Shin Fortengard Custom

So last Friday the last episode of the 2012 adaptation of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure aired. This was the biggest anime event for me in years as I’m probably the biggest fan of the series in this country.

It adapted the first two parts of the series, Phantom Blood and Battle Tendency. I remember watching the first episode of Phantom Blood with somewhat mixed reactions regarding the voice casting, artwork and pacing but I came to accept and enjoy these things as the series went on and how all the aspects got better.

I guess this post won’t make a lot of sense to those who haven’t seen the series or better yet read the manga. (if you haven’t read photoscans of Part 3 and Duwang translations of Part 4 you don’t know shit about Jojo).

I mean the first episode was kind of a mess, it tried to adapt a whole volume that is all important plot development in to 21 minutes. It was weird, at the very beginning it seemed like you were supposed to sympathize with Dio Brando but as soon as he stepped off the carriage and in to the Joestar mansion he was just full on violent, crazy and evil, which is what he is but in the manga he only showed this side to Jonathan when they were alone but when he’s firing on all crazy cylinders from the very first second I’m like how the fuck doesn’t Jonathan’s dad or the butler notice that. In the manga it made more sense.

But after that the pacing ironed itself out and moved quite well. Well I do think a lot of the episodes moved a lot slower in progression compared to the manga like when Kars attacks Strohem and then Kars and Joseph fall down the cliff. In the manga that all happened very quickly, in the anime that was an episode long encounter, but I don’t think it actually makes it worse in that aspect.

The art grew on me but in the first episodes the art was kind of bad. David Production started out somewhat recently as an inbetweener studio so it was expected but really the art did get a lot better as it went on. The part 1 stuff isn’t amazing but I really liked the art in Part 2, there’s some really cool stuff that they do.

I guess I should explain the art. So… there aren’t really like set in stone color schemes for the characters in JJBA. There are some that have made themselves kind of official, particularly Stardust Crusaders (try to imagine Jotaro’s jacket not being blue or Dio not wearing yellow and black, I dare you) but none of the characters really have absolute canon color schemes the way most manga characters do, instead it’s just more general tones.

So what the anime does is just change the colors depending on situation and it actually works well. At first I was kind of not in to it because I thought the color tones were too soft and the art generally shit in Phantom Blood (to be fair the art is still better than the Phantom Blood manga). I don’t know if they changed art directors or maybe investors gave them more money for part 2 after seeing the ratings but the art did improve a lot in Battle Tendency and it actually looked pretty great.

The censorship… There’s good and bad things about it. Most of the major open wounds on vampires do this thing where the gashes are these Cloak of Sagan shiny portals of lava, which actually look very good with the art and are a fine way to deal with not being able to show the level of violence that the manga in this post-Ishihara anime industry. (fucking unbelievable, every week like 5 borderline hentai anime air on TV to continuously challenge censors while I can’t even get to see vampires get their shit smashed in a detailed fashion).

However, on the human characters the gore is covered in shadows and you can’t see shit. It’s not really that I’m angry that they don’t want to give me the gore, I understand, it’s just that the black shadows are the worst and I’m sure they could have found a more elegant way to deal with it like they did with the major damage on the vampires.

As for the voice castings, they’re really good, I don’t really have any complaints about the actors and they cast them well.

They cast newcomer Kazuyuki Okitsu as Jonathan Joestar who has a generic hero voice but he does a good job. They cast Tomokazu Sugita as Joseph Joestar, who is fucking awesome and Sugita captures Joseph very well.

At first I was sort of disappointed that they cast Takehito Koyasu as Dio because Koyasu has been in pretty much every major anime for the past 15 years and is probably one of the most recognizable voice actors in Japan because he doesn’t have a lot of range and everyone knows his voice and the kind of characters he is typecast as. I wanted someone more obscure, maybe get Isshin Chiba to voice him again (Koyasu can’t WRYYYYYYYY like Chiba did, although to be fair there was some digital modification to Chiba’s). But no he actually did a good job and it didn’t just feel like he was sleepwalking but actually gave a shit about portraying a character.

Other than that, uhh. They cast Akio Otsuka as Wham. That was a good casting he fit the character really well.

But kind of the standout for me other than Sugita as Joseph was Kazuhiko Inoue as Kars. (you might know him as Kakashi from Naruto).

In general in the manga Kars didn’t really do much, he just kind of hanged out in the back while Esidisi and Wham do the work and only did shit in the end because he was the last one left. Wham was the most prominent Pillar Man in the manga. But due to the slower pacing and strong voice, Kars’ presence becomes a lot more noticeable from very first appearance

Other than that ehh.. they cast Astuko Tanaka as Lisa Lisa because who else and she’s fine. They cast the guy that I think voiced Adon in Street Fighter IV as Strohem and although I think he’s a bit too screechy he works well with Stroheim’s love of theatrics.

(PS. I would love a one shot about Stroheim’s last stand in Stalingrad, it would be glorious)

So final verdict? Yeah I liked it, it was good, it was a fine adaptation that did justice to Araki’s work and honestly, Phantom Blood is the worst part in general and I guess I prefer this anime version if not just for the more consistent artwork. I still say you should read Battle Tendency, though, the artwork in that part is really good and a lot of it is missed in transition.

Really looking forward to Stardust Crusaders and I hope they make it all the way to Steel Ball Run. I will totally buy the game when it comes out. Also a friend bought me some of the Japan-only novels so I’m looking forward to getting those. They just dispatched my copy english of Rohan At The Louvre (and Gundam The Origin 1).

Bring it! Fuck yes! It’s a great time to be a fan of this series!

So now that we’re closer to the release I guess I’ll update my wishlist with more realistic expectations

Confirmed characters

Jonathan Joestar

Will A. Zeppeli

Young Joseph Joestar

Wham

Jotaro Kujo (Star Platinum)

Dio Brando (Part 3) (The World)

J.P. Polnareff (Silver Chariot)

Noriaki Kakyoin (Hierophant Green)

Mohammed Abdul (Magician’s Red)

Hol Horse (Emperor with Hanged Man as support)

Josuke Higashikata (Part 4) (Crazy Diamond)

Okuyasu Nijimura (The Hand)

Yoshikage Kira (Killer Queen) (free DLC with first print)

Giorno Giovanna (uses Gold Experience AND Gold Experience Requiem)

Guido Mista (Sex Pistols)

Jolyne Kujo (Stone Free)

Hermes Costello (Kiss)

Johnny Joestar (Tusk and the horse Slow Dancer)

Gyro Zeppeli (horse Valkyre and ability Ball Breaker)

Josuke Higashikata (part 8) (Soft & Wet)

________ foreshadowed in some way

Joseph Joestar (Part 3) (Hermit Purple)

Terrence D’Arby

Rohan Kishibe 

Narcisso Anasui (had a voice actor confirmed altough the anime is nowhere near Stone Ocean)

Bruno Buccelati

Weather Report

So here’s my wishlist

Part 1 :

Dio as he appears in part 1, or noone

Part 2 :

Caesar Antonio Zeppeli or Lisa Lisa

Kars (Ultimate Lifeform Kars could be a secret unplayable boss)

Stroheim (cyborg)

Part 3 :

They’ll probably put in Old Joseph and Iggy (The Fool) in but I don’t want either of them

Part 4 :

Koichi Hirose (Echoes Act 1, 2, 3)

Rohan Kishibe (Heaven’s Door) (at first I was against it but you know what? do it, if you want to get as much iconic characters as you can?, get Rohan)

and maybe one more, maybe get Yukako Yamagishi (Love Deluxe) if you want more girls in the cast

Part 5 :

Bruno Buccelati (Sticky Fingers)

Trisha Una (Spice Girl)

Narancia Ghirga (Aerosmith)

Diavolo (King Cirmson)

Panacotta Fugo (Purple Haze)

One of Diavolo’s minions : Sale (Kraftwerk), Ghiaccio (White Album), Risotto Nero (Metallica), Secco (Oasis with Chicolatta’s Green Day as support)

Notorios BIG as secret unplayable boss

Silver Chariot Requiem as a secret unplayable boss

Part 6 :

Foo Fighters

Weather Report

Narcisso Anasui (Diver Down)

Enricco Pucci (Whitesnake and/or C-Moon)

Enrico Pucci with Made In Heaven as the final boss

One of Pucci’s minions : Lang Wrangler (Jumpin’ Jack Flash), Viviano Westwood (Planet Waves with Survivor as a support), Kenzo (Dragon’s Dream), Rykiel (Sky High), , 

Part 7 :

Diego Brando (Scary Monster)

Soundman (In A Silent Way)

Wekapipo (maybe with Magenta Magenta as a support)

Funny Valentine (D4C)

Funny Valentine (D4C Love Train) as an unplayable boss

Alternate Diego Brando with The World as secret boss

Hot Pants (Cream Starter)

Maybe Ringo Roadagain or Blackmore (Catch The Rainbow)

So this was very much a year of digital for me. Altough I bought several disc releases more than half of them were from a previous year so what I thought was to be a long list shrunk to a list about the same size as 2011’s.

Award for Dope-ass classics, some of the best games ever, 10/10, now in HD.

Metal Gear Solid HD Collection

So this came out in America in 2011 but Konami made Europe wait until months later. MGS2 and MGS3 are classics and some of the greatest games ever made. Peace Walker is alright. There’s not much to say because I’ve already given MGS3 enough toungebaths. While the HD version is fine it’s maybe not the definitive version of the games.

KING OF AMAZING AWARD

GREATEST BROFIST EVER AWARD

Asura’s Wrath 

CyberConnect2 have made a game that appeals directly to me. It has godpunching, hotbloodedness, a good soundtrack and a story filled with all sorts of amazing moments. The only drawback is that the true ending is DLC, which is a huge shame because the true ending has the most amazing and beautiful moments of the game. I don’t even want a sequel. Those french quicktime event games can fuck off, this does quicktime events better than any other game.

SHEPARD IS A LIMPDICK PUSSY AND ALSO THE GAYASS CHOSEN ONE Award

Mass Effect 3

Ah Mass Effect 3, what a group paddling you got from the collective of nerds. Mass Effect 2 was a great game. This game… well the shooting is better I guess, but the writing took a nosedive and in general playing this game feels unpleasant. Conversations are edited badly, are filled with graphical glitches and the way they’re written feels like fanwank. Also I never needed to see Jessica Chobot in a game, ever. Fuck you. And then there’s the whole thing about the ending, which is bad but there you go.

BURNT FOOD IN THE EVENING AND YOU HAVEN’T EATEN ANYTHING YET award for biggest dissapointment

Street Fighter X Tekken is the most disappointing game for me. What would have been an awesome game is completely buttraped by marketer whores who locked away half the content behind DLC and made you wait months for you to be able to play what you had on disc since day one. The gems can be ignored because they don’t really amount to anything. And even if you removed any of that bullshit, the game is still mechanically inferior to SSFIV. Also Capcom overworked Ono in to the hospital. 

ALSO DISSAPOINTING AWARD for disappointing game

Yes yes lol Naruto but I still enjoy the Ultimate Ninja Storm games. They’re fun. This game was disappointing because while it has the biggest cast, it has no real storymode, just a series of fights according to arc, no boss battles and no quicktime events. It’s just barebones Naruto fighting without any of the bells and whistles that made it fun.

YOU ARE AS GENERIC AS GENERIC CAN BE, YOUR EXISTANCE IS AN ANOMALY award

Tales of Graces f

I never played a Tales series game. Then I played this and was like… damn… I’ve never seen a more generic animu RPG. It’s also obvious this game crawled out of a Wii.

EVERYBODY WAS KUNG FU FIGHTING award for dope ass kung fu game

Sleeping Dogs

Sleeping Dogs was a fun open world game, it had a good plot, sweet combat, didn’t over do it with guns and provided a good 30 hours of fun.

Euughhhhhhhhh award for not feeling it 

Tekken Tag Tournament 2

Tekken Tag Tournament 2 is maybe the best Tekken ever. But I’m not feeling it. It has everyone from any Tekken game ever (except Gon) altough there is really no point in bringing back alternate costume characters. Tekken is still dumb because of the bound system retardocombos and tag elimination is still retarded. I hope Tekken 7 cuts away a lot of the garbage and reinvents itself.

BEST FIGHTING GAME OF THE YEAR award for dope ass fighting game

Dead or Alive 5

Dead Or Alive 5 is the best fighting game of the year. It’s fast, fluid and simple to grasp. All the characters are distinctive unlike the hundreds of clones in Tekken.

NICE TRY award

Assassin’s Creed 3

Assassin’s Creed III is kind of disappointing. The game tries to evolve but not perfectly. The revamped combat isn’t that great, it’s more cinematic but it’s more tedious, not harder, but tedious. It’s harder to stealth kill dudes. I miss the huge buildings, all the towns have small buildings. The ending is bad. But there are also good things to this game. Naval combat is fun, there is stuff to do and when it works, it works. It’s just not as solid as Assassin’s Creed 2.

ABSENT FROM THIS LIST BECAUSE I DON’T HAVE THEM : Yakuza Dead Souls, Max Payne 3, Lollipop Chainsaw, Spec Ops The Line, Dishonored, XCom Enemy Unknown, Hitman Absolution, Far Cry 3

Will appear in digital list : Darksiders II, Binary Domain

Shit from previous years I bought : Darksiders, No More Heroes Heroes’ Paradise, LA Noire, Portal 2, El Shaddai, Ico and Shadow Of The Collossus collection, Ultimate Marvel VS Capcom 3, Nier

The anticipated list :
11.Watch Dogs - It’s like I’m the Laughing Man!

Watch Dogs was a demo at E3 that looked good. That’s about it. Not much is known about this game in general outside of the E3 news but it looked interesting. Sort of like Assassin’s Creed but cyberpunk. I think Ubisoft needs to take a break from Assassin’s Creed for a while and this would be a good replacement.

10.Bioshock Infinite - Look at all this steampunk shit!

I had my eye on this game for a while and I recently played the original Bioshock and I liked it. This one sounds like a true advancement and not a retread like Bioshock 2. But then also during the past year there were several news stories suggesting the game might not be coming along as smoothly as some dope ass demos at E3 suggested. Still, I’m interested in seeing how this one turns out.

9. Dark Souls II - Stab dicks in the dark night, again, brave adventurer!

Bring it, let’s fuck up some dark shit! Right on, I’m ready to stab dudes in the dick and feel like a manly knight!

8. The Next Great Sequel in the Saint’s Row Franchise - To boldly slap people in the face with giant dildos like no man has slapped before!

Saint’s Row 2 was great. Saint’s Row 3 was great. I don’t know which was better, though. Saint’s Row 2 had better customization and a world. Saint’s Row 3 had a better storymode with crazier shit. Either way I hope THQ’s in safe hands and that the next great sequel in the Saint’s Row franchise is awesome.

7. Anarchy Reigns - A lesser Platinum, but it’s still awesome

Altough it does certainly look like a lesser Platinum Games game, Anarchy Reigns looks like a fun game and it’s coming out super soon at budget price. Get on that!

6. Metal Gear Solid Ground Zeroes/Phantom Pain - I’m tired of Snake but how can I refuse, Hideo?

Altough I dunno, I’m sort of sick of Snake/Big Boss and would have liked to see a different protagonist, like maybe Solidus or Liquid or maybe someone entirely new, it’s a Metal Gear game, I have to play it. Also it is weird to see them announce two within like 3 months of eachother. But hey, let’s go.

5. Zone of the Enders 3 - Bring it!

There isn’t even a trailer. But damnit, I want it!

4. Bayonetta 2 - WiiU - I don’t like it, Bayonetta 2 - I LIKE IT

Nintendo has tested my patience with the huge pile of shit that was the Wii and I’m not super excited about the WiiU but with more games like this I might turn around. Or if that does not happen, I hope Platinum ports it to less shitty consoles.

3. Yakuza 5 - Do it Sega you big black motherfucker

Altough Sega hasn’t said anything about a western release, I hope that our collective faith and what good there is left in Sega results in this eventually coming out in the west.

2. Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure All Star Battle - CyberConnect2 makes games that appeal directly to me, again!

Yeah this one is also kind of dubious about the possibility of release in the west, altough I heard that there is some hope for Europe since the manga is supposedly kind of popular in Italy and France. And I might import it if it doesn’t. But once again, CyberConnect2 makes a game that appeals to me entirely.

1. Metal Gear Rising Revengeance - A Platinum action game! AND A METAL GEAR GAME! What is there to say?

Glorious based Platinum, I can’t wait to slash shit in half.

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter is a dumb movie made by my dad’s mortal enemy, Timur Bekmamvbetov and written by some asshole who writes period pieces with monsters inserted in to them, the internet’s tired, hamfisted idea of wit.

It’s a movie where Lincoln fights confederate vampires or some shit, and does completely retarded DBZ shit with an axe. The movie is half-ironic which is bad, it should have went full irony.

Like all Bekmambetov movies, it’s the action isn’t bad but is still completely retarded, and Lincoln can somehow do superhuman shit for no good reason.

The credits scene with Obama was kind of neat I guess.

It’s dumb and noone should seek it out, but if it’s on TV you can watch it.

2/5

Prometheus is a prequel to the Alien saga directed by Ridley Scott. It is a very dumb movie with a terrible script, pretending to be smart.

I have to say it right now, I’m not much of an Alien fan, I’m much more of a Predator man, so whereas many people were anticipating this movie, I was like ”yeah whatever another fucking Alien movie except it pretends not to be”.

So… I kind of want you to watch Spoony’s vlog about Prometheus because he voices my opinion to every last letter, dysecting every retarded thing about the movie and it’s been a while so I probably forgot a lot of the stupid.

Prometheus has a very bad script. It’s the kind of script you’d see in a 80s slasher movie or today in a SyFy original movie. Everyone is a fucking idiot and does things that make absolutely no sense. The first 30 minutes aren’t completely retarded but if you look at it you can see the stupid seeping through. But by the time they get to the alien ant hill there is so much stupid said and done that I couldn’t believe people were saying this was the return of serious, smart scifi to the Alien franchise when the guy who has the fucking map gets lost and smokes a bong inside his spacesuit. Or this nerdlinger who’s scared of corpses sees an alien snakepenis hiss at him and goes ”IT’S BEAUTIFUL” and tries to touch it. I don’t get it how Ridley Scott was okay with this. I guess he stopped giving a fuck.

The only character who kind of made sense was the android played by Michael Fassbender. He did a lot of stupid shit but atleast with his actions you could write it off as he’s a robot so the way he thinks is stupid but different from the way humans think, and honestly, everyone is so stupid that I kind of invited Fassbonerdroid killing them all.

The movie is shot well I guess but I don’t like the art design, altough that’s a personal thing. The movie is very grey and wet, so it’s like I’m in Norway again after the bombs went off and the alien penises ate the Norwegians.

I’m kind of worried about the Blade Runner sequel. I hope that idiot from Lost who wrote the script won’t be asked to write it or you’ll end up with a huge piece of shit again, except this time I’ll be really mad.

Fuck this movie with both fists.

1/5

Requirement status : If you’re an Alien fan, a scifi fan or want to be amazed at the sheer stupid, do it.

This is a pointless movie. Not that it’s offensively bad, but I watched it and was like ”welp, those were two hours I regret wasting, even compared to how much time and the ways in which I waste it usually”.

This movie is just so… sterile, and uninteresting. Will Smith looks like he doesn’t give a shit, but is doing it anyway for the money. Tommy Lee Jones also doesn’t give a shit but he looks happier than Smith because he only has to show up in a couple of scenes in the beginning and end. Josh Brolin is pretty good as young Tommy Lee Jones but again he just hangs out while tired old Will Smith just does shit.

The villain of this movie looks like some fat dumb biker and is pretty retarded and it’s nowhere near as interesting as the roach guy from the first movie. And the fact that there’s two of these guys in the end doesn’t make it any better. Maybe not worse, but definately not better.

Also the movie ends with a time paradox, which was pretty pointless when I saw it and has no effect on really, anything.

This whole movie is just boring and goes through the motions without giving a shit, it lacks any of the fun parts that the original MIB had. Will Smith didn’t give a shit so hard that he let fucking Pitbull make the song for it, and Pitbull didn’t give a shit so hard that he just talked about himself for the whole song and noone even reminded him that it was a MIB tie in, or maybe since Pitbull is a fucking idiot he doesn’t know he was supposed to not talk about himself but Men In Black and aliens.

Honestly I didn’t even know that I hated this movie so much until I actually forced myself to think about it.

2/5

Requirement status : no, not at all

So the new Sasha Baron Cohen movie. It’s presented as a straight up comedy film instead of a mockumentary like Borat and Bruno and it doesn’t try anywhere near as hard to troll you. Or maybe it does but in 2012 these middle eastern terrorist jokes aren’t anywhere near as shocking as they were in 2001.

I kind of miss the trolling but as a comedy this is pretty alright, I laughed a few times. It’s not quite as funny but it also doesn’t try so hard to shock you so I think that’s a fair tradeoff. I don’t think this is the best character he’s played though.

Really looking forward to that Freddie Mercury biopic where Sasha Baron Cohen plays Freddie, though.

3/5

Requirement status : eh if it’s on TV you can watch it

Alright, this is where the fun stuff starts!

Avengers was great. It’s this titanic supermovie that I can’t even fathom how hard it was to make. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a company make several movies before just to set up one movie like this. Maybe with animation, but with live action movies this expensive? Never.

Avengers isn’t really so much about the plot, it’s more about seeing all these different characters interact together, which thanks to a really great script and preformances by the actors, makes this movie a great experience.

Robert Downey Jr. is awesome as Iron Man as usual. Mark Ruffalo is really great as Bruce Banner, better than Norton in the Hulk movie. Chris Hemsworth as Thor is fun. I liked Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye. But Scarlett Johansson can’t act well.

Chris Evans does the best he can with Captain America but Captain America is a pretty useless hero. Even Hawkeye and Black Widow outpreform Captain America in combat, so what use is he?

Iron Man is a brilliant inventor and with his armor he can do all kinds of cool shit. Bruce Banner is also a brilliant scientist and when he’s the Hulk he smashes everything’s shit. Thor is also super strong and can do shit. Even Hawkeye is better than Cap because he can atleast pull off crazy shots with ranged weapons (altough honestly I wish there were more crazy shots in the movie). What does Captain America do?

(._.) I throw my shield at them and do backflips, maybe sometimes I get a handgun with which I pew pew some nameless, faceless grunts.

Tom Hiddleston is fun as Loki but I kind of wish there were more villains, maybe some new ones, because while he is fun, I’m like ”Bitch I saw Thor beat your ass by himself, do you think some green dudes are going to change that when he has Hulk and Iron Man on his side?”

Also the opening scene of the movie is not great, but nevermind it.

For russian-speaking people the scene where Scarlett Johansson fights some russian dudes is hilarious because the phonetic russian is terrible. Actually no, that whole scene should be hilarious to everyone, because the fighting in that scene is the funniest, most awkward fight since Linda Carter in that 70s Wonder Woman TV show.

I’m not really much of a Hulk fan, but the Hulk is completely fucking awesome in this movie.

So overall, Avengers is great, go watch it. Hell, go watch all the Avengers tie in movies, too.

5/5

Requirement status : Very not optional.

So I saw the new Statham movie. All of them bleed together but eh, it was a good movie. It’s a pertty generic action movie starring Jason Statham, and a good one at that. It’s good and if you feel like watching a Jason Statham movie this isn’t a bad one to watch.

4/5

Requirement status : If you’re in the mood for Statham bashing people in the head, not optional