There’s been a huge hubbub on the Internet recently over FUNimation’s decision to censor “objectionable content” from their recent acquisition Dance in the Vampire Bund. I’ve already been more than vocal about it on Twitter. Here, I’m just going to summarize my thoughts:

• What FUNimation is doing is censorship. They are removing “material which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the government or media organizations.” That is censorship.
• Censorship is wrong. Plain and simple.
• People are making assumptions about why FUNimation is doing this, claiming it’s because of the Handley case or it’s a “smart business decision.” We know nothing yet.
• If you support a company’s decision to censor, then by the laws of logic, you support censorship.
• If you are truly against censorship, you should be fighting this decision, not supporting it. Allowing this to happen or just “dealing with it” is only going to help set a precedent.
• For further reading see here, here, and here.

Also note that I am not boycotting FUNimation. I will still continue to support their non-censored releases.

These will be the last words that I write about this issue. You can comment below, but don’t expect me to respond.

My philosophy when approaching video games is that every aspect must merge with the gameplay. Ideally every bit of the game should complement the core concept and gameplay. This is very hard to do, but Flower is one of those games that does this.

I was extremely reluctant to download Flower after hearing about its short length. Many, many reviews praised its art and said little about its gameplay. I knew it was about controlling the wind or something, and that it was about collecting flower petals. I also knew it primarily use the SIXAXIS controls, but besides those tidbits, I was in the dark. The gameplay seemed barely worthwhile and I was afraid I was burning close to $10 for a piece of interactive art when I wanted a game.

I was pleasantly surprised. While Flower certainly is beautiful, it is a joy to play, not just experience (something I have heard too much about the game). The gameplay is simple: you hold down any button to speed up a gust of wind blowing a bunch of flower petals, and tilt the controller to in the direction you want the petals to move. You start with a lone flower petal and blow past more and more flowers, picking up petals and blooming flowers as you go. Eventually you will wind up with a long trail of petals behind you. Flowers are often grouped together in a pattern and if you bloom the grouped flowers together you with change the landscape allowing you to move on. Blooming flowers can do everything from coloring in a bland landscape to activating windmills to shifting gigantic rock outcroppings. Your goal is to reach the end of the level. You can also find hidden teal flowers if you want to look for a challenge. The gameplay is smooth and although you may have trouble controlling the wind in some tight spots, the game is never frustrating.

While the game sounds the simple, the addition of beautiful sights and sounds are what make the game. The levels are amazingly beautiful. The way the grass reacts in the wind is very realistic and the seemingly endless landscapes invokes a feeling of freedom. The fact that so many objects can be rendered is stunning. Each flower makes a unique sound of a different instrument and tone and makes collecting petals very satisfying. Often times blooming the landscape causes a bland landscape to burst with color, rewarding the player. Even the sound effects of the wind blowing and the rattling of grass blades are superbly done, making you feel truly as if you are controlling the wind (I even found myself making whooshing noises as I played, much to my embarrassment).

The game has no text and tells the story through pictures and superb level design. Each part of the game has a different feel: the freedom of the open plains, the serenity of a calm summer night, and the terror of a thunderstorm. The gameplay doesn’t get stale and the pacing is just right. The game menus are integrated perfectly into the actual game and the detailed shots of the level you are rewarded with after you beat a level will make you stare in awe. No part of this game is filler or wasted fluff and is perfectly integrated into the core. $9.99 is a fair price for this wonderful game, especially considering I have played it several times over. By all means, if you have the means, you should buy it or at least play it!

GAMEPLAY
The gameplay is smooth and uses motions controls well, but may be over-simplistic

AESTHETICS
Everything coming out of the speakers and the TV is perfect and mesmerizing!

OVERALL
Almost everything fits perfectly together in this game, and the feel of the game offsets its short length

Here on JanaiBlog, Raymond will be focusing mostly on game reviews, especially on games that may be overlooked by many gamers. He will debut with his review of the PSN downloadable game Flower, coming very soon!

From now on, the bulk of video game reviews found on the site will be done by Raymond, although Janai will still be doing game reviews from time to time as well. You can follow Raymond on Twitter @rcreilly.

Otaku in Review – Episode 4 – Sleeping with Hisui | Subscribe in iTunes

Only One Wish is a one-volume manga by Mia Ikumi that centers around the rumor of a dark angel who grants wishes via a cell phone. All you have to do is text her your wish at a specific time and place and it will come true. The manga is broken up into 4 chapters, each containing a different story about a wish that was made that didn’t quite go the way the people involved intended. All four of these stories center around high-school romance, which was charming at first but quickly became predictable and mundane. The characters were pretty much cardboard cutouts of any high-school character you’d find in a manga, and the dark angel herself had absolutely no development whatsoever, so much so that she’s never even given a name!

As far as the pace of the story is concerned, it is far too fast. I understand that this is a one volume manga and that you’d want to keep it under a certain size, but it makes the relationships forged in the story hard to believe since most of the pivotal scenes that would actually show characters bonding are glazed over with small pictures and text in the background of one or two panels. This leaves out a lot of important information and details that would have a chance at making you feel for the characters or relate to the story. You feel as if you’re being dragged by the arm and rushed through it all, which really only makes this manga good for a short burst of reading. I personally read the whole thing in under an hour.

There are a few good things about this manga, though. The art is good and the four romantic wishes are handled differently, which gives the story a bit more variety. Also, we see a few scenes of the dark angel chatting with her pet cat that gives us the impression that while outwardly cold, this dark angel isn’t completely heartless. It made me want to learn more about her, but unfortunately this is all we get. I liked her better at first when her promises of the (very unoriginal) warning ‘be careful what you wish for’ was looming over the story, but her softer side quickly convinces you that she is never going to actually teach this lesson to those who make a wish with the severity that the message deserves to be taught with.

In fact, now that think about it, the lack of details and overclocked pace of the story doesn’t bother me nearly as much as the fact that these positive aspects of the manga are never fully developed. It seems as if this manga had so much potential and it ruined it all by rushing through the plot. I would have rather had this series be 2 volumes with 2 stories each, giving each story double the space to develop. I think that probably would have done this manga a lot of good. They gave so little time for each story that they actually were able to squish a side-story of the manga-ka’s more famous work Tokyo Mew Mew in at the end. I tried to read it but I know nothing about that series so it only served to confuse me, but it seemed as erratic and quick-paced as the rest of the manga did.

So, if you’re looking for a quick romantic read and don’t want to spend money on a whole bunch of books, you might want to take a chance and pick up Only One Wish. If you go into it without many expectations you might even find it a fairly enjoyable way to waste a bit of time, but don’t expect too much out of this manga because it just doesn’t give itself enough space to truly deliver.

Only One Wish is currently on sale and is licensed and distributed by Del Rey. Review copy provided by The Anime Almanac.

ENJOYMENT
The frustration of the wasted potential of this story makes it hard to enjoy

RECOMMENDATION VALUE
Unless you’re not expecting much, I wouldn’t advise reading it

REREAD VALUE
There isn’t much there to reread!

In 2006, the anime series The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya aired in Japan. Based on a popular series of light novels by Nagaru Tanigawa, the series was an immediate hit. On June 11, 2006, an episode named “The Day of Sagittarius” was aired. In the episode, Haruhi and her friends (the “SOS Brigade”) are challenged by the Computer Club of the school to face them in a game they created.

From seeing it in the anime, it looked like a fairly standard space battle simulation game. You command ships and have them attack enemies. When I saw this episode, I wondered if such a game actually existed, and thought it would be interesting to play it. Today, iPhone and iPod Touch users can do just that with The Day of Sagittarius III app, available for $1.99 in the App Store.

Upon starting up the game, you have two options: “Start” and “Turtorial.” It’s a good idea to go to the tutorial first, because the game is more complex than it seems… perhaps a bit too complex.

Umm, what?

A big problem with this game is the lack of adequate directions. It seems the people who translated this game wanted to translate as little as possible. So, rather than explaining things with words, most of the explaining is done through pictures, which can get quite confusing. It doesn’t help that the few words that are in the directions don’t really make much sense, and are poorly translated.

If you can manage to decipher the instructions, then you’re ready to start up the game. Your objective depends on the level you’re playing. For example, in Level 01 your objective is simply to destroy all enemy ships, while in Level 02, you are to only take out the enemy’s admiral ships. Doing these tasks is actually quite challenging, and can make for a rather frustrating gaming experience.

Upon starting a level, you’re given 5 groups of ships to command and send after the enemy. Each level starts up with the game paused, and you can actually use this opportunity to issue commands to your ships. You can select each of these groups by tapping them on screen or by selecting them from the list on the left side. You can then command that group to go somewhere by tapping that location. You can also change the formation of the selected group by tapping the icons at the top of the screen. Your ships’ formation and the angle at which they approach the enemy are factors in determining who wins the battle.

Once you set your initial commands, it’s time to unpause the game, and the battle begins. Your ships will move to the designated areas, and will automatically attack any enemy ships they run into on the way. You’re given a mini-map in the bottom-right corner of the screen, which you can tap to scroll to a particular location on the map. You can also scroll by tapping and dragging the main screen itself, but this doesn’t seem to always work, and thus is very awkward. The controls, overall, are very flawed, and this is where most of the challenge comes in. Personally, I feel it would have been much better to implement this game on a platform with a point-and-click interface. These kinds of games just don’t work well on the iPhone.

Things get crazy in the heat of battle

If you’re someone who doesn’t mind getting frustrated and has nothing better to do, then go ahead and pick it up. If you’re buying this simply because it’s based on an episode of Haruhi, you’re going to be disappointed, as the game doesn’t really have much to do with the series. Overall, the game is enjoyable in some aspects, but that doesn’t make up for the frustration that will likely ensue upon playing it. But hey, it’s only $1.99, and at that price, I can’t really say it’s not worth the money. So if you wanna give it a try, go ahead and pick it up, for you may enjoy it more than I did.

Otaku in Review – Episode 3 – …And J-List Takes the Fall | Subscribe in iTunes

In this blog post, I’m going to go into more detail with the shows I spoke about on the ANNCast and why I think many anime fans, and even non-anime fans, may enjoy them. I’ll also talk about some other “moe shows” that might be worth checking out as a sort of segue into appreciating moe.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

Haruhi is pretty much the prime example of a show with moe elements that most anime fans can enjoy. It’s a show that spans many genres and thus, it pretty much has something for everyone. Fans of comedy, drama, mystery, sci-fi, slice-of-life, and even action can find something interesting about this show, and that’s what makes it great. The “moe-ness” of this show is found mostly in its main female characters: specifically the totally adorable and innocent Mikuru and the silent genius Yuki, both of which can certainly be viewed as cute in their own way. Even Haruhi herself may be considered moe by some, with her tsundere-like attitude. If you watch the show and find that you like these characters, then you just might be starting to like this moe thing.

Hayate the Combat Butler

I mentioned this show on the ANNCast episode because I think it’s a great example of an off-the-wall comedy presented by a largely “cute girl” cast, thus being where the moe comes in. Hayate is pure comedy, and it’s comedy that most people can enjoy. It’s true that many of the jokes are geared towards otaku, with its many parodies, but there is plenty of original, non-otaku humor found in the show as well. If you like a good comedy, Hayate is worth checking out, and even more so if you’re familiar with anime titles like Saint Seiya, Revolutionary Girl Utena, and Neon Genesis Evangelion, as those shows (and many others) are parodied many times throughout the series. If you watch Hayate and find that you like the female characters and don’t find them all annoying, then there’s your moe appeal.

Clannad / Toradora!

If you’ve enjoyed teenage high-school romantic comedies such as 10 Things I Hate About You or She’s All That, then you might appreciate shows like Clannad and Toradora! While I can already see some people aiming their shotguns at me for making that comparison, hear me out. These are all romantic comedies, or “dramedies” that involve romance, but present it with plenty of laughs on the side. They all have their funny moments, but they also tone down on the comedy when things get serious.

Even those who aren’t into anime might find a certain appeal to these shows, and it’s not because of the moe. It’s because both Clannad and Toradora! both manage to present a very serious, emotionally vesting, and tear-jerking story that drama fans will just eat up. Obviously, if you’re not into drama, or you never felt emotions for fictional characters before, then these shows probably aren’t your thing. But if you are into that stuff, and you haven’t quite been “sucked in” to the moe-loving crowd just yet, these shows might do the trick.

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha

This one might be a bit of a stretch because of the fanservice factor, but there are some elements to the Nanoha series that might appeal to more than just the stereotypical “male otaku.” To make another bold comparison: I’ve heard the series described as “Dragonball Z with girls” before, and I kind of agree with that. Both Nanoha and DBZ have plenty of crazy fight scenes (although Nanoha focuses on magic battles and DBZ focuses on martial arts, it’s still fighting) along with a pretty decent story to boot. So, Nanoha may have some appeal to non-moe fans, and even non-anime fans who are into magic/fantasy stories. It also holds appeal to fans of other “magical girl” titles like Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura. The main issue with Nanoha is the fanservice, which may turn off many people. But, if you’re someone who can get around that, it might be worth your time to check it out.

What’s even more exciting is I have finally transferred this blog over to a custom WordPress installation. Basically that means I’m running the WordPress source code off of a server that’s not WordPress’s, which opens up a world of new options and much more freedom (for example, I can now embed the Otaku in Review Podcast episodes in my blog posts).

That’s about it for now. I have some anime-related blog posts coming up, in addition to JanaiBlog’s first manga review and another new writer announcement. Stay tuned!

In our latest episode, we discuss the ups and downs of Katsucon 16, which I went to and blogged about earlier. We also branch into many other topics as well, so even if you didn’t go to Katsucon, you should still find this episode interesting. Enjoy!

Otaku in Review Podcast – Episode 2 – Katsucon 16