Top 5 most emotional scenes in anime

Yup, that's where we are this week a "Top 5" list. I had an idea for something on Sandman by Neil Gaiman, but I haven't had a chance to actually read it, so that will wait. In the meantime, I was thinking about some emotional scenes in anime and decided to rank some of my favorites.

5. Death of Kamina - Gurren Lagann

Kamina was the heart of the series Gurren Lagann, at least early on when he was alive. He had confidence that defied logic with the eternal cheer of "If you can't believe in yourself, believe in the me that believes in you!" He clearly never knew what he was doing, every other character knew that, and yet, in the most obvious series of deus ex machina, his senseless plans always managed to work and he never let on that it was pure dumb luck. That's why it hit us so hard when his luck ran out and he got killed in battle, of all people, it shouldn't have been him, and yet even in death he went out in style.

4. The Card Game - Summer Wars

There are so many anime where the world comes together to support the hero, but I just don't know if any made so much of so little as Summer Wars. When an artificial intelligence known as Love Machine hacks the accounts of the most intricate computer network on Earth, one user named Natsuki has to stop it by wagering against the accounts in a game of koi-koi. She gets on a hot streak until she slips up and loses almost everything and can't make a wager big enough to finish playing. Then, after a drmatic pause as we watch her number blink, it goes up one and a tiny avatar says "you can use my account" which leads to every user giving their account to Natsuki in a show of support that is so dramatic that the spirits of the network alter her avatar into a virtual goddess. Natsuki is moved to tears by the show of support and I was too.

3. The Price of Human Transmutation - Full Metal Alchemist

Many people say the most emotional scene in the series is Nina becoming a chimera, but in my opinion this is a trick because what is worst about it is the reflection of what happened to Alphonse. Nina's situation is so short the impact is hard, but we get numb to Alphonse because it goes over the entire series and we always have hope that he can be returned to normal and he is whereas Nina dies without any chance of being saved. Still, I never really got over the fact that Alphonse is a little boy trapped in a big suit of armor, that was some creepy stuff right there. The hardest moment was when it all first happened and Alphonse takes Edward next door to get treatment and cries for help, not for himself, but for his brother. So much happened to Alphonse, he lost his mother, he tried to bring her back, he lost his own body and found himself a hollow piece of metal, but somehow, even though it was Ed's idea, his first thought is that his brother has lost two limbs and is bleeding out and he must save him. He doesn't hesitate in fear, he saves his brother, because their bond of love is that deep that they go through their entire journey trying to save the other, each knowing in his heart he will sacrifice himself for the other if it comes down to it.

2. The Last Cup of Coffee - Tokyo Ghoul

Tokyo Ghoul presents as a horror series about monsters that eat human flesh, but it is actually much sadder because it's about monsters that have to eat human flesh and don't want to but still have to. The tragedy is highlighted by the main character Kaneki who has this thrust upon him by a surgical procedure after living a normal life and having to leave his best friend Hide. The central tragedy of the story is that ghouls cannot let the people they love know the truth, and Kaneki lives in fear of Hide finding out. Then, in the final episodes, Hide meets him in a raid on the coffee shop where the ghouls find refuge, and in the middle of a battle that they are on opposite sides of, Kaneki is horrified to face his friend, but Hide just pours coffee for each of them and simply says "It's okay, I know, I've always known." It hits hard because he's so calm, he's not threatening at all, he just wants to share one last cup of coffee with his friend.

1. Caged Bird - Naruto

I've already stated this in an earlier blog post, but this is my favorite part of Naruto and if I could make one live action movie of Naruto, it would be all about this. Anime is full of heroes fighting fate, it goes back to the story of the Monkey King hundreds of years ago, Naruto seems to tackle this trope constantly, but when Neji's story of the cursed mark of the caged bird is punctuated by him watching a bird fly free, the proctor's words became burned in my mind "Even a caged bird will pick its lock, never giving up its dream to fly free once again." The slow music in the background sets the mood too, making this the scene that always lifts me up when I feel down.

Agree or disagree with my list? Feel free to say so in the comments section.

Ready Player One

I actually saw Ready Player One a few weeks ago but I had some other things on my plate so this review had to wait. This movie may be the best video game related movie ever made, and it is absolutely a must see for every gamer out there.

The basic premise is sort of The Matrix, only in reverse sort of, instead of people being enslaved by machines to live in an artificial digital world, the people choose to live there voluntarily because the real world is sort of a lost cause. The story takes place in Columbus, Ohio which is now like Silicon Valley in a world where apparently everything else has just about lost all of it's value. A programmer named Halliday created the ultimate online virtual experience, beyond just a video game, the Oasis seems to be limited only by the imagination of it's users, it can be used for adventuring, partying, dating, gambling, business, art, and just about anything in between. Then Halliday dies and leaves no heirs, only a video will leaving everything to whoever can "beat the game" of the Oasis by finding three keys that he hid as easter eggs inside the game. It takes a few years for anyone to figure out where the first key is hidden, but as the movie opens, a young man named Wade Watts, going by the online name Parzifal, figures out how to reach the first key. He and four others, Aech(pronounced "H"), Saito, Sho, and Artemis, are the last five casual players who haven't given up on the egg hunt, while everyone else has either given up on the hunt or joined IOI to utilize corporate resources to find the keys for their boss. They all meet up for an impossible race in which the finish line is inaccessible due to King Kong blocking the path. Wade discovers the key is go in reverse and trigger a hidden race track that bypasses King Kong. Both race sequences are possibly the most intense car chase that hasn't involved Steve McQueen, Vin Diesel or Jason Statham. Wade slips the secret to his friends who agree to keep it to themselves and become the High Five, nicknamed for their high scores for finding the keys, the only ones because absolutely nobody else manages to figure it out. It is now up to the High Five to finish what they started, but the leader, Parzifal, is smitten by Artemis who gives him a very interesting experience at a virtual night club looking for the next key, and when he tells her his real name, he inadvertently draws the attention of the IOI to blow up the trailer where he lives, only he isn't there,though sadly his aunt, his last living relative, dies in the explosion. Wade gets rescued by Artemis who turns out to be Samantha, a girl about his age who is drop dad gorgeous except for a birthmark that is only bad enough to turn off shallow douchebags, and Wade proves he is not a shallow douchebag by insisting he still loves her anyway. It should be noted Aech warned him Artemis might be a a fat old dude who lives in his mama's basement, so finding out the only flaw that keeps her from being a perfect ten is a red patch around her right eye, he's actually just relieved she's actually a girl and while she's still a nine, he's probably an eight and can't take his eyes off of her fine ass in cut off jean shorts long enough to realize the ultimate gamer girl is actually ugly by some people's standards. So yeah, there's a brief moment where our heroes turn about to be a sickeningly sweet couple, but it totally serves the story as it solidifies their teamwork as they resume the hunt. They have a sort of second virtual date which leads to finding the second key, which triggers Parzifal's score to change and alert his enemy that he did not die in the explosion. IOI tracks them down and captures Samantha but Wade gets away and meets up with the other egg hunters IRL for the first time and they go looking for the final key which has been blocked off by a barrier that can only be shut off from inside, which only Artemis can do now. While Artemis does her part, Wade rallies all of the other users to help him beat the IOI. The grand battle in the Oasis is a spectacle, but a more subtle yet effective scene is when an IOI empolyee tries to track down Wade IRL and watches players fighting in the streets, realizing that they are all supporting the High Five in the Oasis and the IOI is losing to these dedicated players. I dn't want to give away the ending, but it has a happy ending so if you can connect the dots, just imagine Willy Wonka if the candy factory was a giant video game.

Some people might say the book is better than the movie, but considering that this is all about 198o's nostalgia, the fact is, the author was inspired by Stecen Spielberg and getting Steven Spielberg to direct his story and make it into this visual feast probably satisifes the author much more than the book. If you think the story is important and you miss some vital points that were written in the book that didn't make itto the screen, the book is still out there, you can read it all you want. For the rest of us who actually grew up in the '80s and know what this is about, this movie is everything we ever wanted all at once. Even once you get the story, the easter eggs in this film will keep you findign new things after multiple viewings.

This movie will inspire a lot of people in the ways these movies usually do, but it's even more to me, because this was an author writing his story of childhood nostalgia made real. Next, it will be 7th Moon...

Tora-Con 2018

I went Tora-Con this past weekend and it was a doozy, as are all cons, that's what makes them fun. First I wen to Artist Alley to check in with some friends, one of which wasn't there and I will be making fun of him for a long time over it. After over an hour of searching for my missing friend I found someone with a t-shirt showing a fusion between Nina and Alexander from Full Metal Alchemist and IRL memed Nathan Squiers FTW. Then, off to my first panel of the weekend, "American Anime" with Charles Dunbar who has the most hilarious take on the subject, if you ever get the chance to hear him talk about anime, take it. Next was "Journey to your Story" a writing workshop with Nathan Squiers and Meghan Parker which was interesting enough but it made me realize I need to work harder and write more, which was the point. Then I went to a panel to guess video game tunes and despite a full room, four people got most of the songs on one note, though I did manage to identify a song from Disgaea, but failed on the FFVI song Dancing Mad which was the one I was waiting for the whole time. I finished the day playing Pokemon Go because RIT has a lot of poke stops and poke gyms and then watched a performance by Danimal Cannon and Bit Brigade watching a live speedplay of Legend of Zelda accompanied by live rock covers of the soundtrack, so good I bought their CD, and I don't usually splurge on music unless I am truly impressed. Day two started with a Sakura Quest screening and discovering that Funimation only gives about two episodes of any dub for free, then you either pay or watch subs on Crunchyroll. Then Aki Glancy aka Empath P analyzed "The End" the Hatsune Miku opera which proved to me that no matter how wierd I think things can be, there will always be something even wierder. Finally, I ended the weekend with a panel with Studio Trigger behind Kill La Kill among other projects and they told us about all the behind the scenes secrets to character design for their shows, and proved that animators absolutely do have a sense of humor, I gave them each a copy of 7th Moon in hopes they will make an anime out of it, but since they are Japanese and don't speak english, I'm not holding my breath, but who knows, we may get a surprise.

I leave you now with a few pictures from the top cosplayers I caught pics of. I especially enjoyed Lollipop Chainsaw.

Disappointment in Final Fantasy 7 remake and 7th Moon

First of all, in case you didn't know, my last post was an April Fool's prank. Jason Demarco did not greenlight 7th Moon for Toonami...yet. He did not respond even though I tagged him in the tweet, but while he did not say yes he did not say no, which means that I keep going until he does respond one way or another. I'm just kind of stuck in a Schroedinger's Cat situation, as long as I don't bug Jason Demarco, he can't kill my dreams, but he can't make them happen either.

More importantly, you probably got here by looking for Final Fantasy VII updates only to be disappointed that there still is none. What is really bothering me is that I got a PS4 precisely for this game and I will be so pissed if it doesn't get released until PS5. I just checked out an update suggesting it may be in development hell, which means that despite word thta it is being worked on, no progress is being made and we may never actually see the finished product, like ever. What really has me pissed about this is I just spent the last two months playing the FF7 remake event in Mobius Final Fantasy which is annoying for two reasons. First of all, this is actually the second time for this event, a whole year after the first time, which means there has been like two years for them to put together this event and they made more progress with the mobile game than the actual remake. Second, while the game was good enough to excite me while it lasted, now that it is over, I am in withdrawal and realizing that Square Enix went through all of the trouble to get the graphics and the voice actors for both Cloud and Sephiroth to do Mobius, but they can't pull their shit together for the console game. I mean, as a remake, all we really need is for the graphics to be updated, and fix the dialogue with some voice overs. We don't need changes, if we needed changes, we'd just ask for Fina Fantasy XVI, we want FFVII remade because we loved the experience the first time and we got our expectations for visual and audio presentaion raised by watching Advent Children. It's that simple, apply the Advent children veneer to the original game, how hard is that really? The other reason for disappointment is that collectively the side projects including Dirge of Cerebrus and Crisis Core showed the capabilities for Square Enix to update the maps, particularly the attention to Shinra Manor in Nibelheim in both games which used an identical layout to the original game with graphics of a satisfactory quality for an update. I feel the video game community has hit a point where technology has outpaced the people wh make the games, when we used to be satisfied with a complete product even with a few flaws, we now have a standard for DLC that makes games obsolete before they are even released. I don't want to have to download new content every few weeks, I want to just play the classic with some modern polish. I don't want extras, bonuses, or anything else that is holding up a project that really should be done by now considering all the mechanics of this game and it's story were already good two decades ago.

7th Moon is going to be on Toonami!

My post is kind of late this week, but for good reason, I finally got in touch with Jason DeMarco at Adult Swim and he gave me the green light, 7th Moon is coming to Toonami on Adult Swim. It will probably take a full year for production to be complete on this project, so it won't premiere until the next anniversary of Toonami, but it should be worth the wait. So far all we have is an animation studio and two voice actors, including myself and Steven Jay Blum. I have a rough draft of a promo, and DeMarco wants to keep it under wraps until we have at least six episodes to air, but I'm going for it anyway.

The idea is that we are going to adapt the first six chapters of the novel into a six episode run that will air from midnight to 3AM one night as a special feature and if it is received well, we make the remaining twelve chapters into a twelve episode run to air over a twelve week period as soon as there is room in the schedule.

Because of the existing relationship between Toonami and Production I.G. that is the studio that will be taking care of this. Since they are busy with FLCL, 7th Moon will wait until after that is wrapped. This is all very exciting but sadly, at this point, I do not have much else to report. My hope is that we get some other voice actors from Toonami, hopefully Funimation or Viz to do the English side. Did I mention there will also be a Japanese simulcast on Tokyo One? Both versions will be on the DVD and BluRay after the premiere as well as streaming on CrunchyRoll.

Also, we will be revamping the RPG I have in beta on Steam, new graphics for the monsters, new code to make certain commands work better, and some general cleaning up of the glitches I missed in alpha testing. When it's all done it will be on AdultSwim Games to promote the show. 

Oh yes, today is the best day of the year, check your calendar and mark it as the day you heard this news.