Piano no mori

It's one of those anime that actually makes you feel the summer heat and smell the sweat on the characters. Makoto Isshiki is probably better known for his Hanada Shounen Shi, an urban fantasy(?) about a primary school boy who gained the power to see ghosts through his near death experience.

While Hanada portrays reality through the supernatural, Piano no Mori portrays magic through realistic settings. An unused piano dumped in the middle of a forest clearing alone calls up a picture from the fairy tales. How music transforms Kai's life and how Kai influences the young musicians' lives are nothing less magical.

There are no explosions, almost no violence (there are children and drunken brawls) a perfect movie for the summer and family time.


The main contrast in the film is the young pianists' different approaches to music. Kai portrays the ideal approach that parents want their children to have. Yet what emerges under parental "guidance" (read: pressures) is usually Shu. Both boys are serious about their music, yet Kai's love is simple while Shu's involved a little too much outside forces.

What Shu said at the end of the film "Without meeting you, I surely would have hated piano." resonated. I was one of the kids forced into piano classes. I didn't meet anyone like Kai. I hated the piano and ran away as soon as I saw a chance.

Everybody needs a Kai to remind them what genuine love for a craft means. Kai is available at Play-Asia.com. Come order a DVD and spend some quality time with your children, grandparents and friends you know from piano class.

Weekly Special - Battlestations Pacific for Xbox 360

We're back to a console special this week. Ready to experience World War II from different perspectives? In Battlestations Pacific you'll play a whole bunch of different units such as pilot, gunner, submarine captain and carrier fleet commander. Sound familiar? That's because it's the sequel to Battlestations: Midway, which allowed you also allowed you to play with those various different units as you fought the various battles in the campaign mode. It's all aerial and naval combat here folks. If you're tired of playing World War II first person shooters, this change of perpsective may be what you've been craving.

I'm happy to report the game is region free and will work on any Xbox 360 world wide! Grab it for the very low price of just $24.90, which is a half-price bargain, so get it now as its only while stocks last and only one per customer. It also includes the following language options: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish. I'd recommend picking up the first game too, but it's no longer in stock.

Games to Own #9: inFamous for PS3

I've been having immense fun with inFamous on PS3, it really is one of the best exclusive games available. Although Sony has quite a few stellar exclusives now. If you own a PS3 and haven't bought it yet, why not? While Killzone 2 may have not been everyone's cup of tea, I don't see how anyone could not enjoy this game. InFamous is an open-world game like GTA, you play in third person and you choose whether to be a super hero or a super villian. There's an interesting story, great voice acting and most importantly of all, great gameplay with minimal frustration. It's probably one of the first open world games that has caused me almost zero frustration due to the hard work of the developers. I hope but doubt that more games will follow inFamous in the things it has excelled in.

The first thing you'll notice is that inFamous has very quick loading times after you complete the initial mandatory install, which in itself is also quick. Did I saw loading times? The game loads only once when you start the game and it's very very quick. It's unbelievable what a difference this makes. First you see a sony logo, then the sucker punch logo video and finally the inFamous logo at the bottom of the screen as the game loads your latest save and puts you right there ingame in about...10 seconds. Yes, it's that quick. From then on, there is not a single load in the whole game, even when there's cutscene's and videos, well unless actually there is loads if you're in another city, but they're pretty quick. There isn't even a main menu! It really is an awesome feat. Grand Theft Auto IV on the other hand, had a very lengthy initial loading time. I like to be able to get into a game quickly and it's very annoying when you have to watch a whole heap of logo videos and being unable to skip them.

Secondly, Cole's (main character) agility is fantastic in the game. It's easy to scale walls, do jumping puzzles and leap from rooftop from rooftop because you don't have to be exactly perfect with your analog stick and jump button to get the right direction and distance, the computer knows most of the time where you want to jump to and will help you out. No massively frustrating moments like in GTA IV and Tomb Raider where you can't get the character to do what you want. The jumping and climbing in GTA IV still sucked, not a problem here though.

Finally, inFamous doesn't punish you by having you start from the beginning of each mission if you messed up or died and certainly doesn't require you to visit the mission spot again. No, inFamous has a checkpoint system within the missions and if you fail it, you'll instantly be transported back to the checkpoint with no load times, for a very unfrustrating experience.

These two factors contribute tremendously to making the game very enjoyable. It reminds me of the latest Prince of Persia actually, where the Prince is much more agile and easier to control. But, I think inFamous goes even further and controlling Cole is a pleasure and not a chore. A big thanks to Sucker Punch, for making such a polished product and enjoyable adventure. Try it and you'll be surprised how you could ever have put up with long load times, no checkpoints and crappy character movement. The bar has been raised.

Weekly Special - Super Robot Taisen K for DS

Last week's special sold out, don't miss out on this one! Another DS game and a strategy one at that. It's Super Robot Taisen K this week, a new game in the popular Super Robot Taisen series of games, also known as Super Robot Wars. It's available at the Super Robot Price (see what I did there?) of $24.90. You save a massive $40!

Please note that this is a Japanese strategy game, but will work on any DS and I'd assume there is no english language option. If I remember correctly, the Super Robot Taisen games are still easy to figure out and fun to play even if you can't read the language. It's kind of like Advance Wars, with Robots, but no building capabilities. What you've got is what you fight with. Limited to one copy per person, don't miss out!

"A large war is whipping the world into a whirlwind, destroying numerous planets and lives. Although civilization allowed people to live in cities scattered across the universe, violence never stopped.

50 years ago, the demon queen led her invasion, and later came the virtual beasts. Both menaces were taken care of, however, the troubles with humans carries on.

Science and technology allowed people to alter their off spring's genes. Coordinators are people who are genetically adjusted and seemed to have better physical or mental attributes than normal natural borns.

The differences in abilities set the two types of people apart and grudges, as well as envy is the source of current strife.

Each camp, the Naturals and the Coordinators, has their military force and war is about to start. Board your robot and get ready to enter battle. The mechas come from a multitude of series, from the relatively new classic Gundam Seed to King Geiner."

Cinderella+Pygmalion with twists - Yamato Nadeshiko Shichihenge and Nobuta wo Produce

Summer is a time for scares, and Sunako loves them. Yamato Nadeshiko Shichihenge is the story of four Bishounen's attempts at turning the horror-loving girl around into a lady. A bit of a Cinderella and a bit of a Pygmalion tale, you might think "I've seen that before!" and dismissed it.

Yes, you might have seen it before, but with hilarity at this magnitude? From urban legends such as the seven school mysteries, vampires lores and the top grossing Japanese horror film, the Ring, this series takes all of the fun elements and mix them together into a ghost house ride.

The anime is a low budget production, instead of cheapness, however, the anime maker's clever use of SD characters and presentation makes the anime even more humorous.

Another drama which takes a similar vein is Nobuta wo Produce, instead of having a horror loving action heroine, Nobuko, a.k.a Nobuta is merely a bullied, quiet girl who failed at finding a place in her class. In come Shuuji and Akira, the two handsome boys who take up the challenge to "produce" her.

Again, seen that? done that? but have you seen Johnny's boys do it? Kamenashi and Yamashita even did a role play on romantic interaction for Nobuta (and the laughing audience). It's not really what they do for Nobuta that garnered praise, it's the growing friendship (with light homoerotic undertones) that really pulls the overused theme a notch above the others.

Hilarity and homoerotic undertones aside, there is one common factor that makes these two show differ from the usual Cinderella+Pygmalion mixes.

Instead of really changing the girl by decking her in beautiful clothes and sweet-talking her to build up her confidence, what the shows really did are having the public change perception of the girl.

Sunako won her first friend Noi over with her action heroine and cooking prowesses. Soon she enamored other girls by her willingness to chase cockroaches away for them. Although in SD form most of the time, her quietness still managed to win her some (mis)guided suitors.

All the boys really did is to drag Sunako to school and occasional counselling sessions with her. Pretty clothes crop up almost every chapter, but they really are foils. What changed was the public, not Sunako herself (at least not her sense of style).

Having to wear a school uniform for the most part of the year meant that the usual Cinderella trick won't work. Shuuji and Akira had tried to go around it and decked Nobuta in designer clothes. Her popularity is shortlived, for she has to go back to wearing her school uniform and the crowd around her dissipated.

It is by accepting the tests that her classmates and the boys pushed at her that Nobuta showed them another side of herself. She did not become the bubbly, high strung heroine, she remains quiet and awkward, it's the crowd that slowly learns to accept what she is.

Games to Own #8 - Call of Juarez for Xbox 360

While Hollywood made plenty of Wild West movies to satisfy people's fascination with this stage of history (although sadly, not very often these days), there hasn't been a lot of games based on this period. A fantastic Wild West movie recently shown in cinemas you should check out if you have a Blu-ray player is 3:10 to Yuma, it's one of my favorite movies.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand, We get a heck of a lot of World War 2 shooters, but Call of Juarez is the only FPS wild West game I can think of since a cool (at the time) shooter called "Outlaws", which was released on PC many years ago. I'm not sure why, I guess publishers think there's not much interest in these games, which of course is false as Call of Juarez sold well.

The story follows Billy Candle, who's accused of murdering his mother and stepfather, who happens to also be Reverend Ray McCall's brother. But Ray is not just any Reverened, he's an infamous gunslinger who turned to the lord and became a Reverand. Now Ray believes the Lord wants him to punish Billy. With bible in one hand and gun in the other (I kid you not!), he's out to take his life. That's all well and good, but the problem is, Billy is in fact innocent.

The interesting thing about Call of Juarez, is that you play as the chaser (Reverend Ray) and the runner (Billy) in the story, switching between each one at certain intervals. You'll sometimes go through familiar territory, but usually with different routes. Billy's levels consist of stealth and sneaking mostly, with some really fun bow and arrow action as well, while with Ray you'll be shooting enemies like it's 1769! Apart from a quick draw slowdown mode which can be done with dual pistols and is very cool, you'll also be able to use rifles and shotguns. Billy's main weapon is the bow and arrow and also enters "concentration" mode and can also use rifles and shotguns. I found the bow too fun to bother with the weapons though.

Billy's missions can be quite frustrating with some bits requiring trial and error. It's not always clear where you're supposed to go or what you're supposed to do and this makes his levels less fun than Ray's. You'll lose/die a lot with Billy. Luckily, the loading times are really fast. The graphics also deserve a special mention, sometimes the game looks fantastic, other times a bit average. The music gets repetitive but the voice acting is pretty good.

For a first effort from little known developer Techland, Call of Juarez is a great game. Sure it's flawed, takes a bit of time to get going and yes it can sometimes be frustrating, like some of the horse riding and Billy's sneaking bits, but overall it is a fun shooter with an enjoyable story and the change in characters keeps it fresh. The extra missions after completing the main story mode are really fun too. The second game which is a prequel is almost out, so make sure to play this one first! It's only $25!

8.0 out of 10

Propis GP2X Wiz

It seems that Dogma-G is getting close to releasing a new game for the GP2X Wiz. This one is called Propis, and it's a match-3 sort of game. It's a pretty little game with cute characters. To me it looks like Puyo Puyo meets Bejeweled.

The real interesting thing is that they claim the game will have WiFi multiplayer support. I have to assume that must mean that a GP2X Wiz WiFi attachment will be coming out around the same time.

It seems that this game was shown at GPH's E3 booth, but I guess most people missed it. The game looks well made, and that's important for GPH since they don't have any commercial titles exclusive to the Wiz, yet.

Of course, time will tell if this game is good and if it indeed does support some sort of WiFi multiplayer hardware.

Let's keep our fingers crossed.

Thanks to http://wwforever.tistory.com/244 for some info and gfx.