Category Archives: Anime

All about Japanese animation

Ar Tonelico III

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Ar Tonelico III cover image

It’s been a while since I blogged about anything non-FOSS. This time I’ll be sharing some impressions on one of the games I’m playing at the moment, that is, Ar Tonelico III (which arrived at my doorstep two days ago). I admit I haven’t been a fan of Gust games (aside from Ar Tonelico, they’re known mostly for the Atelier series), mostly because technically wise they didn’t really perform that well. While I understood they’re a small company, sometimes it was a little too much.

I bought this one because from the movies and information disseminated throughout the net it looked like it was better, so I started reading information, which in turn prompted the buy: it’s also a good way to keep my Japanese in order, as I need to keep up with the language if I want to understand things.

Right now I’ve just played a couple of hours, and it looks decent, although with some technical issues (the characters glide over the terrain, rather than walk). I’ve also seen the infamous Purge System in action (look it up online), which made quite a number of fan sneer for a various number of reasons. As of the story, I can’t say anything at the moment: I’ve just started. At least it is moderately fun.

Here’s a hands-on (Italian) which covers more details. I’ll try to post a few updates in the future (if I don’t forget….)

And here’s a quick video I made with my camera:

http://www.heavensinferno.net/downloads/tonelico3_conv.flv

Danbooru Client 0.5 is out

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Sometimes answering apparently harmless questions on instant messaging can have unexpected results. In particular, I was telling about Danbooru Client to someone and a question popped up "Why don’t you support pages?". It seemed a nice idea, so I branched off the code (yay for git!) and started working on it.

Well, it took me more than a month to get this thing done… I didn’t spend every day coding, but it was a challenge. Glad it’s over now, which means that Danbooru Client 0.5 is finally available. Grab it at the usual place on kde-apps.org.

Changes in this version:

  • Massive code refactoring and documentation
  • Support for multiple pages: the same query can be repeated multiple pages (shown in a tabbed interface), kind of like browsing the actual Danbooru board;
  • Rating information added to the API;
  • Support for translations (thanks to Pino "pinotree" Toscano for the help): the tarball now contains a .pot file which can be used for translating Danbooru Client. If you make a translation, send the .po file my way and I’ll include it in the next version.

Improvements that I have in the queue:

  • Suppport for pools (every board out there changes the API, so it will require some work);
  • Support for storing password/username using KWallet (through python-keyring, so it works even without KWallet installed);
  • Review usability of the dialogs (I have a separate branch for that);
  • Improve the image download dialog.

On recent KDE SC versions (4.4 beta 2 and onwards) there are some painting issues with regards to the thumbnails, but I’m not sure if the fault is in PyKDE4 or in the underlying libraries. Nothing too bad, luckily: hovering the thumbnails or giving focus to the thumbnail view should be what’s needed.

Here’s a screenshot of the new interface (click to enlarge):

Screenshot of the new interface

Comments and suggestions are always welcome, so don’t hesitate to drop me a line.

As a final word, some thoughts on the work required to get this out of the door. My largest issues are related to garbage collection: Python’s reference counting based GC got a lot in the way, at least because of how the underlying C++ structures work. I had to work a bit to keep references to objects around so I wouldn’t get crashes (accessing an already deleted object). All is well now, and I think my Python/PyQt/PyKDE4 knowledge gained from it. I keep telling myself that I should be writing some tutorials one day…

Tears to Tiara – Blu-Ray volume 1

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Today, after some customs delay and courier problems, I finally received the first volume of Tears to Tiara. Having got a PS3, I chose the Blu-Ray version (priced 8,192 yen, quite steep if you hear me): as I preordered it soon enough, I got the first presse edition, which, according to CDJapan, was comprised of a “deluxe outer case”, a “stick poster” and a booklet, in addition to the Blu-ray itself.

This is how it looked after unpacking:

Tears to Tiara box

The “deluxe outer case” is in fact a cardboard case which is quite large. Perhaps too large for its contents when we look inside:

TTT box contents

As you can see, we have here a rather thin artbook, the famous “stick poster”, and the BD itself. The rest of the box is filled by cardboard to keep things in place. Not the best deal for 8000+ yen, indeed.

The artbook contains interviews with the staff, details about the places, and information on the characters. Here is an example (badly taken photo) showing a part of Arawn’s profile:

Detail of the booklet

The “stick poster” is quite long once unfolded, and is an illustration of Morgan and Octavia, done by the series’ character designed, but colored in a way that reminds more of the game:

Stick poster

And now to the BD itself. Video is encoded at 1080p (quite nice!) but the audio is classical stereo without any bells and whistles. I wonder what the buyers of the non-first press version get, because inside there is absoultely nothing save a promotional sheet and the disc. Once loaded on my first-generation PS3, the disc played normally, and indeed at 1080p. It’s quite nice to view the opening in HD format.

The menus inside are terrible. They only offer chapter selection, a “play all” feature and an “information” link which plays some commercial of related Aquaplus anime adaptations, namely To Heart 2 (the upcoming OAVs) and Utawarerumono (again OAVs that should be out very soon). Sadly, this is on par with the rest of the offerings from other Japanese companies (and most Western anime publishers, too): the disc is simply a container, and nothing else is offered. I could understand if the price was lower, but at 8000 yen and more it’s simply unacceptable.

What about the content? Weil, I like it of course. The anime is very faithful (save some minor changes in recent episodes) to the game and thus I’m enjoying it qute a bit. I haven’t watched the episodes closely yet, but I doubt there will be any “redone” parts in this volume (I was hoping for specials a la Utawarerumono, but oh well…). Hopefully I’lll be able to write a little more (time permitting) once I finish watching it.