The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya Movie Review + The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-Chan Anime (Spin-Off) Review

The Haruhi franchise is one that's very respected within the anime fandom, I particularly like "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya" series since it's one of does shows that incorporates complex themes and make them work so well that makes this animes one of does rare anomalies to recreate in any form of media: It has a very interesting way of incorporating sci-fi elements into it's seeming "slice of life" storyline; it's made even more clever by having it play a background roll opposed from having it take away from the spot light the lovable characters.

The movie "The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya" is quite the fascinating movie and one I recommend people to watch, particularly if you are into anime in general, unfortunately it requires you to have certain knowledge of the background behind the universe and the characters... I would recommend seeing at least a few episodes if not the two seasons of the show. The movie happens to be a weird concoction of feelings despite at its core laying a story about saving the world but also how much is the world worth to others: After watching this film I can honestly say is one of the best animated movies I have seen in a long time placing among classics like "Ghost in the Shell" and "Berserk". I know that this sounds like an incredibly bold statement but I wouldn't be doing such a comparison if I wasn't feeling so sure about my thoughts towards this movie.

The movie deserves to be watched at least once, I know that it's a shame how does who want to check it out need to catch up to the anime, but it's still worth watching since it has mystery, humor, sic-fi and likable characters.

The anime "The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-Chan" however falls into the spin-off category by taking a bold move and making a "What If" timeline: What if there were no aliens, time travelers, robots, etc... Despite the characters being the core center of the story, is the world itself that gives this characters and story it's flavor, removing these elements it's like taking away Lightsabers and starships in Star Wars.

This anime in question is nothing more than a romantic slice of life story about Kyon and Yuki, that's really all there is, Yuki is turned into a shy/weeboo-ish girl who although cute has none of the character the movie knew how to make work, in the original anime Yuki was like that one character you don't fuck with (To me is still a mystery how they managed to make her work there). The majority of the characters are still has they were in the original anime and movie though so is not like I don't recognize their characteristics but I can tell something is missing... and that is the fantastic elements the original story incorporates so well.

The romance sticks out like a sour thumb to me, the original anime and movie has non of that... it is hinted that Kyon and Haruhi have feelings but is never addressed to that level further into the story and is never touched or referred to ever again. I don't care that "The Disapearance of Nagato Yuki-Chan" is a spin off, to me it comes across has a fan fiction with a budget, no more and no less... I can say that it is harmless: regardless of my opinion I never felt like the anime insulted my intelligence or anything like that, so you can still check it out for yourself and judge it if you want, for me however is a definitive skip.

Thoughts on The Force Unleashed Games

Star Wars is a very important franchise for me, and when you put video games and combine them it makes for a great recipe for awesomeness. In the history of gaming we have gotten some great star wars games: The Jedi Knight series, Rouge Squadron, Battlefront, etc...

The Force Unleashed was an entry in the massive library of star wars games that was hyped far beyond what it really was: The story behind it is quite unique for a video game project, what I mean by that is that usually projects must start with a central focus or a central point... TFU didn't. A small group composed of six developers started brain storming ideas for a new star wars game, the ideas ranged for plenty of concepts, scripts and many ideas (with just saying that one of the ideas was a mercenary character taking place in the distant future past Return of the Jedi), eventually after researching the expanded universe they eventually got stuck between the old republic era or the (then) lesser known point between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope.

In interviews, developers said that the game was going to fill the void set between the episodes 3 and 4, that we will find out about about dark characters in the saga and that The Force Unleashed was going to be "the next important chapter in star wars"... unfortunately it also promoted itself by being a bigger game than it really was, reaching to consoles that were not meant to handle it´s visual flare, effects and other sugar coating elements (Wii, PS2, DS, etc...). So what went wrong? The awser is quite simple and complicated at the same time:

The main problem is that the promotion of the game said otherwise to what was given and another and even bigger problem is the fact they branched out to multiple systems... giving unique fetters to each and everyone of them (ex: the Wii version has a 2vs2 mode while the PSP version has a special missions mode) pretty much demanding the consumers to buy all versions of the game to acquire the maximum experience; not only is this practice anti-consumer but also very unpractical from a development point, the core team focused on the PS3, 360 and PC versions while other hired 3rd party devs where given the task to adapt that game into the Wii and the other platforms, the amount of work placed over the head of this devs must have been crushing.

Of course the game wasn't received has well has it was hyped by both critics and players... the game at it´s core is just a beat em up style action game and quite fun at it, however it´s nothing like it was promised, I can say (having played it on the PS3) that is a good fun game witch only special deliver is the story and by saying like is the greatest thing ever either but I can at least appreciate what was done here, basically what this does is explain how the rebel alliance was created... that´s really it.

Force Unleashed 2 was announced almost a year after the lunch of the first game and I was flabbergasted at it, I was wandering why  if the original gave a very solid conclusion to the story, but of course the sales had demanded that devs pushed another game out:

What are they talking about...?!

Why make Starkiller the most powerful Jedi/Sith ever? It warps the concept of the force almost completely! Is Starkiller Kratos? I don´t mind playing a powerful character but this is ridiculous... no other character in the star wars universe has a chance against that guy.

This game was clearly rushed, just by looking at the game itself in terms of mechanics, there is no depth to combat unlike in the first entry... I heard that some of the developers who worked on the original game moved on, where they the brains of the gameplay department? It makes me sad because not only is the gameplay worts but the story also is, Starkiller is turned into an unlikable jerk who is blinded by his desire to find Juno that the most important events that lead to episode 4 are ignored entirely, there is no character development and Vader is turned into a wimp!

TFU2 is not very good, it was clearly rushed out into the marked has you might be able to tell... is sad indeed when this happens in gaming.

Quoting Miyamoto "A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad"

A little update

Hello ladies and gentlemen:

Sorry for not having any content in the recent days but I have been very busy with work and plenty of other things that have been happening, you gotta understand I don't like posting content that does not motivate me to talk about.

In terms of my work, I haven't been slowing down but since summer ended I noticed some of my skills went rusty so I have had to practice a lot to get back on my feet before even daring to touch the comic again.

In terms of what's to come, I'll probably have plenty more content related with my work to share instead of reviews, does will still come but maybe not with the same rate has before since I really want to give full attention to this project.

Stay tuned!

EDIT: Oh right, the photoshop tutorial is still on the works BTW ;)