Scryed

I just finished watching another cool anime. This was one of the better ones I have seen in a while and I hope my thoughts will suggest that its worth watching for you as well. This time, I finished a series I randomly picked from my anime hard drive, Scryed.

A Cool Story

This may be one long paragraph – just letting you know in advance. Scryed is a story set in a world where there are people born with special powers that can manipulate matter and bend it/recreate in specific ways. This type of special person is called an alter. Alters are born naturally in a special area of Japan separated from the mainland after an incident 20 years ago. Now, the world is in chaos, as a special group of “policemen” in a group called HOLY are specially trained to control the “native alters” to make sure they don’t cause any trouble to those on the mainland. Our hero, Kazuma, is a native alter who is trying to work to make money to feed himself and the little girl whom he protects, Kanami. One day, after finishing a job, Kazuma gets roped into a battle where HOLY is rounding up some of the native alters. Kazuma wipes out a whole bunch of them until one of the toughest members of HOLY (who are all alter users), Rouhou, showcases his power and completely defeats Kazuma. After this point, Kazuma is taken to HOLY but completely destroys most of the place and escapes. After this point, without too many spoilers, many of the episodes feature the ongoing and escalating rivalry between Kazuma and Rouhou, with every landscape and building being destroyed in their path. The series also gets interesting when they reveal another person interested in the powers of alter users and starts to round them up to perform experiments on them. Rouhou and Kazuma then form a temporary alliance and do some major damage on him and his henchmen, for a wonderful viewing experience. I also thoroughly enjoyed the parallels between this story and the events that happened after 9/11, especially in how HOLY and the big bad guy round up people (for no reason reported to them) and the discrimination that happened in the story against the alters from the people in the mainland. It’s either irony or a pure coincidence, especially since the anime was released in late 2001 and ran through 2002. Or it could be that my mind formed a pure coincidence, but it was a good analogy that kept me interested on top of the action and characters in the story.

This is one I recommend watching for its epic characters, action, and story.

Kazuma and Cosplay

I have added Kazuma on to my list of characters I would love to make a costume and cosplay for. I deeply loved his persistence, strength, and commitment to protect Kanami and those who have been attacked by HOLY. I also liked that he wasn’t the perfect type of hero who has his own weaknesses, making him much more of a human and lovable kind of guy. In choosing Kazuma, I’ll have to stick to my exercise regimen I have picked up from a colleague of mine, which is already starting to show results. Also, when I get my Lilypad Arduino skills up even more, I can think about making the back rotator part of the costume actually work when I pose for the camera. I would also like to see, while at the con, if there any others who have seen this anime and strum up a conversation with them in a ridiculously cool Kazuma cosplay. I’m already looking forward to it.

Fate|Stay Night


I just recently finished watching another anime series, Fate|Stay Night, and would like to spend some time sharing my thoughts. While I may not be the best at mentioning everything about the anime and my reflections on it, I will enjoy the opportunity to talk to you in person about it :D .

Story

I especially liked the story. This anime featured Emiya Shirou as the main protagonist, who suddenly finds himself amidst a war for the Holy Grail. He becomes involved in the war, as he finds himself in a near-death situation and ends up summoning Saber, a magical servant who wields an invisible sword, and who will also listen to Shirou’s orders. Shirou also ends up befriending a fellow Master at school, Tohsaka Rin, who was my favorite character (not only can she wield a wide assortment of awesome magic – all in German – but she also had a very decisive and professional demeanor). They then travel around town trying to solve the mystery of a wide range of mysterious comas, and to also figure out how to end the war for the Holy Grail (trying to give no spoilers). I guess one of the other best parts of this anime was that it mirrored the traditions of Arthurian lore, and gave it a unique Japanese twist.

If you like magic in your anime and a well-written story that is very engrossing, I’d recommend you spending some time with this one. It’s worth your time. There’s a wide assortment of characters, costumes, action, and lore to absorb and enjoy. Enjoy also the lion, a symbol for Saber and Arthur.

For the Future

In the future, I’d like to cosplay Archer, the Servant of Tohsaka. I’d only end up cosplaying him if I had someone going with me as Tohsaka (it only makes sense – I’d want to enjoy the con with my “Master” and it would be a great group cosplay). To do Archer, I’ll need to not only make the main black suit, but also the red coat/covering of the suit, his ying-yang swords, his white hair, no makeup, work out to get his abs, not sure if he needs boots, and the gloves (there may be a cape in there as well). I’ll have to go back to episode 14 to fully get his costume specs, as that episode featured a ton of different angles for me to pick out for the details of his costume. I’d also like to cosplay him, as he is a very matter-of-fact personality, is always around when Tohsaka is around, gave Shirou the motivation he needed to be able to get through the tough battles, and oozes amesomeness. Here’s some pics to help remind me and you of how he is.

xxxHolic / xxxHolic Kei

Another one of the anime series I finished watching and now be recommending to you are the 2 seasons of xxxHolic. While the title may have the adult characters XXX in them, this series is far from adult themed. On the contrary, it is mostly humor and Japanese-culture based.

The story follows protagonist Watanuki, a high schooler who is fed up with seeing strange spirits everywhere. On his way to school one day, he finds this mysterious fortuneteller and her store, and decides to go in. He wishes for the spirits to go away, and while he can’t see them anymore, his troubles are far from over, as he now has to work for the fortuneteller to work off this wish. The two other main characters, Doumeki and Himawari, also accompany him on his travels through Japan and the spirit worlds he gets roped into going. Watanuki also has to cook and do other chores for the fortuneteller, Yuuko, while proprietors come in and tell her about their troubles.

This series was very well done storywise, and has a very interesting artistic style – the arms and legs of all the characters are much longer in proportion to the rest of the body. The story left me wanting to know more about the culture of Japan, as it went in-depth about superstitions, cooking, and ghosts. It also even went into great depth on how to play Mahjong! The music and sound were pretty well done, but the aspect of this series I’ll remember most is how Watanuki’s mood can drop at the change of a hat – from swooning in love to great anger. The way he flails his arms and legs is quite funny as well (and is accompanied by a wonderful sound effect!).

It also left me putting a Mokona (the dancing animal in the video above) on my Christmas list, too. It kept getting drunk and wanting food – so funny. It put a big smile on my face.

Enjoy!

Xenosaga: The Animation

One of the anime series I just finished watching was Xenosaga: The Animation. This is an anime based upon the first video game of the trilogy in the Xenosaga series. I have completed the first of the series, and played most of the second. One of my friends recommended this to me, and now I recommend spending some time to watch this anime to you as well.

This anime follows Shion, a developer of technologies for artificial life in the future, as she finds herself on a ship that gets destroyed by an alien race, bent on eating humans. She is saved by her latest research project, KOS-MOS, a female robot equipped with power lasers, guns, and swords. Unfortunately, this robot can only act through commands and objectives – you can probably see some of the issues revolving around that. Anyways, they travel through space, along with a large and boisterous cast, as they try and stop a crazy Realian (artificial life form) from releasing more of the aliens upon the universe, while also trying to find the clues as to how the aliens got released into the world, an event called the Miltian Conflict.

Without giving any spoilers, this anime is very true to the first of the three games. It helped me to relive the first game, without the hours of boring grinding. The music and sound were also quite reminiscent of the game, and I have included the ending them, as I found it the best of the music in this anime. The anime also helped me to remember some of the backstory of these characters, and made me want to pick up the games again (which I think I will), just to be able to re-engage with the story again. If you get the chance to pick this up, it’s worth the time – and it’s only 12 episodes.

I’ll be trying to find the second and third seasons of this, as they match the other games in the series as well. Have a good one!