Not too much to update at the moment, I’ve been rather sick for the past week, so I have been flat out just trying to keep up with Uni tasks, as well as juggling the demands of work. In the past week, I have spent just 1 full day in the actual Office, and managed a day trip between Canberra and Sydney only yesterday. Uni restarting was supposed to be a return to normal routine! but I’ve been busier than ever…

I will leave you will some intimate photos of my Sony Rolly. Hopefully, soon, I’ll be able to squeeze in some more photo updates. I’ve entered a photography competition coming in a few weeks, so that should be fruitful.

Best Lead Actor Award

Daisuke Ono – Kuroshitsuji’s Sebastian

Best Lead Actress Award

Miyuki Sawashiro – CANAAN’s title character, Letter Bee’s Lag Seeing, Kimi ni Todoke’s Ayane Yano

Best Supporting Actor Awards

Daisuke Namikawa – 07-Ghost’s Mikage, Kimi ni Todoke’s Shōta Kazehaya

Shinichiro Miki – Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood’s Roy Mustang, Mobile Suit Gundam 00’s Lockon Stratos

Best Supporting Actress Awards

Kikuko Inoue – Clannad After Story’s Sanae Furukawa, Macross Frontier’s Grace O’Connor

Yui Horie – Toradora!’s Minori Kushieda, Bakemonogatari’s Tsubasa Hanekawa

Special Merit Award

Kazue Takahashi (1929-1999) – Sazae-san’s Katsuo, The Lucy Show’s Lucille Ball (Japanese dubbing)

Merit Awards

Tesshô Genda – Dr. Slump’s Suppaman, Transformers’ Convoy (Optimus Prime), Arnold Schwarzenegger (Japanese dubbing)

Nobuo Tanaka – Gatchaman’s Sosai X, Combat!’s Sgt. Saunders

Kazuko Sugiyama – Alps no Shōjo Heidi’s Heidi, Gatchaman’s Jun the Swan (G-3), Gu Gu Ganmo’s Ganmo, Urusei Yatsura’s Ten

Kei Tomiyama Award

Nana Mizuki – Ultimate Diamond album (Oricon-ranked #1 in first-week sales), “Nana Mizuki Live Diamond 2009″ concert (30,000 attendees), first seiyū to perform at Kōhaku Uta Gassen (Japan’s most watched music television special)

Kids/Family Award

Wasabi Mizuta – Doraemon’s title character

Synergy Award

Mobile Suit Gundam

Overseas Fan Award

Mitsuki Saiga – Kyo kara Maoh!’s Wolfram, Peacemaker’s Souji Okita

Best Singing Award

Aki Toyosaki

Yōko Hikasa

Satomi Satou

Minako Kotobuki

Ayana Taketatsu

[All five perform as "Hōkago Teatime" in K-ON!, and their self-titled CD release was the first anime character CD release to top Oricon's weekly album or single chart.]

Best Personality Award

Masaya Onosaka – Atsumare Masakano Henshuū-bu, A&G GAME MASTER GT-R, and many other anime radio programs

Best New Actor Awards

Atsushi Abe – Toaru Majutsu no Index’s Toma Kamijo

Tomoaki Maeno – White Album’s Tōya Fujii, Sora no Manimani’s Saku Ooyagi

Best New Actress Awards

Kanae Itō – Sora no Manimani’s Mihoshi Akeno, Taishō Yakyū Musume.’s Koume Suzukawa, Shugo Chara!’s Amu Hinamori

Aki Toyosaki – K-ON!’s Yui Hirasawa, Kanamemo’s Kana Nakamachi

I know I’m like several days late in posting this up; I had the intention to post this up on Tuesday, but that very day was also the release date for Final Fantasy XIII game, and hence I found myself playing, rather than blogging :P. KIIIITA. I am so happy for Hocchan and Nana!! XD They deserved it. Till next year! Hopefully Hocchan would have more characters to voice, seeing that I haven’t heard her voice in 2010! I think Spring Anime has 1-2 anime shows she’s doing. >W<.

Assuming the quality/price, this figure deserves the high price, I’m pretty sure that your money isn’t being wasted by getting this high quality figure from Alter. You can enjoy her as I enjoy my Queen’s Gate Alice, so unique and rare will be this one too.

Specifications
Name: Clalaclan Philias
Series: Shining Wind
Price: ¥9,800
Release Date: ??? 2010
Type: Painted PVC, 1/8 scale (21.5 cm width)
Sculptor: Toshiiyuki Yagyu
Manufacturer: Alter
Distributor: Alter

I still find it hard to fathom how this girl becomes a soldier. When people tell us not to judge books by their cover, they’re saying irresponsible things because its pretty damn hard not to.

What I find illogical is that she keeps long hair and a red ribbon in the hair. Think about all the dangers that would pop up with those. Her hair might get stuck somewhere or cover her face at a bad time, or even while she’s aiming with the rifle. And the ribbons would be a huge flag telling enemies where she is. It’s nonsense!

And just look at her! No way I’ll let someone like her go into the army. She’s precisely the kind of people you want to protect, and not be protected by!

That said, this show presses all my buttons. Though the story seems to be going a bit too quick. I feel like I’ve suddenly been dragged along this quasi-storyless plotline where things happen suddenly and I’m supposed to feel surprised.

Retail price is at 3,990 yen, scheduled to be out in August. Preorder over at CDJapan, Hobby Search or Otacute. Alternatively you can check out Play-Asia!

Not a big fan of her definitely.. Are there any fanboys of her out here? It seems that Saber is more popular eh?

Another quarter, another IT fair. IT Show 2010 price List has been compiled by PZportal using scans from bootstrike and vr-zone. The following table contains the prices of almost all major laptop / notebook / netbook brands that released their fliers early. The table below shows the comparison between of various offerings, with the function for you to sort according to your needs.

Click here for Sitex 2009 laptop price comparison.

Click here for IT Show 2010 External HDD price comparison.

All scans are obtained from bootstrike and VR-Zone.

Note: Data above are collected on IT Show Day 1: 110310

Stay tune for more updates.

History on the place has been hard to come by definitively. According to official POW internment records, it never had POWs. According to other sites it did. It may be a simple mix-up of names, as there was another infamous POW camp in Nagasaki harbor that also built ships, and was also called Kawaminami. Either way, it was far from uncommon for POWs to be made into slave labor. Mitsubishi became famous for its `hellships`, transports loaded down with POWs sent to factories all over Japan and Manchuria, and for the factories themselves, which often had no heating even in the depths of winter.

I discovered that Osarizawa mine, the haikyo I went to in the Tohoku area, which had the brilliant blue pools and is still being operated by Mitsubishi to this day, was a site of slave POW labor. 503 American POWs worked there, claiming the mining techniques and equipment were as primitive as those of centuries earlier. Here`s an extract from a site titled `Mitsubishi: Empire of Exploitation` about conditions in Osarizawa-

“The mine was cold and damp and had icicles hanging from the ceiling”, Kenneth Calvit recalled. The prisoners had to walk over two miles up a steep mountain road to get to the mine. “On one stretch of the road there was a cut in the mountain where the wind and snow were blinding, so we used a rope and would go hand by hand to keep from getting lost”, Calvit said. During the few months when snow wasn’t on the ground, the POWs would try to catch grasshoppers along the way, in a desperate search for protein to add to their watery soup. They had no mid-day meal from the company. Calvit also remembered the time ammonia leaked from pipes in the company’s refrigeration plant into the vat of soup — which was served to the POWs anyway.

But what the prisoners remembered most was the terrible cold, how they were only allowed two hours of heat per day, and how, when they tried to bring a few scrap timbers from the mine to put in the little barracks stove, the company guards would take it from them. “At times I thought I was going to freeze to death”, David Summons said.

The stories of this time are fascinating and horrifying. POWs who were too terrified to speak, who died by their scores of pneumonia, injuries, disease. Also there are the stories of courage, the sabotage done to the factories by men unwilling to help the enemy cause, the men who took control of their labor camps the moment they heard the war was over and marched their once-overlords to the city to be arrested by occupying forces.

I`ve spent hours perusing documents, maps, and photographs from that time now, and feel I`ve only scraped the surface. In history class in the UK I only learned about the war in the European theater, I knew nothing of it in the Pacific. Every time I come across some of that history directly, whether it`s incidentally while holiday-making on Saipan or as part of my haikyo `explorations`, it hits me hard that there was this whole side to a war that I knew nothing about. The misery was not limited to Europe. It happened all over this country also, and all around its orbit (Manchuria [occupied China], Saipan, Guam, etc..)

Can you imagine being a world war 2 POW in a Japanese labor camp? It must have been one of the most alien environments imaginable. In their first week Allied soldiers were forced to learn Japanese numbers so they could know when they were being called, but beyond that nothing said around them would have made any sense. They survived on a diet of mostly rice, in portions that decreased as the war progressed more and more poorly. The discipline they were exposed to was often iron-clad and brutal, with executions commonplace, leaving prisoners in a perpetual state of shock and humiliation. They spent their days alongside drafted Japanese and Korean workers building ships for the enemy.

Prisoners in camp Fukuoka #2B, situated just outside of Nagasaki, clearly saw the mushroom cloud and blast of the atomic bomb dropped on that city.

I found one document that was a list of all the POWs killed in Fukuoka #2B. A large number died from penumonia, with others dying from colitis, and a few from crushing, burning, drowning while at work.

I found a list of POW camp orders, direct from the Camp Commander through the Japanese interpreter. The Japangrish is slightly comic, but the reality is stark. They were prisoners, and they had to do what they were told.

Monday July 5, 1943
In accident at dockyard, the man did not help in boat accident. Two Dutch officers ran away. They are unfaithful and we are disappointed in them.
You must salute from the heart.
Do not say Nip or Jap. It is just as bad as saying Yank.
No reading after 9 P.M..

Sept. 4 [1943]
The Sgt. Major is the N.C.O. of the week. There will be no mistakes. Men will stop sleeping in the latrine.
All men are responsible for all men.
Watch and check each other.
Drillers are very good, the under ship are very lazy. POW No. 341 is no good at picking up iron.

Oct. 8. [1943]
The Sgt. Major really expects you not to happen. You may bathe when the water is fired.
You have a new galley hancho (mess sergeant) make him good. Salute from the heart.
Use water sparingly.
Try not to have fire.

Dec. 31 [1943]
Unnecessary things are going on at the docks – there will be heavy, heavy punishment. Officers and room-chiefs are responsible.
All men receive food as well as lunch – why should 6 or 7 be hungry. They are smuggling time from watchmen to bake food. Therefore they are lazy.
All buying and selling is forbidden.
New Year tomorrow so nothing filthy – live happily in the camp.
The galley hancho (mess sergeant) feels very bad because people try to improve upon his cooking.
Our camp is the talk of the town of Nagasaki on the food-proposition. Don’t let it happen from any view point. The supply sergeant says keep your brooms dry.

Jan. 19 [1944]
Camp authorities want everybody to be happy.
To keep happy very much responsibility of room chiefs at dockyard and camp from any view point. Salute from the heart.
Gargle twice daily.
Navy officers at dockyard say many things have been going on recently. You must swear not to do it again.

More like this on this very thorough POW site.

I came to the shipyard without knowing much about it, and despite the information above I still don`t know much about it directly, only by inference. I just know it was huge, and abandoned 55 years ago. It has simply been left as it was, though with all the machinery stripped out. It`s falling to pieces and obscured by scrubby trees.

I didn`t have long to explore, as I had to get back for the last train, then onto a plane back to Tokyo, but there wasn`t much to investigate. With ruins of this age, you`re looking at bones. There`s no detritus left, none of the stuff of everyday life. All that`s left are the things that don`t rot and can`t be stolen.

You can find more ruins explorations in the galleries:

Info:

Yesterday’s Japan Photo: Torii Pathway

If you are around in Akihabara on the 24th of March then you may want to be at the Black Rock Shooter event that will take place at the UDX Theater from 17:00 - 18:00.
You will get to see a load of exclusive Black Rock Shooter footage as well as hear more nitty gritty from the folks involved including Big Boss Aki-san.

If you are interested in attending, click on the big blue star on the official home page to register (sorry its in Japanese only). Good Smile will then choose applicants at random. You have until the 15th of March to apply and you will be sent tickets by the 18th.
See you there if you are coming ^^;

Heya, I doubt you remember it, but a little more than a year ago I posted on the first two episodes of Haibane Renmei and did a little special on it’s DVD bonus features. I actually watched 4 eps at the time, but my intent wasn’t episodic blogging and I hadn’t found anything in eps 3 and 4 to post about. Well, I’m making another rewatch attempt now, and I guess the year break was worthwhile since I’ve seen Inglourious Basterds in that time, and I found a little something to post about~ Though I will say, rewatching this is very difficult, because I did not remember the animation sucking so hard and I just got done rewatching Baccano, so I might stop and watch something else to ween myself down from that excellent-animation high. I digress.

In episode 3 of Haibane Renmei, there is a scene wherein Rakka is heading into town to buy some bread, and Kuu tags along. The whole time, Kuu is explaining how she wanted a sort of little sister to be the next to hatch from a cocoon, but in the end was glad that Rakka was older, lest she had been branded as one of the young feathers. She then turns to a little more sophisticated conversation at the site of an old man swatting at crows with a broom.

Kuu says (as translated by Geneon): “Kana calls the crows ’scavengers’, but I think they want to be friends with us. What is trash for us, is food for the crows, so I think they want to be friends with us and have us give them food. I became friends with the cafe owner because I’m a Haibane and can talk, and he gave me some sugar cubes. But since crows can only caw, and they are pitch black and scary looking, people won’t give theme crepes and Kana chases them with a broomstick. It doesn’t seem fair. I wish we could talk with them, don’t you?”

As I read this, I immediately thought back to the now-legendary opening scene of Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, and to the most fragrantly beautiful piece of dialog from Col. Hans Landa A.K.A. ‘The Jew Hunter’. Luckily, Funeral owns the screenplay, so I can transcribe the segment for you here~

COL. LANDA The feature that makes me such an effective hunter of the Jews is, as opposed to most German soldiers, I can think like a Jew, where they can only think like a German or, more precisely, a German soldier. Now if one were to determine what attribute the German people share with a beast, it would be the cunning and predatory instinct of a hawk. Negroes-gorillas-brain-lips-smell-physical strength-penis size. But if one were to determine what attributes the Jews share with a beast, it would be that of the rat. Now the Fuhrer and Goebbels’s propaganda have said pretty much the same thing. Where our conclusions differ is I don’t consider the comparison an insult. Consider for a moment the world a rat lives in. It’s a hostile world indeed. If a rat were to scamper through your front door right now, would you greet it with hostility?

PERRIER I suppose I would.

COL. LANDA Has a rat ever done anything to you to create this animosity you feel toward them?

PERRIER Rats spread disease, they bite people-

COL. LANDA Unless some fool is stupid enough to try and handle a live one, rats don’t make it a practice of biting human beings. Rats were the cause of the bubonic plague, but that was some time ago. In all your born days, has a rat ever caused you to be sick a day in your life? I propose to you, any diease a rat could spread, a squirrel would equally carry. Yet I assume you don’t share the same animosity with squirrels that you do with rats, do you?

PERRIER No.

COL. LANDA Yet they are both rodents, are they not? And except for the fact that one has a big bushy tail, while the other has a long repugnant tail of rodent skin, they even rather look alike, don’t they?

PERRIER It is an interesting thought, Herr Colonel

COL. LANDA However, interesting as the thought may be, it makes not one bit of difference to how you feel. If a rat were to scamper through your door this very minute, whould you offer it a saucer of your delicious milk?

PERRIER Probably not.

COL. LANDA I didn’t think so. You don’t like them. You don’t really know why you don’t like them. All you know is, you find them repulsive.

Landa and Kuu have come to different conclusions about this, with Kuu having the more sunny standpoint of wishing the crows could be friends with humans, while Landa has more taken in stride the demonizing of rats. Nonetheless, the point stands, that both have observed this unfairness towards something that has really done no wrong, but is instinctively hated.

I think it’s interesting, too, what these speeches say about the individual characters. In both cases, there is this feeling carried that you are hearing something intelligent from an unexpected source. Kuu is the youngest of the Haibane, and acts the most whimsical, and yet, there is a sense in all of her conversations that she is thinking far more deeply than the others. If given thought, almost everything that Kuu says has a very analytical edge to it. For instance, as she and Rakka ride a bike together in this ep, Kuu makes a remark about how they really can fly if they put their mind to it (or something like that) which could be taken as the flighty, hopeful stance of a young, energetic kid or, minding Kuu’s serious facial expression as she says the line, a more deep and thought-out philosophy.

In the case of the Jew Hunter, it is easier to connect that he is saying something deep, because he puts it very eloquently, but one must reconcile it with the point he is actually making. This is a German soldier called ‘The Jew Hunter’ in WWII era France doing exactly what his title entails. What he is making us understand is a stance that allows him to determine where a Jew is hiding so that he can capture them (as he further goes into in the continued monologue.) Like with Kuu, there is that sort of surprise that this person, of all people, is telling you something that could change your perspective in their direction.

Name: Nendoroid Plus Plushie Series 10: Takamachi Nanoha
Scale: Non (25cm)
Series: Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha The Movie 1st
Release Date: April 2010
Retail Price: 3,500 Yen

Name: Nendoroid Plus Plushie Series 11: Fate Testarossa
Scale: Non (25cm)
Series: Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha The Movie 1st
Release Date: April 2010
Retail Price: 3,500 Yen

Hobby Search is taking reservations for both of them as of today.

Hmmmm~ ( ^ _ ^ )

One of my reasons for laying off the blogging for a bit was to finish Final Fantasy XII. Now, at 10:40pm, I’ve got a little bit of breathing room before I tackle my next game, Final Fantasy XIII. (my order has been delayed).

So what of this 3-year old Playstation 2 game? To sum it up, I think Final Fantasy XII is “Final Fantasy Done Right”. I’m not going to go into a review or anything, but more like pick out the concepts that made XII one of the better games in the series.

So why did I choose to play FFXII now? When I first got the game 3 years ago, I played about 38 hours of it before I was suddenly stopped and never got back to it. Now, with FFXIII on the horizon, I figured that I needed to get to it and beat it. Otherwise the HD graphics of FXIII would surely dampen my enjoyment of FFXII. When I had put FFXII higher on my priority list, one of the things I committed to was “Any new game purchase immediately gets top priority”. I was in the midst of completing Muramasa, and FFXII was on the list right after Assassin’s Creed II. AC2 took longer than I thought, and between then, I purchased Zelda Spirit Tracks, Silent Hill Shattered Memories and Bayonetta. Never before had I been playing games like a fiend for the sake of completing them as my priority as opposed to enjoyment; though enjoy them I did. So why do I choose to blog about FFXII? I like it that much.

The thing I found incredibly compelling about FFXII is the combat system. Square Enix completely did away with random encounters, and opted for a very MMO-like combat engine derived from FFXI most likely. While FFXI was severely lacking, FFXII’s offline MMO engine was very well polished, simplified, and worked incredibly well.

The AI-control was very customizable, and rarely strayed from what I had programmed it to do. It’s much more advanced than the silly AI control for Tales games, and saved my ass more times than I can count. There are some flaws though – the Gambits were somewhat simplistic. There were some tasks I wanted to automate, but wasn’t able to because the game didn’t have gambits like that. It wouldn’t have been too complicated to implement either. I would have liked a more if>then>else system, or more special gambits to program the AI NOT to do certain things (like “Foe: Absorbs Fire, don’t cast Fire”, coupled with Foe: Any, cast Fire.” a “Foe: Has no item, do not steal”)

Overall though, the Gambits served their purpose fairly well. I did find myself turning them all off for the last battle though.

The abandoning of random encounters was a welcome change. No longer did combat seem like a chore, or a grind. In fact, I’ve never had so much fun grinding in an RPG.

Overall, the gameplay was fantastic, the boss fights were epic, and the world was vast to travel in.

The other thing that I liked about FFXII was the world. The very atmosphere and premise fit so nicely with what I believe should be the Final Fantasy theme. Ivalice is quite different in style than most of the other Final Fantasy games, drawing only to Final Fantasy Tactics, and its predecessor – Vagrant Story. The old 16-bit games don’t really count because the styles were a bit more ambiguous.

While Final Fantasy’s Japanese title literally translates to Space Warriors, FFXII’s world was very medieval, but still had just the right amount of technology – it was industrial-like with rough edges, unlike the ridiculously impractical looking FFVIII technology, or the overly industrial FFVII. Both FFVII and FFVIII conflicted with the idea of swords coexisting with guns as practical weapons, where as in FFXII, the guns were 1800’s style and worked well. Seeing where FFXIII goes into the FFVIII style technology makes me cringe. I really want more Ivalice.

The story of Final Fantasy XII is simple – a princess backed by a resistance group attempts to overthrow the empire and stop them from taking over the world. Sound familiar? That’s because it was started in 1977 with Star Wars.

Take a look at this humorous youtube video:

Someone took various footage from FFXII, and spliced it together to fit with a scene from Star Wars.

It’s surprisingly close!

Let’s take a look at some of the characters of Star Fantasy XII:

Vaan – Pretty much the first character you play as. It seems at the time that he’s the main character, living a fairly normal life, dreaming of bigger things. Parents are dead of course. He later gets thrust into a crazy adventure that he didn’t plan on, and ultimately plays a part in saving the world. He even gets a mentor along the way! You’d think that he’s Luke Skywalker, but unfortunately, his role as the main character pretty much disappears as soon as his big adventure starts. He just ends up along for the ride.

Penelo – I can’t really say who Penelo represents in terms of a Star Wars character. Maybe C3P0 fits the bill, as she’s Vaan’s companion throughout the adventure. She does require saving at some point, much like how C3P0 gets rescued. Her character is fairly flat, with no real special personality traits. Like Vaan, she ends up being just along for the ride.

Balthier – He’s got an interesting “Ladies Man” personality, is a sky pirate, and flies one of the fastest ships this side of the galaxy. He’s also got bounty hunters after him. Right from the get-go, his closest match is Han Solo. Just like Han, money is his thing. Anytime there’s treasure involved, he’s up for it. He does however, take up some of the other roles from Star Wars characters, especially in the latter half of the game. One such is his hatred for his father who works for the Empire. He ends up confronting him late in the game. And then he’s also Vaan’s mentor, though this role was rarely emphasized. Out of all the male characters, his was probably the most developed.

Fran – Balthier’s partner in crime and co-pilot, she left her home to learn about the world. She’s your Chewbacca. Her kind, the Viera, live in trees, with architectural design so similar to the Wookies, you’d think they hired Wookies to build it. Their weapons of choice include bows and crossbows, they are a tribe, and they exile/banish those who do not follow their way of life or leave the tribe never to return. Chewbacca’s growls of “I have a bad feeling about this.” is even similar to Fran’s “The mist here is thick…” Honestly, the only difference between the Viera and Wookies is that Vieras are damn sexy. Their god obviously knew what they were doing when they created them.

Ashe – Princess Ashe’s objective is to stop the Empire, and bring peace back to her homeland. After her home was invaded, she had no choice but to flee. Rumors spread that she was dead. Vaan, Balthier and Fran rescue Ashe early on in the story, and from that point on, everything that happens revolves around her. She seems to show some affection towards the male characters, but not so much of a romantic one.

Basch – Rumored to have killed the king of Dalmasca, and died, he was imprisoned and tortured. His charge after being rescued was to protect Ashe. Near the end, he faces against his former colleague Gabranth, in a duel to the finish. He’s your Obi-Wan, except he doesn’t train Vaan to any effect. His character is just as flat as Penelo, as he doesn’t have any other motivation than protecting Ashe.

Gabranth – Works for the Empire as a Judge. He gets sent out on certain high-profile tasks by Vayne. In the finale of the game, Gabranth fights Basch, and after that, defects from Vayne’s side in order to protect Larsa. He’s pretty much Darth Vader.

Cid – Balthier’s father, he plays an integral role in putting the wheels in motion for the story. He’s basically the cause of the war. Balthier’s face-off with him could be considered Luke and Darth Vader’s battle, but unlike Darth Vader, Cid never waivers from his objective, and remains evil. To that effect, and his role in the story, he’s a lot more like Emperor Palpatine.

Vayne – He inherits the throne to the Empire, and pretty much runs martial law, dissolving the senate, and taking full control. In more ways than one, he’s the Emperor Palpatine. Outside of the political actions, he’s not much more than that.

Other similarities:

The Bahamut – unlike other Final Fantasy games, the summon names are actually names of ships. The Bahamut being the ultimate big one. It’s basically the Death Star, complete with big-ass death beam. It takes its time and approaches the city of Dalmasca as everyone tries to stop it. (Well, it’s not quite like that. More like Dalmasca ends up being the battlefield between the Resistance and the Empire).

The Strahl – Balthier and Fran’s ship. The Millenium Falcon. Enough said. Even its take-off is ripped off from Star Wars!

Sky City Bhujerba – Cloud City rip-off. Both were promised neutrality and freedom from the Empire for their “resources” if the best was given to the Empire. And both were back-stabbed, and ended up helping the Rebels escape in the end.

Does this mean FFXII is a rip-off of Star Wars? Actually no. While the higher levels of the story seem very similar, and there are even similarities between characters, it’s quite a different story because of the way the game plays it out. You’ll laugh and enjoy the similarities though.

Overall, I’d have to say that FFXII is one of the best Final Fantasy games I’ve played in a LONG time. The atmosphere is amazing, the world is well imagined, the style is perfect, the characters are stylish, and the combat is outstanding. FFXIII may have a tough time topping this one, in my opinion.

K, midnight. Time to sleep.