Wonder Trade Chirstmas

Last Christmas, a few of the Pokemon players on Reddit got together and said " Hey, why don't we breed pokemon for the younger kids that will be getting X and Y for Christmas, and then put these Pokemon up on Wonder Trade." A lot of the community joined in and made Wonder Trade Christmas happen. This past November, Pokemon Omeg Ruby and Alpha Sapphire were released in November, meaning that a lot of kids will be getting one or both of these games for Christmas, and the community wants to give them some Pokemon to start out their journey with. Now the goal of Wonder Trade Christmas is not necessarily to put up 6 IV perfect nature Pokemon up(you can if you wish) but to put up pokemon that would catch a little kid's eye, such as starters or Eevee's or in some special cases legendaries. For most people though, they'll try to send out Pokemon with egg moves or hidden abilities so that they'll be something special. This Christmas, I will be participating in Wonder Trade Christmas, sending out 3-5 IV Oshawatts that know Night Slash, and egg move, for all those little kids(and adults) getting  Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. I might also send out a box of 2-5 IV Nidorans of both genders, some with the egg moves Venoshock and Poison Tail to add a little joy to a kid's Christmas.

So please, this Christmas, while you are enjoying your presents and egg nog, try and breed a few Pokemon that can be sent on Wonder Trade to help a young boy or girl start their journey to become a Pokemon Master.I believe it is our duty as the generation that grew up on Pokemon to help those just beginning their journey and give them a little gift that might make a difference in their game.

Merry Christmas!!

Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.

I admit, when I heard Generation 3 was going to be remade, I honestly had some doubts of how they would handle it being on the 3DS and how they would mix together the mega-evolutions into Hoenn. Worst yet, they were introducing new mega-evolutions into Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire (ORAS) which made me skeptical. How would this affect game play? Would it alter the games I once loved and still have Pokemon from? Although there were some differences, these games still retained a lot of the same joy as the originals did ten years ago.


Seeing Hoenn in 3D really brought back a lot of memories from when I first started playing. The intro of Professor Birch in the Original Gameboy Advance graphics really hit it home for me, and this isn't even 5 minutes in. All of the locations look almost exactly as they did in Ruby and Sapphire except in 3D. When you dive now, if there is no grass, you can see the Pokemon peeking up at you from in the trenches, and riding on the back of Latios/Latias is an amazing sight to see. Having better graphics than Ruby and Sapphire did ten years ago enabled me to see more of what they were trying to do, such as Flannery's gym being a hot spring, or design of Tate and Liz's gym looking more psychic like.  Now,  one of my gripes is Mauville City, which used to be simplistic, now has changed into a mega-mall style city, that honestly was a pain to navigate.Another weird issue is the fact the transitions between the routes was not smooth like they were in original Ruby and Sapphire. It made the routes easier to navigate but having the awkward transitions broke the immersion for me. 

The elements they brought from Pokemon X and Y helped the game progress a lot faster than it did in Ruby and Sapphire. The experience share constantly being on made it so that I didn't have to worry about raising the one weak Pokemon on my team by throwing it out in front of my team. Although this is a constant complaint in the Pokemon world, they made it so you can toggle it on or off, like in X or Y. The primordial evolutions helped with the story line to help show Kyogre's and Groudon's true power in the past. Kyogre's Primordial Sea and Groudons Desolate Land are amazing and add a new power to them. The mega-evolutions keep their distance for the most part but they make their return at the Delta Episode.

The post game not lacking in things to do, unlike X and Y. The Delta Episode was full of fast passed action, with Zinnia, a young girl, goes around taking everyone's mega stones in hopes of reviving Rayquaza. After catching Rayquaza, you get a chance to catch the mysterious Deoxys. Being able to catch Deoxys, a former event only Pokemon, made me really excited due to the fact back when I was playing Ruby and Sapphire, I couldn't get Deoxys legitimately.

The new Mega-evolutions introduced in ORAS added a bit of hype to the game for me, although some of the Mega-evolutions didn't fit the theme of Hoenn.  Mega-Altaria and Mega-Sharpedo really brought the theme of Hoenn home, along with Mega-Rayquaza. They also brough up the starter Mega-Evolutions, although the artistic design of Swampert was not pleasing where as Mega-Blaziken and Mega-Sceptile seemed to ooze power.The addition of Mega-Audino and Mega-Slowbro felt awkward but I was glad to see a Generation 5 Pokemon get a mega evolution.

All in all, I'd recommend these games to any pokemon fan despite their flaws(and too much water), young or old, whether it is their first Pokemon game, or if they are a Pokemon master, any person will have fun with these games.

Aikatsu(Season 1)

On my quest to find cutesy anime, I thought I hit the tragic end at one point in my life. All that felt like was left was Sailor Moon and maybe one or two that haven't been subbed due to their obscurity. However, through reddit, I stumbled upon a cutesy anime that not only quenched my thirst for cutesy anime, but also was also perfect for my thirst for idol anime.

  Our story starts off with a first year middle schooler ,Hoshimiya Ichigo, a happy go lucky girl who loves food. One day, she and her friend, Kiriya Aoi, a studious girl and the same age as Ichigo, go to see super idol, Kanzaki Mizuki in concert. Ichigo is so mesmerized by Mizuki's performance that she decides to transfer into Starlight Academy, a school known for making famous idols such as Kanzaki Mizuki. After getting accepted into Starlight Academy, Ichigo and  Aoi embark on Idol Activities, or Aikatsu, to help her train as an Idol. Along the way, they meet Shibuki Ran, a model who loves the brand Spicy Ageha, Toudou Yurika, a tsundere girl who likes to pose as a vampire, and Arisugawa Otome, a hyper active girl that loves sweets. Together, they embark on various aikatsu in hopes of surpassing Kanzaki Mizuki. 

The story is pretty typical: you have your happy go lucky main character who has an dream and then you have her best friend that will try her best to talk sense into her. It is almost episodic in nature, however, it does a lot of continuity, which is nesacery to help show that Ichigo is progressing as an idol. At the start of the anime, it shows that Ichigo is unsure of whether or not she wants to be an idol, but as she gets more involved with aikatsu, she grows to love being an idol. Along the way, she meets various friends, all with different personalities and they help her grow as idol. The main progression of the plot is measure by time, i.e various holidays and events. To be honest, for a show aimed at little girls, the plot was not too bad.

The characters had various personalities. We have happy go lucky Ichigo, the studious Aoi, the tsundere Ran as our main three. However, we meet Otome, a eccentric girl in the same year as Ichigo, Yurika, a girl pretending to be a vampire and of course Kanzaki Mizuki, a mature girl who is the schools top idol. The characters are stereotypical I will admit, but I enjoyed them none the less. One thing that does make me sad is the fact during that I couldn't bring my self to get attached to any of the characters due to there was so many rotating in and out around the main cast. Another problem is that the characters of the cast are distinguishable, they feel like they all have the same personality at the base. Otome and Ichigo feel like the same person except for one throws English around in the middle of her sentences.

The art for this anime came in two styles: the regular anime art and the CGI used during the performances. The regular art was great; everything seemed well animated with very little flaws. Each character looked distinguishable, and were most of the time well drawn. The CGI was a bit of a miss for me because while they were dressed super cute for the performances, the girls them selves looked a bit weird. I also felt like the CGI helped with the appeals these girls were trying to make, but in the end, just felt like it was over  done. However the transition into the CGI scenes came as almost a magical girl style fashion.

The music for the first season of Aikatsu was pretty good. The songs used in every episode were upbeat and happy. The opening and endthemes were well done and were even decent enough to be used as performance songs. My only complaint was that the songs did get repetitive but it gets better in later seasons.

Over all, I enjoyed marathoning this anime. I couldn't wait to see what it had in store for me next, and honestly I was not disappointed with the first season of Aikatsu. Was it perfect? No, but don't let that discourage you because this anime is worth watching despite the flaws.

Godzilla (2014)

Although anime might be huge in America today, that was not the first thing that came over from Japan. In the 1950's,there was a Japanese movie the show cased a huge reptile tearing up Tokyo in epic fights against these big monsters called Kaijuu called Godzilla. There have been sequels and even an American remake that most people are trying to forget. However, Americans have tried their hand again in a remake of these Japanese films,and surprisingly, it turned out decently.

Our plot starts out in the Philippines in 1999 where a group of explorers discover a unusual uranium deposit that seemed to stronger once it was exposed to air. Underground, there was a massive  fossil, bigger than any animal known to man but in the fossil held an embryonic sac, which was the source of the uranium. The next scene cuts to Janjira, Japan where its a normal day as always, except the power plant where one of our main characters, Joe, works at starts reporting tremors from inside the earth. Everyone thinks it's just an earthquake, but when the power plant collapses with Joe's wife inside, he is convinced that it was not just a normal earthquake. Our plot after that point jumps to the year 2014 in San Francisco where Joe's son, Ford grew up with out any problems and has come home from a military tour over seas. However, on his first night home, he gets a phone call from Japan from his dad saying that his dad was arrested from going into a restricted area to get the data from fourteen years ago back. After the police arrest him, he meets up with one of his old co workers from the power plant and as it turns out, where the power plant use to be, there is now a pulsating cocoon belonging to the winged creature called muto which feeds off radiation. Switching scenes, there is another cocoon in Nevada which hatched into a bigger, however wingless muto. As the two travel on their way to meet up, the alpha predator,Godzilla is hot on the muto's trail, traveling across the Pacific, to cross paths with the female muto from Nevada for an epic battle over San Fransico. 

I will admit to that I haven't seen any of the Godzilla movies previously. I went in expecting two hours of monster fighting with maybe a little bit of plot thrown in. However, there was substantial lack of of monster fighting in this movie. When Godzilla him self only shows up three times, I felt like this was a movie more about the humans rather that Godzilla.This movie tried to play on the drama side and tried to show the human's side of the story, which did give our main characters a chance to develop. But when it tried too hard to pull the emotional strings a bit too hard. Another thing that irked me about the plot was the fact they pulled too many plot convenience strings, such as Ford falling off a bridge , being knocked out, and waking up just in time when the military troops walk by.   

The movies tried to play up the human character but they honestly came up as bland. Ford, our main character for majority of the movie was our typical marine guy coming home from a tour over seas. There is nothing that makes him stand out, and often times, I feel like if his character was written out, it might have been a little less bland. His dad, Joe, was slightly more interesting because he was that one guy who claimed to have a clue what was going on, but was looked at like he was crazy the whole entire movie. Unfortunately, all of the other human characters ended up kind of bland and forgettable. Godzilla himself only appeared three times but some things were explained, such as he was the alpha predator and the Muto were his prey.

Overall, I was entertained with this movie. Granted it had a generous amount of flaws,but seeing the big monster fight at the end almost made up for the fact that the human "character development" took up more time than it should have. I will say that the experience of going to the movie theater and having people cheer when Godzilla showed up was a blast. I would recommend it if you can over look some plot holes and enjoy colossal monsters fighting over the city. 

Kami-Sama Dolls

Lately, I've taken to watching anime with a few good friends of mine. Between getting to spend time together and watching anime, for me it is a win-win situation. We usually try to find stuff that is somewhat serious but also a good watch and that is entertaining. When I stumbled upon Kami-Sama Dolls, I was hoping this was the serious anime we were looking for, maybe with a bit of mecha and super natural thrown in. I could not have been more wrong sadly.

Our plot starts off with our main character, Kyouhei, moving into the city from a secluded small town in the mountains. In the small town, they have people called Seki, and they control these dolls that are revered as gods and sometimes use them to fight other people. While in the city, Kyohei and his friend, Hibino, come across a pile of bodies one night and immediately his childhood friend,Aki, shows up and Kyohei tries to blame the murder on him. As the plot progresses, it turns into a mess of trying to figure out who killed all of those people, as well a mess of back stories. Amongst the back stories, is the reason why Aki became exiled from the village and the beginnig of the story of a doll with no seki.

The plot for this anime has one major problem: pacing. You can clearly tell they wanted twenty four episodes but they were only granted thirteen. They crammed so much into one episode it felt like each episode was an hour long when in reality they were half that. Another issue was while they crammed so much in one episode it felt like it was just dragging on and on, it felt like nothing ever truely got accomplished. 

The characters somehow are worse than the plot. Our main character,Kyohei, is hinted to have been a really powerful Seki when he held the title later in the series, but we never see evidence of that. He just comes off as every other male main character I have ever encountered. His little sister,Utao, took over his position as Seki, but while she should have been powerful, she just comes off as childish and gets angry over stupid things. Worst yet, she was so childish and innocent that everyone fawned over her to the point that i felt awkward watching those scenes. Kyohei's love interest, Hibino, had one the flattest personalities I have ever seen. Her character development began and ended in boobs. When she gets kidnapped, the Mahiru, Kyohei's stalker, just knows her as the girl with the boobs, nothing else. Aki, our main antagonist, is supposed to be this misunderstood supposed pyschopath, but he usually just end up being bland as ever.

The art was another pitfall for this anime. Our characters look bland and if I didn't know they were our main characters, they would have faded into the background. Another qualm my friend and I had was the fact that Hibino's boobs seemed to change sizes depending on the shot. Now I do understand angles, but they seemed to change sizes by the frame. The backgrounds them selves were nothing spectacular to be honest. The only redeeming quality about the art was the art and animation of the dolls, and even that was poor. 

Over all,although usually when I watch a bad anime, I can enjoy it. However, with Kami-sama Dolls, the lack of enjoyment made this anime even more boring. It just took its self too seriously, making this anime even worse. 

Nagi no Asukara

I will not deny, I love movies and shows with under water scenes or that take place under water. It is something about these shows that draw me to them, and they often do not disappoint. In Fall 2013 season, a new anime started airing and it had the mystique of under the sea written all over it. Nagi no Asukara appeared to be a beautifully animated work of art, and it also appeared to be right up my alley for an anime.

Nagi no Asukara starts off with a group of  middle school kids, Hikari, Manaka, Chisaki, and Kaname, from underwater who have just found out that their old school is closing and they must transfer schools. Since there isn't any other schools under the sea, they decide to go to a school on the surface. Before they start school, Manaka gets caught up in a fishing net by a soon to be classmate named Tsumugu and almost near instantly falls in love with him. However, the peace that the group from under the sea and even the surface can not last forever and there is something omninous waiting for them on the horizon. 

The plot is very character driven as it is a drama anime. Even though the begin all, end all problem is an external source from outside the characters,name the fact that they are threatened with the fact that they might be going to sleep for a very long time and might wake up long after everyone they have ever known on the surface has passed away. Also, within the anime, there was a time skip, whichshowed how everyone one the surface had change, but yet the people from underwater hadn't changed one bit. The second arc, which also revolved around finding Manaka's ability to love, was also decent, but in some ways it felt like it went on too long.

However, the drama at some points makes no sense, especially since Chisaki keeps flipping back and forth between the male cast. Hikari starts off as a headstrong character, but he eventually learns to mature and show his soft side, especially in a time of crisis. Kaname is the other male member from the underwater cast, and while he is plot relevant, he usually gets shoved into the background until he is brought up again but then he just disappears into the back ground. Manaka is an interesting character as she is portrayed to be the love interest of Hikari, but she is completely ditzy and ends up falling in love with the boy from the surface, Tsumugu. Are these characters the most original characters out there? No, but for the most part they were decent characters. The one exception lays in Chisaki because I have a feeling that she knew she was a side character in comparison to Hikari and Manaka, but she kept trying to butt her way into the story.Miuna's character became more developed after the time skip was done, but by the end of it, I honestly felt sorry for her because Chisaki, Sayu and Manaka ended up with their own special someone, while she sacrificed her happiness for Hikari. 


The art for this anime is actually pretty amazing. The underwater scenes were so well animated it honestly took my breath away. There is quality animation for the surface scenes as well, but the real quality comes from underwater. All the characters has great character designs,except for Iam still wondering what the little feather things are behind Manaka's ears. Another part of the art style for the characters I liked was actually the eyes of the people from the sea. The eyes were such a pretty blue that I couldn't help but to admire them.

Now was Nagi no Asukara the perfect anime? No it wasn't. It lacked some consistency about the Ena, the layer of skin that covers the people from the sea's skins to enable them to breathe underwater. Also, as I have stated before, certain characters irked me , but despite its flaws, I enjoyed the emotional roller coaster that this anime put me through.

Kill La Kill

While I was at Katsucon this previous month, not only was Card Captor Sakura recommended to me, another anime was recommended to me through the Anilplex panel. At this panel, they show cased Nekomonogatari Bluray set and an anime called Magi and Vividred  and this one anime that had been garnering a lot of attention from fans called Kill La Kill. I heard about it, but until the panel really changed my mind, I was not originally going to watch it, but through a few people talking me into it, I eventually did, and honestly, I am glad I did.



The plot for Kill La Kill is simple: Matoi Ryuuko is seeking revenge on who ever killed her father. With her, she wields a back talking school uniform named Senketsu that gives her enormous power and makes her near indestructible and half of a scissor blade thats capable of cutting through anything. She goes to Honnouji Academy, where Kiryuuin Satsuki, an oppressive student council leader who has her own army of super power uniforms trying to beat Ryuuko into the ground. Along the way, she meets upwith Mankanshouku Mako, an energetic girl who is hyper active and love Ryuuko no matter what. Together, they go on the quest to defeat Satsuki to try and get her revenge on the person who killed her father.

The characters for me were lovable and well written. Even Kiryuuin Satsuki had her redeemable qualities, even though she was trying to kill our beloved Ryuuko. The Four Devas under her, Jakuzure Nonon, Sanagayama Uzu, Gamagoori Ira, and Inumuta Houka, had some funny and awesome moments as well as well as the highest super power uniform under the God Robes that Satsuki and Ryuuko possess. Mako was energetic through out the series and the way she was over dramatic in explaining things kept the series on a positive note, even the world was going to hell in a hand basket. Even the character that terrified me to no end, Harime Nui, had her awesome moments because, like Mako, was energetic and happy in all situations.


The animation for this show was unique in its own little way. It felt like it had a hand drawn feel to it, and when Mako starting getting excited and started "spinning" she actually looked like she was flipping around. The action scenes were well animated, and the whole battle sequences felt over the top like in Guran Lagaan. Every time they used their attacks, there was text, which also helped with the over the top feel, and even added for some hilarity as well.The uniforms had almost their own little transformation sequences, making it feel like a magical girl. The uniform that Ryuuko had, I will admit, was skimpy, but it is not worth the controversy. The outfits were all distinguishable and related to their powers, which was interesting and, I will admit, pretty cool.

Overall, I am glad I gave this anime a chance because it was not as serious I thought it was going to be. I will admit, I am sad that it is over, it was an enjoyable ride and unlike most anime, it wrapped up everything nicely at the end. Studio Trigger did a great job at animating this, and I am looking forward to what they have in the future.