Tenchou's journal #3- Pressure mounting

It’s been awhile since I last made a post. Life never quite work out the way you planned and the last few weeks have been anything but enjoyable for me. Tenchou, however, knows things will improve for the better. With that out of the way, let’s take a quick look on some of the stuff I’m going to cover:

Fan service screencap apology!

1) Steve Job’s passing- biggest recent news, have to cover it.
2) iPhone4s- normally I can’t give a rat’s ass about any Apple product, but for once in my life I’m going to defend an Apple product. You will never see this again.
3) Upcoming games- One Piece Musou
4) The fall anime season!
5) Latest update on THE DEPARTURE
6) Rant on my current job (The usual)
7) Some life updates..?



Yes, I changed the format again. For anyone who still reads this blog despite the inconsistency of my posting, I felt this way would be easier to follow.

Steve Jobs. What a loss. Tenchou hates Apple; he hates everything Apple stood for, and hates the mindless blob that follows Apple product like its some godsend. That does not mean I hate Steve Jobs. He single-handedly revived a dying company, basically invented the mouse, was behind the company that made ‘Toy Story’ and one of the most charismatic people on this side of 2000s. If it wasn’t for him, even if Apple had survived the crisis they could not have sold their products for 20-30% more than what they are worth. If it wasn’t for him, there might not even be a touchscreen smartphone on the market, no Android (which I recently bought), no nothing. He’s a pioneer, a brilliant salesman, and a visionary. He loved what he did and he’s damn good at it. Even though Tenchou hates Apple, he cannot bring himself to hate the person that drove the company. He will be missed.

Speaking of Mr. Jobs, who can foget the latest smartphone not named iPhone5. The interweb as always became a battlefield of haters and fanbois instantly (until Job’s passing anyways). Funny enough, some of the fanbois turned against Apple in the latest war thanks to the “medicore” iPhone4s. For that, I have to say: “Fuck off and go back to playing Angry Bird.”

I’ve never been a fan of the iPhone, I felt it was unnecessary to have that many features in a phone. I also loved the flip-phone style. Once I finally gave up the flip style thanks to the shitty keypad for texting, Android phones littered the market. They are faster, more powerful and more customizable than the iPhone, and cheaper to boot. Buying an iPhone is like throwing money away when you can get something just as good for cheaper, or something better for the same price.

But the iPhone 4s? It is incredible. Dual-core A5 chip that matches or exceed the current Android phones on the market, a camera sure to blow everything out of the waters, a new OS system that is lighter, faster and even MORE user-friendly, speech recognition and GPS, and of course, iCloud- the invisible storage that seems to be all the hype these days. It may be called an iPhone4(s), but it’s nothing like the 4 except the looks. Yet, the public hates it. Fanbois and investors alike bitch and moan for the “non-iPhone5”, calling it a mediocre product. This is why our world is going to hell, because retards fail to realize the value in anything. Brand names and style is the only thing that matters to them, breeding their stupidity and blind trust. I won’t even attempt to convert anyone into a believer, because I hate Apple and I have given up on educating the blind mainstream masses who can’t think for themselves.

Onto something I actually enjoy- Video games. If anyone had followed TGS 2011, you should know there are plenty of super awesome games coming out soon. I won’t get into the details for major titles like FF13-2, since there are plenty to go around. I will, however, go into the more niche titles that you may or may not give a crap about. One of which is the new Musou- One Piece! Personally I love the manga and I used to cover chapter by chapter on this very blog. After dropping that project I still follow it very closely, and sometimes I would think the manga would make such an awesome Musou game. Now my prayers are answered. There are some gameplay videos lurking around youtube and other sources, and from what I can gather it is exactly how I imagined- Luffy and crew wrecking shit all over the place with their powers. After playing “the romance of the three kingdom” over and over again, this is definitely going to renew my love for hack-and-slash brainless entertainment (First two Gundam Musou were trainwrecks, and the third one is just DLC bs…which I pray OPM will not be…sigh).

Speaking of anime…the Fall 2011 season has officially started! Plenty of awesome sequels off the bat, Iku Musume, Working! And Shana leading the charge for me. We also have the prequel of Fate/Stay Night, Fate/Zero; a new gundam, Gundam Age; much anticipated game-turn-anime Persona 4 and a whole lot of eroge/light novel adaptations. Now…I have not watch every single one yet due to time constraints, but I will cover my first impression on a few I have watched.

Gundam AGE

The newest installment of the infamous mecha franchise is really a hit and miss.Working with Level-5 is a smart choice in my opinion. Although Gundam 00 was decent, it still could not escape the feeling of "been there done that". Sunrise seems to be exhausted all their creative juice on their flagship franchise, and it's time to bring in some fresh minds to revive the beloved series. Personally I am a fan of the character design, resembling Capcom's Rockman/Megaman design, which happens to be one of my favorite game growing up. The idea of having a three generations to pilot the same Gundam seem like a cool concept, but it remains to be seen if it will work out as intended. So far, the first episode has nothing special, it's the generic Gundam series opening. There's nothing wrong with that, but let's hope it does not follow through with the generic Gundam story, otherwise my time is better spent elsewhere. With that said, it is too early to judge a 4cour series based on the first episode. So, I'll wait until around Christmas time before I pass my judgment.


Mirai Nikki

This one...is interesting. The brutality and premise reminds me somewhat of the failure of a series "Deadman's Wonderland". I guess the reluctant whiny MC doesn't help either. However, the inclusion of a true yandere in Yuno is really the main attraction for me at the moment. I'm not a huge fan of yanderes, but something about the sick love from Yuno tickles my fancy. The premise may or may not be bad but I feel the success of this entire one cour anime will be heavily on the backstory of Yuno, and how she carries the MC and the story.


Persona 4

Oh~ how I loved this game and its predecessor. A dating sim mixed with a dramatic RPG created the thriller known as P4. The first episode was mostly faithful to the opening of the game. While that is a good thing for us who have played the game, it is a failure as an anime. The game's opening was slow, it was slow for a reason- it laid the groundwork needed for the story. When it's translated to an anime however, it's just slow. Gamers bought the game and will play an RPG at least until they can no longer stomach it, but an anime is different. I can watch an episode and say "screw it" and drop it on the spot, no love lost. Anime needs to start with impact, it needs to grab the attention of the viewers, then you can info dump the fuck out of them. I felt this would've been better if they had started with Yousuke's dungeon. It's not so far in the game that you have to backtrack a hell lot, but it's far enough to give the viewers one of the best scene of the game, without the need to change the actual story around (unlike the anime). Backtracking can easily be done with episode 2-3 for the backdrop of the story, and this definitely would have been much easier to stomach as an anime viewer.

Secondly...What is with the pacing and art? The production is god awful; the art is deform, the pacing is uneven, and even the angles are poorly chosen (aside from the final scene). I really hope they fix this later on or else I rather play the game again than watch another poor adaption of an awesome video game (Damn you Valkyria Chronicles, damn you!) 

Maji de Watashi ni Koi Shinasai

Now this one could be a gem, but likely a total bust. Another eroge-turn-anime, Maji is from the newest game from Minato Studios, who also made They are My Noble Masters, which was also made into an anime. We never know how this thing turns out, but I am willing to bet my money that it will probably suck. Eroge adapted into one cour anime rarely succeeds, because there is just not enough time to do the game justice in telling the stories of each character. Sadly, the same fate will probably befall Maji. Still, the character design for this game is top notch, and mixing that with ecchi will at least be some brainless entertainment.

I have also watched Ben-To, Working!!, Ika Musume, Maken Ki as well...but none I have much to say yet.

Now...something a little more personal to Tenchou. His story is still nowhere near complete, as you can see from the side panel. Editing is the bane of me, I can do it, but it's just so time consuming. The story is getting better and better as I edit, but god knows when it'll be ready for submission. Hopefully, I will find the time to just grind the whole thing out soon.

The thing that takes away most of my time? Work. With the economy being so poor, it's difficult to give up a steady job at the moment, but more and more I'm leaning towards handing in my resignation after only two months back in the industry. The work is not hard, and the people are nice (well most of them), but I can't deal with it. It's difficult do something you do not enjoy no matter how easy it is. Actually, it's precisely because it is so brainless and dull that I hate it. I don't understand why I chose the profession I did, and even finished all the exams for it, but now I cannot see myself staying for very long. Life never really work out the way you want it to I guess.

Before I finish, I just want to announce, as I have said above, I finally caved into the smart phone craze and got myself a HTC Evo 3D. It is...lovely, functional, and generally awesome. See below for my awesome new toy (completed with Steins;Gate goodness): 

Chris~tina!

Lastly, I have to thank both Random Curiosity (again) and Vane from Animesuki forums, for the anime images/screencaps above.

Okay...enough of this excessively long post, until next time people~ Stay classy!