. The anime doesn’t enhance this in any particular way, but just to be able to experience this story again makes me glad it was made.

Pyro Jack!!

Super Serial: Persona 4: The Animation

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 19:00:41 MDT

Ever since Persona 4: The Animation was announced, I’ve been excited for the premier. Not only does the adaptation make sense—the game is structured and paced similarly to an anime—the source material is thematically rich and unconventional. As I started watching, I was thrilled that Persona 4: The Animation started as it should: with a car driving through a foggy road, and “Aria of the Soul” setting the mood.

It’s going to be tough to judge the anime on its own merits as I’m such a huge fan of the game. But even throwing out my knowledge of what’s to come, I can say the first episode does a lot of things right. With the aforementioned intro, you know right away that this show will have a fantasy element to it. You also know that fantasy element won’t be like in other shows, given the low-key introduction to Igor and the Velvet Room.

From there, we jump to a rather pedestrian setup: Yuu Narukami transfers to the small village of Inaba to attend high school. I know, another school-oriented show. Persona 4 doesn’t linger too long on the school aspect, though. It moves quickly, setting up some familial drama and a murder mystery alongside the first journey into the Midnight Channel. It felt well-paced to me, though this might be my fanboyism speaking.

I can say in all seriousness, there was a huge difference between this and, say, Fate/Zero. I did not dislike the first episode of Fate/Zero, but I did dislike that it explicitly explained to you what you were seeing. It did this solely through dialogue, and that just feels like a cop-out. I watch anime to discover stories through a mix of language and visuals; Fate/Zero felt like a lecture.

Persona 4 is not exposition-happy. It’s able to draw me into the setting and pique my curiosity about the story that’s unfolding. No one says a single word about Personas, how to summon them, their stats, what powers they have, or the strengths and weaknesses of the Shadows. If this were Fate/Zero, that would make up pretty much the entire script. In Persona 4, you just see Yuu getting attacked by creepy monsters and fighting them off after miraculously summoning something. I suspect later episodes will pour on the exposition, but because it’s missing from the first episode, there is still a sense of mystery that maintains my interest.

Super Serial: Fate/Zero episode 1

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 20:45:46 MDT

The general tone of this episode.

Before I get into Fate/Zero, I feel that I should say something about Steve Jobs. The best way to celebrate his life is to watch the documentary Pirates of Silicon Valley. As an expert on the history of computers and computing, I certify that it is 100% trufax. Now on to Fate/Zero. I had to watch something during the wait for Persona 4. There were a few shows I was interested in, but I figure, it’s best to go with the devil you know when getting back in to anime blogging.

Right off the bat, Fate/Zero feels more mature than Fate/Stay Night. We see a grown up! With a kid! And no sign of a high school! These are all good things. The first episode is mostly a dry affair, with several plot threads setting up the Holy Grail War. In case you didn’t know, there’s a Holy Grail War coming, and a bunch of magi will be fighting each other over the chance to have a wish granted.

In a strange bit of pointless blocking, these three characters are having a conversation, then one begins to walk in a circle around the middle guy. Then the other guy on the left starts as well. They continue the dialogue, revolving like planets around the guy they’re talking to. When you have to put dramatic walking into your scene, you should probably just rewrite it.

I’ve always said, if you’re writing a fantasy anime/novel/anything, don’t tell me the rules. So many of these types of anime seem like they want to be games, but they’re not. When I play Magic: The Gathering, I want to learn the rules. But I don’t play Fate/Zero, I watch it. Don’t tell me the goddamn rules. Write them down by all means; use them internally to keep your story consistent. But tell me a story. You know, with interesting characters and dilemmas and whatnot. I do not want to watch an episode that just tells me what I’m seeing and what I’m about to see. It sucks.

Fate/Zero is not the worst example of this, but I’m disappointed that this is the narrative that so dominated the first episode. It doesn’t go five minutes before you get your first lecture about which families will be participating in the war, how mages get their power, what X and Y’s agendas are, and so on. Part of the episode literally takes place in a lecture hall, for god’s sake.

Loli tsunderes are... really adorable, actually.

There are more interesting storylines brewing, especially the one surrounding the Matou family and the way they basically forced the Tohsaka clan to give up one of their daughters (Sakura) to use in the Holy Grail War. I’m not so much complaining about the lack of payoff (this is a first episode after all). It’s just that all the setup stuff that takes up so much time can be shown, demonstrated, later on. Right now, I want to learn about the characters and their reasons for fighting in the war. I want to see what happens to Sakura and Rin. I don’t care about having to add two lines to an incantation to get berserker affinity, I just don’t.

I say all this, but I’m not really down on Fate/Zero all that much. At the very least, I have not seen Shirou Emiya, so that has brightened my day somewhat.

Announcing: The Decision

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 22:51:39 MDT

In this fall—this is very tough—in this fall I’m going to take my talents to Tomopop and join the Tomopop staff. I feel like it’s going to give me the best opportunity to write and to write for multiple years, and not only just to write in the community blogs or just to write five posts in a row or three posts in a row, I want to be able to write headlines. And I feel like I can contribute over there.

What the hell I’m on about

Some time ago, Tomopop posted about a position opening for an associate editor. As Tomopop is a figure blog, and I’ve been writing about figures, I decided to throw my name in the hat and see what would happen. Eventually they got back to me and said I made the cut!

Why write for someone else?

Makigumo has been and will continue to be a personal space, where I can ramble on about whatever. Tomopop is a public space with a large community, one that I’ve been participating in. I enjoy being a part of that community and want to see it get bigger and better. Figure collectors should have a big forum to share their hobby, and Tomopop is a great site to do just that. If they feel my contribution can help, then I want to help.

What will become of Makigumo?

Well I don’t imagine things will change much around here. There are no stipulations about what I can and can’t post here, aside from straight up copy/pasting editorial content from Tomopop. You can expect me to continue my long tradition of neglect and abandonment, followed periodically by flurries of activity and possibly intelligent analysis. I do expect figures coverage to be a little different now, depending on whether or not I end up writing reviews for Tomopop. But this works out nicely, as I’m planning on doing more anime stuff for the fall season.

Hopefully—best case scenario—writing for Tomopop will improve my work ethic when it comes to blogging, and that will translate to more posts here. At worst, the content here overlaps less with what I write on Tomopop. I guess we’ll see where this takes me, but there’s a lot to look forward to: a decent fall anime season, and lots of figures!

Fall anime: time to get back into the game?

Sun, 11 Sep 2011 22:49:01 MDT

After a fairly long stretch of not watching any anime, I decided that Makigumo should swing back in that direction. That’s how I roll: one day you think this site’s about figures, and then BAM! Something else. All this was prompted by one particular title, which got me excited as soon as I heard it was being made (any guesses?). Then, I figured since I would be watching anime this fall anyway, why not see what else is there? For reference, you can check out Neko Magic’s fall anime coverage.

Shinryaku!? Ika Musume—I didn’t see the first season, though it has its following. The show centers around a humanoid squid girl who wants to conquer humanity to make them stop polluting the seas. I’m interested, but I’ll have to watch the first season beforehand. Also, I don’t like this trend of marking sequels by changing the punctuation marks. Maybe
Horizon on the Middle of Nowhere—In the distant future, Japan has been conquered and divided into feudal territories. Its fate will be determined in a war fought by airships. But of course we have to also shoehorn in some kind of school setting, because literally every anime must have one these days. Maybe
Tamayura ~Hitotose~—Looks like a moe show featuring a girl who likes photography. I have to admit, even though moe shows are kind of played out, I’m still highly susceptible to moe. Plus I also like photography. Probably going to watch, definitely will hate myself if I do. Maybe
Persona 4 The Animation—I am a huge fan of the PS2 game, so naturally this is the show I’m most excited about. It tells the story of the small village of Inaba and the mysterious murders going on in it. Definitely for sure 100% watching
Last Exile: Fam, the Silver Wing—This series marks Gonzo’s 20th anniversary, which is cool. But it also makes me feel old, because I remember when Gonzo used to be "that new studio." It seems to not be dependent on knowledge of Last Exile so I might give this a go. Maybe
Un-Go—Based on the works of novelist Ango Sakaguchi, this series has two protagonists solving mysteries in a near-future setting. Perhaps the literary source will bring something fresh to the table. Maybe
Guilty Crown—A Production I.G. work, so this will be pretty and likely have an incomprehensible story. It has a mysterious virus, shady corporations, psychic powers, freedom fighters, and of course some kind of potential romance angle. Any one of these things can be a story in itself, but Production I.G. likes to go balls-out with plot devices. Maybe, if only to see how stupid/nonsensical it will be
Ad Lib Anime Kenkyuusho—This can be either really good or really bad: an unscripted anime that is entirely ad-libbed, and then animated after the dialogue is recorded. This is a really novel approach to the production process, and I’m interested in the results. Definitely
Fate/Zero—I am not a fan of Fate/Stay Night but this prequel might take care of some of the things I didn’t like about the first series (Shirou). I hope it explores the backgrounds of the servants a little more, and doesn’t star another boneheaded good guy. Maybe

Well that’s about it for now. The only movies on my radar so far are the new Makoto Shinkai film Children Who Chase Lost Voices from Deep Below, Satoshi Kon’s unfinished film Dreaming Machine, and Evangelion 3.0 which will debut next year. Looks like it will be a decent fall for anime fans, especially if you like school-based stories.

Figure Review: Suruga Kanbaru by Good Smile Company

Sun, 04 Sep 2011 22:02:13 MDT

Here’s the review in the form of an equation: Good Smile Company + Bakemonogatari = great success. If you haven’t seen Bakemonogatari, you really should. It’ll make you savvy to the fact that a Japanese person’s concept of Ghostbusters is actually pretty awesome. From that series we get the memorable Suruga Kanbaru, a masochistic bisexual boys-love enthusiast who (and this is for the It’s Always Sunny crowd) could easily be a power bottom.

Kanbaru is a great character because she’s so different from the typical female anime character archetypes. In fact her only hyper-feminine acts are used to lampoon those archetypes. She is the instigator of some of the show’s best humor, and never fails to make the protagonist feel really awkward.

Of course, absolutely none of that is captured in this figure. If you pay attention to the details, you’ll see she’s reading a boys love book, but that’s the only hint of her personality you’ll get. It’s not entirely Good Smile’s fault, as this is based on official art. But Kotobukiya managed to do a much simpler version that better captures Kanbaru’s personality.

The non-personality of figures is the norm, I’m afraid, so there’s no point in complaining. You have eyes, you can see the photos. If we get past that, I will say I do love her expression. It’s serene and content from some angles, but up close it can become a little mischievous. The face sculpt looks a bit off to me insofar as the promo shots looked more accurate to the official design. Still the end result is pretty good.

The rest of the figure exhibits an astonishing attention to detail—something I’ve come to expect from Good Smile Company. All the little bookmarks, blades of grass, even the dimples on her basketball are meticulously sculpted and painted. There is one unfortunate seam on the top of her head, which is kind of unavoidable. Other imperfections are much more subtle.

This elaborate setup is a callback to the scene where Araragi visits Kanbaru’s home, which is full of stacks of red books. The stacks on the figure have a surprising heft to them, though the base itself feels somewhat flimsy. There is some assembly involved—just the very simple task of matching pegs to holes.

When I got this figure, I wasn’t sure how to photograph it. Some figures take some effort to shoot, while others are just photogenic. Kanbaru is the latter. Her throne of books provides a great frame, so I shot her on a black background to let the figure speak for itself. She honestly looks great from every angle, and will be a fixture on my shelf for some time.

The great thing about this figure is that it’s a diorama onto itself.

I wasn’t kidding about the dimples on the basketball. Click here for a 100% crop.

The throne, assembled.

Kanbaru does not attach to the base, so you can sit her on whatever you like.

I thought about using piles of books as the background, but I, uh, don’t actually own any.

Here I took out the rearmost pile of books to get a shot of her back. For some reason, this is my favorite shot of Kanbaru.

You can imagine that she lugged out sever wheelbarrows’ worth of boys love books to read at sundown, perhaps after a game of pickup basketball.

The most desirable part of Kanbaru: athletic shorts forming an inverse zettai ryouiki. The Kotobukiya figure gives you a full helping of this, whereas Good Smile takes a classier route and just offers a hint.

A week of photography in Yellowstone National Park

Sun, 21 Aug 2011 18:25:43 MDT

Thanks to a downed internet connection (caused by squirrels, apparently), I wasn’t able to post this right away. Two weeks ago, I went with my family to Yellowstone National Park. While there, I had unbelievable photographic opportunities—and that’s just sticking to the main tourist areas.

Here are the photos, divided up by day:

Not only was it a great photographic journey, the vacation was also a great learning experience. When I started, I mostly took photos under controlled conditions. Indoors, you have control over lighting, positioning your camera, and you have the time you need to get a good exposure. In the field, it’s different. Moments come and go quickly, so you need your equipment to get out of the way. Experienced photographers can anticipate what they’ll have to do before those critical moments even happen, but it’s something I’ll have to practice.

Photography in the field is a test of equipment as well as of the photographer. A lot of people will tell you that equipment doesn’t matter, but I don’t think that’s true. A better way to put it is: having the right equipment is necessary but not sufficient for good photography. Landscape shots will test your camera’s dynamic range, and will also require an assortment of filters. Wildlife shots are the ultimate test of optics, image stabilization, and tripod sturdiness. I’m no Ansel Adams, but I achieved decent results on a midsized budget, so you don’t necessarily need expensive gear. But you do need the right gear.

If there is one thing I learned about vacationing from this trip, it’s this: travel with like-minded people. My family knew I was going to be taking photos, but their idea of photography is entirely limited to vacation pictures: high depth of field, subject in background, people smiling right smack dab in the center. I had to take tons of those shots, and was loathe to take each one, but I sucked it up anyway. Another issue is the hours. Tourists like to get out and about during the day, but photography is best at dawn and dusk. If you want to go on a photographic holiday, go with photographers or go by yourself.

This time I have an excuse for not posting.

Thu, 18 Aug 2011 08:32:11 MDT

It’s not like Makigumo hasn’t gone weeks (or months) without updates in the past, but this time I swear there’s actually stuff I want to post but can’t. The internet service to my super secret base of operations has been going in and out, with maybe 10% uptime and a pathetically slow connection during that time. I’ve been trying to get help from Comcast, but they haven’t provided any details yet beyond stating there’s a service interruption in my area.

So until that gets fixed... uh, how about that NBA lockout? After a dynamite 2010-2011 season and a trip to the Eastern Conference Finals, I really want to see how the Bulls are gonna try to solve the riddle of the Miami Heat. But NOPE. There’s no official guarantee that we’ll miss a season, but everyone analyzing the lockout is being super pessimistic.

What else can I talk about? I saw a bunch of movies. Captain America was okay but not great. It’s the kind of inoffensive, effects-laden summer blockbuster that Marvel Studios has been pumping out with great efficiency. Thor is the same way. I also saw Cowboys & Aliens (don’t ask me why). Daniel Craig is not a good looking man, and that’s all I have to say about that. I love him as James Bond but he is not attractive. It looks like his face got gnarled by a jaguar. Speaking of which, I saw Apocalypto for the first time last night. It’s the kind of movie that isn’t great, but needs to get made because maybe a better filmmaker will revisit the subject later. Not that Mel Gibson’s a bad filmmaker, it’s just that Apocalypto was more of a ride than a story.

Let’s see... well, today is Thursday. So tomorrow is Friday, and that means Saturday comes after. Sweet.

It's the most WonderFest time of the year!

Sun, 24 Jul 2011 17:07:13 MDT

I just wanted to do a quick post on WonFes, Japan’s biggest exhibition for figure enthusiasts. The previous one made most of my dreams into reality, and this one is equally amazing. I’ve been following Tomopop’s WonFes coverage closely. Here’s all the stuff I’ll inevitably be throwing my money at:

Something, anything by ThreeA. ThreeA’s toys are incredibly well detailed and painted, having a grungy, almost steampunk vibe. I absolutely love the way they look, but was never able to make room for them in my budget. Well this year, I’m gonna try, damn it. Now that Good Smile Company is acting as a distributor, they should be easier to get.
Nadeko Sengoku figma. I’ve been collecting these as I’m a big fan of Bakemonogatari. The last one announced was Suruga Kanbaru, but now Nadeko is joining the line. I’m also expecting a Shinobu figma to be announced sooner or later, and hoping against hope for an Oshino one.
Nendoroids... so many Nendoroids... I told myself I’d stop buying them, but a bunch of new ones showed up at WonFes that I cannot resist. Let’s start with Sonic the freaking Hedgehog. Pudgy Sonic, no less. Then there’s the Nendoroid Charlotte E. Yeager, which was revealed a while ago but is now painted. And perhaps my favorites, Kana and Haruka from Minami-ke! Maybe I’ll hunt down the Chiaki Nendoroid too. Want more video game mascots? How about Atlus’s Jack Frost?
Alter is revisiting the Persona series with a 1/6 Aegis. There are a lot of Aegis figures out there, but I never got any of them. This one looks badass (the second most badass Aegis out there) so I might throw down for one.
The other Alter announcement that caught my attention was their Kanetsugu Naoe figure. I’m not a fan of Hyakka Ryouran but a girl with twin tails and a gigantic hammer is highly desirable to me.
Phat! Company’s Totori Helmold is shaping up to be quite beautiful. The PS3 installments of the Atelier series have had a great look to them, and this figure is a good 3D rendition.
From Kotobukiya’s ballooning Bishoujo brand, Christie Montiero, Alisa Bosconovitch, and X-23. Christie has DAT ASS, Alisa is a sweet robot girl, and X-23 is like a Wolverine you can bang. All winners in my book.
We get a double-whammy from Max Factory: a lovely Asuka (test suit, of course), and Catherine from the eponymous Atlus game. Do I need another Asuka? Of goddamn course I do.
Good Smile Company continues its assault on my future bankroll by revealing their Shinobu Oshino figure. There was a garage kit of this a while back, but since GSC is taking their Bakemonogatari figures from the DVD covers, the two probably aren’t related.
Another GSC reveal: Princess Knight Miku. Look at that detail! It doesn’t seem to be Hatsune Miku, but rather another character named Miku. Which means my record of never having purchased a Hatsune Miku figure will remain intact.
Kotobukiya is expanding their Shining Hearts lineup with Lorna. I’m more interested in this for her ears and tail than anything else, as she looks like a long-lost relative of Spice and Wolf’s Holo.
Native is also on the scene! They have a pair of figures: Nitroplus mascot Sonico, and Elfriede who appears to be an original character. One more new Native figure, up for preorder, is the highly NSFW original character Princess Moledina. I love that Native will make straight up hentai figures, but I’m gonna have to pass on this one as I don’t want to risk getting party vanned.

There are of course a ton of garage kits at WonFes. You can check out Wcloudx (kumo)’s blog for their coverage. I won’t be getting any of them as I’m not really down with painting.

Well, that should do it. I’ve been suffering through the doldrums of PVC collecting, but WonFes has given me a lot to look forward to. Looks I have the rest of 2011 and 2012 planned out now. And then we can end this epic series of releases with the apocalypse. How convenient!

Figure Review: Viral by Uplark

Sun, 24 Jul 2011 02:36:09 MDT

Viral hails from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, a show I tried to watch but gave up just as it got good. Unlike pretty much all of my figures, Viral is a villain (well he started as one), but more than that he’s a male!! ZOMG!

Male figures—or I should say, masculine figures—are a rarity these days. Actually this figure is not recent at all; it was released way back in 2009 and I somehow found it on sale for around $80. I’m not even a huge Gurren Lagann fan, but I wanted Viral because he’s a guy, and he looks bestial and evil. Almost everything about him stands out in my collection, so I think it was a good purchase.

Uplark is not a prolific manufacturer. They did some other Gurren Lagann figures, one of Mio Akiyama, and one of Rei Ayanami (I think if you’re a figure manufacturer you’re required to do a K-On! piece and an Evangelion piece). I really wish they’d do more, as Viral here is of very good quality. The paint job is clean, I really like the shading, and the sculpt is good but has a quirk.

If you look at this figure from the side, his pose looks really dumb. From any other angle, it’s dynamic, fierce, and menacing. But his stylized proportions tend to hide the length of his legs from the side. So if you’re looking side-on, it looks like he’s trying really hard to give someone his knife.

Other than that, the figure oozes menace. His grin is fiendishly vicious, and his one revealed eye is magnificently evil. You get a good sense of energy through his pose, the sculpt of which features some strained musculature. I also like his grungy, oversized meat cleaver. Finally, I think it’s important to note he’s still rocking the fluffy cuffs. What a badass.

I don’t think there are any figures like Viral today. Most male figures that come out are of the bishounen variety, because apparently nothing sells except pretty girls and boys-love fodder. The only people doing more macho figures are Megahouse. It’s sad that there isn’t a bigger market for male figures, as there are plenty of male characters I’d like to see made.

So on the strength of its uniqueness, Viral is a good purchase. It helps that the figure is actually well made. I think we’re on the cusp of a boom in male figures, but whether we get a wave of pretty boys or manlier men is uncertain. I hope that with the death of the Macho Man Randy Savage, the universe will rebalance its macho mojo and cause a wave of macho figures to be produced. That’s, like, the second law of thermodynamics.

I missed out on Uplark’s Kamina, so Viral is kind of a consolation prize.

“Here take this knife.”

If my room is one thing, it’s dusty. This has collected a few months’ worth of dust, which gets picked up by the flash. I had to do thorough wipedowns several times during the shoot.

The cross-lighting does a good job of emphasizing his musculature.

His feet don’t fit on the base all that well, but his wide stance ensures stability.

Viral’s hunched over stance made this a tough shoot. Because the figure is so low, I had to take full body shots very close to ground level, which increased the reflections I picked up from the backdrop.

For this shoot I used only my macro lens. With a minimum focus distance at a few inches, the macro lens gave me the freedom to get right up into Viral’s face, and get a lot of low angle shots. If I had shot from above his eye level, all you’d see is his hair.

Figure Review: DC Comics Bishoujo Supergirl by Kotobukiya

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 22:28:18 MDT

The end of July will lead to an onslaught of figures which will probably be tempered by delays. In any case it’ll bring more than the June drought I’ve been suffering through. The first of the July figures to arrive is Kotobukiya’s Supergirl, from the DC Bishoujo line.

The nice thing about Kotobukiya is that I can buy their stuff domestically. Importing a figure, even factoring in the EMS shipping, usually costs less than buying from an American retailer. But with Kotobukiya’s Bishoujo figures, the cost for buying domestically is about the same as importing. This way I can space out my purchases over the course of the month (as opposed to waiting for the month-end influx from Amiami).

Kotobukiya’s quality has always been “good, not great.” As of late they’ve been improving, though not dramatically. Supergirl benefits from a cleaner paint job than Kotobukiya figures of old, but still has some significant flaws.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m not a stickler for perfection. A lot of the points I’m going to make are nitpicky and don’t bother me. Still I feel obligated to write about these things as a reviewer. The first flaw is her hair, which is rife with seams and sloppiness from the moulding process. Second is the eyelids, which kind of make it look like she has pink-eye. The effect is ameliorated if you look at her from a lower angle. Finally, I’m not a fan of the way they handled her chest emblem. It should look like a part of her shirt, but instead looks like a separate piece that was hastily tacked on.

Moving on from her flaws, I think this is a great figure—it’s definitely my favorite Bishoujo so far. I love the playfulness of her pose and the way it pulls off the illusion of flight. Her face is super cute, although not all that Shunya-esque. The sculpt on her body is fantastic as well, especially around the midriff. And as I’ve mentioned already, the paint job is pretty good (a little messy on the chest emblem unfortunately, but good everywhere else). The use of translucent PVC on the clouds and hair give them a certain airiness. Another nice touch is the weight of the base, which should be adequate in keeping the figure planted.

As with my other Bishoujo figures, I think this one is pretty great for $60 shipped. I have so many anime figures that the American design (even if it’s Shunya-style) really stands out on my shelf. Soon I’ll have to start rotating out figures in order to make room, but I think Supergirl will stay on display for a while.

It’s been so damn long since my last figure review (a solid month!) that my photography skills have gotten rusty. I’ve been taking nature walks to develop my field photography, but I found it really hard to get back to shooting figures. Funny how that works, right?

This shoot was done with my preferred two-light setup, with a softbox lighting the figure and a flash with a gel for the background. Figuring out the exposure settings again was a bitch.

I opted for a deeper depth of field by using an f/10 aperture. I love bokeh as much as the next guy but the background is plain enough that I didn’t need it.

Once again, I find myself kind of wanting a third flash as a fill light. I tried using a reflector but it’s really awkward to shoot that way.

For this shoot I went back to manual focusing, because fuck autofocusing and recomposing through the viewfinder when you have a tripod and live view.

I also experimented with a few lenses during this shoot to get reacquainted with how they act in the “studio.” I might do an in-depth post about gear later, but for now I’ll just say that I absolutely love my 60mm macro and 17-40mm lenses for shooting figures.

Here you can see how the sculpt of the eyelids can make it look like she has pink-eye.

From a lower angle it just looks like eyeliner.

Nicely painted fingernails.

That chest emblem... not so great.

Streaky the Supercat is part of the package. I don’t know much about Superman’s extended family, but apparently a flying freaking cat is part of it.

When I posted these photos on Tomopop, I commented that her pose gives off that “stay away!” or “don’t look!” vibe, which made me feel like a total creeper for shooting at these angles. But I’m probably a creeper for owning the figures that I own anyway, so screw it. Let’s get that camera right up her chuff!

Love that midriff!

Comparison with my Marvel Bishoujo figures. Supergirl with the base stands at 9 in tall, making her look as big as a 1/6 scale figure. But if you measure her body, she’s closer to 1/8.

Here’s a shot of my “studio” in case you were curious. I literally just plop all that stuff on my bed (small bedroom). The backdrop is a roll of paper supported by a foam core board. My key light is a softbox I made from an old shipping box. Yep, nothing but the best for me.

Cinema File: Kick-Ass

Sat, 25 Jun 2011 22:28:59 MDT

In person, I’m a pretty easygoing guy. I’m the kind of person who can appreciate when someone uses "freedom of speech" to its fullest. Back when Carlos Mencia did stand up and had a point to make, he was speaking to people like me. So it takes a lot to offend me when we’re talking about self-expression or works of art. As long as we keep our actions civil, I’m cool. So it’s quite strange and shocking that I find myself being offended by Kick-Ass.

Based on a comic of the same name, this Matthew Vaughn directed action-comedy looks at what would happen if someone in real life started acting like a comic book character. And this is where my problem with the movie begins. Dave Lizewski, an innocent high schooler, starts the movie wondering why people don’t try to become superheroes. He figures, someone out there must have the physical ability and means to become a masked crime fighter. One day, he decides to do this himself, becoming the superhero named Kick-Ass.

Dave (played by Aaron Johnson, thankfully not doing any kind of Michael Cera impression) appeals to our sense of justice in a very specific way by drawing upon comic books as an inspiration. He invokes our collective understanding of superhero comics, which more often than not involves Superman values such as respecting life and cooperating with the justice system.

What plays out, though, is brutal, violent, and disproportionately harsh given the crimes being punished. The problem is that the movie portrays this as the comic book ideal that Dave has been trying to live up to—an ideal where an eleven-year-old girl (Hit Girl) who maims, stabs, and shoots gangsters can be considered noble and heroic. These are not the men in tights superhero values that I was set up to see; this is more like Watchmen or Sin City in colorful makeup.

This dissonance doesn’t make the movie bad per se; it’s the film’s blissful ignorance of this dissonance that burns me up. The fact that Dave wants to be like a superhero, but then allies with Hit Girl (the exact kind of sociopath Batman or Superman regularly put behind bars), is an irony that is entirely lost on Matthew Vaughn. It could have been put to use to examine the hypocrisy of the superhero ideal, or maybe to caution us on the excesses of vigilantism. Instead the irony just sits there, like a turd, reminding us that what Dave told us he wanted and what ended up happening have little logical connection. In essence, Dave decides one day "I want to uphold justice!" and then aids and abets a child spree murderer. Does it help that the victims deserved it? A little, but he and Hit Girl certainly don’t serve any justice.

Aside from this central point of failure, Kick-Ass is actually a really well-made film. The characters are enjoyable, partly because of the acting, and partly because of the troubles they go through. I respect a person who takes a beating and gets back up, and I definitely respect people of incredible skill. Kick-Ass qualifies as the former, while Hit Girl and Big Daddy are definitely the latter (Hit Girl seems to deliberately invoke Natalie Portman’s Mathilda from Leon, except better trained). When they all get beaten down, I’m on the edge of my seat rooting for them to come back from it and win. It’s a simple formula, but effective.

I also have to give a special mention to Nicolas Cage (who plays Big Daddy). If you only look at his mannerisms, he starts out as a fairly normal guy who becomes progressively less able to enunciate his lines as the film goes on. This is for no reason other than he’s Nicolas Goddamn Cage. For any other actor, this would suffice as the weird endearing character quirk. But this is Nicolas Cage we’re talking about, so his first scene has him shooting his daughter in the chest with a pistol (to show her how it feels to get shot while wearing a bulletproof vest). Nicolas Cage is not perfect for every role, but he’s pretty close to perfect for this one.

Although it’s wholly inappropriate, the comedy and lighthearted tone (when people aren’t getting stabbed, shot, or burned to death) are surprisingly effective. A lot of things happen that make me not want to laugh, but when I think back to the jokes, I can’t help but chuckle.

Then we get to the action scenes, which are simply amazing. If Tony Jaa replaced his knees and fists with guns, you’d have a good idea of what Hit Girl’s climactic rampage will look like. The creativity and sheer badassery on display awed me, and I was further impressed by the lack of Bourne-style close/janky cuts.

So to end, I’ll summarize a few things. Kick-Ass is a not-really comic book movie with highly entertaining action scenes and good comedy. However you’d have to be a sociopath to fully enjoy it. So if you do fully enjoy it, you stay the hell away from me.

Figure Review: Saber Lily by Gift

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 18:36:22 MDT

Fate/Stay Night the anime was, to me, a bunch of cool ideas ruined by a bumbling dumb hero protagonist and desperately contrived harem cliches. But I’m grateful that the franchise exists and achieved some popularity, because it brought us this Saber figure.

Normally when I get a figure, I take some photos of the unboxing and post a preliminary writeup onto my Tomopop c-blog. I like taking photos and sharing with that community, so usually I’ll give them a little something before it shows up on Makigumo. This time, though, I decided that I didn’t want this figure viewed in anything less than its full majesty, so I used the exact same set of photos for both sites.

Most of my purchasing decisions are based on how much I like the character, but this one was purely due to its aesthetic magnificence. The first time I saw promotional shots of this figure, I was taken aback by the incredible detail of her outfit, and that face. This Saber Lily is based on a garage kit by Toda Satoshi. It was made into a PVC figure by Gift, who thankfully fixed up the janky muppet face of the original, and is now being distributed by Good Smile Company.

She stands 7.5" tall, which I feel is too short for the advertised 1/8 scale, but it doesn’t bother me all that much. The paint work, aside from a few minor splotches, is pretty great overall. And I shouldn’t have to say much about the sculpt. I can understand if you don’t like the overall design or the color scheme, but if you do not like this sculpt, I will personally find you and gouge out your eyes.

Where can I even begin? She easily has one of the all-time best faces on a PVC figurine. Look, I buy figures of cute girls. They’re all gonna have fine faces. But this one is fiiiiiine. The improvement from the original kit to this is astonishing. It’s just about the most beautiful face I’ve ever seen that doesn’t belong to a real human. You could levy the criticism that it doesn’t look like Saber’s actual design, to which I’d counter “fahck ya mahther ya fahckin queeah.” Then look at all that detail on her armor, not to mention how well-sculpted her many layers of clothing are. It’s a shame that her armor wasn’t given a little more shading, but I bet it’ll only become a problem under very bright lights.

The only legitimate complaint I have is her mirrored base, which wasn’t shipped with any protective wrapping. As a result, when it arrived, it was all scratched up. It just looked bad compared to how amazing the figure is.

If you’re a figure manufacturer, choosing Saber as your subject isn’t exactly a daring move. So if you don’t go for the high-concept piece, your execution better be pretty good. Yeah, I think Gift passes the test. Is it 100% perfect? No, and I neither expect nor demand that from my figures. But really, when viewing these photos, will you be fretting over the minor imperfections? Or will you be blinded by its excellence? I think by far it will be the latter.

Photo setup: softbox at the 5 o’clock position relative to the figure, and a flash with a red gel at 1 o’clock (I really should just take a photo of my setup). Gotta love that softbox!

This shoot made me consider getting a third, smaller flash for a fill light. Oh god, listen to me. Why don’t I just give my bank account to B&H...

Honestly I think she looks incredible from every angle. All you need is soft, even lighting.

I decided to go with a pink background light to complement her outfit. I fitted a red gel onto the rear flash for the red light, then turned it pink by washing it out with white light from the softbox. The bit of yellow meshes quite well with her hair, but... that was an accident—some kind of bizarre side effect from using the red gel on my flash.

Her hair is dynamically sculpted, and the seams are hidden very well. If you follow Mikatan’s blog, now is a good time to admire her armpits.

I like that Saber’s armor looks like it might actually protect her in battle. This is a figure you could easily display even to the most prudish of onlookers. It’s sexy without being gawdy, unlike many of my other figures.

Her finely sculpted back shows off the delicacy of the woman under the armor. Okay, she’s not actually that delicate, but the figure sure makes her look that way.

Talk about detail! This is the only figure I’ve reviewed that looks better under a macro lens.

From head to toe, this figure is just astonishing.

She doesn’t come with the “Sword of Promised Victory”. Instead you get the sword of probable victory, Caliburn.

And if you want the weapon of least promised victory, you’d equip her with one of these.

You can see here why I wanted a plastic covering for the mirror base. It’s a pretty standard practice, which makes the oversight here all the more disappointing. Instead of a clean, shiny mirror base, I get something that looks like it came out of a public restroom.

No, there is no mystery behind why they chose to go with a mirror.

Cinema File: The Fighter

Sun, 29 May 2011 00:49:48 MDT

Pictured: Bawston

Fact: I love Boston movies. The Boondock Saints, Good Will Hunting, The Town, The Departed, Gone Baby Gone, Edge of Darkness, the list goes on. They all have this blue-collar quality, where people with ridiculous problems pull themselves up by their bootstraps and the sweat of their brows, while spewing profanity left and right and generally wanting to pick a fight with every wicked retahded cawksuckah that looks at them funny.

I love Boston movies so much that I’ve been practicing Boston accents. I love them to the point where I think every last one of them is Oscar caliber, especially The Boondock Saints. So as you might imagine, I love The Fighter.

Directed by David O. Russell, The Fighter isn’t actually set in Boston; it alternates between Las Vegas and Lowell, MA. But whatever, close enough. It’s got Marky-Mark and Christian Bale doing a freakishly good Massachusetts accent. It features the sometimes turbulent relationship between boxers Dicky Eklund and Mickey Ward, half-brothers with dreams of making it in the boxing world.

Eklund (Christian Bale) is a bit of the washed up athlete, like that guy at parties who keeps telling you about his glory days in college. Mickey Ward (Wahlberg) is an up-and-comer who is conflicted between his loyalty to his family and his desire for success. While Eklund has good boxing instincts, he’s also a crackhead. The mismanagement of Mickey’s career by the family has cost him, so most of the film centers around his attempt to break free and do his own thing.

I think Christian Bale certainly gives an Oscar-caliber performance, disappearing into the role of Dicky Eklund. His physical transformation from Bruce Wayne to the aging, scarily gaunt, slightly balding Eklund is marvelous in itself. But he also gets the Boston accent and the crackhead mannerisms. He’s a skittish guy, elusive, and always struggling against his bad decisions. It’s quite different from the confidence and steadiness usually exuded from Christian Bale characters.

Mark Wahlberg is, well, Mark Wahlberg. There’s pissed off, ready to fight Mark Wahlberg. And there’s meek, low-key Wahlberg. He’s watchable enough as Mickey Ward, but he’s also definitely Mark Wahlberg.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences loves its underdog sports movies, so it’s no wonder The Figher got a best picture nom. But it mostly follows those old sports movie tropes. Get ready for training montages, manager/managee conflict, and of course the climactic final match.

What sets The Fighter apart, though, its the fahckin Bawston-ness. You got crack-houses and Christian Bale pretending to be a cop, and a lot of people fighting each other for no reason, not to mention a wicked awesome catfight and the generally ridiculous characters (the best part is that the movie is based on real people). It’s surprisingly difficult to make snarky comments while watching, but that’s just because it’s a quality film. Afterward, though, you really start to appreciate how much silliness was slipped in there.

Fahckin’ Bawston, man. It’s wicked awesome and anyone who says otherwise is a fahckin’ cawksucker. Put em in your reah view.

Validation whores: why I am fighting an uphill battle, and why some people hate art

Wed, 25 May 2011 00:14:39 MDT

Aelita Andre, source of photo: focus.de. ’Ey, ahhh no disrespect, but ahhh you c’n piss off, capice?

Recently, an exhibition at the Agora Gallery in New York was brought to my attention. It features the work of Aelita Andre, a four year old. I’m not here to criticize her work myself, but it did spark quite a debate among my friends about the nature of modern art. I think it’s worth discussing two of the points raised in this debate here, especially in the context of anime criticism. We all have pet causes, I hope you’ll begrudge me mine.

I really don’t want to feed any more traffic to the sensationalist museum, but read the Agora Gallery’s own assessment of Andre’s art to get an idea of what I’m reacting to.

If a four year old can make art, then it just proves modern art is a crock of shit

The above point is a strawman, but it’s probably going to be the kneejerk reaction of more than a few people who hear about Aelita Andre. I’ll admit even I kind of felt it. My art connoisseur friend counters that just because an individual work is bad or stupid, it doesn’t reflect on the genre or medium. I agree wholeheartedly.

The fact that anyone would put this in a museum says that art critics are pretentious

I’m not an expert on art criticism, but I do feel this kind of pretension coming from what criticism I do read. Modern art critics in particular seem desperate to bust out the flowery prose to champion any old thing that comes along, regardless of its actual artistic merits. To me, at least, it comes off as a need for validation. It’s the same kind of thing that puts gamers in an uproar when Roger Ebert says games aren’t art. I think Ebert’s wrong, but you don’t go about proving it by trying to show that all games are art.

Fortunately game journalists, for the most part, avoid this kind of behavior. They’re pretty good about separating games which are entertainment products from games which are artistic projects. But I don’t see this from a lot of art critics, who will tout the stupidest shit because they really want themselves and their art to be taken seriously. If their only platform was an internet blog, fine, but terrible art still makes its way into museums. People see it, are told this is what fine art is, and some are forever put off to the medium. To the museum: dude, you’re not fucking helping.

I’ve spent the better part of my life defending anime as an art form. Believe me, if you think contemporary art has it rough, anime has it a hundred times worse. Whenever someone says their kid could make contemporary art, I want to punt a kitten. I feel the exact same thing whenever someone says Japanese animation is just about pederast tentacles.

Much like these art critics, I want anime to be taken seriously as an artistic medium. Just because Queen’s Blade exists doesn’t mean tits and violence are the only things anime is used for. But I’m not going to change things by going out there and telling everyone that Queen’s Blade is actually a great work of art, with an innovative plot structure, clever metaphors, and nuanced psychological characterizations (except as an April Fool’s joke). I feel a lot of art critics do this sort of thing, though, and that’s what bothers me about this Aelita Andre business.

Agora is doing a disservice to art, and art criticism. How much insight and expression could a four year old possibly have? Their cognitive abilities have barely started developing. How much influence from historical art could she have been exposed to, in her year and a half of being able to tell a paintbrush from her own ass? What lessons from art school could she have possibly retained?

I have nothing against Aelita Andre the person, but I don’t think what she makes is art, and I don’t think Agora’s evaluation is valid. It’s fine if you actually like the work—I think it looks pretty cool myself. But just call it what it is.

Back to anime: look at the reviews here on Makigumo. They actually tend to be low-scoring, even for titles I enjoy. That’s because I’m not so desperate to validate my cause that I’ll just promote anything as being great art. If an anime has no artistic merit, I’ll acknowledge that it wasn’t a good use of the medium. Fine, battle lost, fight on.

What I won’t do is sit here and pretend like Lucky Star is a valid exploration of youth issues in Japan. I won’t pretend like there is any meaning or purpose behind the sex and violence in Kite. I won’t treat any title as something it’s not, because it doesn’t help my goal in the end. If someone challenges me about the validity of anime as art, I’m going to point them to works of art rather than try to sell anime as something that only contains art. Do I try to find art in every title? Yes. But the thing is, I know when it’s not there.

Agora Gallery, do you want to be taken seriously? Do you want contemporary art to be taken seriously? Then stop with the bullshitting. I’m not mad because Andre’s work proves that art sucks. It’s that you could be spending your time promoting and exposing people to real, good art.

Figure Review: Marvel Bishoujo Ms. Marvel by Kotobukiya

Sat, 21 May 2011 10:19:27 MDT

Drawing from that ever-fertile reservoir of scantily-clad, busty women, today I review a figure from American comics. Kotobukiya has been collaborating with Shunya Yamashita and Marvel Comics on their Marvel Bishoujo figure line. Last month their combined talents created Ms. Marvel, a character normally associated with The Avengers.

Your brief character history: Ms. Marvel started out like a female Superman, but lost her powers to Rogue. Eventually she regained her powers, along with the ability to fire off energy blasts. Otherwise she is notable for having a totally sweet outfit.

When I say “outfit” I mean sash. The rest kind of looks like S&M wear but the sash makes the outfit. Just look at the way it accentuates her hips, with the trailing part adding a bit of grace to her movements. Crime fighters don’t usually accessorize, but Ms. Marvel definitely made a smart choice.

Kotobukiya’s production of the figure is mostly good. Unlike the Emma Frost figure I reviewed a while back, Ms. Marvel is quite huge. Although the figure is 10.5" tall, Ms. Marvel is only around 1/8 scale (still a larger scale than Emma Frost). She looks bigger than her scale would suggest for several reasons: her pose is more stretched out, her proportions are broad, and she represents a taller woman to begin with. So the figure looks comparable to a 1/6 scale one, but it’s actually a bit of an illusion.

The paint job is remarkably clean considering how their latest Rei turned out. I like the combination of gloss and satin finishes on her main outfit, while the translucent hair has been painted for some depth and shading. The concrete look on the base is pretty convincing too.

I only have one real concern about this figure—I say “concern” because it hasn’t shown to be a problem yet. As you can see, Ms. Marvel is posed in a leaping position, supported by one leg. In actuality it’s just the tip of her foot holding the figure to the base. That’s a fair amount of weight to put on such a small joint, especially as the center of gravity is so far forward. The ankle area doesn’t seem to be especially reinforced, so I’m afraid she’ll either droop down over time, or straight up break.

Aside from the one concern, I’m very satisfied with the figure. It’s still priced at $50 if you buy in the US (putting it in line with previous Marvel Bishoujo releases) but you get a lot more figure for the money. The finish is fair: great in most spots but with a few problem areas. I’ll be nitpicking those in the captions below. These things don’t really bother me, but if you’re a prospective consumer, you should be aware.

For the first three shots I had the idea of throwing an all-white background on my monitor, and capturing the light as it passed through the translucent pieces. I used a circular polarizer to block out the direct illumination from the screen, though you can see it doesn’t work perfectly. You can combine circular polarizers and LCDs for some interesting effects, as the light coming from an LCD is already strongly polarized. Just be aware that it will make dust on the screen conspicuous. I did some extensive spot healing in Photoshop to get rid of the dust specks in the above picture.

The rest of these shots used a cross-lit setup. I set up a softbox to the left, and a flash to the right to illuminate the fire pieces. The first few shots had too much light spilling onto the backdrop, so I fitted the second flash with a snoot to get a more focused beam.

Here you can see a little weirdness with her mouth. Her lower lip is basically a blob, as if Kotobukiya gave up sculpting when they hit that point.

There are casting imperfections on the hair, such as grains and mould lines. It looks worse up close than it does in person, but most figures are that way.

Of course, we have to look at her butt. Unlike most of the Shunya Yamashita-designed figures I have, this one gets the butt exactly right. I like her thicker proportions in general. Unfortunately, there’s a mould line on part of it.

The base is as dynamic as the pose, but it’s not quite wide enough, meaning...

... your figure could end up doing a lot of this (tipping over). Coupled with my ankle joint concern, and you’ll see why I’m especially careful when handling this figure.

You can snap off the flame effect pieces by separating their top and bottom halves. The pieces are flexible, and form a clamshell-type mould around her fists.

These figures were the same price, but you get a big scale upgrade with Ms. Marvel.

Figure Review: Kazari Uiharu by Alter

Thu, 19 May 2011 21:41:02 MDT

Today I’m reviewing a figure that isn’t wearing a skimpy outfit, doesn’t have robust proportions, and is not posed so as to attract attention to her genitals or chest. No, this isn’t some ten cent whore that you’d find from a less reputable anime; it’s Kazaru Uiharu from A Certain Scientific Railgun.

I guess the worst you could say is that a seifuku is a sort of fetish outfit, but even Uiharu’s uniform has a modest look. Her skirt is a sensible length, more than the few meager inches you’d find on other school uniforms. Indeed Uiharu looks like she might be an actual school girl.

The only part that’s even slightly flamboyant is Uiharu’s trademark flower headband. Otherwise it’s an extremely plain figure. It’s a puzzling design considering the manufacturer. Alter doesn’t usually go the low-key route. A lot of their figures are showpieces, with elaborate bases and all manner of fancy bits cleverly sculpted onto the main subject. And yet, with Uiharu, you don’t get any of that.

At about 6000 Yen from Amiami, this figure falls ever so slightly behind the median price of Alter’s figures. So despite the plainness, you’re still paying about the usual price. She’s also 1/8 scale, so you’re not getting more figure for your money by any measure. From a value standpoint, it would be better to go with Kotobukiya’s version.

What this figure has that Kotobukiya’s lacks is the moe. Through her pose and expression, Alter has really piled on the moe. They’ve also gotten the facial proportions spot on, so she looks very much like her super-moe anime self. Her good-natured, semi-embarrassed smile isn’t complex but it is exceedingly adorable.

The sculpt and finish, as you’d expect from Alter, are top-notch. Even though Uiharu as a concept is not very elaborate, Alter has managed to pile on an impressive amount of detailing to reward those who look closely. From the pleats in her skirt to her layered hair to the sculpted undershirt, Uiharu is visually interesting wherever you look.

The paint job is clean enough, par for course with Alter. The only part that doesn’t look good is the safety pin on her Judgment armband. It looks like a silver blob, and isn’t exactly out of the prime viewing angle. Aside from that, it’s a very professional looking figure. Even the tiny lines on the Judgment emblem are neat and straight.

For around $75, you’re not getting a great deal. I’m sure it’ll hit the bargain bin soon enough, so it’s probably wise to wait. If you’re a Railgun or Uiharu fan, though, I’m glad to report that Alter has done a great job capturing Uiharu’s essence.

Quick and dirty review here, folks. Just a bounced flash and the black velvet. I’m waiting until I get out of my funk before doing the Dizzy review.

Alter has spared no expense on the hair and headband.

The only bad part here. It’s quite a contrast because the Judgment emblem looks so clean, but the safety pin does not.

Her undershirt is definitely the most impressive detail, but it’s so small most will probably miss it. Not only did Alter add in the extra layer, it’s individually sculpted and look at the work they did on the frilly part!

Being such a small and light figure, Uiharu is pretty stable on her base. This is probably the only figure base I’ve seen which contains a spoiler! Not that Uiharu’s power is much of a plot point anyway.

The pose of course captures Uiharu’s reaction to a skirt flip.

Figure Review: Rei Ayanami by Kotobukiya

Tue, 10 May 2011 21:51:08 MDT

When this figure was announced, I thought Kotobukiya must have needed another quick cash injection. Their creative guys probably held an emergency meeting. Obviously, the strategy is to release another Rei figure. But what to dress her in? Clown suit? Dinosaur suit? Bear suit? Many sleepless nights passed, and finally they decided to go for the plugsuit again. Except this time, instead of an Eva-00 bust, she would be leaning on rubble. Instead of 1/6 scale, she’d be 1/7 scale. And instead of looking upward with her back bent at an unnatural angle, she’d be looking slightly less upward with her back bent at an unnatural angle. Brilliant, they thought. It’s like a whole different figure!

Like most of Kotobukiya’s Evangelion girls, this Rei has been twisted into an awkward posture to draw attention to the hip/butt area. As long as you don’t think too hard about her spinal health, I think it’s a decent look. It certainly accentuates her curves.

I found her face to be odd. It’s not bad by any means, but doesn’t really look like Rei. Kotobukiya’s figures often end up looking a bit off from the original character designs, so this isn’t unusual. Even her hair color is wrong; it can take on a lavender/purplish hue under artificial lighting.

The finish isn’t as meticulously clean as something you’d find from Alter. The figure has more stray paint and dust specks than I’d like, although it looks good where it matters. The sculpt for the legs and butt area is somewhat rough, looking as if Rei is packing some cellulose. As for the fitment into the base, her left leg doesn’t engage the peg all the way. It doesn’t have to in order to stay upright, but it can lead to instability if you’re moving the figure around.

On the plus side, I think the figure’s more interesting than Alter’s version, which has Rei lying down on a plain black rectangle. The rubble base and supermodel pose add the slightest bit of flair to this figure.

It still doesn’t change the fact that what you’re seeing is something you’ve probably seen thousands of times already. Kotobukiya deserves credit for the execution, but the concept is, well, assaulting a deceased equine.

This figure has helped me develop a fondness for translucent PVC. Her hair catches the blue light particularly well.

The base looks good but doesn’t engage completely with her left leg. You can see it floats a little above the spot where it should rest.

My favorite view of the face.

Here you can see a little sloppiness in the finish, such as the shading on her interface headset.

Up close the paint work looks rough, but in person it’s fine. The glossy finish of Rei’s plugsuit is of good quality, though some of the detailing can be sloppy.

A great touch: rust stains coming from the rebars.

Figure Review: Aya by Alter

Tue, 10 May 2011 00:59:09 MDT

Aya (no last name I guess) hails from The OneeChanbara VorteX, which got the unfortunate translation to Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad for its US release. I haven’t played it, but I’m guessing it’s the kind of game that reinforces the belief that gamers are immature. It certainly reinforces the idea that otaku or media from Japan are obsessed with sex, violence, and objectifying women. In some way I’d like to believe that the creators want us to admire them in their audacity. Bikini girls fighting zombies is pretty close to the line. Give her a pair of swords and a cowboy hat, and you push it far enough past the line that it becomes immune to criticism. That was probably the hope, anyway. But what can I say? From an eye-candy perspective, I like what I like.

A few companies have made Aya figures, but I think the best are from Alter and Orchid Seed. Eventually I settled on Alter’s figure as I was able to find a better price. It was made in October 2008, the same month as the Rei Ayanami figure I posted about. It’s not super elaborate in terms of the underlying concept. But Alter being who they are managed to impress me with their obsessive attention to detail.

From head to toe this figure is lovingly crafted and cleanly painted. I caught a few subtle mould lines, but it’s nothing that diverts the eyes. I’m seriously awestruck by how much detailing there is in the figure. Without having to worry about an elaborate base or an arsenal of accessories, Alter really focused on cramming every little intricate detail they could onto Aya’s costume. The only parts of the finish where they faltered are the scarf, which isn’t really shaded (looks ok in real life though), and her eyes. You’ll understand about the eyes once you see the close-ups.

In terms of build quality, the figure is mostly good. However I don’t trust the base, which is flimsy and doesn’t hold the feet very well. Aya will wobble, and may come off the base if you move her around. Another point of concern is the fitment of her scabbards onto her hip. The pegs didn’t quite fit right on mine, so the upper scabbard can come loose when bumped.

This figure really is something you’d get only if you had cash to spare. I very much like the design and execution (read: sexiness), but I can’t imagine anyone would be a big enough fan of the games to actually save up to buy this.

From a photographic perspective, she looks particularly beautiful in warm, sunset-y tones. What cowboy or cowgirl wouldn’t?

Working with flashes is very enjoyable, as you can get all sorts of looks with just some gels and a plain background. I overexposed while taking the shots to blow out the texture of the paper background, and then decreased the exposure in post to intensify the colors a bit.

Her tiger-stripe eyes really bother me. In person, they look fine. But stare at this close-up long enough, and... aaaarrrggh

I’m not usually a fan of the themed stripper look but I can give Aya a pass because of the swords.

I have to say, the flimsy plastic base was a bit of a letdown. UART... now they make solid bases.

Knowing this area would be under the most scrutiny, Alter put a lot of care into the patterns of Aya’s bikini top.

Tramp stamp!

Sadly, Aya’s butt is on the flat side (and apparently had some chunks bitten out?). Orchid Seed’s version has a much better butt, but Alter’s has a nicer face.

It’s not a bad butt. Alter (bless them) does try to get it right. But you need size as well as form, guys.

This is a composite of 11 exposures, combined to give a larger depth of field than each individual exposure. Focus stacking is a great way to get everything in your close-up shots in focus without having to step down your aperture (sometimes it’s just not possible to step down your aperture enough, especially on macro shots). Most of the heavy lifting can be done by Photoshop or dedicated software.

Cinema File: 5 Fa5t 5 Furiou5

Tue, 10 May 2011 00:08:09 MDT

5 Fa5t 5 Furiou5 opens with a prison break where a prison bus ramps over a muscle car and does a few barrel rolls. Why orchestrate a prison break where you have a high chance of killing the guy you’re breaking out? It turns out this is the least nonsensical thing that happens in the movie.

Fast Five is a tribute to not giving a fuck: about the law, about logic, about motivations, about acting, or about physics. Every action scene has Vin Diesel busting through whatever obstacle is in his way, be it a guy or a brick wall. Every suspenseful moment culminates in Vin Diesel coming up with absurd plans on the spot. If you combined Ocean’s Eleven with Need for Speed and tossed in some pro wrestling, this is the inevitable brown-colored result.

Speaking of pro wrestling, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has a substantial role. His acting consists of half-committing to a fast-mouthed lawman persona, and sweating as much as humanly possible. But of course we’re not here to see him act, we’re here to see him beat the everloving fuck out of whatever unfortunate pissant happens to get in his way. And when that unfortunate pissant is Vin Diesel, you know shit’s gonna get real.

Said fight scene is the middle climax of the movie, and it’s gloriously cut from start to finish. I don’t understand how two people could wreck an entire warehouse (they seriously broke furniture that didn’t even exist a few moments before) but it was amazing. It was like watching two dinosaurs fighting inside a tornado that’s carving up downtown Rio while it’s simultaneously getting hit by an earthquake and there’s also an out-of-control freight train bearing down on the whole mess.

The real climax, as you might guess from the trailer, consists of Vin Diesel and Paul Walker driving through Rio with a bank vault attached to their cars. The amount of skill and finesse they display can only come from dutiful practice, but where the fuck do you practice driving around with a bank vault? Plus it’s best not to think too deeply about the collateral damage. While Diesel and Walker share bromantic glances at each other, they’re racking up a body count that would make Rambo shudder.

I think Jeff, who I saw the movie with, said it best. Fast Five is America. It’s a celebration of all the things that make America great, such as not giving a shit about your juris-my-diction and wrecking an entire city because fuck you, that’s why. By the end, when The Rock just casually shoots a dude with his revolver, you know you’re no longer watching an action/heist movie. You’ve been transported through a reality warping field to a place where the fabric of the universe and karma itself are America.

Ultimately, that’s what makes this movie successful. You learn early on, it’s about freedom. All the things that would normally constrain a movie, this one is free of. As The Rock says during his introduction: “Stay the fuck out of my way.” America’s here, bitches.

Figure Review: Mari Illustrious Makinami by Max Factory

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 01:37:25 MDT

When it comes to Evangelion figures, you can’t get more generic than having a pilot in a plug suit. Asuka and Rei are very well represented, but Mari figures are harder to find. I had plenty of the other two but only a single Mari Figma. Clearly, I had to add another figure of this neglected girl to my collection. Max Factory’s take seems to be the best of them, so I was pretty happy when she arrived at my house.

The excitement quickly turned to boredom, though. While Max Factory’s figure exhibits a lot of polish, and is the most accurate to Yoshiyuki Sadamoto’s design, you can’t help but feel that you’ve seen this before. Indeed, there’s no shortage of Eva pilots in plug suits out there. The critical flaw of this one is that it doesn’t capture Mari’s personality at all. She’s someone who not only enjoys piloting her Eva, she actually has fun with it. During her brief appearances, you can see that she’s slightly unhinged in the head. But what does Max Factory give us? Just a statue of her standing, smiling slightly.

It’s all very well made, and I especially like the finish on her suit. But come on. I would have liked to at least see the “beast mode” Mari, snarling and gnashing her teeth. So for a few weeks, I couldn’t decide on how to review this figure. I thought it was just too boring.

Then yesterday, my second Speedlite arrived. So there I was, with two off-camera flashes, some gel filters, and a bunch of homemade light modifiers. Why not try something? As I experimented with various ways to shoot the figure, I found that I was enjoying it more and more. Each figure has a sort of “preference” for how you shoot it. Mari’s disposition encourages you to get up close and intimate with a portrait lens, a role which my macro lens filled admirably.

Before I knew it, I had taken almost 100 photos. There’s the initial guess-and-check that comes when you’re still figuring out the ins and outs of your setup. But after that, I just kept wanting to shoot the figure, like it was my job. So Max Factory made something really strange with this Mari. The concept is unoriginal and frankly boring, but something about the execution is undeniably appealing. It excels in build quality, and I think it’s the best looking Mari figure out right now.

I had read many reviews of this figure, each time thinking the figure was technically great but lacking personality. But seeing her up close from behind the lens, she really comes alive.

There are a few blemishes here and there. I think the hair could have been better shaded in front.

The paint work is clean for the most part, with a few rough spots only noticeable when you look really closely.

Profile view and... no squid beak!

The reason I like Mari so much: her twin tails. They’re very well sculpted here.

Other reviewers pointed out a bit of weirdness with her butt, where the legs join the torso. I’m forced to agree; it can look a bit disjointed from a head-on view.

One issue I had was her legs, which weren’t spread far enough apart for the feet to fit the base. I had to do some prying in order to get the pegs to go in.

With two flashes, you can do a number of lighting setups (though you have to keep in mind that everything is harder because of the size of the figurine). For most of these shots I used one flash with a softbox as the primary light, and another flash at low power for a fill light.

I also experimented with some gel filters to see what color effects I could achieve. This has one flash behind the figure casting blue light on a white background, while another flash (fitted with a snoot) put a focused beam onto the face. The snoot prevented the second flash from contaminating the blue light.

This was a similar setup to the above, except the red flash was pointed more toward the figure.

I had an idea to project some crosses onto a background, to recreate a scene at the beginning of Eva 2.0. Unfortunately I didn’t have the right equipment, so I decided to try Photoshop. It ended up looking hokey without a good sky backdrop, so I decided to just leave it all alone. If you want to use your imagination, just picture her looking at a defeated Angel.

Fun with light painting. I put my camera on bulb mode and used a remote shutter to get the process started. It took a lot of guess work because I’m not very experienced at it. Even when I got the wings right, I still had to composite the photo with a piece from another one in order to get a good looking halo.

Figure Review: Asuka Langley Shikinami by Alter

Sun, 17 Apr 2011 17:28:23 MDT

It seems like manufacturers have long ago run out of ideas when it comes to Evangelion figures. The most creative ones I see are probably Sega’s prize figures. Almost all the other Evangelion scale figures seem to feature either Asuka or Rei in a plug suit. Thankfully an exception to the rule comes along once in a while, but this is not one of those times.

Here we have Asuka, in her Evangelion 2.0 test plug suit, as rendered by Alter. She was released a while ago, but I got this one on sale from Hobby Link Japan. If you’re a collector and want to control your addiction, avoid HLJ sales at all costs. This is my sixth Alter figure, and I must say they’ve lived up to their reputation yet again.

While the subject may be... common (not exactly dull), Alter has created just about as good of a figure as it’s possible to create. The sculpt is magnificent; at 1/8 scale it still carries more detail than most of my larger figures. Whereas most plug suit sculpts come out looking like wetsuits, Alter’s interpretation looks more like a thin layer of latex. The face looks true to Yoshiyuki Sadamoto’s design, and even her pose and fingers have a Sadamoto-esque quality to them.

Asuka sits atop a throne of rubble and girders, supported by a single metal rod that joins her to the base. The base is just a translucent orange disk with the Evangelion 2.0 logo on there, not that you’ll be looking at it much. The paint job is clean, pretty much flawless. I especially like the shading that went into the plug suit. Plug suits aren’t the most exciting types of clothing, but at least the paint job here gives it depth. The only issue is the torso section, which is supposed to be translucent. Obviously it would be really hard to make an actual translucent piece, but the paint effect isn’t terribly convincing. It’s finished with a very glossy varnish, which looks great.

Then we get to Asuka’s face, which is way too happy and calm. Evangelion 2.0 is not about calm or happy things, and Asuka is certainly not a calm or happy character. I guess the decision to go with this expression comes down to marketability. Still, I wish Alter stuck with representing the character. Asuka is sitting on some destroyed building, she should look angry, or sad, or at the very least worried. And if you’ve seen Evangelion 2.0, you’ll know that her test suit is the prelude to utter devastation.

Like all the Eva pilot plug suit figures out there, this one is slightly lacking in personality. But looked at in a vacuum, it holds up very well. Of course the craftsmanship is top notch, but Asuka is also a very pleasant character to look at. If I had to make a company continue to produce cliched plug suit figures, I would choose Alter.

The rod holding everything up is made of fairly thick metal, but I’d still be careful with it. The holes where it pegs in may not be able to withstand as much stress as the rod itself.

Green accents look surprisingly good here. The test suit design overall is more complex than that of the standard plug suit.

Even the voice box thingy was cleanly painted and detailed.

The placement and subtle bends in her fingers are very reminiscent of Yoshiyuki Sadamoto’s art style.

Here’s the obligatory butt shot. It’s very fit indeed.

I like the way Alter captured her hair blowing in the wind. Some people objected at the coloring, saying it’s way too brown. Seriously, how can you complain at something that looks so good?

Lovely profile, no squid beak going on here.

Just imagine her calmly surveying a scene of devastation and ruin, possibly even witnessing the beginning of the Third Impact. Yeah it’s weird to me too.

Figure Review: Diabolus Inclinatus by Embrace Japan

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 22:02:58 MDT

WARNING: this review is mildly NSFW in that it contains a very scantily clad demon lady. The angles I picked for shooting don’t make it any more worksafe.

Diabolus Inclinatus is based on the art of Sousi Hirose, who drew this character for the cover of his doujinshi Demon Squeezer. The basic design and pose was then translated into PVC form by Embrace Japan.

This figure popped onto my radar a while back when it was announced. I didn’t get one when preorders opened, mostly because I was saving money for other stuff at the time. It turns out this was a good call, as there was a huge problem with the first production run. Turns out that while the figure was advertised as being cast-offable, some of the cast-off parts had been glued on. Embrace Japan then made the honorable (though financially disastrous, I’m sure) move of sending a whole new replacement unit free to anyone who bought one.

And that brings us to the present. I saw this figure on sale at Hobby Link Japan shortly after the new batch came out. I still heard about some production defects, but decided to roll the dice. A few days later, the figure arrived. It was... quite a treat.

Let’s not kid ourselves, there is only one reason to buy this figure: it’s sexy as all hell. This is actually my first full-on h-figure, although Yamato’s Black Tinkerbell came pretty close. Look guys, I’m not here to pretend like my hobby is deep and meaningful. And please don’t expect me to advance the worthy social cause of preventing the objectification of women. All I can do is buy what I like, and take some photos.

Diabolus Inclinatus photographs very well indeed. I decided to set up a little stage, as I felt this figure warranted special attention for reasons I’ll go into later. As you can see, I did do the whole shoot with my figure and gear next to open flames. I shouldn’t have to tell you guys, always be careful when shooting near open flames. Don’t get so caught up in the photography that you forget where things are in relation to the fire. I had a glass of water nearby but thankfully didn’t need it.

Before getting into the pictures, let’s get the specs out of the way. She’s PVC, seemingly glued to the base, and stands about 8 in. tall, which puts her around 1/8 scale. You can cast off her barely-existent clothing (the bra and panties), though the process is rather difficult and annoying. I’ll probably do a separate writeup for the casting off process. You can also remove the tail to facilitate the cast-off process.

For shots like these, a tilt-shift lens might have been useful for minimizing perspective distortion.

I got the candles for $0.77 apiece at Hobby Lobby (some 6 in. tapers), and the candle holders were about $3 each. I wrapped the bases of the candles in paper to get them to sit upright, and trimmed off the excess so they wouldn’t show in the photos.

Candles don’t provide a whole ton of light, so I had the choice of either using external lighting or going with long exposures (I kept the ISO low). External lights made the image lose a lot of its vibrance, so I went with long exposures for overall better results.

A wide lens is useful for establishing your setup, but these kinds of shoots demand more separation between subject and background...

...so I switched to my 60mm lens. I have a 50mm lens that’s faster, but I don’t trust it in terms of controlling lens flares and chromatic abberations (which would have been particularly evident with this setup). The longer focal length and wider aperture of the 60mm lens gave a beautiful background blur, but manual focusing was trickier thanks to the very narrow depth of field (the focus ring is also not as good as on my wide lens). Rest assured, I selected the focal point for this shot very carefully.

Here we see why I went with the elaborate staging. That is the most epic heinie I have ever seen in PVC form. I mean that thing is good. This entire review is a tribute to this glorious butt.

This figure is almost too good. The pose emphasizes the two most important qualities: chest and rear. Fortunately, you can put her in a side-on view and display both at the same time. In this shot, you can also see the major problem area. Her left arm has paint spots all over. Specks of black paint appear on other parts of the figure too, but for the most part they’re too small for me to care about.

As the shoot progressed, the candles got shorter and shorter. It felt kind of like a race against the clock, which was fun. I also started positioning the candles closer and closer to the figure. The candles give off almost no heat to the sides. Even with five candles within three inches of my hand, it felt only slightly warmer than the ambient temperature. There’s also no smoke until you blow out the flames, so no worries about getting that type of residue on your figure.

Her legs aren’t too shabby either, and thigh high boots are a fetish of mine.

The panties are made of a very flimsy, flexible plastic. They just grip her torso, so you can pry them off if you’re dextrous enough.

The bra pieces peg in under the breasts. The right one falls off too easily, whereas I have to pry on the arm a bit to free the left one. Putting them back in is similarly difficult. You get replacement underboob pieces to cover the gaping holes from the cast-off bits.

I’m amused by her description on the Hobby Link Japan page, which says she’s wearing a collar as if it were a meaningful article of clothing. Why bother with the collar? I don’t see a blouse... do you?

There is a slight amount of... something on her leg. I swear it’s not from me. The finish on the model isn’t top tier, but it’s decent overall. The residue here doesn’t show up under normal lighting conditions.

I have known love, and it is this butt.

To conclude, this figure looks hot from any and every angle. It’s a shame the quality control was a bit lax; in the hands of a manufacturer like Alter, you would truly have a masterpiece. Despite this, and the hefty price tag, I still love this figure. It excels at its singular purpose, and that’s all I ask for really. Now I’m probably going to face a lifetime of my friends looking at me like I’m some kind of perv. But you know what? Worth it.

Review: Love Hina Again Review

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 08:42:40 MDT

I have been watching and writing about anime for many years now. Once in a while I come across a work that’s so spellbinding, deep, and meaningful that I will obsess over it for many months or even years. Today, I’m going to share with you such a work: my Love Hina Again review.

Figure Review: Ryomou Shimei by UART

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:32:25 MDT

Let it be known that I’m not an Ikkitousen fan. I’ve never seen any of the shows, so I have very little idea about what I’m missing. And while I’ve managed to avoid the deluge of Kanu Unchou figures, two Ryomou Shimei figures have made their way into my collection.

The first one I got was from Daiki Kougyo, featuring Shunya Yamashita’s interpretation of the character. It’s quite good. This one is a roughly 1/6 scale polystone representation by UART, who made the excellent Paprika figure I reviewed a while back.

If you’ve never had a polystone figure, be prepared for a different sensory experience. The smell is very different from PVC. Upon opening the package, you’ll be greeted with a strange, sickly-sweet fragrance. It’s also much heavier, and tends to feel smoother on the whole. Generally it feels like premium merchandise.

From what I’ve gathered on the internet, Ikkitousen is loosely inspired by Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which is a fictionalized account of the Three Kingdoms period in Chinese history. Except Ikkitousen contains a lot more boobs and high schoolers. Ryomou Shimei is drawn from the Chinese historical figure Lu Meng (also called Zi Ming).

This figure features Ryomou in a maid outfit, which she wears from time to time. It also comes with handcuffs connected by a long chain, which you can drape on the figure as you wish. Unfortunately, they don’t stay in the hands very well.

This particular pose was taken from a piece of DVD cover art. It replicates the art quite well, except the mouth looks a little... derp... to me. In terms of build quality, this figure is top-notch. It also comes with a wood base (at least it looks and feels like wood).

That’s about it really. The sitting pose isn’t super exciting. I found myself struggling to find a good way to shoot the figure. I ended up taking almost 120 photos, but threw out most due to redundancy. I had a batch that was overly noisy, so I decided to alter the look of the photos themselves. I turned them into monochrome and applied a sepia color, along with a grungy texture overlay. By doing this, I killed two birds with one stone. The conversion to monochrome made the ISO noise moot, and also removed the off-colored light reflecting from my backdrop.

Of course I took plenty of colored photos as well. To deal with the undesirable reflections from my backdrop, I put a circular polarizer onto my lens. This deepened the red of the backdrop while blocking out reflected light from my lamps (which looked blueish). I also popped on a lens hood to make sure I wasn’t getting any glare. Overall I’m pleased with the results. It still took some processing to get the colors how I wanted them, but I didn’t have to mess with the contrast settings at all.

In the end, I’m impressed by the superb build quality of this figure, but it has rotated off my main shelf. The concept is just not that exciting, so while it’s pretty to look at for a while, there isn’t much reason to continue admiring it.

Thoughts on Heavy Rain

Mon, 28 Mar 2011 08:28:25 MDT

Quantic Dreams’ Heavy Rain is a terrible game in many ways. Although it’s been out for more than a year, I didn’t find the right time to play it until today. I sat down, let myself become completely immersed in the game, and played through it all in one sitting. In case you didn’t know, Heavy Rain deals with four main characters and their efforts to catch a serial killer. With the experience fresh in my mind, I can tell you everything that’s wrong with it.

Let’s start with the controls. I’m not talking about the use of quick time events, I mean the specific control scheme of walking and moving around. It’s too clumsy. I don’t have a problem with the QTE portions, but the act of simply walking can be frustrating and take you out of the moment.

Imagine this hypothetical scene: it’s a crowded night club and I’m hot on the heels of my suspect. This could be my man, but I need to chase him down and question him. The mood is intense, the perp is dangerous and the sights and sounds are confusing my senses. I need to move swiftly and—oh god damn it I bumped into the table. Let me turn around and—shit I did a 180 but only wanted to go left. Let me turn back around and wait now I’m going the opposite way I pointed the analog stick.

You can see how that might get frustrating after a while. The game’s other huge problem is plot logic. For one, nobody follows police procedure, even the police. Nobody phones in any crimes or murders being committed; there are several instances of people getting killed, and the cops just going on like nothing happened. Second, almost everyone you interview is trying to kill you. A lot of action scenes are thrown in, but for no real reason. It just messes with the pacing of the story, which at its heart is pretty engrossing if derivative.

The last issue is the technology. Heavy Rain delivers some amazing visuals and character animations... and also some that are complete shit. Sometimes the lighting perfectly captures the mood, sometimes it’s flat and ill-defined. Some characters look exceedingly lifelike, while others suffer from stiff joints and robotic faces. Sometimes the fantastic score just cuts out for no reason, or the framerate dips into the single digits. All this reeks of a lack of polish.

But see... I don’t care about any of that. I wouldn’t even care if the story was written by a seven year old, and you had to control it by standing on your head. That’s because every single aspect of the game has been carefully designed to take you out of the game, and put you into a place.

Most games are mechanical—certainly the blockbusters but also most smaller budget games as well. You learn a series of tasks, and repeat them. A good game will challenge you to find the right task for the right situation, but it mostly boils down to learning a few mechanics and mastering their use.

Most games also have a story—certainly the blockbusters again, and this is where we have a problem. It’s not that game stories are bad (I find some of them very good in fact), but game stories present to you a problem. And to solve this problem, you use the game’s mechanics. But no matter how diverse these problems are, and or how ambitious the story is, you only get a limited set of mechanics with which to tackle them. In triple A games, this usually involves shooting. And that is, to put it in a certain way, fucking dull.

To expect that every problem can be solved within the confines of the game’s rules is pro wrestling logic. In pro wrestling, it doesn’t matter if The Undertaker kidnapped your kids or is about to raise an army of undead, you settle the score by wrestling. In a first-person shooter, it doesn’t matter if genetically engineered bioweapons are running loose or if the communists are menacing American citizens; you solve the world’s problems by shooting them. The same goes for many other genres of games, and in the end the adherence to this expectation holds back the medium.

Heavy Rain is not about mastering a limited set of tasks (unless you make the pedantic argument that it’s about mastering quick time events). Heavy Rain is about making decisions, solving problems, and being in someone’s shoes. And while it’s certainly not perfect, Heavy Rain does more than any other game to show you that games don’t have to be mechanical. They can be organic, they can feature real problem solving, and they can tell a real story.

The director, David Cage, said that Heavy Rain was inspired by an event in his life where he lost track of his son in a crowded mall. The panic and worry he felt spurred him to make a game about a parent searching for his boy, and being tested by the kidnapper to see how far he’ll go to save his son. The opening scenes of the game put you into this situation. You develop a bond with the characters not by watching cut scenes, but by becoming them. You’re asked to act like a parent, or a detective, or whatever role you’re inhabiting. It’s such a refreshing approach, and I find it more effective than the single-minded focus on body counts of most big budget games these days.

While the overall narrative may have problems (possibly as a result of having to account for many branching scenarios), many individual moments are impactful and artistic. You’re always in the story, and are never being asked to use the same set of tools to solve all the problems. As you progress, you’re asked to make decisions that fit with the moment, and the consequences play out organically. I’m talking about an interactive story in the truest sense of the word.

What Heavy Rain is has so much potential, can be so much more, that it made me think of games in a whole new way. It’s proof that the medium isn’t always about “play”, but rather it can be mature and artistic enough to shut up even the snobbiest of critics. No, Heavy Rain isn’t the paragon of this type of game. But it doesn’t have to be. It just has to be different, and that’s exactly what it is. It’s terrible as a traditional game, but an enormous leap forward for the medium.

Figure Review: Cammy by Yamato

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 02:47:47 MDT

I believe Yamato’s Cammy is the second PVC figure I bought when I started collecting. There are a few figures of Cammy out there, but most of them look pretty bad. Yamato’s version is sculpted by Mitsumasa Yoshizawa (Reflect), a favorite of mine. His women tend to have slender physiques and delicate faces, and Cammy here is no exception. Compared to most Cammy figures out there, this one actually looks like it was done by a professional artist. She’s part of Yamato’s Capcom Girls Collection, and you can see more figures by Reflect in their Creator’s Labo line.

So I’ve had this figure for a while now, and even photographed it back when I got my first camera. But it’s kind of hard to review such a simplistic figure. I mean, what’s there to say? She’s standing and saluting. But the empty gaze, her rigid form, and the salute itself all do a good job of telling you something about the character. This is Cammy when she was still under Bison’s control, so she’s more of an automaton than a person.

The figure is one piece that pegs into a base. For once, this Yamato figure has no issues whatsoever with the base; the feet go on securely and it feels solid thereafter.

This pose really is perfect for the character. A company like Alter might have gone with a more dynamic one, showing Cammy in the middle of a thrust kick or something. Yamato, though, went for something more understated, but says much more about the character. Beyond being just an action girl, you get a sense that this Cammy is militant and ruthless. Or at the very least, she treats being a soldier as serious business.

From a manufacturing standpoint, this figure is excellent. There are few noticeable mould lines and the seams are very well hidden. The paint job is immaculate, but this isn’t the most complex of figures to begin with. As I said before, the sculpt is fantastic—even the ribbing on her uniform has been modeled.

One thing that doesn’t come across very well in promo shots is the coloring on the hair. It’s a dull yellow with a bit of a metallic finish, but looks much better in person (and when properly photographed). Cammy’s one bang is stuck onto the figure pretty well, in case you were wondering.

The only real disappointment if you ask me is her butt. It’s one of Cammy’s distinguishing features, but is entirely too small here. On the butt quality spectrum, I’d put Yamato in the middle. Orchid Seed has, bar none, the best asses in the industry. Daiki Kougyo scores points on size, but they often look flabby. Yamato has shapely butts but they’re not very big. The same goes for Alter.

Another subtle detail on the figure is the glossy paint they used for the eyes and lips. If you’re photographing it, you can use this to create a fairly realistic “eye catch” for portraits. You can also put a nice specular highlight on the lips (see the top two photos for examples of both of these).

I’ve had a fondness for Cammy that extends a while back. Her story is much like that of Alita in Battle Angel Alita. She was trained as an elite soldier/assassin, lost her memory, and now helps out the good guys with her martial arts expertise. Despite how much I like the character, I’m still pretty bad when I actually use her in games. 2D fighters were never my specialty anyway. Before I finish, let’s answer the question as to who she’s saluting...

A month with Canon's EOS system: the gear I shoot with

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 23:05:21 MST

Back near the end of January I invested in Canon’s DSLR system. Since then I’ve enjoyed taking creative control over my photos. But a camera is only part of the system, so here I’ll take a look at the other equipment I’ve been using.

This first accessory is unassuming but extremely useful. It’s a neutral gray card which helps your camera adjust its white balance under various lighting conditions. One of the Rebel T2i’s shortcomings is its auto white balance, which becomes inaccurate under some artificial lighting conditions (such as with the lamps I shoot with). Gray cards give the camera a reference value so that it can adjust the colors correctly, and also give a measure of the incident light on your subject. That can be helpful if, say, you’re shooting against a black background and need to figure out how to get the correct exposure.

Before I got this, I’d set the white balance using whatever white-ish items I had lying around. Using the gray card was a revelation, though. Custom white balancing became quick, easy, and very accurate. It’s also helped cut down my post-processing time significantly.

Next up is my wide zoom lens, the EF 17-40mm f/4L USM. This is the lens I spend most of my time with now. On the Rebel’s APS-C body it acts more like a standard zoom, meaning my shots aren’t super wide angle as it would be on a larger sensor. The zoom range goes from a decently wide angle, to a more natural field of view, to just slightly zoomed in. This gives me a great deal of versatility when shooting. At $789, this is the most expensive lens I have. So what do you get for all that money?

Well it’s a very solidly built lens, feeling extremely dense in your hand. In fact it outweighs the camera itself by quite a lot. It’s also weather-sealed, in case you shoot outside a lot. And then there’s the optical performance, which is of course very good—but strangely not a gigantic leap over my cheaper lenses. In terms of chromatic aberrations and vignetting, it doesn’t perform noticeably better than my much cheaper macro lens. Its resolution performance is (subjectively) about the same as my other two lenses.

From the expensive L lens we jump right to the super cheap EF 50mm f/1.8. This is the bottom of the barrel, folks: a $100 lens encased in plastic that’s about as solid as a DVD case. It’s also about as barebones as you can get: no ultrasonic motor (so the autofocus is pretty loud), no image stabilization, no full-time manual focus, not even a distance index for manual focusing. What you do get is a fast 50mm lens (behaves like an 80mm on an APS-C sensor) with resolution good enough that I’m prepared to call it insane. It’s small and light enough that you could (almost) discretely take it wherever you go, and shoot anything. Many photographers say to get a 50mm prime lens with your DSLR, and I can attest that this is fine advice. The value for money is amazing, on top of an already-low purchase price.

My last lens is the EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM, which can be bought new for around $450. It’s a good lens in every respect, from optical quality to build quality, but is more restrictive because of its fixed focal length. This was my go-to lens for the first few weeks, but since then I’ve gone to the L lens for its versatility.

You may have noticed that I’ve installed filters on the lenses. Most photography sites recommend putting a UV filter on your lens for protection, although some warn that putting an extra piece of glass in front can mess with your image quality. Personally I’d rather risk spending a little more time in Photoshop than having to dump a wad of cash fixing a broken lens.

One accessory that definitely does belong on a lens, though, is a hood. They can block out glare and flares from light sources at extreme angles, but also help to shield your glass from the elements. As a means of protection, they can be much cheaper than UV filters as there’s no glass in them.

The final accessory doesn’t get taken out very often, but it can be a real time saver when you do need it. It’s a right angle finder, which attaches to your viewfinder so you can look through it from above, below, or to the sides. Given the nature of miniatures photography, where you often need to get very low and close to your subject, a right angle finder is a valuable thing to have.

That about does it for the gear that I shoot with. One thing I don’t have is a flash, though I do plan to get one (or more) eventually. Since most of my photos are taken under controlled settings, I’m usually fine just taking some time and fiddling with my lamps. But having a flash gives more versatility in terms of positioning (smaller and no wires) and power output (controllable).

To end, here are five things I learned after nine months of playing with cameras:

Mistakes are expensive so always do your research.
Get to know the mode dial. Your shooting experience can vary a lot depending on the subject (figures vs. people vs. architecture), and chances are you won’t have the time/diligence to always be shooting manual. Get to know the ins and outs of all the modes (even the automatic ones) so you’re not fiddling with settings as important moments pass you by.
Buy velvet for backdrops. It’s easy to work with and looks classy.
Make setting up as easy as possible. The easier and faster it is to set up a shoot, the more you’ll do it. My ghetto studio is a cloth backdrop clamped on to some foam boards. All I have to do is take it out of my closet, set it on my bed, point a desk lamp (or five) at it, and I’m ready to roll.
If you’re shooting a figure, clean it up first. Your camera will capture the dust, and it will be at a very conspicuous location. A once-over with an air duster and a rub down with a feather duster usually does the trick.

Figure Review: Marvel Bishoujo Emma Frost by Kotobukiya

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 23:10:44 MST

Kotobukiya’s Bishoujo line of figures has been surprisingly controversial. Everyone seems to have a different opinion on whether or not Shunya Yamashita’s style adequately captures the subjects, and on whether or not Kotobukiya did a good job translating his illustrations into sculpture. I liked all the ones I saw last year, but I never liked the characters enough to want to buy them. But a combination of low prices, my love of Yamashita’s work, and my fondness of the concept kept the temptation strong. Finally they announced a bishoujo version of Emma Frost that looked absolutely hawt in the promo pictures, so I went ahead and ordered. Turns out she wasn’t all that I hoped for...

This Emma Frost has been sitting on my shelf for quite a while now. For a long time, I wasn’t sure how to photograph it. But on this lazy night, I decided on the simplest, most straightforward shoot and pounded it out in about ten minutes. The post-processing took longer than the actual shoot. That’s one nice thing about simpler PVC figures. There aren’t any extra accessories, cast-off parts, or joints, so I don’t feel compelled to show every permutation of pose and equipment. This figure was designed to look good on its own, so you can get away with photographing it in front of a barebones setup.

For this shoot I used my Canon 17-40mm f/4L lens, one of the cheapest of their high-end lenses. It delivers good results, albeit at a relatively slow f/4 max aperture. I was also able to get more accurate white balance info by using a gray card. It’s a convenient thing to have around, in case you’re a budding photographer.

Getting to the figure itself, there’s a lot to like. It’s fairly reasonably priced, as Kotobukiya distributes them in the US directly. I got this one for $50, which is the same price you’d find from an overseas retailer (and you don’t have to pay exhorbitant shipping prices). Although advertised as 1/8 scale, I’d say the figure is closer to 1/10 scale. It’s almost the same size as Wave’s latest Asuka figure, which is 1/10. Given that info, I’d prefer this to be around the $30 price point. But you do get a pretty figure, nicely sculpted with a cool pose (which incidentally doesn’t fit the character), and well-painted. It’s just small, and I ~~have a bit of a size complex~~ expect truth in advertising.

In the above shot, I’ve emphasized my favorite detail on the entire figure: her butt! Or rather, the slight glimpse of the cheeks and crack, mostly obscured by her low-cut pants and cape. Although the color scheme is simple, Kotobukiya opted for a pearlescent white paint which looks very cool. I also like the design of the base, but it was one place where they obviously cut costs—it’s just a hollow shell without even a bottom plate.

Now we get to the one thing that bothers me: her face. It has a very slight prognathism of the lower jaw, which may be an illusion created by the thick lipstick. It also has a longer face with less pronounced cheeks (and no blush). These traits combine to make a face that just falls short of Yamashita’s original illustration. Although I’m not 100% in love with it, I checked Tomopop’s review and the responses are all over the board, so this is a case of my tastes being too peculiar.

You can also see some flaws in the construction. As I’ve said before, things like seams and mould lines don’t bother me unless they’re really bad. I don’t feel that they detract from this figure, but there certainly hasn’t been much effort made in hiding them.

From the back, you can see the dynamism of the cape. Emma Frost’s powers are telepathy and the ability to turn into diamond... neither of which involve gesturing dramatically. In fact, Yamashita’s first proposed design just had her sitting in a chair. This pose looks good too, but doesn’t really match the character.

Yes, there’s plenty of bust. Although Emma wears a cape, she chose one that doesn’t obscure her cleavage. I like the amount of detail that went into the clothing. Even at such a small scale, it looks realistic, and there seem to be many separate pieces. The torso is well detailed too, with good attention paid to the skeleton and musculature (even in areas that aren’t readily visible).

From this angle you can see that she has a bit of a Habsburg lip. I don’t hate the face, I just think the source artwork is way better.

Shooting with the 17-40mm zoom lens was a great experience that taught me quite a bit. The Rebel T2i that I shoot with has an APS-C sensor with a 1.6x crop factor. This means my 50mm prime lens has the FOV of an 80mm lens, and my 60mm macro lens has the FOV of a 96mm lens. Both those lenses are pushing into the telephoto end, so I needed a shorter focal length lens for a more normal field of view. With the wider FOV, I had much more flexibility in terms of positioning myself, thus affording me more angles to shoot from.

Kotobukiya’s Bishoujo series has expanded to DC characters, and will soon get designs based on movies. So it looks like Shunya Yamashita will be busy for the foreseeable future. That’s just fine with me. I like that Kotobukiya asked him to reimagine comic book characters. The execution here is much better, I think, than DC Direct’s Ame-Comi line. Those figures take stereotypical characteristics of anime designs and haphazardly shoehorned them into DC characters. They look as if they were designed by someone who didn’t know what anime was, and had to be told about it over the phone. They exist only as a cash grab because HEY GUYZ LOOK IT’S ANIME. It’s just patronizing and lame.

The Marvel Bishoujo approach pays far more respect to both anime art and the original comics. Here they look like plausible interpretations, as if Yamashita was simply hired by Marvel to draw some comics. He puts his own spin on the character, sure, but you feel like he’s trying to draw the character instead of trying to draw “anime”.

To wrap up, this Emma Frost didn’t turn out to be the hot, must-have bishoujo figure that I first thought. I love the concept and the art, but Kotobukiya just didn’t deliver in the sculpt. Still, it’s a decent figure, if slightly overpriced (though I’m sure it’ll get some price cuts soon).

Looks like I'm back

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 23:39:05 MST

Well, this has been a productive couple of days. I set out to neaten up some of the code on these pages, but I ended up rebuilding most of the site. I wrote a completely new style sheet from the ground up, changed the markup a little on the main page template, and organized the PHP code a little more logically.

The major problem I was having was with the data in my database, which had become full of junk characters thanks to Firefox not transcribing HTML entities correctly through my administration interface. Protip: if you want to edit ALL of your MySQL database entries at once, use PhpMyAdmin. It lets you export your entire database as an SQL query in a text file. Then use a text editor like Notepad++ to find/replace, and import the result with PhpMyAdmin.

Finally, as has been overdue for a long time, I straightened up the display of the blog posts. The site will automatically pull excerpts, and I wrote in a way to assign header images to each post. Along with the comments system, these have amounted to some pretty big changes to the site. I think one month between redesigns is a new record for me.

IntenseDebate Comment System

Mon, 28 Feb 2011 00:22:33 MST

I’m trying out the IntenseDebate comment system, which is obviously not something I created. I tried, twice, to do an in-house commenting system but it was just too much work. IntenseDebate got good buzz around the internet, so I settled with that over various other third party comment systems.

Although IntenseDebate was designed for popular CMS and blog platforms, there is a generic version with a JavaScript-based implementation that can be copy/pasted into any blog template.

The installation was extremely easy. They give you two code snippets, which you simply copy and paste into your template wherever you want the comments to show up. One piece is for displaying the comments themselves (along with the login info, comment form, etc.), and the other piece is for displaying a link along with a comment count. You have to manually set some JavaScript variables but that’s easy enough to do dynamically with PHP.

The hard part is getting yourself situated afterward. IntenseDebate is tied to WordPress, but also links into various other social networks. Managing my profile is a dizzying tour of all the sites that I signed up for but didn’t really pay any attention to. In fact, it was kind of scary how easily WordPress could integrate my global profile with Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube, and Facebook.

So, if you’re interested, feel free to post and help test out the system. It seems to work all right (minus some HTML validation issues) but it needs a real stress test. Here’s how to post:

Posting with an IntenseDebate ID

Though not the optimal choice, you can go create an ID at the IntenseDebate site and comment that way. Then click either of the buttons highlighted above in red, and you’ll see this:

Then just log in and you’re ready to go. You may have to refresh the page to see your login reflected in the comment form.

Posting with a different account

You can also login using a WordPress, Twitter, or OpenID account. I recommend using one of those because A) you probably already have one and B) those accounts are useful for other sites as well.

If you log in with WordPress (this is your wordpress.com account, not the account of your own WordPress site), you’ll see this:

Pretty self-explanatory. If you choose to log in via Twitter, you’ll see this:

Again, pretty self-explanatory. Provide your username, password, and hit “Allow.” You might get an error using this method, in which case I’d suggest logging out of Twitter manually and retrying.

IntenseDebate also supports OpenID. If you click the OpenID button, the comment form will change (no pop-up):

Enter your OpenID URL before submitting a comment, and I’d imagine it’ll be integrated with your post. If you click it accidentally, click the ever-so-subtle “Go back” link above the URL field and you’ll be able to choose another login method.

Posting as a guest

The easiest way is to post as a guest, but that’s no fun.

Just write your comment, give a name and e-mail, and hit “submit.” Easy as pie, but I would deeply appreciate it on a personal level if you’d use one of the other login options. Let me get to know you!

After you comment...

The comment system has a few other features which I won’t go into too much detail about. You can hover over a commenter’s avatar to see some quick user info (such as their homepage). Annoyingly, the user’s name doesn’t link to their homepage. There are also various options for subscribing to posts, but I find them mostly redundant (you can opt out of subscriptions with the dropdown menu on the lower left). There’s also a rep/voting system, if you’re into that stuff. Anyway, the important thing is to just figure out how you want to log in.

Next steps

Hopefully IntenseDebate will be good about blocking spam and not being buggy. It’s available in the anime reviews section as well. I might play around with the available widgets, and change up the comment form a bit later on. In the meantime, enjoy!

Book Report: Mechademia Volume 1 (part 1)

Mon, 21 Feb 2011 21:33:19 MST

I’ve been meaning to write about Mechademia here for some time, but it seems like I’m not really the kind of guy who reads a lot of printed material. If you didn’t know, Mechademia is an annual journal containing academic essays about anime. It’s published by the University of Minnesota Press, and features essays that fit an annual theme, submitted by various authors.

Volume one is subtitled “Emerging Worlds of Anime and Manga” and serves as an introduction to the world of anime, examining the art behind it and its appeal. For this part of my book report, I’ll be looking at the first three essays.

The Japan Fad in Global Youth Culture and Millennial Capitalism

The entire Mechademia project kicks off with this essay by Anne Allison, who is the head of the Department of Cultural Anthropology at Duke University. Unfortunately, I can’t say that I like it very much. It’s sort of a cheerleading, rah-rah piece about how Japanese culture is spreading worldwide and is cool. But really, you don’t need an eleven-page essay to tell you that. Japan is one of the largest economies in the world, wields a good amount of political influence, and is known for its exported products. Isn’t the conclusion of the essay self-evident?

Allison gets a bit self-indulgent about the significance of this fact. The initial response I had was not so generously worded. Here are my main points of critique:

The essay doesn’t really say what the globalization of Japanese culture means for us. It spends a lot of time throwing around terms like “J-cool” but doesn’t examine why it exists, or what it says about American fandom.
I would disagree with Allison’s insinuation that Japanese culture is becoming dominant around the world. This certainly isn’t true in the US. Yes Japan wields a lot of influence in East Asia, but its cultural power elsewhere is dubious. Much of the essay seems like it was written by a fan representing her personal feelings as a global zeitgeist.
Allison ignores some of the complexities of Japan’s rise to prominence as an export economy. She points to successful exported products as indicators of Japan’s cultural dominance, but this is oversimplifying the case. I’d argue that Japanese cultural products are still very niche in the US. Also, Allison should not use Japanese consumer products as an indication that Japanese culture is becoming a dominant force in the US. Consumer electronics, like those from Sony, are largely marketed here in a manner divorced from Japanese culture. They were successful for reasons other than Americans’ appreciation of “J-cool”. Ironically, though Allison alleges that J-cool is on the rise, the time of publication corresponds to a decline in sales for Japanese consumer products in the US.
The thing I most disliked was Allison’s description of what J-cool is exactly. It has a hint of what Asian studies classes usually call “orientalism,” the idea that anything from the East is different and exotic simply because it’s from the East. She paints Japanese culture as one of strangeness and exoticism, but doesn’t acknowledge the fact that Japanese culture is not a uniform entity. As I said to my friends, Japanese culture isn’t any one thing, so there is no ubiquitous reason why it may appeal to someone. Some people enjoy the minimalist aesthetic from Zen art, but others enjoy the more chaotic nature of its postmodern art. As such, the “J-cool” concept is too broad in definition to be of much use.

Globalizing Manga: From Japan to Hong Kong and Beyond

This essay (by Wendy Siuyi Wong) was less about proving a point, and more about telling the history behind the spread of manga throughout the world. I enjoyed it because it showed a somewhat tangible connection between history, art, and commercialism.

The story starts with a brief history on comics in general. Unsurprisingly, the idea of putting captions to images is quite old. In Japan, manga can be traced to classical artistic traditions. But it was World War II that would lead to manga as we know it now. After the war, occupying forces brought lots of American cultural influence to Japan. In particular, Japanese artists were inspired by American animation, and this led to some of the most iconic works of manga.

The globalization of manga owes itself to Hong Kong and China. Hong Kong played a crucial role in helping manga to spread throughout Asia. Since Japanese cultural products were banned in places such as Taiwan and Korea, pirated volumes of manga were exported to these regions by the Chinese.

Manga’s spread to the west is not as easily explained, but it’s still a nascent market. Wong argues that Japanese comics are unique in their fusion of Eastern and Western values. Manga’s appeal lies in its ability to express modern ideas which are not overly European or Japanese, a quality which she called “cultural odorlessness”. In reality, it varies from title to title but there is truth to Wong’s assertion.

The World of Anime Fandom in America

This one was written by Susan Napier, a name you’ve probably heard if you’ve ever studied anime academically. Napier examines one particular sect of anime fandom: the Miyazaki Mailing List (MML). By polling its members, she tries to find out where the appeal lies in Miyazaki’s work, and what kinds of people are drawn to it.

Interestingly, it’s an inversion of Wendy Wong’s conclusion in the previous essay. MML members seem more drawn to the more Japanese aspects of Miyazaki’s work, while at the same time acknowledging that its underlying values are culturally agnostic. It seems like this is more out of an anti-American sentiment than anything else.

Napier discusses at length the appeal of Miyazaki’s work, and those characteristics of it which can be found in other anime. She says Miyazaki’s films depict the moral complexities found in life, but his protagonists represent ideals that people of all cultures identify with. They have an innate goodness which guides them through an often hostile and ambiguous world. I’ve found that this is pretty accurate for Miyazaki and Ghibli movies, particularly in the cases Napier cited (Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke).

Beyond explaining Miyazaki’s appeal, Napier discusses how his films tie in to reality. The values represented in Miyazaki films often corresponded to the dissatisfaction that MML members expressed with society. Rather than treating it as escapism, MML members looked to Miyazaki films variously as sources of inspiration, hope, and guidance. By and large they were well-educated adults who watch anime with an analytical approach, going against the stereotypical image of an otaku.

Napier’s essay is so fascinating because it deconstructs the motivations behind a large subset of the fandom, and explores their relationship with anime. One of Napier’s key insights is that there is no typical anime fan. Even those united by the MML occupy a diverse range of backgrounds, ages, races, and jobs. Though they share a common interest, they all enjoy Miyazaki’s body of work for different reasons. Therefore, the fact that they enjoy anime does not make them the same. Instead, they are each affected in different ways by what they watch. I’ve always believed that the power of anime is the same as that of any other artistic medium: its potential for expression. What I learned from Napier is how far this goes, and what this power really means to some people.

Figure Review: Hero Pleinair by Enterbrain

Thu, 17 Feb 2011 21:18:12 MST

Enterbrain Pleinair

Today we’re taking a look at Enterbrain’s Pleinair. Pleinair is the mascot of Takehito Harada, an artist who frequently provides character designs for Nippon Ichi’s games (check out Harada’s personal website here). She makes cameos in most of his games, usually as an unassuming, mute demon. The version captured by this figurine is “Hero Pleinair”, dubbed so because she’s wearing the hero scarf.

I’ve never gotten anything from Enterbrain before, but I’m a huge fan of Harada’s work and they’re the only company that does large figures of them. This figure is true to Harada’s style, with the distinctive facial proportions kept intact.

Pleinair’s two friends are represented here as well: the sword is actually her stuffed shark Same-san, and strewn about the base are copies of her stuffed rabbit, Usagi-san.

I dig the elaborate base and the little touches on the sheath of the sword.

Here’s a close-up of the base. The text in blue is the katakana for “Pleinair” but I have no idea what the second line says.

They actually put a lot of detail into the base. The figure comes as two pieces, and both of Pleinair’s feet peg into spots on the base. When I put the figure in place, it didn’t quite sit on the stone part. I kind of jiggled the pegs a bit loose so that she would physically rest on her seat.

The only real blemish is that weird white mark by the fingers.

Here’s another view of the base. Very weird but cute, a Harada trademark.

What’s in her mouth? One of Usagi-san’s ears? Well Pleinair is a demon after all...

So... let’s discuss the choice of clothing here. Harada is not above catering to lolicons, as evidenced by the Disgaea series. Do I feel dirty for buying a figure of a little girl dressed like this? Only a little. I guess you could also choose to see Pleinair as an adult femal demon with a very flat chest.

This is the first shoot I did using manual focus. This is where live view comes in handy, as you can use the zoom function to really get your focus right. I decided to eschew the autofocus because it’s not always 100% accurate. At close ranges, you really have to be super-precise to get the sharpest focus where you need it.

One challenge I had was dust. Dust is a real killer in macro photography because the camera will pick up lots of stuff that’s invisible to the eyes. In fact I had shot an entire set before checking the output. That glossy black base there picks up a ton of dust. So I discarded the entire shoot, wiped down the figure with tissue paper (an air blower wasn’t enough), and started all over again.

I had an acrylic sheet for the figure to sit on, but as you can see it was pretty worthless. I think it was sitting too close to the light source, and the reflections got washed out. On the plus side, it did provide a nice stable platform for the figure.

This version of Pleinair is a cutesy spin on the action girl archetype. It goes for at least $75 from online retailers before shipping, so it only makes sense to own if you’re a fan of Takehito Harada’s work. You certainly don’t see many figures based on his characters, so this was a no-brainer for me.

Figure Review: Ryomou Shimei by Daiki Kougyo

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 00:41:39 MST

Ryomou Shimei by Daiki Kougyo

In the world of figures, Ikkitousen is probably the most tapped franchise. I don’t know what it is about the show, but there are approximately a billion different Ikkitousen figures out there, and most of them are of either Kanu Unchou or Ryomou Shimei. Although I’m not a fan of the series in the slightest, I own not one but two Ryomou Shimei figures for some reason.

This particular example is from Daiki Kougyo. Most of their lineup seems to be Ikkitousen figures, but this one stands out in that it was designed by Shunya Yamashita. As you might know, I’m a fan of his work. Daiki Kougyo’s modeling is truer to his style than Yamato (who uses his designs for their Creator’s Labo line).

Daiki Kougyo also seems to have a penchant for making chunkier girls. This fits perfectly with Shunya Yamashita’s style, and you can see that this Ryomou has a good amount of meat on her bones. At 1/6 scale, she looks full-figured in real life too.

Yamashita did three versions of this figure: a junior high version (show me a middle schooler with this physique, just try), the normal version (pictured), and another version closer to the show’s original designs.

The design is quite elaborate, with a lot of frills and folds. Daiki Kougyo’s sculptor did an impressive job realizing all the details in 3D. The little bows, although delicate looking, are actually quite sturdy.

Ryomou is often seen with handcuffs. Combined with the sexy maid outfit, it seems like this figure was designed to appeal to certain fetishes. The handcuffs are removable and don’t stick particularly well in her hands, so try not to lose them.

Head on, you can see how well Daiki Kougyo captured the Yamashita face. Even with an eyepatch, Ryomou looks like a Yamashita girl: full lips, thick eyelashes, and an understated nose.

It wouldn’t be an Ikkitousen figure unless you could make it more naked, and that’s what happened here. You can separate the figure at the waist and remove the barely-there skirt.

Those panties look extremely tight.

From the front, I prefer the way it looks with the skirt on. From the side, an unobstructed view of the butt is much nicer.

If you look around the shoulder blades, you can see some weird residue. No, not that kind of residue.

It’s clear from the rear view that Ryomou got stuffed into underwear like three sizes too small.

Another drawback to the figure: this separation between hip and torso. It’s not a glaring flaw but can be noticeable from lower angles. The figure has also taken criticism for the hair, which contains an unsightly gash.

There are some more minor flaws as well: rough paint application on some parts, a weird design for the eyes, and a bit of paint transfer around the skirt area. I’m actually kind of scared about paint transfer on my cast-off figures and action figures... hopefully cleaning up that kind of thing isn’t too much of a chore.

The above shot was one I took a long time ago while experimenting with long exposures. It was surprisingly easy to light the figure the way I wanted (just waved an LED at it), but getting the heart shape took a ridiculous amount of trial and error.

I think Daiki Kougyo has a great figure in this Ryomou. Their preference for fleshier girls meshes well with Shunya Yamashita’s style, so this collaboration paid off well. More than that, I’m just impressed that they made a must-have Ikkitousen figure for me.

Anime Review: Bakemonogatari

Wed, 09 Feb 2011 16:58:50 MST

Bakemonogatari

Full review of Bakemonogatari

Score: 82%
Opinion: excellent
+ deeply introspective about the effects of loss and personal suffering
+ very entertaining cast of characters, especially Hitagi Senjougahara and Suruga Kanbaru
+ excellent visual design
+ effective selection of music
- plot sometimes gets sidetracked by mostly-unnecessary action
- some of the comedy is lame
Conclusion: The striking visuals and approachable veneer might give the impression that Bakemonogatari is a quick distraction. Invest more time in it, though, and you’ll find that this veneer is balanced by some truly sophisticated exploration about how we deal with the deepest of emotional pains. Bakemonogatari reminds me that what I look for in anime is still out there: genuine creative expression.

Wonder Fest is all kinds of awesome

Sun, 06 Feb 2011 04:01:06 MST

If you’re a figure collector, Wonder Fest 2011 is something you should be keeping an eye on. I’ve seen coverage of previous Wonder Fests but the latest one seems particularly amazing. I don’t have any images for this one (obviously, I can’t actually attend the event) but I will direct you to wcloudxkumo’s blog where he is posting about it.

The short version is: I want everything there.

Thoughts from wcloudxkumo’s coverage:

A whole ton of new Figmas are making their debuts. The ones I want most are: Bakemonogatari’s Suruga Kanbaru and Mayoi Hachikuji (so happy these are being Figmatized!), Lynette Bishop from Strike Witches, and the freaking Robocop. Figma Robocop! There might be a god after all.
Max Factory revealed a 1/6 test suit Asuka. I thought I had gotten sick of test suit Asukas, but I’m fucking lusting after this one.
There were also tons of new Nendoroids! They all look great but I want the Valkyria Chronicles 3 Nendoroids most. Good Smile Company has also revealed Nendoroids for Lynette, Charlotte, and Hartmann from Strike Witches. My DO WANT list is growing at a geometric rate now.
Good Smile Company also unveiled more 1/8 scale Bakemonogatari figures: Tsubasa Hanekawa and Mayoi Hachikuji. Both are based on DVD cover art, and both look fantastic. I want more Hachikuji in my life.
Alter has also unveiled their Bakemonogatari figures, starting with Hitagi Senjougahara on some stairs, and Tsubasa Hanekawa in her cat form. I’m not a huge fan of their Hanekawa but their Senjougahara looks pretty sweet.
Kotobukiya is doing yet another Asuka, this time in her regular plug suit. Why not one in her uniform, or swimsuit, or anything other than a goddamn plug suit? Oh well, it still looks hot as hell and I’m probably going to buy it.
Kotobukiya also has... Kaworu! MegaHouse made a good one, but I never bought it. Maybe I’ll make up for that by buying Kotobukiya’s?
Bakemonogatari got a lot of love, but so did Touhou Project. Those figures are showing up everywhere.
MegaHouse is releasing a couple of guys from Gintama. I haven’t seen it, but I welcome the chance to add some badass samurai dudes to my collection.

Tomopop recently shared their Wonder Fest 2011 wish lists. Here’s mine:

Evangelion’s Angels as static or action figures. Whatever the format, I want them. A transformable Ramiel would be badass.
One more Evangelion wish: Gendo and Fuyutsuki as a set, with Gendo’s desk as a diorama base.
Minna from Strike Witches.
Persona figures... maybe Alter could re-release their Yukiko figure?
Konori from A Certain Scientific Railgun, preferably as a static figure, either taking a hero wound for Kuroko, or trying to hide the fact that she bought a bunch of designer purses at an auction.
An announcement that Kanu Unchou figures are no longer profitable, and thus all production has halted

UPDATE: Evangelion Figure Extravaganza Part One: A Trio of Reis

Sun, 30 Jan 2011 16:50:27 MST

(Left to right) Alter’s Rei, Kotobukiya maid Rei, Kotobukiya gothic lolita Rei

These three Rei figures came from Kirin Hobby, and you’ve already read about the Alter and Kotobukiya figures on the left and right. Sitting in the middle is another figure in Kotobukiya’s “let’s dress up Eva pilots in random costumes” line, which I bought for under $50.

At first, I was a little concerned about the face. Head-on, the eyes look too far apart. Fortunately, there are plenty of more flattering camera angles.

Like the other Kotobukiya figure, this Rei isn’t perfect. You can see some mould lines and a few rough areas on the paint. However, these flaws are mostly noticeable because the camera magnifies them. On display, they look fine.

I adjusted the color tone of these photos for aesthetic reasons. In reality, Rei is quite pale—even ghostly under certain lighting conditions. Kotobukiya has two colors for the maid outfit: baby blue and a darker blue. I went with the baby blue version because it fits her skin tone better.

Unlike the goth loli figure, this one is more colorful overall. Her costume ends in red shoes, and the warm wood tones of the chair add a lot to it.

The chair, teacup, and saucer are all separate pieces. Rei doesn’t peg on to the chair, so you can repurpose it for other things... but it does have ass-grooves. The teacup was also a little too troublesome to get on the finger.

I’m very pleased with this figure. Kotobukiya did a good job keeping the lines clean, and the textured chair cushions and dress lining are nice details.

The sculpt is nicely detailed too, especially all the work that went into the skirt.

The back of the chair is pretty plain, but then again you don’t display these things turned around.

Her shoes are a little too... Wizard of Oz. Luckily their placement is far from the focal point of the figure, so the red isn’t distracting.

Again, nicely done wood effect.

The tea in the cup is translucent. There’s a bit of stray paint in mine that looks like a strand of hair.

This was my second big shoot with my DSLR, and it was less straightforward than the one for the Alter and goth loli figures. For those I just sat them on my pillow and used my bed and blanket as a backdrop. Then I pointed my table lamps at them. For this one, I got a black velvet backdrop. Thanks to its lower reflectivity and the new camera lens’s more pronounced background blur, it ended up looking much cleaner in the photos. The black cotton curtain I used to use was... not pleasant.

I also bought some extra lights and put the same temperature bulbs in all of my lamps. The exact temperature is less important thanks to the DSLR’s ability to save in RAW format, but having each light at the same temperature makes the setup easier to light.

Even with all the lamps, getting the right exposure was still a bit of a hassle. It was mostly from my inexperience with DSLRs. I ended up doing some post-processing to adjust the brightness, but I probably could have saved myself a lot of trouble by choosing a different metering mode. I also did a lot of guessing and checking to get the focus right. My 60mm macro lens obviously works very differently from the lens on my Lumix. The depth of field, even at maximum aperture, is fairly short, so camera placement becomes very important. In this respect my camera’s live view function is very useful—using the viewfinder can be difficult at odd angles.

I think the end result turned out pretty well—certainly cleaner than what I could get with the Lumix—but it was the bad shots that taught me the most lessons.

Rei Ayanami by Alter

I have a huge backlog of figure reviews to do, so here we go. I was supposed to get these two out at the beginning of the month. Both were ordered from Kirin Hobby, but they packed in Kotobukiya’s gothic lolita Asuka instead of Rei. I asked them about it and they ended up paying for my return shipping and sending me the correct figure. So big props to them on that!

Plugging aside, let’s start with Alter’s version of Rei. This figure is very simple, but her casual lying down pose really helps set it apart from the millions of other Rei figures out there.

The optional base has a mirror finish, and is very simple. I use it because I don’t want my figure touching bare furniture... for some reason.

Alter’s version is at 1/8 scale, making the figure very compact. It’s great for my nightstand because it doesn’t obstruct my vision at all. In terms of faithfulness, this is one of the better Rei sculpts I’ve seen. I’m very snobbish about Rei figures, so I tend to stay away from ones that look too weird or inaccurate. Alter got her face down. Even though it’s somewhat hidden, they took pains to ensure that the proportions were right.

The only real drawback is this enormous hair seam. It’s there so you can swap hair parts; the box comes with an option hair piece with the A-10 neural interfaces on. Speaking of the box, it’s all plastic and tiny. Very much appreciated.

From my Warhammer painting experience, I can say it’s very hard to paint white things. At 1/8 scale, Alter’s figure has a bit of natural shading. But the painters went further and put some more subtle shading with light blues, which give the plug suit some depth. I also like the shading on her hair.

Personally, I’m a fan of the pose, but I can understand if you think it makes her look too vulnerable. Lying down in a plug suit can’t be all that comfortable, but Rei is hardly a stickler about comfort.

If you want more (and better) photos, hit up OMGWebsite or Tentacle Armada for their reviews. This figure is quite old so there should be even more floating around on the net.

Gothic lolita Rei Ayanami by Kotobukiya

And now for something completely different: Kotobukiya’s gothic lolita Rei. I believe this one was inspired by a painting from Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, who drew a goth-loli Asuka sitting on some ruined stairs. Kotobukiya made of figure of that too, and the two can join bases. But the face on the Asuka looked... wrong... so I didn’t order it. This Rei, though, is pretty good.

This one is also 1/8 scale, and also has a low profile like the Alter figure. It came in an attractive window box with plenty of clear sections.

Up close you can see a little roughness with the moulding and coloring (visible in later shots). These things don’t bother me much but if you’re expecting technical perfection, look elsewhere.

You may find this to be completely out of character for Rei. At this point, there are so many vanilla Rei figures that I’ve stopped caring about that. I like seeing the Eva pilots dressed up in stuff besides their plug suits (also getting sick of test suit Asuka). Oh yeah, that hat is more pimp than I will ever be.

Kotobukiya didn’t mess with swappable hair pieces, so the seam is pretty well hidden.

I also feel that they did a better job stamping the eyes.

Her mostly monochrome color scheme is pretty drab. You should really display her at a head-on angle so that her skin and eyes add a little color.

I do like the outfit despite the lack of color. It’s tasteful compared to some of the other figures I have...

I also like the way she sits on the base. Her hands look delicate, and her legs are raised to give you more than a little upskirt.

And of course, thigh socks will make me go “mmmmm” any day of the week.

Kotobukiya obliges the fans by giving them pantsu.

Some of their other Rei figures have odd faces (I have another Kotobukiya Rei coming up), but this one is pretty perfect.

The next few shots show you some more details around the figure. Again, not technically perfect, but it looks good enough and was inexpensive.

Kirin Hobby made sure that my shopping experience with them wasn’t soiled. Despite the delay in getting this figure, it was worth the wait.

Evangelion Figure Extravaganza Part One: A Couple of Reis

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 01:43:32 MST

Rei Ayanami by Alter

Plugging aside, let’s start with Alter’s version of Rei. This figure is very simple, but her casual lying down pose really helps set it apart from the millions of other Rei figures out there.

The optional base has a mirror finish, and is very simple. I use it because I don’t want my figure touching bare furniture... for some reason.

If you want more (and better) photos, hit up OMGWebsite or Tentacle Armada for their reviews. This figure is quite old so there should be even more floating around on the net.

Gothic lolita Rei Ayanami by Kotobukiya

This one is also 1/8 scale, and also has a low profile like the Alter figure. It came in an attractive window box with plenty of clear sections.

Up close you can see a little roughness with the moulding and coloring (visible in later shots). These things don’t bother me much but if you’re expecting technical perfection, look elsewhere.

Kotobukiya didn’t mess with swappable hair pieces, so the seam is pretty well hidden.

I also feel that they did a better job stamping the eyes.

Her mostly monochrome color scheme is pretty drab. You should really display her at a head-on angle so that her skin and eyes add a little color.

I do like the outfit despite the lack of color. It’s tasteful compared to some of the other figures I have...

I also like the way she sits on the base. Her hands look delicate, and her legs are raised to give you more than a little upskirt.

And of course, thigh socks will make me go “mmmmm” any day of the week.

Kotobukiya obliges the fans by giving them pantsu.

Some of their other Rei figures have odd faces (I have another Kotobukiya Rei coming up), but this one is pretty perfect.

The next few shots show you some more details around the figure. Again, not technically perfect, but it looks good enough and was inexpensive.

Kirin Hobby made sure that my shopping experience with them wasn’t soiled. Despite the delay in getting this figure, it was worth the wait.

New camera! Canon Rebel T2i

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 19:28:44 MST

Canon Rebel T2i

Several very expensive boxes arrived at my doorstep today. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get to them until a few hours after they arrived, so I spent most of my work day terrified that someone would just walk by and snatch one (or all) of them. But after going home and accounting for everything, the excitement took over. My first DSLR!

Here’s the old camera I was using, a Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS7. Although it has served me fantastically well, there are a few points where I find it lacking. For one, I’ve struggled a lot with the autofocus. It’s fine in most situations but I needed the fine control from a DSLR. Second, I wanted the improved low light performance from a DSLR. Finally, DSLRs offer all sorts of options and controls that the Lumix doesn’t (even though it has a good range of manual controls for a point and shoot).

And here’s the Rebel T2i. I had checked dpreview.com and narrowed my options to this and Sony’s SLT-A55V. I wanted the Sony for its increased feature set and better ergonomics, but ultimately bought the Canon. I was able to get a much better deal on the body for the Canon, but more importantly it has a far larger lineup of accessories and lenses (which seem to cost less than Sony’s lineup as well).

Here are the accessories:

I got a Manfrotto 709BR to use for a tabletop tripod. It replaces my Gorillapod, which I’ve been using for the Lumix. I like the stability and low height of the Manfrotto tripod, but I’m definitely going to miss the flexibility that the Gorillapod provides. I might invest in a DSLR-sized Gorillapod later, though.

I got two lenses to start off with: a 50mm prime lens (the cheapest that Canon makes) and a 50mm macro lens (significantly more expensive). Neither have image stabilization built in, as the camera body unfortunately doesn’t have it built in.

Here is a test shot comparison, unedited except for a 100% crop. The top image is from the Lumix, and the bottom is from the Rebel. As you can see, the Rebel performs better under similar lighting conditions. It’s harder to see the other advantages the Rebel provides. I have much more control over the depth of field thanks to the interchangeable lenses, using a remote shutter is much more convenient than having to set the timer for every shot, and shooting raws makes post-processing much easier (although the test shot was in JPEG mode).

I had a very good experience with the Lumix, and will definitely keep it around as a secondary. It’s certainly a good camera to cut your teeth on, thanks to its array of manual controls. But now I feel like a whole new world of possibilities has opened up to me with my first DSLR. It doesn’t have the same ease of use as a point and shoot, but the increased versatility more than makes up for it.

Renovation Phase Five: The End?

Tue, 25 Jan 2011 17:45:50 MST

Here’s a blast from the past: Digital Web Magazine’s article on CSS tables. If you’ve ever struggled with floating divs, relative and absolute positioning, or anything else having to do with the flow, you’ve probably also wondered if it was worth it to get away from table-based layouts. Digital Web Magazine explains the separation between semantic HTML and CSS. Using table tags in HTML should be reserved for tables, but fortunately CSS has built-in provisions to treat any element as if it were a table cell. So instead of struggling with container divs within container divs, you could save yourself a lot of headaches and use some of the display: table properties.

Frankly, I feel like a moron because I had been doing it the hard way for all these years. That just goes to show you, always do your research!

I’ve also reversed the position of the side bar and main content areas. Since the side bar is made of quick, scan-able information and summary information, putting it on the left should make it better for F-pattern scanning.

Finally, I changed up the footer a little. One sacrifice from moving to the CSS table layout was that the footer no longer sat right at the bottom. I figured I don’t really care that much, so whatever.

That should wrap it up for Makigumo’s renovation, at least for now. I’ll probably never really be done developing this site, but I like where it is now.

Renovation Phase Four: A Few New Tricks

Sun, 23 Jan 2011 17:46:05 MST

Although I’ve diminished the role of the anime reviews section, I still felt it needed some tweaks. For as long as I’ve been writing them, the reviews have always just been indexed in an alphabetical list. I decided to give a few more sorting options.

I didn’t have time to look into a JavaScript approach. It would have been desirable to offload the list sorting to the client, so that’s in the cards for the future. Currently I just have a server-side implementation, using the SQL query to sort the reviews based on a GET variable.

The last tweak I made was to put the reviews in a table, displaying the score and date written. A little JavaScript lets the mouse cursor highlight each row on hover. I feel this is a usability trick that should be implemented in all such tables.

Anime Review: The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya

Sun, 23 Jan 2011 08:00:21 MST

Full review of The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya

Score: 79%
Opinion: good
+ the story is built around a great sci-fi concept, and fleshed out with good attention to its characters
+ feels well paced despite its length
+ evokes a healthy variety of emotions
+ visually marvelous
- skirts around one important ethical question
- forgettable music
- the rest of the brigade members don’t have much to do
Conclusion: The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya distills what’s good about the Haruhi franchise into a movie: good sci-fi, memorable characters, and a distinct sense of humor. Just be absolutely sure to watch the TV series before taking on this film.

Renovation Phase Three: Growing New Organs

Sat, 22 Jan 2011 02:06:34 MST

After the major changes from the last phase, I started fleshing out each section. This process has been interesting because I never initially designed Makigumo to be this multi-faceted.

Fortunately, the underlying method in which this site acquires and displays data has been versatile enough to survive the transition. Makigumo’s backbone is intact, but there have been a lot of changes.

I started this site purely in HTML with CSS styles. Eventually I added PHP and MySQL into the mix. If you’re familiar with these technologies, you probably have a decently accurate idea of how this site works. The SQL database contains the posts, the PHP scripts determine which ones to show, the HTML arranges them on your screen, and CSS makes it all look nice.

You’ve probably seen this architecture in one form or another.

There are a few more details to this picture. The web logic pulls from and puts into the database. The markup can also feed user inputs into the logic through forms. The style sheet is removed from all of this, and the markup only has indirect access to the database.

Since I’ve added in new sections, I needed a way to provide a consistent user experience for posts within a section, and do it in a way that doesn’t necessitate rewriting Makigumo’s entire structure.

In the past, it was very simple. news.php served all blog posts, and reviews.php served specially formatted anime reviews. Every piece of content fit within one of these two sections.

Some time later, I added in tags so that it would be easier to find related posts. This is the crucial part of the backbone that allows me to expand upon my original dichotomous architecture.

You can visualize my site by pretending you’re the owner of a department store. First you start out selling electronics, and all is good because you only have one type of product to sell. Then you decide to branch out and sell unrelated items: clothing, toys, and sandwiches. Putting them all in the same store would confuse your customers. Building entirely new stores for each product type is effective but too costly.

Instead of either option, you create smaller store fronts for each product type. When customers want a product, you go get it from the stock room. This is essentially Makigumo at the moment.

Instead of creating an entirely new backbone, I have differentiated index.php into the various sections for easier browsing. If you want to view an individual post from one of these sections, the data is still served up from news.php. However I’ve made news.php smarter so that it doesn’t look like you’ve gone to a different section of the site.

This is possible because of the tagging logic that I introduced earlier. Because nothing is hard-coded, I can expand Makigumo indefinitely simply by creating a new tag and adding a new index page (which costs barely any time and effort).

The last piece was making news.php smarter so that it would look like the section you came from. I experimented with session variables, but ended up with the good old HTTP GET. Session variables make my PHP hocus-pocus more transparent, but using the GET variable has several other advantages.

For one, it tells readers where they are. I haven’t implemented pretty URLs yet, so at least you can glance at the address bar and see what section you’re in. Second, session variables for this purpose need to change depending on what page you visit, which would fudge with the user experience if you, say, refresh or use the history buttons. By using the GET variable, you skirt this problem because it’s encoded in the URL. Finally, another advantage of the state being encoded in the URL is bookmarking. You can bookmark a page and know that it will be that exact page when you go back to it. Session variables expire and change, which could mess with bookmarking.

Although not ultra-sophisticated, Makigumo has taken on these new dimensions with surprising aplomb. In fact with a little code cleanup, I would’nt feel too bad about distributing this to others as a basic blogging suite. Not bad, what you can teach yourself these days!

Black Tinkerbell by Yamato

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 23:50:21 MST

Yamato Black Tinkerbell

I own a number of Yamato figures, and overall they’re pretty great. They don’t always have the most ambitious concepts behind them, but the execution is usually excellent. However, I don’t quite feel the same way about their Fantasy Figure Gallery line. I have an endless respect for Yamato and their decision to make these kinds of figures, but I’m just not bowled over by their interpretations of the artwork.

Then they went and announced Luis Royo’s “Black Tinkerbell”, which admittedly is not his best work but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t make a great PVC figure. So many of my static figurines just feature the character, taken out of context, doing some kind of pose. This Black Tinkerbell comes seething with atmosphere, thanks in part to Royo’s original design and also to the 3D interpretation.

Rarely do you get a figure that does such a good job of conveying the essence of an artist’s work. Royo’s dark fantasy work carries with it post-apocalyptic connotations as well as a distinct sexuality, and Yamato’s figure preserves all of it.

While I am very happy with the subject, I’m less happy with the execution. Black Tinkerbell was released as a pre-painted resin model first, then later as a PVC model. I have the latter because it cost $100 less. But this version still cost me $110, so I expected a certain level of quality.

The pose is very accurate to the source. It’s every bit as seductive and menacing as anything Luis Royo has created. The skin is painted in the same kind of pallor as Royo’s painting, although under certain lighting conditions she looks relatively normal.

One observation I will make about the pose, especially given that spear she’s holding, is that she looks more like a stripper than a dark fairy.

Yamato’s sculptors spared no attention to detail. Her wings are translucent, and you can even see tiny veins in them as part of the detailing.

Unboxing the figure was an event in itself. It was packed in styrofoam, much like a resin figure would have been. The figure has enormous heft thanks to its base, which feels like actual ceramic. Black Tinkerbell herself is pretty solid, and her wings are very light. No worries about bending or distorting there.

Overall the sculpt and paint job are good. They can get a little rough in some spots, which wouldn’t be an issue normally... but given the price I’d expect a high degree of refinement.

In some areas, like the underwear, the paint doesn’t quite have enough coverage.

The sculpt is praiseworthy but the hair near the top of the head looks a bit too... noodly.

You can see my first complaint in the shot above. Her head doesn’t quite sit on her shoulders. Yamato made the head removable so that you’d have an easier time putting on the wings, but for whatever reason, the neck just doesn’t peg in all the way. Another minor issue is the spear. It takes a lot of effort to get it in her hand, and I was worried about breaking off the fingers. Suffice it to say, I won’t be taking it out anytime soon.

From an aesthetic standpoint, her pinpoint eyes bothered me. I didn’t mind these on Yamato’s Asuka or Cammy figures, but here they look a bit too psychotic. Royo’s original painting has them more seductive and alluring. I’d argue that the face on the figure is better overall, but the eyes are a bit too crazy. And I like my crazy girls to be wide-eyed.

Next, you can see a couple of problems with the left foot. Not only is there a paint blemish on the toes, but her foot doesn’t peg securely into the base. Fortunately, her right foot fits fine and holds her rather well.

Finally, you can see that her wing doesn’t fit entirely into her back. The other wing is better but not flush. I tried for a while to force it, but became uncomfortable with how much strength I was putting into it and gave up. Because of this poor joint, the head doesn’t sit exactly right on her shoulders. It’s not in a conspicuous spot, which is good, but is still kind of annoying.

For some reason, Yamato made her top (which is barely there) cast-off-able. Except it doesn’t come all the way off, as the design of her arms prevents it from sliding off. So you can see some nip, but the feature is kind of pointless.

See? Without the wings, she totally looks like a stripper.

I was really hyped up for Yamato’s Black Tinkerbell. Because of its source material, it’s likely to be a unique figure for me in 2011. There are indeed many things to like about it. However, for the price, she’s just not perfect enough. There are glaring quality control issues that really shouldn’t be there. I can understand a few stray flecks of paint here and there, but I have ill-fitting parts leaving large gaps in conspicuous areas. That’s not the experience you should have with a $110 figure.

Still, this hasn’t soured my opinion on Yamato. They put out some wonderful stuff in 2010, and I will begrudge them the imperfections on this figure for the uniqueness of concept. I like the Royo painting, and even with a flawed 3D version, it’s still a piece worth owning.

Renovation Phase Two: Reorganization

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 20:25:54 MST

The layout and styles are mostly finished. Now begins the long journey toward content—arranging it and displaying it in meaningful ways.

The key changes lie in the navigation bar, which now shows a wider array of topics with less of an emphasis on anime reviews. I’ve also designed the side bars to be regularly updated, probably on a weekly basis to show what I’ve been up to.

So there you go, Makigumo version 3 open for business!

Renovation Phase One: Facing Reality

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 03:43:52 MST

Throughout the many iterations of what can most simply be called “Tian’s site” I’ve gone through many changes in scope and design. Then, several years ago, I settled on trying to write about anime and East Asian cinema as intelligently as I could. This concept eventually became Makigumo.

The problem was that Makigumo was always subject to my whims, and my whims never solely centered upon anime. There are dedicated anime bloggers out there who write about shows every week of every season. I respect that kind of focus, but even those kinds of people take long breaks from blogging. For someone like me, who rotates through interests every few months, there’s little hope of a regular update schedule.

So I sat down and did some introspection. Do I want Makigumo to continue as an irregularly updated anime site? Or do I want to have a site that encompasses all of my passions? I decided that doing the latter would be easier on me, and ultimately result in a better site.

Having made my decision, I started on what will become a series of deep changes: changes in scope, changes in design, changes in attitude, and changes in habit. Makigumo will expand, yet at the same time get smaller. Makigumo will no longer be just about anime; it’ll be about all of my hobbies, but it will be about me.

As you may have noticed, I’ve already implemented a new design for the site. It’s less, but can (and will) become more. I’ve eschewed my bespoke graphics for a bigger emphasis on cleanliness and typography. Eventually I’ll retool the navigation and section-specific pages. Then I’ll continue tweaking until I settle on a final design.

The deepest change will be in content. I love anime so that will never really go away. But I have a myriad of other hobbies, and it’s too limiting to concentrate on just one. So from now on, I just won’t impose that limitation on myself anymore. Now I can free up Makigumo and just worry about writing.

Hopefully, you readers will bear with me through this renovation. There will probably be intermittent down time or the infrequent glitch, but I promise the end result will be worth it.

Inanimate Pleasures: Vash the Stampede by Amie-Grand and E2046

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 20:05:38 MST

E2046 Vash

When it comes to male anime figures, it’s like a barren wasteland. The anime industry is male-dominated, which in Japan apparently translates to an abundant presence of female characters. It’s the opposite in the U.S., where males tend to gravitate toward testosterone-ridden male characters. Even given the scarcity of male figures, you can still find some great ones if you know where to look. E2046, a garage kit peddler, thankfully has a version of that great hero of anime and manga: Vash the Stampede.

Vash is my favorite male anime character alongside Cowboy Bebop’s Spike Spiegel. Figures of him are pretty uncommon nowadays. You have a Revoltech incarnation, and that’s about it. When I saw E2046 selling a pre-painted version of this figure, I put down my order. It was nearly $200 but, after unwrapping it earlier tonight, I can say it’s worth every penny.

The shot above gives you an idea of the amazing amount of detail that went into this sculpt. It easily beats any PVC figure I have. Alter, Kotobukiya, Yamato, it doesn’t matter; the sculpt of this kit destroys them all. If Alter’s Altair line ever tackles Vash (and by god they should—I don’t care about their JRPG guys), this is the benchmark they should aim for. According to my research, it’s based on a sculpt by Eiji Nakayama, manufactured by Amie-Grand, and painted by E2046.

The package arrived with the box bubble-wrapped, and then wrapped in paper. This saves you from having too many cardboard boxes. Surprisingly it went through shipping completely undamaged. After opening it and taking out some of the styrofoam packing, I was greeted with an arm. Vash’s left arm, to be precise. Then I thought “holy shit.”

There is an insane amount of detail in every nook and cranny of this figure from the wrinkly trenchcoat to the multitudes of buckles, belts, and buttons. But these details are all coordinated, so the overall figure doesn’t look overly busy. It just looks dynamic, alive, even, and is amazing to gaze at from any angle.

Yasuhiro Nightow’s character design was transferred to 3D with obvious care. Vash’s billowing, bullet-hole-ridden trenchcoat flawlessly captures Trigun’s contemporary wild west aesthetic. At the same time, his tall proportions and lanky build nail the series’ bishounen style. On this point, I do have a complaint. The figure stands ten inches tall, but is advertised as being 1/6 scale. Sorry, but Vash the Stampede is not five feet tall in the manga.

Vash’s trademark orange sunglasses are modeled as a separate piece. If you’re prone to losing things, you might want to glue it on. The figure comes in several pieces. His torso, his legs, the front part of his coat, some belts, his right hand, and left arm are all separate pieces. It holds together pretty well without glue, but I’m going to glue the pieces just to be sure.

Aside from the scale issue, the only real down point of this figure is the face. He doesn’t really look like Vash to me; the facial structure reminds me more of Luis Carruthers from American Psycho, the guy who wanted to bang Patrick Bateman. The scultping on the hair is also kind of a mess, and the paint job looks a bit lazy.

Fortunately the problems with the face are not terribly distracting because you’ll just be in awe of the rest of the figure.

There is a real sense of motion and kineticism. Frankly, the billowing trenchcoat is one of the coolest things I’ve seen on a figure. It’s one of those images that instantly comes to my mind when I think of a suave anime hero, possibly because of my years of watching John Woo movies.

Vash’s signature revolver is here of course, although looking less clean than the rest of the figure. And isn’t that barrel in the wrong place?

I love the paint job on this figure. It’s simple, but nuanced. Look at the highlights on the flat areas, and how the parts around the bullet holes look singed. The glossiness extends to the entire figure, helping to emphasize its amazing contours.

You can see what the years of wandering and gunfighting have done to Vash’s coat, as it deteriorates progressively quicker as you get to the bottom.

His back is no less detailed, although the coat contains some weird circuit-like patterns for some reason.

Vash’s head isn’t bad from all angles; it just doesn’t stand up to a head-on shot.

Given the proportions of this figure and its glossiness, this shoot was a little harder than I anticipated. It was hard to get even lighting across the background, so I had to fiddle with Photoshop. It also took a while to get the figure lit in a way that didn’t look blown out.

I know I keep harping on it, but seriously the coat could be a character in itself. If the body was actually 1/6 scale and not pretend 1/6 scale, I would have glued on the head from my Hot Toys Obama.

Trigun made a lasting impression on me. I got hooked thanks to Vash’s charisma, which carried even the dullest of filler episodes. His troubled past, idealism, and mastery of gun-fu help round out a character that is genuinely funny and charming.

Fangirls are much more likely to squee at this version than the anime version, though.

Up next to my collection of bishoujo figures, this coat commands attention.

As if Vash wasn’t cool enough on his own, E2046 threw in an optional arm part. The katana is pretty badass, but it’s not really Vash’s thing. Also it has a mould line running down it.

If you’ve seen Hero, you’ll know this is what happens when you swordfight Jet Li.

Sadly, this is the state of the sword when the figure arrived. I’m not too bothered by it, since the rest of the figure is immaculate and E2046 tried their best to pack everything securely. The sword is made from a very soft material, so it was bound to happen sooner or later (many of my PVC figures’ swords are bent at least slightly). Anyway, I appreciate the little bonus.

I’m not sure when this figure came out, but I would vote for it as the best figure for that year (2009 I think). Sure it has a weird face, but if you don’t have any preconceived notions of what Vash should look like, then it will hardly bug you at all. His classic gunslinger pose and windswept coat combine to make a figure you just don’t want to stop staring at. It just feels epic.

Despite the insane amount of sheer, pure awesome that went into this Vash, I’m not sure it will be the best figure I’ll receive all year. That’s how amazing 2011 is going to be. I have Yamato’s Black Tinkerbell making its way over to me soon, and that one looks like the perfect mixture of sex and art. Then in April, I have a bunch of great stuff preordered including Alter’s magnificent Dizzy. I only got into figure collecting last year, but this definitely seems to be the right time to be a collector.

2010: What the hell happened?

Sun, 02 Jan 2011 09:13:07 MST

Kirino happened, and then everything went dark.

Anime

Makigumo has never been about such trifling things as being relevant or keeping up to date with the scene, so I probably wouldn’t have paid much attention to the year’s releases in the first place. But the scuttlebutt is that this year was particularly bad. Honestly, I can’t think of a single show that has appealed to me to the point where I had to follow it. I’m sure there were a handful of good shows in 2010, but it was mostly a deluge of series centered around moe and fanservice. Gainax’s Panty and Stocking looked promising, but came out to mixed reviews. Aside from that, there wasn’t much that I wanted to watch.

Cinematic anime was more interesting this year. I finally got my hands on the Evangelion 2.22 Blu-ray, and was able to see Summer Wars in theaters. I try to support theatrical anime when I can, but Chicago absolutely gets shafted with the limited releases. Finally, we saw the sad passing of luminary Satoshi Kon. I’ve always admired Kon’s fearlessness in choosing his subjects. His work had so much originality and sophistication, and was always visually stimulating to boot.

Speaking of originality, it was one of the things the entire industry has been lacking as of late. Seriously, how many shows are adapted from light novels, manga, or even eroge? And while we’re on the topic of the industry, I might as well talk about the Tokyo Youth Ordinance Bill, which puts severe restrictions on the sale of sexually explicit games, manga, and anime, but conspicuously leaves out live action. I’m not sure what effect this will have on mainstream anime, but it would certainly hit small-time publishers pretty hard. I’ve heard the expected effect of the bill compared to the situation with AO-rated games or NC-17 movies in the US. How many AO-rated games have you heard of, let alone bought? And what about NC-17 movies? If people couldn’t watch NC-17 movies, you might have avoided Showgirls but then you would also have missed Lust, Caution. It’s always bad when governments put limits on artists’ creativity, but doing so in such a hypocritical and reactionary manner makes it all the worse.

Filling the void

So anime hasn’t seen its best year ever, but I kind of made up for it by getting into figure collecting. As a child, I wasn’t exactly privileged so I couldn’t really be a toy collector. Sure I had some Ninja Turtles and whatnot, but I could only get one or two per year on my birthday (as a Chinese family, we didn’t celebrate Christmas). In 2010 I could buy my own damned presents, so I started with Evangelion (for me, all things usually start with Eva). I bought a boatload of Evangelion action figures, fresh off the high of having seen the new movie, and eventually branched out to include static figurines as well. This year saw some fantastic releases in both departments, and I’ll continue to cover them (hopefully my coverage will balance out with anime coverage).

Going along with collecting figures, I also got a digital camera and started photographing them. I’m not that accomplished yet but I think I got a few good shots. I’m reaching the point where the limitations of my point and shoot are starting to get in my way, so I’m considering buying a DSLR for 2011.

The other thing that has filled in for the lack of anime is a little show called Sasuke, a seasonal special in Japan that got brought to the U.S. as Ninja Warrior. I actually just finished watching the newest special live, about an hour ago as of this writing. Each special features 100 competitors running a very grueling four stage obstacle course. Few people make it past the first stage, and only three have ever completed the entire course.

I had seen Ninja Warrior on G4 in college, but it was just idle entertainment to me. Once I started really following it, I looked up the original Sasuke broadcasts. Unexpectedly, I developed a real passion for it as I got to know the contestants and personalities behind the show.

Games

The Japanese games industry suffered in 2010, most notably with Capcom and Square-Enix going through huge financial troubles after a series of flops. Final Fantasy XIII attracted a lot of controversy, as many felt it was a bad game made by a tone deaf company. Certainly Square-Enix deserves a lot of criticism for its recent releases, but I tend to be more forgiving of FF13’s flaws. Final Fantasy XIV’s rushed release and subsequent lack of quality has also been a huge debacle. Some wonder if Square-Enix will ever return to form, me included.

Makigumo

Makigumo hasn’t changed much outwardly, but I feel that the site’s backbone is healthier than ever. I’ve made a lot of modernizations which I feel will ultimately improve the timeliness and quality of posts here.

Being run by me alone, Makigumo often changes and shifts according to my whims. I’ve gone from regular periodic coverage of shows to random humorous musings, and am now mostly writing about figures. But who knows what’ll come up next?

Things I’m looking forward to in 2011

I’m almost certain there will be an Evangelion 3.0 announcement. Then the agonizing wait for that can commence.
Speaking of Eva, Funimation will screen Evangelion 2.0 at the end of 2011. Nice to know they’re on top of the timely releases...
There are a TON of exciting toys coming this year, barring any extreme delays. I’m looking forward to Alter’s Uiharu and Dizzy figures.
Manga. I’m not the biggest connoisseur of manga but I do have a few things to say. I heard Blade of the Immortal is ending its run soon, and I hope Battle Angel Alita: Last Order wraps up as well. I liked those series but they really need to end. Viz should hurry up with releasing Dogs: Bullets & Carnage because that series is awesome. Finally, I’m excited for the unedited version of Tenjo Tenge coming out in the summer.
Maybe this is too much to hope for, but maybe we’ll get a good, introspective anime this year? Sophistication and originality are encouraged.