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ローゼンメイデン 
IGN.com has brief trailers for both Final Fantasy XII and Killer 7. Upon seeing some of the game footage, Final Fantasy XII looks a bit similar to Vagrant Story as far as the design of the dungeons goes. And this worries me a bit because I thought the design of the dungeon in VS was rather dull. Gameplay-wise the game was a blast but I wasn't keen on the design style. Interestingly enough, the characters archetype for Final Fantasy XII look rather similar to the original Star Wars characters. Balflear reminds me a bit of Han Solo while Ashee and Vaan seem to have been based after Leia and Luke, respectively.
Killer 7, on the other hand, is an entirely different beast altogether. For some people, this title probably looks like an unfinished 3D render minus some fine texture slapped together as a game. But never the less, the simplicity and experimental style of the game intriques me. Judging from the trailer, there seems to be a lot of gratuitous violence within the game and I find it funny that all of the 7 killers has 'Smith' as their last name. Having said that, I'll probably rent it first before I decide to buy it though just in case it's too offbeat for me. I haven't got too much dough to spend on video games lately so I have to be careful of what I buy.
Warner Bros has just released the 2nd trailer for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Just like the previous trailers, this trailer makes me think that at the very least the film will be darker than the previous two. I did, however, cringe a bit at some of the line delivery from the younger actors so I hope those scenes will be better when they are in context of the story. Other than that, it is nice to see some of the familiar scenes from the book become alive in the trailer.
I'm really interested in this particular short OVA due to its rather unusual storyline. Le Portrait de Petite Cossette (The Portrait of Little Cossette) is a psychological drama with a bit of mystery and horror mixed together. It tells the story of Eiri Kurahashi, an art student who works part-time at an antique shop. One day while performing his job, Eiri sees the image of a blonde-hair, blue-eyed girl called Cossette d'Auvergne reflected on a broken glass chalice. Slowly he starts to enjoy the company of the apparition and becomes obsessed with her. The production staff includes the talent of Yuki Kajiura as the composer of the music that will be featured within this OVA series.
Here is the second Spring Anime which I hope will be interesting. Kono Minikuku mo Utsukushii Sekai (This Ugly and Beautiful World) or KonoMini for short. The series is created by Gainax. The same animation studio who was responsible for series such as Evangelion, FLCL, Kareshi Kanojou no Jijyou (His and Her Circumstances) and Abenobashi Mahou Shotengai. Unfortunately, at this point in time, nothing much is known about this particular anime and the preview movie given inside Animage magazine was devoid of any dialogue between the characters (you can only hear this nice but rather ominuous Gregorian song).
Here comes another series that reaches its conclusion. Just like Haibane Renmei, Pretear is a 13 episodes show so now I have another series that is out of my summary/review list. Speaking of review, I've been entertaining the idea of adding secondary category to group each series together so you can find them more easily. But this means more categories to sort and I'm not sure if it's worth it. But if you think you like the idea, please drop me a note so I can make the decision easier. Anyway, these three episodes themselves certainly have a lot in spades when it comes to actions, surprising twists and revelations, as well as fairy tale references. I like the fact that two characters that normally were not developed much in the past actually get tidbits of development in these episodes. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for the Leafe Knights whose name are not Hayate or Sasame.
I just got the new issue of Animage magazine and it's full of previews of the upcoming Spring 2004 Anime lineup. And what lineup this one turns out to be! I probably haven't mentioned it before but I haven't been happy with the two previous anime seasons. But this season looks to be quite interesting for me. My must-watch lists include Midori no Hibi (Days of Midori), KonoMini (This Ugly and Beautiful World), Mai Hime and Le Portrait de Petit Cossette. I'll try to scan the images for the other shows later on but for now, I'll like to focus on my favourite, Midori no Hibi. Please note that there will be spoilers about the series on some of the paragraphs below. So if you don't want to be spoiled, just skip straight to the last paragraph.
Well, this is it: the penultimate episodes of Haibane Renmei. The question that is on everyone's mind is of course, whether or not these episodes manage to wrap up the series in a satisfactory manner. Well, to me, to a certain extent it did and in some ways, it didn't. This is because there are questions in this series that don't have the answer that can satisfy any viewer due to the nature of the questions themselves. At the end of the day, for example, no one can tell you whether or not God exists, and for that matter, the concept of Heaven and Hell are not going to be accepted by all individuals. I feel that is why Haibane chose not to answers some of the questions that are closely related to this kind of issues, for there is no answer that will satisfy anyone. But if you leave it open to interpretation, then everyone will be able to take their own experiences and beliefs and apply it to what they've seen thus far in this series.
IGN.com has written a detailed impression of the Biohazard 4 demo released by Capcom. And what a revelation this one turns out to be. To begin with, this time around the main monsters are actually not zombies but rather a bunch of crazed villagers who seem to have been mind-controlled by someone. Of course, there are other monsters type as well but this time they look more like monsters from fables (ie. ogre, lake monster, etc) instead of some kind of Biohazard freaks like in previous Resident Evil series.
Anyway, the changes seem to have caused quite a stir at various video game message boards with some people claiming that Biohazard without zombies and other Biohazard freaks are not the same. I, however, prefer to wait and see since I think the premise sounds interesting, and because I've seen first hand how humans can be really terrifying when they grouped together to create violence. Just imagine if there are tens of humans working together to hunt and kill you. I think that's the sort of frantic atmosphere that the game tries to create.
I'm glad to know that after spending a lot of times featuring filler episodes after filler episodes, this series has finally introduced the viewers to the actual plot and character development in these episodes. To begin with, we get to know Nina's reason for living in the human world as well as her intention in obtaining the lost magic orbs from her kingdom. We also starting to see possible romantic development emerging between her and at least two boys from the series.
As you can probably see, this blog has been lacking updates these last couple of days. It's not because I'm bored of it or anything like that but because I'm actually overseas at the moment and finding it hard to find a decent internet connection. Because of this, until I come back on March the 15th, you probably won't find much updates besides one or two episode reviews. Anyway, since I already spent a good amount of money to pay for the internet cafe here, I may as well point a couple of people to things that they were looking for when they stumbled onto this blog.
IGN.com has released a bunch of movie captures from Resident Evil: Outbreak gameplay scenes. I have to admit that the first time the idea was mentioned, I wasn't too thrilled about it since I didn't really like the idea of having to play the game online. But now, it looks like this could be a good title with interesting gameplay mechanism in place. It's interesting to see how different people play this game differently. Some of them seem to be willing to help the other players who are in trouble from zombies attack while others choose to flee and save their own hide.
