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Category: 2022

The Strange CGI Anime Films Prior To Appleseed

I’ve spoken before about the slow but steady increase of CGI anime films and I noted that the 2004 Appleseed film was generally viewed as a dramatic improvement with regards to the visual quality of CGI anime. Having watched the film, I was always quite surprised at this statement as the movement was stiff and awkward, the cel shading was too minor for my liking and some character designs suffered in 3D. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at some of the strange CGI anime films that were made prior to Appleseed and how their animation compares.

As far as I can tell, the earliest anime film to be produced entirely in 3D CGI animation was the 1998 TV film Visitor. Airing on WOWOW, the film was produced as a collaborative effort between GAGA Communications and Creek and River and directed by Atsushi Tokuda. The story is set in 2099 CE and follows characters who encounter an alien lifeform similar to a black hole. As you can see from below, it’s a pretty crude attempt at producing a CGI anime film with a severe lack of detail, awful lighting and awkward movement and I’m not even sure if it’s ever been released outside of Japan.

Visitor
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How I’ve Come To Love Anthology TV Series

It’s truly incredible how you can love something but, after a while, come to appreciate what came before. One of the great strengths of the modern era of television has been the greater focus on serialised storytelling and that’s something that I certainly appreciate since it has led to many of my favourite shows of all time. It’s interesting then that, over the course of the last few years, I’ve developed quite an appreciation for virtually the opposite, TV shows that tell a complete story over a single episode or even a season. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at anthology TV series and how I’ve come to love them.

I should first start by explaining what an anthology TV series is to anyone who’s unfamiliar with the term. An anthology TV series is a show where the story and characters are self-contained between episodes or seasons while generally following a common theme or concept. They may have main cast members who play different characters each episode or season or may have nearly entirely different casts every episode/season. Now that I’ve covered what an anthology TV series is, it’s time to discuss how I came to love them.

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What Sony Need To Do To Correct Their PC Strategy

It’s been a little over two years since Sony released Horizon Zero Dawn on PC and we have since seen a slow trickle of first-party PlayStation games make their way over. These PC ports have proven to be generally successful and I’ve had high hopes for this PC push from PlayStation. However, we’ve begun to see some fumbling from Sony recently and I thought it might be interesting to examine the cause of these problems and what I think Sony need to do in order to correct their PC strategy.

Let’s start by taking a look at the two recent PC releases from Sony that have demonstrated the flaws in their strategy. First, the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection was released last month on the 19th over a year after it was initially announced. While the game didn’t perform poorly, it did prove to be, up to that point, the weakest PlayStation PC release since Sony began their push. The lowest performing title before Uncharted was Days Gone with a peak concurrent player count of 27,450 but Uncharted ended up getting a mere 10,851 peak concurrent player count.

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Why Manga Fans Should Know Of Shotaro Ishinomori

I’ve spoken about a few important mangaka on this blog, Osamu Tezuka and the Year 24 Group being the two most obvious examples, but another important figure in the manga industry that I’ve only touched on a few times is the legendary Shotaro Ishinomori. Despite contributing greatly to the medium of manga, Shotaro Ishinomori is a relatively unknown name here in the West. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at who he is, some of his history and why manga fans should know of Shotaro Ishinomori.

Shotaro Ishinomori was born in Tome, Japan on January 25th, 1938 as Shotaro Onodera and later adopted the pen name Shotaro Ishinomori. He released his first manga in 1955 at the age of 17 and later became an assistant to Osamu Tezuka, the man whose work New Treasure Island had inspired the young Shotaro to become a mangaka. Over the course of his lifetime he produced an incredible amount of content, so much so that he has the Guinness World Record for most comics published by one author!

Shotaro Ishinomori.
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The Interesting History Of How Anime Was Sold On VHS

A few years back, I remember talking to a friend about some anime series and they mentioned that it was quite expensive to buy anime. I remember being surprised at this but I eventually came to understand what he meant. Compared to other forms of TV and movie content, anime is relatively niche and is often sold at higher prices than other physical media. However, the reason I was surprised by their statement was that I was comparing the price of buying anime on DVDs and Blu-rays to the days of VHS. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the history of how anime was sold back in the VHS era.

I should first explain what a VHS is since there may be people who are unfamiliar with this older format. VHS stands for Video Home System and was one of the earliest forms of home video which allowed people to buy a film or TV series that they could then watch whenever they wanted to on their VCR (Videocassette recorder). In contrast to the optical discs of today, VHS was an analog format where the film or TV series was recorded onto magnetic tape which would then be used to display footage.

An ad for anime VHS tapes released by U.S. Renditions.
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My Own Thoughts On The Launch Of Overwatch 2

While I predominantly play single-player video games, there is an exclusively multiplayer video game that I’ve been playing and enjoying for years now, Overwatch. As you can imagine, I was quite excited about the eventual release of Overwatch 2 but, as the years went on, the fanbase, which includes myself, began to become more and more weary as Overwatch languished with little to no new content and the release date of Overwatch 2 seemed to be increasingly nebulous with an expected 2021 release passing by with only rumours circulating. However, the launch of Overwatch 2 finally came a few weeks ago and so, as a longtime player of Overwatch, I thought it might be interesting to share my own thoughts.

The first thing that I have to specify is that, as of this article, I can only share my thoughts on the launch of Overwatch 2 rather than the whole game of Overwatch 2. If you’re wondering why this is the case, it’s important to know that Overwatch 2 as it stands now is, for all intents and purposes, an early access game that has yet to deliver much of the content that was announced with Overwatch 2 such as PvE story missions, hero missions, customisation and leveling. Therefore, I can only examine Overwatch 2 as it stands today and not what it may be in a year or two from now.

A promo image for Overwatch 2.
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The Fascinating Point And Click Developer Daedalic Entertainment

I’ve recently been playing the Monkey Island games, specifically The Curse Of Monkey Island and Escape From Monkey Island, and I’ve been in a mood to play more point and click adventure games. However, as I mentioned when I spoke about the Monkey Island games, the point and click adventure genre isn’t anywhere near as popular as it once was and it feels rare enough that a modern point and click adventure game like Return to Monkey Island or Thimbleweed Park gets released. I’d heard the name “Daedalic Entertainment” before but it wasn’t until I began looking for more point and click adventure games that I learned that the genre was their specialty. Conveniently, their catalogue was on sale on Steam for steep discounts and I picked up a bunch of them. Now that I’ve had some time with their games, I thought it would be fascinating to take a look at Daedalic Entertainment, their history as a developer and their future in the point and click adventure genre.

Daedalic Entertainment is a German video game developer that was established in 2007 by Carsten Fichtelmann. Over the course of the next several years, they released a wide variety of point and click adventure games such as the Edna & Harvey games, The Whispered World, the Dark Eye games and their Deponia series. In 2014, a German company called Bastei Lübbe bought a 51% majority share in Daedalic Entertainment but ran into financial trouble years later. Earlier this year, it was announced that Nacon, a French video game publisher, was acquiring Daedalic Entertainment for €60 million.

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Underrated Horror Films You Should Definitely Check Out

It’s that time of year again, Halloween, where my adoration of horror media feels more rewarded than normal. I’m expecting that a lot of people will be taking the opportunity to check out a wide variety of horror films during this day and I thought it would be interesting to share some examples of horror films that I consider to be underrated and would strongly recommend that people check out.

When I think of underrated horror films that people should check out, my first thought is a film that I watched pretty recently, American Mary. I didn’t know anything about the film before watching, which is what I usually prefer, and I was shocked with how much I adored the film. The main character, the titular Mary, is a medical student and is wonderfully portrayed by Katharine Isabelle who is charming, believable and very likable as she discovers her talent in extreme body modification. I will admit that the film isn’t perfect since the conclusion of the film is sudden and feels rushed but I loved the rest of the film so much that it still stands as one of the best horror films I’ve seen in recent years.

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Some 1980s Anime That I Love To Recommend

The 1980s were an incredible time for the anime industry. One of the most important anime studios ever, Studio Ghibli, was established, Osamu Tezuka began to produce experimental anime shorts again and the OVA market came into being. The amount of fantastic works of anime produced during this time is stunning and I’m always encouraging people to take a look at some of these series, OVAs and films. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at some of the 1980s anime that I love to recommend to people.

One of the very first articles that I wrote for this blog was an examination of World War II in anime and no examination of it would be complete without the 1983 anime film classic “Barefoot Gen”. Based on the semiautobiographical manga of the same name, the movie depicts the life of the titular Gen who lives in Hiroshima with his family. We get some time to see how they live before the bomb is dropped and it makes the film even more devastating to watch. However, while it can be a tough watch, the film does end on a hopeful note and the story itself is fascinating enough that I have no hesitation in recommending it.

The poster of the film Barefoot Gen.
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The Ultimate Audio Easter Egg – The Wilhelm Scream

I was recently replaying Ori and the Blind Forest, an excellent Metroidvania game, and I used a stomp to cause an enemy to fall off the edge of a cliff. As it fell, a sound played that I was quite familiar with, the Wilhelm scream. I paused for a moment, processing what I had just heard and then burst out laughing. It was so unexpected that I couldn’t help but laugh. Being reminded of its existence, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the ultimate audio Easter egg, the Wilhelm scream.

The Wilhelm scream is a stock sound effect that was originally included in the 1951 film “Distant Drums” but was named after its use in the 1953 film “The Charge at Feather River” where a character, named Private Wilhelm, gets hit by an arrow and screams. While it is not definitive, it is generally accepted that American songwriter Sheb Wooley provided the audio for the scream. Afterwards, it was used in a few other Warner Bros. films such as A Star is Born, Sergeant Rutledge and The Green Berets but it wasn’t until the 1970s that the Wilhelm scream truly rose to prominence.

Sheb Wooley is generally considered to have provided the Wilhelm scream.
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