Dancing Mad

Test

2011-11-03T07:30:00.000-07:00

Seeing if twitter picks this up.

Dancing Mad About Music: Mezmerize by System of a Down

2010-12-17T09:48:00.000-08:00

Well, it’s been a long time since the last Dancing Mad, yeah sorry I’ve been busy. Basically doing these reviews were pushed back because I had started University courses and well, getting my homework done and not failing was higher on my priorities list. But, that’s not the only reason. I initially had planned to do a Dancing Mad about Music sooner or later, the problem is, I could not decide on what album I should review, and the last time I attempted a review on an album well… The less said about that atrocious blemish that completely made me look like an arrogant tool with poor critiquing skills and was nothing but ranty bullshit, the better. So, today I selected an album from my past, back when I was just 15 years old and still kind of developing my musical horizons, so to speak. I was already a listener of Classic Rock and the music of Alice In Chains and Radiohead and a little of Jeff Buckley. But after suggestions from people and liking what I heard initially, I decided to listen to System of a Down. My fandom of them got to the point where I had to buy their stuff and the first album I got of theirs was Mezmerize. I think it’s time for me to take a stroll down memory lane as I go Dancing Mad over System of a Down’s Mezmerize and find out if nostalgia prevails or if it was crap all along.

For those who don’t know, System of a Down is a hard rock (It kind of pains me to classify them as that) consisting of four Armenian-American musicians, who, individually are quite good at what they do. And quite honestly, up to Mezmerize, System of a Down actually knew who did what. Shavo and John did bass and drums respectively, Serj sang, did lyrics and I believe occasionally get on the keys, and Daron wrote most of the music, lyrics and guitar and had a MINIMAL role on vocals. Mezmerize is where his fucking ego broke critical mass and felt that he was the next John Lennon, more on this later, this is merely an observation but if you lead to the conclusions I lead too and the snarky shit I’m going to pull you will make the same connections I do. Yeah, this album doesn’t give me the feeling of nostalgia I once had about 5 years ago. So, lets start off with the lyrics of this album.

Looking through this album’s liner notes, there is only one song where Daron Malakian does not write the lyrics, Question! Where Serj Tankian is the only lyricist; every thing else it’s the fucking Daron Malakian show. And God, Allah, Buddha, and Vecna does it BLOW! And funnily enough, Question! Is easily the best song on this godforsaken album. The main problem with the lyrics is they are not constructed in a memorable way and are not sung in a way that defines the lyrics eloquently , take the Beatles for example, they wrote songs that were not only simple to understand, but they were memorable. That’s part of the reason the Beatles had as much of a staying power as they did. Or, take Radiohead on the other extreme. Radiohead had some of the most nonsense singles of all time, and that’s not a knock against Thom Yorke, but just look at Paranoid Andriod’s lyrics, they aren’t exactly easy to sing along to, but the way Thom sung that song gave the song merit, it presented a moody atmosphere which is what made Paranoid Android a memorable song. Save for Lost in Hollywood, which is the only song where the lyrics are coherent and consistently makes sense in context to the actual song, and by no means is Lost in Hollywood a well-sung or memorable song…. Mostly because Daron sings the whole damn song. Not to beat an already dead and castrated horse but Daron, can not and should not SING, he’s fine on the lyrics if Serj helps him, or if Serj just writes the lyrics. On Toxicity Serj and Daron shared the responsibilities of the writing and Daron, although did the most contribution to music composition had help from Serj and even Shavo. Then we come to Mezmerize and Daron decides he’s the star, comes up with the concept of the double-album ala the White Album. Because yes this shit continues into another System of a Down album that is less memorable that Mezmerize. But that’s another review. The main problem with Mezmerize’s lyrics, the main fucking problem it suffer from “Green Day Syndrome” or what is more commonly known as a “Soapbox Album”, because during the years of 2000 to about 2008, artists fell into a lull of creative abstinence, followed by a lot of creative masturbation over on topic and one topic only, the president. Now, I for one am not a fan of that particular leader and his vice president I can only refer to as either “He Who Shall Not Be Named” or “Vecna.” But, even with my political and philosophical stance, I will still say this: Daron Malakian you are a fucking tool, I don’t give a shit, You do not need to make 2 fucking albums about one subject, a subject that half a dozen artists got to before you ever did. Then again, this is a guy who freely cites Charles Manson as an inspiration and is a fan of the LA Kings hockey team. So, I am not surprised.

Alright, time for moment of clarity, I have to back-peddle and say something decent about this man before I just wind up hurling a flurry of insults and taking away from the music. I just happen to think a person’s direct actions can impact an album massively. Daron can write some good lyrics, he did, he has, they made sense. I fully recognize the guy as a talent, I just don’t want to have to listen to him sing. Are we cool? Great, because this will be all I will say about Daron himself, the rest of the band is at fault for not telling him to tone it down a notch and Serj clearly wasn’t on his a game either lyrically, because after listening to the lyrics Serj wrote, he’s at fault for some of the stupidest songs I’ve listened to. Moving on to the musical composition shall we?

The music is… rather bland throughout the entire record, and while I could stick to berating Daron Malakian, his guitar work is quite good, if a little fret-wanky at times. And what I mean by fret-wanky is the use and over use of solos and riffs. There’s nothing wrong with keeping a steady beat Daron, nothing wrong at all. But I digress, no the problem with Mezmerize lies with the band as a whole. Because, if you recall, I said it’s been years since I actively listened to this album and whenever I listen to an album I haven’t listened to in years, I will usually give the singles the nostalgia benefit because those songs are usually the songs that are not only the most memorable, but often are the best songs on the album. I only got 5 seconds into BYOB before I said “fuck, this song is garbage.” Serj sounded terrible here, the guitar work is passable, Daron was limited on vocals here which is a good thing… until the bridge where he screams like a belligerent idiot. But my nostalgia of the singles, especially of BYOB is non-existent, which begs the question: Why, did I enjoy this band at all? Well, that’s easy, because before Mezmerize, you could say that System of a Down wrote decent songs and musically they were very good. However, Mezmerize gave us songs with such lines as “My cock is much bigger than yours” and I guess the 15 year old me got a kick out of juvenile lines, but even then the music of System of a Down during Mezmerize was not their best. Hence why the band took a hiatus, and Serj went solo and Daron did that horrible Scars on Broadway shit. And after 5 years, they’ve decided to reform. I find myself not caring, because they really have to do something that can make up for the garbage that is Mezmerize.

Finally, the song structure on Mezmerize is completely laughable. Let’s compare and contrast here, lets take an album like oh, I don’t know Toxicity and lets see how it fairs. Now, for the record, I think the best album of theirs is their debut album, but, Toxicity is a lot easier to grasp the song structure of.

Toxicity is not a perfect album, like Mezmerize it has songs that contain dumb lyrics. Shimmy being a good example; however the lyrics and the music fit with each individual song and on Mezmerize there are songs where you could switch around the lyrics of one song and the music of another. Mezmerize is just chaotic all things considered, and it did not help that this was the first album of a double album. I am not against the idea of the double album, but if you’re going to do it, you have to connect the content of the first album to the next album and Mezmerize was a poor way to do this. There are songs that just do not belong on this album, specifically Old School Hollywood and Lost in Hollywood. I do not understand the reason for them being on this album, or any album really because they are godawful songs, but structurally, when you have songs that are very political, do not break the consistency of the album by talking about fucking Tony Danza and a bunch of posers in Los Angeles, you know the entire population of Los Angeles. It doesn’t work here, and Mezmerize’s song structure is chaotic and crap.

With all that said, I think I have reached my consensus on Mezmerize: It’s crap, it began the downfall of the band and it only served to be Daron Malakian’s disgraceful project before he did fucking Scars on Broadway. And what’s funny, I’d take Mezmerize over Scars on Broadway any fucking day. But, remember this is a double album, so you can expect that Hypnotize will be next in my sights… If my ears can take it.

Dancing Mad About Comics: Lord Havok and The Extremists #2

2010-09-12T06:38:00.000-07:00

Yes, we’re coming full circle with the mediums here at Dancing Mad… sort of… there’s still plenty to cover like music or tv shows or what have you and those things will be covered but we move to the written form of media today, and if you didn’t know it’s all about comics. Now, I am rather new at being a comic book nerd, as I really didn’t start reading comics until the Nolan Batman films and Linkara’s Atop The Fourth Wall review show. Of course, like everything I have I own far more stuff I like than I hate. In fact you have probably noticed a pattern that I’ve been reviewing things I liked, even Battle Royale I said was enjoyable even after I pointed out the problems with it; they didn’t drag the film down so much to prevent enjoyment. So, I bet you might like to hear my takes on the comic of this review. But before that, let’s do a little back-story.

When I was getting into comics (which I point out again was not to long ago). I discovered 52, the weekly crossover series by DC Comics which primarily dealt with lesser-known superheroes dealing with a world (temporarily) without Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman (thanks in part to Linkara once again). I was intrigued by the colorful, imaginative and smart story telling. The wonderful characters I would never have considered or heard of if not for the series. Booster Gold for example or Ralph Dibny aka the Elongated Man. It was a really good crossover series and really pushed my interest into comics. Now, 52 was a big success for DC and the spin-off and tie-ins were also a huge success. However, the Dan Didio, the main guy at DC had a few problems, lets say with 52, because the series was Writers vs. Editors driven. And the writers were the victors more often than not. Didio didn’t like this and he hated 52 with a passion. So, after 52 wrapped up, another series called Countdown or Countdown to Final Crisis was drawn up. However, unlike 52, Countdown was a critical and commercial failure. Everything about Countdown was garbage and because Countdown decided to change writers and artists in between issues… there was certainly many continuity issues and like 52, which had quite a few tie-in issues Countdown had just as many if not more. One of the countdown tie-ins being the subject of this review. Prepare for many vulgarities and rage as you will find what makes me Dancing Mad about Lord Havok and The Extremists #2

I hate this comic. It is so bad. I feel empathy for the former Deadpool writer Frank Tieri and the artists Liam Sharp (who did character designs for Batman Beyond and was a former artist of the Incredible Hulk) and Rob Hunter (who I lack information of). I really don’t know how these guys who have done some really good and critically acclaimed stuff (atleast Tieri and Sharp have from what I know), how come they were tasked to this unsalvageable and insulting series. I can’t explain it, either they were threatened with death by DC or they didn’t take this seriously at all. I’m leaning towards the latter, because it is a fucking goofy comic. I mean, by now you’ve seen the laughable front cover (which I will note has an embarrassing mistake in the far upper-right corner of having the number of comics in this series being “8” instead of “6”). It’s not very good at first glance, but as you open the cover, it gets worse.

The poor excuse for the story is narrated by the fat bald guy you see there Dr. Mortimer, aka the Extremists known as Gorgon, who is writing all of this in his diary. Mortimer or Gorgon exposits how his experiment went completely wrong and exploded in his face, and not the nice “explosion in the face” that we find in so many pornographic videos, or as Benzaie calls it “Spiderman.” See how it comes back to comics. Process that mental image for a while. After this, we meet Susan (in flashback form no less) Gorgon’s love interest and great Cthulhu what’s wrong with her faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaceeeeeeeeeeeeee?

Alright, after that little bit of artistic nightmare fuel is fresh in our minds, I will talk to about the lack of consistency in this comic’s artwork, Frank Tieri looks like he’s trying his best to tell the origin stories of character in what essentially amounted to a minor appearances here and there in Countdown, and the art of this story is what just completely shatters all hope of this being even a passable comic. I could blame the artists or colorist Dave Baron or the editors or demand to get it released or them not giving a fuck, but I am not sure and in any case if this were drawn better it would still suck. It’s not good, and I will note the failures here, and I have to remind you this is only the second page… Look at Susan here a bit longer, I know it’s a little hard on the eyes but bear with me. You notice her face, right… now let your eyes drift to the most promptly advertised thing on the page, that’s right the tits. Okay, you will notice the cleavage and the shape and colouration of her mammeries and you will notice that in the left-hand corner that her breasts appear to be consistent with each other… where is that with this woman’s face? I mean, from experience I know faces take a considerable amount of time to get right, but drawing curves isn’t exactly a walk in the ballpark. But it’s evident in this comic that drawing the shape of them melons had more effort put into it than her face. Since I have exhausted tit synonyms, one final note before moving on; this is the ONLY page in the comic where in more than 3 panels you can see a characters eyes. Just think about that for a second.

In bold read letters we see “Slovakia. Now.” were our narrator Gorgon is writing what he’s narrating in a diary (he calls it a Journal, but it’s a diary all it needs is a Hello Kitty sticker on it, and then diary). Now to explain, the Extremists are hold up in what looks like the Russian Kremlin in Slovakia, I am no expert of buildings in Eastern Europe, but I think at some time or another the Soviet Union had control over Slovakia so okay I buy… but which Slovakia? The Extremists’ designated universe in the DC Universe is Universe 8 and their home world is Earth-8. Now, it’s rather unclear whether they’re on Earth-1, Earth-8, Earth-69, Earth-FUCKTHISCOMIC or whatever and people not reading Countdown (which is a good idea) picking this comic up (which is NOT a good idea) will not have any clue as to what’s going on. But, through countless internet search’s and stumbling upon the Wikipedia you find out they’re on Earth-8! And nobody cares. Also, reading alone you get to hear the name of the leader of the Meta-Militia: PRESIDENT AMERICOMMANDO! And reading this without a google search or comic book nerd knowledge will make you think “The President of Slovakia is named Americommando… wow.” Also, Americommando was a DC comics superhero originally known as Mr. America. Hope anyone who followed those first issues of the Justice Society knows.

Next page and HOLY MORADIN! Alright, because showing you every damn page of this eye bleeding comic would be too much like torture, I’ll describe it. On this page you see the characters, Gorgon our narrator, Diehard, a Daredevil looking guy, Tracer a hairy bastard and Dreamslayer some flame headed guy. More knowledgeable people in comics will note that each of these character are based off a particular Marvel villain. And looking at this page you notice that the eyes are non-existent. Now, I would call it Youngblood’s disease (as Linkara would call it) but this seems more like some I have christened Countdown’s Syndrome. A crippling disability in cross over events where the main story is so incoherently bad it effects the tie-ins and even the main continuity of DC. This comic is the core example. Anyway the Extremists talk about how they took over Slovakia and Diehard basically exposits how the Dr. Doom knockoff (you’ll find out why I call him this later) Lord Havok is a tool and how he would be the better… fuck I hate this shit in comics. MOVING ON!

After we see Donna Troy’s great sonking tits. FLASHBACKS! Susan and Mortimer experimenting with the Macguffin that turned him into Gorgon and turning next page… WHAT IN THE NAME OF ODIN IS THAT?

Holy fucking shit, it’s Mr. Clean with a big ol’ dwarfish beard. Seeing the narration you notice this guy is the crux a jealous streak by Mortimer/Gorgon. But it’s so fucking goofy seeing this bald fuck just pop out of nowhere with a big fucking smile. And it stays there for the next page as Gorgon keeps narrating oh and look at the subtlety of Susan stroking the guys dwarven fucking axe. This guy, is Wandjina a meta-human and is the looniest looking character I’ve seen in the entirety of this comic. Including the guy who looks like a baby with tentacles on his head. Also, interesting to note but how this is the only page where the word “God” is used. Every other time, they refer to a god, doesn’t matter if it’s Shiva, Thor or Vecna, it’s all called “Deity.” I can completely understand them not being dicks and instead of referring to a specific god they say deity, but, it’s just lazy and when Gorgon says “A God, for deity’s sake” it just makes the sentence stupid. In a completely stupid comic. Ow…

Now we see something that brings a smile to my face. Jason Todd getting his ass kicked.

The Extremists sit around talking about how they kicked the asses of Kyle Rayner, Bob The Monitor, The Jokester, Jason Todd and Donna Troy. Gotta say, nothing to brag about here. And then we see another member of the Extremists, Barracuda whose the covert ops guy and is feeding Lord Havok information from the Meta-Militia group. Gorgon insults him and I wonder if this narration in being recorded in his journal or has the concept been abandoned, this narration seems to ignore it. Fuck it. We’re getting ahead of ourselves with this piss poor comic. Another flashback you see Mortimer (remember this is Gorgon) holding a book on Greek mythos. He whines in this narration that his “suspicions about her (being his woman) and Wandjina (The fucking Viking) were unwarranted.” Unwarranted? Maybe a little, but if only because the Viking could crush this woman with his dick. Other than that, Mortimer is a bald, fat and uninteresting version of Doctor Octopus. This continues on when Mortimer finds tickets to the Opera and he assumes the Viking Wandjina took her and Mortimer puts on his serious face.

We cut back to the current time to see Barracuda completely gutted like a fish. NO NOW HOW AM I GOING TO INCLUDE HIS IMAGE IN THIS REVIEW? Oh wait, I wasn’t planning to because he’s DEAD. He’s essentially cannon fodder and makes a total of 3 appearances in this comic. We see Jason Todd or atleast a version of Jason Todd from the Multiverse takes the knife out of Barracuda’s chest and says “I hate to waste a good knife, ya know?” Yeah, just like how I hated when Superboy-Prime punched reality and brought your useless ass back. Anyway he’s backed by heroes and villains from the multiverse lead by The Monarch and no, not the Monarch from the Venture Brothers but that would give some validity to the goofiness of this story. Lord Havok and his Extremists look on and Gorgon says that these guys want to change the whole universe before we go back to flashback mode.

Wow, does every comic that features Kyle Rayner always ends up with a female character dead? Ladies and Gentlemen, we have Women in Refrigerators! Pretty picture ain’t it? Is it wrong to laugh at the expression on his face? Mortimer overcome with grief goes all Bruce Banner and hulks the fuck out and…. What in the name of Dagon is up with this fucking picture?

It looks like a damn vagina or as South Park would classify it, a “Galgamek” Vagina. I’m pretty sure the writers and artists by this point dropped acid and just said “fuck it, this is unsaveable, let’s finish it and get the fuck out of here.” Hey, can’t blame them, at least they were having fun… something I am not doing right now.

Back to the future (great platinum dragon, will this fucking flashback-flashforward shit stop?) Lord Havok and the Monarch talk and Monarch gives him the Darth Vader “Join me Luke” thing and then NEXT PAGE, the flashback continues. Gorgon, completely losing his shit attacks what I believe to be the Meta-Militia or just the regular army, because as we all know from Dai Kaiju films. THE ARMY IS COMPLETELY USELESS AGAINST GIANT MONSTERS! After Gorgon finishes collecting the bodies into a neat pile and is informed that “Wandjina is not the one” he seeks. And as we turn the page we see the funniest dialogue and image in the comic. Prepare.

I can’t help it. Wandjina is secretly gay is just so stupid it’s funny. And looking at Gorgon’s face when he finds out he kills his wife looks more like a face he would make aftedr just finding out the fucking Viking with the Dwarven axe is gay. It’s such an awkward expression it completes the humour. Wandjina is secretly gay. Wow. Anyway, moving down, we see fucking DR. DOOM who is actually LORD HAVOK christen Mortimer as Gorgon completing the flashback/origin portion of the comic.

After thinking about the offer, Lord Havok refuses the Monarch’s offer to join the empire and tells him to go fuck himself as the comic concludes with Lord Havok stabbing the Monarch, complete with sound effects.

Okay, I will say this now. If you have this comic in your collection I say keep it around. Why? Because you’re going to need it one day when you run out of toilet paper and even then I’d advise wiping your ass with something else because I’m pretty sure this isn’t even good enough to wipe your ass with. It’s shit. Weapon grade level shit. Countdown was a blight and it’s spin-offs and tie-ins suck equally as much. Alright, I’m done, fuck this comic and I want to say I am happy that Tieri and Sharp have gone on to do better things, because I’m pretty sure they wanna forget this comic and by extension this series.

All images and characters featured are created and property of DC Comics, I own nothing featured excluding the written material on this site.

Dancing Mad About Video Games: Assassin's Creed 2

2010-07-21T02:19:00.000-07:00

I’m probably treading already covered ground here as it is a fairly recent game and pretty much every major reviewer has expressed their thoughts on this game, but better late than never I suppose (that and this is a spur of the moment review to pretty much put something on the site). Regardless, I was planning to do a video game review anyway, it just turned out to be this one.

A little back story first, when I first bought my Xbox 360 I was thinking of all the games I should get with it, pretty much the main reason I got it was for Lost Odyssey, a game I still have yet to complete because I keep putting it off. But the game that I got free with my 360 was Assassin’s Creed, I initially thought “well, no use in complaining about a free game,” as at the time I was hearing some more negative than positive reviews of the game. But I took my chances and ended up really liking the game. Sure it was a little repetitive in combat but the story itself was very good, so much so that it warranted interest in the subject of this review. Is it really such a killer game? Well, I’m about to go Dancing Mad over Assassin’s Creed 2.

The story begins as a sort of a continuation from the first game, with the hero Desmond Miles expositing over his kidnapping by the Templar-funded (yes, those Templars) corporation Abstergo whose main motive was to use Desmond to find the magical macguffins known as the “Pieces of Eden” (by way of the machine the Animus to probe through the genetic memories of his Assassin ancestors) and essentially use them to for their own sinister purposes. Desmond tells us of events that happened post-Assassin’s Creed 1, most importantly the fact that Dr. Warren Vidic is an “bastard” and had removed Desmond’s one and only ally Lucy Stillman from Abstergo… till she promptly returns, covered in to free him from Abstergo and take him to the hideout for Assassins. Not before she tells Desmond Miles to get into the Animus so we can introduce the main character of the game Ezio Auditore da Firenze, before both Lucy and Desmond escape Abstergo to the Assassin’s Hideout. When they get there we meet the rest of the team who I affectionately call team AssRod (Ass for Assassin’s and Rod…because it sounds penile). We meet Rebecca Crane the tech expert and programmer for the Animus 2.0 as well as Shaun Hastings, a rather douchey guy who is absolutely great to fuck with; he’s practically the clerical guy he helps decode shit in the game.
Anyway, after the minor introductions are out of the way the game you want to play begins, that is to say playing as Ezio and not Desmond (which is kind of the point, and is explained in the story).

You begin as a young Ezio in the city of Florence, finding out that he is a Florentine noble and is pretty much a smooth player with the ladies (the guy could literally get more tail than Caligula). Yeah, you’re going to like Ezio; anyway Ezio and his brother Federico are having a spat with their rival family the Pazzi (yeah, those Pazzi). After they effectively kick their asses, see a doctor and race on top of a church, we are treated to a very nice title screen signifying the start of the game. After a few more missions with your family, including beating up some guy named Douche and grabbing paintings from Leonardo da Vinci (yes, that Da Vinci). Ezio’s brothers and father are taken to jail and set to be hanged and Ezio naturally has to stop it. Then by this point you learn Ezio is the titular Assassin (Ezio himself doesn’t find out till he gets to Monteriggioni).

And there’s your backstory for the game. Now to talk about the pros and the cons of the gameplay. Well, it’s pretty damn awesome. I mean, fight wise nothing has really changed, except you have a few more weapons to work with and even then in fights your only going to be using 2 or 3 weapons at the most. It’s really basic to be quite honest, you generally wait for counters most of the time because every successful counter kill, you’re treated to a gory cinematic; which never gets old. The combat really falls to that. Not much of an improvement over the first game, but there’s more to work with here. For starters, the economic system is a wonderful in a game like this, not only does it allow you to buy weapons and armour, but for medicine, which is quite helpful in battle and even funds to contribute to making your stronghold a more profitable place. Which in turn feeds your wallet so you can buy more shit. Frankly it’s batshit economics for people who could really give two shits about economics; you know people like myself. But hey, if I could buy a Botticelli (yes, that Botticelli) painting for 500 dollars and use it to add value to my home, it would make real life a hell of a lot easier to be sure. But with all this stuff, the difficulty is lacking, the hardest thing in the game is arguably the puzzle tests and those are solved with some basic logic. Some people would argue collecting 100 feathers but that’s a side quest and is frankly a lot better than collecting 100+ flags in the original Assassin’s Creed. It’s still annoying, but again, you don’t have to collect them unless you want the cape that makes you Notorious wherever you go and a War Hammer or if you‘re Achievement whoring. But overall, the gameplay is excellent if a tad repetitive, there’s so much you can do it’s hard to get tired of the simplistic gameplay and it is fun to stealth Assassinate guards from pretty much any position, steal their weapons and skull fuck them before progressing the story.

Speaking of the story, I have a few things to say about it. It’s really good, it’s complex, everything, even the side-quests are tied together in the story. Excluding races, beat ‘em up events and assassination contracts everything is tied together in the story. The writer’s left no room for error with the story. Collecting feathers has something to do with the story, rebuilding Monteriggioni has something to do with the story, finding Codex pages has something to do with the story, etc. This isn’t even touching on the main narrative which is incredibly presented. I briefly gave the back story, but my synopsis of that is not quite as accurate as in game (frankly, I do my best to avoid spoilers whenever possible). But as you follow Ezio, you get a really good idea of his conflict and his story (despite Desmond saying “this is my story,” it’s really the narrative of Ezio where this story shines). This story is really character driven. There’s a lot of colourful characters that you will get to interact with, most of which you get to kill. But, you also have the themes ranging from religion, to art, to conspiracy, politics, history, philosophy, it goes on with the themes. Depending on your own interpretations, this can be one of the most venomous snipes at religion or a rather respectful view of religion (or as I see it, a combination of both secular and theistic views put into the game, the disclaimer isn’t lying I guess). The game just builds and builds and adds more neat twists, more fresh writing as it continues and it all cultivates in one of the greatest “HOLY SHIT!” endings I’ve seen in a video game, and it’s not over until after the credits stop rolling, because during the credits, you get to put all of Ezio’s skills to use as Desmond and it’s refreshing.

Characters, characters, characters… where to begin? Well, let’s start with team AssRod. Honestly, there’s not a whole lot to them, even with Desmond and Lucy we do not get a whole lot out of them aside from a few notes about their back stories their personality traits and a whole romantic link between the two is developing a bit more. Which is not surprising as Desmond is trying to go after a chick modeled after (and voiced by) Kristen Bell and only a eunuch would not want to fuck Kristen Bell. Rebecca we don’t spend a whole lot of time getting to know and Shaun is the same way though his backstory is brought up. If it sounds like I am picking on Desmond, I’m not trying too, it’s just we know this guy for a whole game and he really does nothing aside from being the analog to the Assassin’s who you primarily play as., he seems like the genuine everyman who gets to experience the lives and memories of people far cooler than him, on second thought, that is pretty awesome when you get right down to it. But then again, everyone is overshadowed by the awesome that is Ezio Auditore da Firenze. I swear, this guy is really cool, and I am not joking when I do say the guy does get as much tail as Caligula… only without the rape. His charm and wit is all there and you get a personality out of him, which is what I like about him and why I prefer him over Altair; Ezio doesn’t come across as an emotionless dick here. You really emphasize with Ezio, something I didn’t get with Altair. The support characters are all fun to interact with, whether they be your uncle Mario or Lorenzo de’ Medici (yes, that Lorenzo de’ Medici), or the various people you have to kill like Rodrigo Borgia (yes that… You know what, fuck it).

There’s one last thing to note, and it’s rather minor but it’s the soundtrack by Jesper Kyd. Honestly, I really didn’t care for the soundtrack of the first Assassin’s Creed, it was a game that seemed very appropriate for a customized soundtrack. But, here.. It’s really good, there’s a very atmospheric score, it never gets old and frankly you can listen to many of the track’s over and over again. Such as “Ezio’s Family.” It’s a spectacular song and is the highlight of the score in my humble opinion to an already superb soundtrack. It presents the perfect atmosphere to the fantastic story.

I guess there’s nothing left to say about the game, it has a great score, some interesting characters and a fun and exciting story. It’s a rather short game mind you and the gameplay can be lacking and the AI can get stupid it’s still really fun to play as Ezio and start killing many, many people.

Dancing Mad About Movies: Battle Royale

2010-05-25T23:34:00.000-07:00

Asian cinema has really come a long way throughout the years, Japan being the forefront of a lot of the classic films. Indeed there’s a lot of influential directors from Japan, most notably Akira Kurosawa. Ahh yes, Kurosawa, arguably the greatest filmmaker of all time. But, as brilliant as he was he got shafted by a lot of studios for either his directing style or him demanding too much money or getting no work done after 2 years. Which is the case for the critically acclaimed film “Tora! Tora! Tora!” Which was turned over to two Japanese directors: Toshio Masuda and Kinji Fukasaku, the latter of which we will examine very soon.

But over the recent years, Japan’s cinema has taken a turn from dramatized stories involving Samurai or political pieces about the dangers of nuclear weapons to a darker focus, a focus on the horror genre. Now, the horror in Japanese cinema isn’t about a massive unstoppable behemoth murdering baby sitters or a cheap scare as we find in so many films turned out by Hollywood that are, frankly as “scary” as someone turning the lights on and off continuously. It’s annoying. J-Horror is really about atmosphere and making the experience as much as a psychological mindfuck as possible. The intent is to lure people in a submissive state and give them a barrage of tension with liberal use of disturbing imagery. Survival horror games like Silent Hill or Fatal Frame thrive on this. Indeed it’s just as affective in one media as it is in another. Particularly and especially in film. Hence why Japan was the pinnacle of Horror for a long time, but like all things, artists have to change their style and many people ended up becoming disillusioned with this style of horror. People got used to it and found J-Horror well, not very “horrific” anymore. However, those earlier films did find a place in cult following and indeed in cinema history. One of these films is “Battle Royale” which has not only become a pinnacle of horror to many people, but has become so critically acclaimed by many film buffs and even hit-making directors such as Quentin Tarantino. But I found a myriad of problems with the film personally. And you’re all fortunate to know how I go Dancing Mad over “Battle Royale.”

Before I start laying into the film, picking out what I liked and what ruined the experience for me we have to give the back story behind the film in question.

Battle Royale was initially a novel by Koushun Tamaki and takes place in a dystopian alternate timeline where many nations have fallen into economic turmoil and where Japan has basically falling into a Nationalist Socialist state where martial law has run rapid and where the people are entirely apathetic about the effects of a bad economy, including a bad job market. Yeah, I haven’t read the novel, although I did read the manga adaptation and well…

Yeah, that’s a whole other review. But the basic story is the same from what I’ve heard. In any case, I do not know the intent Koushun Tamaki was going for, but from my understanding, Tamaki wrote this in the time where Japan’s age of economic prosperity was fading and many people were feeling the effects of it. Of course, this is merely observation. Going to wikipedia didn’t help, so I’ll just make up what I think he was going for at the time… yeah, this isn’t exactly a professional review.

Anyway, after the novel came the movie, which was directed by Kinji Fukasaku with a screenplay written by his son Kenta. I guess we have padded this out long enough, so I suppose I better dive right into the review.

Now, I established the setting already in Battle Royale, and that’s not a whole lot different from the novel. The backstory to Battle Royale is as follows: After the economic turmoil, and massive job losses in Japan and indeed the world; a total of 800,000 students started protesting school. The new Fascist Japanese government out of a sense of fear passes the Millennium Educational Reform Act to combat the rebellion caused by students. My attention is grabbed, it seems very interesting, I personally want to know what the Millennium Educational Reform Act, or simply the “BR” Act is. Well, it turns out the “BR” Act is a game that combats a random group of 9th graders a duel to the death. Wow, this is fucked up and awesome… Wait a minute, I know it’s awesome in that context, but looking at it as a whole, it makes no fucking sense and is horrendously stupid for a government to do. Even for a National Socialist version of Japan. You see, if you’re a leader of a fascist government, you want to appeal to people, you want to win them over to your side by scape-goating a race of people and by brainwashing people to hate a certain group or a country or what have you. Making school children your “common enemy” is fucking retarded. Not a lot of people would want to have kids in a world where 40 plus 9th graders are forced to kill each other. A high death/murder/suicide rate and a low birth rate is bound to cause some obvious fucking problems for your society. But, I can kind of buy this as a premise, as poor as it is, you can sort of see a convoluted law in this dystopian Japan.

Battle Royale primarily focuses on Shuuya Nanahara, who has the misfortune of being of the 42 people in his class selected to compete in: Battle Royale. Shuuya also has the incredible misfortune to be a pacifist dumbass and a total white knight. Yeah, I have a few problems with this guy, and he’s only slightly believable… if only because he’s not the sharpest tack and is about 15 years old. Shuuya’s whole character revolves around his fucked upped family life, with his mother walking out and his father hanging himself leaving Shuuya a message in toilet paper saying: “Go for it, Shuuya.” One would question the logic of using toilet paper to compose a suicide note, but hey, your bowels loosen once you die, better use it for something.

Shuuya and his classmates are transported to an island after being knocked unconscious by what I can only assume is gas, after they are traveling on a bus to go on a trip. They wake up, and are greeted by their 7th grade teacher, fucking Takeshi Kitano. This movie got 80 degrees more awesome the second he got on screen. But, unfortunately he doesn’t get a whole lot of screen time because this movie is all about the “kids” and not the badass that is Kitano. Kitano’s sole purpose is to oversee the Battle Royale and basically be the game master. After dragging out the body of the class’s 9th grade teacher, and explaining the history of the Millennium Educational Reform Act and a slight overview of the game itself we are then treated to a video that explains the rules of the game hosted by Aya Hirano.

Okay, it’s not actually her, but the voice is very similar to me anyway. Anyway, during this video, Kitano kills a girl for talking over the video and establishes one thing: Nearly all of these characters aren’t important and are cannon fodder to what is called the plot. But, that’s a whole other issue entirely. After the out right murder, the video continues to establish one thing that is never ever used other than as a deterrent. That is, the necklaces around all these kids necks and the use of “danger zones” throughout this island. Which I will get into a minute, but basically, these necklaces are a tracking device, keeping track of heart rate and whose alive or dead. There’s a lot of bullshit around these necklaces. But a key feature of them is the innate ability that they are also explosive devices that will trigger if you enter a danger zone or if you’re stupid enough to get into a fight with Takeshi Kitano and armed guards as Nobu, Shuuya’s friend found out.

Allow me to do a brief analysis on the island setting of Battle Royale since we establish the danger zones and indeed the storyline in general. It’s very reminiscent of Lord of the Flies, a book that most people had to read in High School (such as myself) which is about a group of kids on an island and the main thesis of that is that man will turn to savagery if left alone. The key difference being is that Battle Royale is less stupid. It’s a fascist Japan that responds to angry protestors by saying “fuck these little shits, lets teach them about Social Darwinism.” Where as Lord of The Flies a bunch of kids crash land on an island and then decide “lets go ape shit!” Yeah… not exactly a fan of that book. Moving on, the game of Battle Royale, which Kitano explains is this: Kill each other, the winner or the survivor goes home. 40 men enter. 1 man leaves.

Getting back to the plot, after Aya Hirano explains the rules, and how each student gets a weapon at random that ranges from useless to useful, Nobu goes ape shit which results in Kitano blows him up then the game begins. But not before we establish the crush Nobu had on the female lead Noriko, who incidentally Shuuya also has a crush on. Well isn’t that just dandy, your best friend has a crush on a girl you like, a girl who convinces your friend to come back to school, which ultimately leads to his demise. Shuuya, you’re in the clear.

A few quick deaths and we establish the people we are suppose to follow:
Shuuya, Noriko & Kawada
Hiroki Sugimura
Shinji Mimura and his group of people who contribute dick to the story.
Of course there’s the antagonists, Mitsuko and Kiriyama.

Shuuya and Noriko are basically useless as they are pacifist loons and have no weapons team up with Kawada a guy who pretty much saved their asses on more than one occasion because he has a combat shotgun as a weapon.
Sugimura’s whole quest is to follow his penis to find the one girl he really likes and try to bang her before he is ultimately killed… okay, that’s not his goal, but I like it better the way I say it.
Mimura’s story is to pull a Guy Fawkes and do cyber-terrorism to escape the island.

The antagonists are pretty much just “Kill Em All.” But Kiriyama steals the show as he’s a mute motherfucker who signed up for fun. So, people can volunteer for this… Okay, but that just seems like a bad idea in the long term, but I doubt many people are complaining. After all, Kiriyama is the best part of the film. The rest of the plot is non-existent, and the sole reason anyone watches this film is for the mindless deaths. So lets look at the “myriad of problems” I found in this film.

Lets start with those “danger zones”. I said that they act as nothing but a deterrent, that’s because they are established early in the film and are brought up every time Kitano does his PA announcements. We never see anyone wander into one of these zones even accidentally in this film and see their heads roll. The sheer use of “danger zones” is to act as a way for the kids to gather into one place so they don’t scatter and try to hide. No one dies, in them, so they aren’t really needed. I know that it’s not the most exciting ways to see a person die, but do something other with them other than make them act as a deterrent.

That also reminds me of something else, because danger zones have kill people by blowing up these kids necklaces or collars. The necklaces themselves are a tracking device, they are satellite monitored, they monitor heart rate and blood pressure. The big “trick” about these necklaces is they have microphones in them. These kids are fucking idiots if they didn’t think of this before. It’s obvious, if you have technology like these necklaces, developed for use by a government that is very totalitarian, having microphones in these necklaces should be obvious. I get not a whole lot of these kids are smart, save for Mimura, but it’s right around the neck, it’s a fucking microphone.

Speaking of the ineptitude of these kids, something that does bother me a bit is the complete misuse of ranged weapons. I know most of these kids don’t have formal training or knowledge of weapons, neither do I, but it should not be hard to know what a semiautomatic weapon like an Uzi should not be used within less than a yard of the person you’re trying to kill. This happened early on when a group ganged up on Kiriyama and Kiriyama just tackles the guy with an Uzi who is barely a foot away from him. I understand that this film is kind of designed to simulate warfare conditions and involve a psychological aspect but it’s just laughable to me that these kids can’t figure out the proper use of ranged weapons.

Lastly the romantic subtext of the plot is just clunky, awkward and totally out of place in Battle Royale. This is mostly the Sugimura mini-plotline when he has to confront his ex-girlfriend to tell her how “cool” she was. Or just before he gets blown away and spills his heart out to the girl who shot him. It’s so awkward it’s funny. I get it, I get it, high school kids are generally dumb as posts when it comes to romance or taking hints, but this is trying to be a somewhat serious film; Fukasaku’s intent with this film is summed upped near the end of the movie when Shuuya says: “I never really trusted adults.” That was Fukasaku giving his feelings when he was growing up in World War 2 era Japan. Nothing killed that mood faster than the awkward romantic dialogue and subtext in this movie.

Maybe I am being a bit too unfair, after all, there’s plenty of things I enjoyed about Battle Royale. For starters, the soundtrack is amazing, the entire thing is classical music which really lends itself well with the film, the use of Verdi’s “Requiem (Dies Irae)” is a fantastic start up to the whole thing and the ending song “Shizuka na HibI no Kaiden Wo” aka “Climb the Stairs of Quiet Days” by J-Rock/J-Rap group Dragon Ash is a wonderfully memorable song and ties into the film quite well.

The action was intense and was an overall fun film that was really well directed and there was some really good actors in the bunch. It’s a decent enough film that you can turn off your brain and watch, but watching it more than once you will notice a lot of stupid errors and a really unimpressive plot line that while starts off promising, just gets rather stupid as it goes on. As a J-Horror film it’s hard to understand how or why it has garnered a ridiculous amount of acclaim, and as far as J-Horror goes (this barely qualifies as J-Horror quite frankly), there’s been better films; but there’s been worse films. It’s worth a look at, but do not get caught up in the hype; just sit back and enjoy the action.

Dancing Mad About Anime: Spice & Wolf

2010-05-19T15:20:00.000-07:00

The fantasy genre, what can you say about it? It’s probably one of the most prevalent forms of fiction in well, the world. Indeed, mythos have their fantasy tropes, epic poems have them as do most religions. Those are just the earliest forms of fantasy, I can not even begin to tell you about fantasy in this day in age; which cover nearly every facet of media, there’s too much of it to even list. I could provide excellent examples of really awesome novels, comics, televisions shows, movies and even music if you can believe it or not (see a lot of the Led Zeppelin songs that were inspired by The Lord of the Rings).

And of course one can not forget anime in all this. Anime exploits many of the fantasy tropes to the limits and beyond. Because if it’s one thing about the Japanese they really know how to take an idea and push it to it’s boundaries, until it’s on it’s knees begging you to stop as you laugh and revel in the humiliations you caused and you start do-
Excuse me, its seems we’ve dipped into the dark recesses of my porn folder. Moving on then. Basically, the fantasy genre has numerous tropes, stereotypes, clichés, whatever you want to call them; there are certain connotations people have come to accept with fantasy as a whole and anime for all the boundaries it pushes or tries to push in fantasy also is not shy to the usual charm of the tropes or the various clichés and storytelling devices common with fantasy. You have fantasy stories revolving around magic, swords, and the supernatural in anime. Others revolve around the good old Role-Playing Game style of fantasy with a band of heroes getting together searching for shiny trinkets and getting entangled into having to stop the forces of evil. Lesser known examples involve the mercenary for hire angle in fantasy anime. In fact that not only works well in Fantasy but as well as Comedy.

Surely there are many more examples that pop to mind with fantasy anime or fantasy in general really many people can think of other than the ones I names about magic, swords, and adventuring. I’m not even getting into fantasy off-shoots such as Steampunk or even into Science Fiction with Fantasy elements (or vice-versa). But how about economics? It does not seem like it would work or even be much of an important plot device in fantasy, particularly anime-fantasy. Well, that’s the subject of this review. Let’s see how I go dancing mad over Spice & Wolf

Spice & Wolf started out as a series of light novels by Isuna Hasekura after he entered the then unreleased first volume in Dengeki’s 12 Annual Novel Prize and won the silver prize for it, which is a modest 300, 000 yen prize. Of course the novel was published, released and thus a series begun. Granted this is information you can find on Wikipedia, but it’s still something to go on by if you want some background on the story. Now, I haven’t read the light novels or the manga adaptation that followed so I do not know how the differences with the transition from the novels to the anime. But, that should not be too much of a problem for this review.

The basic story revolves around a traveling merchant named Kraft Lawrence… we’ll refer to him as just Lawrence as I am sorry, but Kraft Lawrence is not a fucking name. To nitpick this a bit, Kraft is his given name and Lawrence is his surname. This is not chalked up to the Japanese custom of putting the surname before the given name (which would be stupid in any case of this anime as none of the characters are Japanese). Plus, Lawrence is simply reference to Lawrence anyway, so I see no reason why his official name is “Kraft Lawrence.” Anyway, Lawrence is a merchant, he goes around from each town and sells various goods for a profit for various trading companies. In one particular town during a festival he comes across the other main character, the Wolf of “Spice & Wolf”, Holo. And before anyone complains or argues “isn’t it Horo?” No actually, I was surprised when I found out too, but Word of God confirms Holo time and time again and I personally don’t have too much a problem with it as the name grew on me. Holo is our main female lead and she’s a wolf girl. Not just any wolf girl, but the wolf god of harvest. Holo, after meeting Lawrence tells him she wants to return to her homeland in the North as Lawrence travels to sell goods and trade currencies. Well, I think you can guess what Lawrence says, after all there would be no story had Lawrence said “no” or ran away from Holo.

While the main core of the plot follows the relationship of Lawrence and Holo, this is where our perceptions of the usual and normal tropes of fantasy are forgotten as the big storytelling piece here revolves around currency. In this case coins. There are many coins, many discussions about the various silver coins in the world of Spice & Wolf. I’ll give you a basic example here. The silver coins in Spice & Wolf are numerous and many of the silver coins differ in value and purity according to what nation or kingdom they belong to. Which is important here particularly for the main character whose profession is selling merchandise and dealing with money. However, while economics is an interesting subject in fantasy such as Spice & Wolf it requires a lot of dialogue to explain. In fact, 90% of the conflict involves talking, so if you have a hard time accepting a show that is built upon a fantasy setting without a great deal in action, this is going to be a weird experience for you. Paying attention to the conversations that revolve around economics is crucial if you want a grasp on the conflict of the plot. Which is why it’s highly recommended to watch this anime in English only. The talks of coins will only be more confusing if you also have to follow subtitles.

Character-wise, everyone seems really well-written, genuine and very believable. Lawrence is a methodical, calculated, business man; though he exhibits gullibility a lot and his emotions do get the better of him from time to time. Holo is snarky. Very snarky, cool, funny, and charming; she has a bit of an ego and does employ some light tsundere traits but it works well for her personality. There is really good chemistry between Lawrence and Holo which does make for entertaining and funny conversations. The other characters in this anime are relatively minor but they do contribute to the already heavy dialogue nicely. The only other major character here besides Holo and Lawrence is Nora, but she appears late into the season, and while welcomed and very important to those last few episodes calling her a major supporting character is barely pushing it.

Let’s quickly go over the soundtrack and the English and Japanese audio before I close this review. The soundtrack for this anime is pretty good, it’s a tad repetitive, but it’s well-suited in the series. The guitar/mandolin for the back ground music is always pleasant. The opening theme is awesome. Honestly, “Tabi no Tochuu” is ridiculously good, it capture the mood of the show in just the opening song alone. “Tabi no Tochuu” or “En Route on the Journey” is sung very well by Natsumi Kiyoura whose voice does feel natural with a show such as this. Though, the opening theme I did find delightful, the ending theme “Ringo Hiyori” by Rocky Chalk not so much. It feels very cutesy, too cutesy. While there are a lot of moments like that in the show, this song does not capture that and the Engrish vocals do not help me appreciate the show any better.

Here’s a rule of thumb I use when watching anime, usually when a show takes place in Japan or is very school oriented it tends to make a lot more sense in it’s original language; everything else is fair game and personal preference. Spice & Wolf is a show that works so much better in English for many reasons. Not only does it take place in a setting that is not Japan, the characters have English and European names for the most part, and it’s so much easier to understand the economics in English. Those are all things I brought up earlier, but even without all that, the performances are reasonably stronger by Funimation's brilliant staff of voice actors then their Japanese counterparts. Nothing against Jun Fukuyama or Ami Koshimizu, I just feel J. Michael Tatum and Brina Palencia performed better for Lawrence and Holo respectively. While I found Fukuyama’s performance rather dry for Lawrence, I found Ami Koshimizu excellent as Holo; however, Brina Palencia brought a better stage presence to the character of Holo and the entire cast in English was really well directed.

There are 13 episodes in total, and the DVD box set was released near the end of 2009. The original light novels and manga adaptation have and are being translated and released in English by Yen Press if you find yourself wanting to know what happens in the novels or manga after the anime. A second season has already been released and finished airing in Japan with Funimation already planning another English adaptation. I have high expectations for this, I hope you do as well!