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:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Once you save the file, however, all the tags are just present in your file name, and nowhere else. LIke that, they’re not that informative. That’s where danbooru2nepomuk comes into play. danbooru2nepomuk is a small Python program that can turn the tags present into the filenames into real semantic tags.

Requirements

As of this post, danbooru2nepomuk works only on Linux, so if you are a Windows user, you’re out of luck. Also, it requires a KDE (tested with version 4.3.1).

danbooru2nepomuk is a Python program, so it requires first of all the Python interpreter, version 2.5 or later. It has been developed to use the Nepomuk semantic desktop framework present in KDE, so you’ll also need PyQt4 and PyKDE4, along with a working Nepomuk installation. Most distributions use the broken Soprano redland backend, which will not work, so I suggest you to switch to the sesame2 backend, which (although dependent on Java) works reasonably well.

Download and installation

Simply get danbooru2nepomuk.zip, rename it to .py from .zip, save it in your PATH, and make it executable. Nothing more than that.

Usage

danbooru2nepomuk is a command line appplication. Its syntax is simple:

danbooru2nepomuk.py [-r] <file or directory>

If you specify a file, it will be tagged directly; if you specify a directory, it will be scanned for files, and those in turn will be tagged. If you add the -r switch to a directory, it will be scanned recursively, while it will be simply ignored if you use it with a file.

Configuration

You can specify a tag blacklist for tags in the filename that you don’t want to get in. To do so, edit the TAGS_BLACKLIST variable on line 41, and add more tags you don’t want Nepomuk to pick up.

Known issues

None that I know of, at least! If you find any, let me know.

danbooru2nepomuk is licensed under the GNU General Public License, version 2.

This is how it looked after unpacking:

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

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:

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:

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.

So I’ve heard that Tears to Tiara is coming in animated form. Being in the middle of playing its PS3 incarnation, Tears to Tiara – Kaikan no Daichi, I decided to take a look at some images that have been recently published on news.dengeki.com. It was already known that the anime would be an adaptation of the PS3 game, which is a good thing (I didn’t like the original character design). Animation is done by Oriental Light and Magic (OLM), and the same staff who adapted another Aquaplus game, Utawarerumono (or should I say Underwater Ray Romano ? *snicker*).

As the first image suggests, the character designs follow the PS3 game, although with some exhibit evident differences from the game (and honestly, I liked the game’s designs more). For example, Arthur looks like this in the two versions:

Although I dare say that it’s Gaius that changed the most: from a battle veteran (and a general), we get someone like this:

Hardly a look for a general…

As for the rest, though, according to what is shown in the Dengeki preview of the first three episodes, the team has tried to be rather faithful to the story, up to almost replicating the same shots, as shown here:

Quite similar indeed. Knowing the team, I fully expect a faithful “conversion” nevertheless, although I hope they don’t turn Arthur into the Oboro of Utawarerumono (mostly used for comic relief).

Tears to Tiara starts on April 5th. I’ll be sure to take a look.

]]> http://www.dennogumi.org/2009/03/tears-to-tiara-in-animation-faithful/feed 0 http://www.dennogumi.org/2009/01/kurokami-the-animation-episode-1 http://www.dennogumi.org/2009/01/kurokami-the-animation-episode-1#comments Sun, 11 Jan 2009 11:06:13 +0000 Einar http://www.dennogumi.org/?p=504

New season, new anime to see. Since a certain guy kept me telling wonders about Kurokami (黒神), a manga serialized in Young Gangan by Dall-Young Lim and Sung-woo Park, two Korean artists, I decided to give a go to the animated version, produced by Bandai Visual, which has just been out.

The episode opens with the main character, Keita Ibuki, wondering about philosophical questions while he’s dying. We don’t get to know more, as the opening kicks in and once it’s over, we’re presented with another situation, presumably before that event. What we get to see is that Keita seems a rather introverted person, supposedly after a shocking event that happened in his past. His days seem to follow a precise routine: school, then a go towards an unfinished/collapsed highway on the sea, ramen in the evening at a certain place.

A few exceptions are when a little girl, son of a person who lives next door to him, approaches him. Meanwhile, the spectator is informed that something is going awry: disappearances and deaths occur throughout the city, and they’re apparently linked to people seeing an exact replica of themselves (Doppelgänger): when this happens, one of the two identical people dies within days (and we learn that something like that has happened to Keita’s mother as well).

And that’s what happens to one of Keita’s schoolmates, who has seen a replica of herself at a concert (although the encounter was probably planned by someone behind the shadows). Of course Keita is saddened greatly, and he vents his frustration when he’s alone. During the evening, while he’s eating ramen, he meets a strange girl who’s starving. He lets her have his cup, and during the conversation that ensues, this girl seems to know a lot about the replica affair. She mentions that, out of the 2 or 3 replicas that exist in the world, only one is the so called root, and the only one who will survive when he/she meets the others.

It’s not like she can tell more, because a scary-looking person with a bat arrives and hits her on the head without any hesitation. The owner of the shop tries to act, but is hit as well. The newcomer says a few things without much sense and proceeds to hit the girl more. “Of course”, Keita decides to run to her defense but the outcome is rather predictable, and he gets a spanking as well.

That’s when the girl steps up and shows to be quite apt to fighting. She and the other man exchange blows for a while, although the girl is at disadvantage and has her head smashed against a car’s screen (ouch). The man mentions that he has “to take her alive” (as if someone would survive the beating she had), and that’s when she gets up again and treats him with a lightning fast series of punches and kicks (it reminded me of Ryo Sakazaki’s super move in Ryuko no ken / Art of Fighting games), sending him against a fence and knocking him out.

She then complaisn about the spilled ramen (?) and leaves shortly afterwards, before the police comes, but not before introducing herself as Kuro. The other guy disappears as well. The following day, Keita meets the small girl from next door again, and she says she has met another identical girl the day before. You know what’s going to happen now: she gets run over by a truck in front of Keita’s eyes. And then Kuro is next to Keita, talking again about the replica stuff, mentioning that the girl was obviously not the “root”.

That’s when the episode ends. What can I say about it? It looks good so far, with a promising storyline, but knowing Sunrise’s previous “accomplishments”, including Code GEASS, I’m still wary. The number of episodes, also, will determine how much the story will be rushed or not.

Animation and sound wise we’re at good levels, although Kuro’s final “combo” looks more like an animation stunt than something that’s really needed. The opening theme, “sympathizer” is decent enough, and coupled well to the images (that should be taken for granted, but according to what I heard about Gundam OO’s new opening, one can never know).

I’ll be keeping an eye on this series and see if it keeps on doing well.

It’s been a long time since Slayers had aired on TV, basically since Slayers TRY was released, which means more than 10 years ago. Then, this year news told that two new series were planned, and this post is about the first episode (out of 13, aired on July 2nd; the second series will start sometime around January).

First of all, the staff is the same as the old production: the director Takashi Watanabe, the character deisgner Naomi Miyata, animation by J.C. STAFF, same people for the music (vink, this time called vink4), and of course, same voices, including Megumi Hayashibara as Lina Inverse.

After a brief moment describing Lina by her peculiar features (“Demon eyes”, “demon mouth” and… “no bust”), the opening kicks off with a song by… Megumi Hayashibara. Then we see a group of pirates that are busy collecting their loot, when a lone ship starts destroying their fleet. And Lina and Gourry are on that ship, of course (apparently bandits are running low on numbers, so Lina chose to target pirates instead).

Lina of course gives them the speech, but apparently the pirates fail to recognize her and just launch an assault. Suffice is to say that they are no match for the crazy sorceress, as she blows them away. Gourry manages to do his part, but his sword keeps on breaking (don’t forget he no longer has the Gorn Nova/Sword of Light).

Elsewhere, the fleet of Sairoon is approaching the area, with Zelgadiss and Amelia on board, along with another person that expresses his desire to meet Lina. Their arrival (along with Amelia’s usual over the top lines) almost destroys what is left of the pirate ship (and Lina’s one too). The pirates attempt an escape, but their cries of “flat chest” anger Lina so much that she sends them flying around with a well timed spell.

Later, at an inn, Lina and Gourry are counting the money they got (and of course their eating habits haven’t changed a bit), while Zel and Amelia come in, along with this other person, who then identifies himself as an inspector. A moment later, he arrests Lina! And the grounds for arrest are as strange as his action: Lina is to be arrested under the accusation of… being Lina Inverse.

The rest of the group thinks about a “strategy” to fight in court, but all they get is to get Lina mad, and then she just kicks them. While Zel suggests that Lina would be hard to arrest, the inspector has some aces up his sleeve, including calling a whole army. Of course, those kind of people aren’t much for Lina, who just wipes them with a Mega Brand spell.

The group decides to run away but their advance is stopped by the arrival of a huge tank-like machine, although “slow as a tortoise”. The battle rages on, destroying most of the town as well. When Lina is about to pull something off, voices echo from above. A… thing (I can’t really describe that creature) casts a Dragon Slave, destroying everything in sight. Of course Lina is mad, and all because that one stole her scene…

That’s how the first episode ends. The animation quality is just decent: in some parts it fluctuates quite a bit and backgrounds tend to be overly simplistic at times. Sounds are in the same league as other Slayers series, including some remixed versions of old tracks. The ending song, along with the opening, is sung by M.Hayashibara, and overall it’s decent, although both songs are a bit too dance-like for my tastes.

Some voices may sound slightly different to the audience: the effect is noticeably mostly for Lina and Amelia, but after all, it has been more than ten years.

What about the story? Like most Slayers first episodes, there’s no real insight yet and a lot of comical moments (some genuinely funny). We’ll have to see in the future what it will happen, especially considering that 13 episodes aren’t a lot.

In any case, it’s a good return after all this time (and after last season, which I found to be rather lackign in anything interesting to watch). I’ll be sure to try and watch an episode live when I’m in Japan (more on that in a future blog post).

Slayers of course is a different story.  I hope someone else steps up and continues the novels, because they’re worth it. Also, according to rumors the upcoming Slayers Revolution will feature an original storyline, but based loosely on the second arc of the novels (which was never seen in animation).

Time to read and report.

A rather large number of days ago I got the first DVD of Ookami to koshinryo, better known as Spice and Wolf, which I when the first episode was released. I got the limited edition, which came in with a number of extra features (which still don’t justify its ~ ¥6800 price tag, though). The main one is the inclusion of a 300 piece puzzle, illustrated by the artist who works on the original novels.

I still haven’t tackled this, and given my recent time constraints I expect this to stay in unassembled form for a long time. Aside this, in the box there are two cardboard illustrations (card game sized), which also appear in the ending sequence, a small booklet with some settei (character designs), world and character information, and some small promotional leaflets.

The DVD contains three episodes (sadly just for this first volumes, another reminder that the Japanese DVD releases aren’t really good value for their money), and presents, in my opinion, sub-par presentation, as the menu clearly shows. There are no sub-menus, everything is presented on a static page with links directly to the content (episode chapters) and the only extra feature of this release: the credits-less opening sequence.

Quality-wise, there are no obvious improvements, actually the most picky people will probably notice less quality than on the DVD (due to the fact that the original broadcasting was in HD format, and the DVD is SD). I noticed some color saturation issues on Windows (with PowerDVD), but none of the sort on Linux (kaffeine). At least the original 16:9 aspect ratio is there (one never knows…).

Aside that, content-wise the same points I made while viewing the first episode still apply: it’s a highly atypical yet interesting series. Despite the lack of “action”, all the episodes are intriguing and the “economics” element adds a nice touch. Of course it’s not your typical series, so some may find it boring, but I really recommend it (although I’m fairly sure, like with other interesting series like , that it will go mostly ignored…)

The story is set in what it seems to be a Middle Age Europe, where there is an official religion co-existing with other ancient rites. As a matter of fact, the anime opens with one of such rites, to be precise with a pact made by a village with a local deity in order to get a good harvest. Then the opening kicks in and we get a look at the various characters. In particular, we get to know the male main character, Lawrence.

Lawrence is a merchant and travels around the land selling wares, and he stops by the villlage shown in the first scenes, where he watches the harvest ceremony in favor of Horo (the deity) and also sees a “colleague” of his (the girl shown in the picture above, an original character for the anime). Also, his carriage bumps into something, but he does not find the reason.

He finds out at night, when he leaves for the next village. Inside his carriage he finds a naked woman with a wolf tail and wolf-like ears. The woman introduces herself as Horo, the actual deity of the place. Apparently she’s tired of being there helping the harvest as the people there almost forgot about her and just repeat the rituals without knowing why. She asks Lawrence to bring her with him, and he, unimpressed, asks for proof. Horo eats some wheat and something happens, but we can’t see as the scene changes almost immediately.

Lawrence has returned to the village and has a talk with his “colleague” which apparently wants to join forces with him in the merchant business (and by the way she acts, we see that apparently it’s not just a business interest). However, he acts quite detached and she doesn’t like it that much. They also talk about Horo, but she believes it to be just a myth and nothing more.

Before sleeping, Lawrence gets again a visit from Horo, and we finally get to see what happened before: Horo’s arm became indeed something not so natural, indeed proof of her nature. The following morning, she gets on some clothes on Lawrence’s carriage and the two leave the village, with Horo intent on becoming Lawrence’s business partner.

My first comments on this anime are that it is a “wait and see”: the approach is somewhat different in some areas (Lawrence that reacts differently than most anime characters, though his reaction is unrealistic as well) and I’m curious to see how the story will develop in the future, because the first episode is kind of self-contained, and doesn’t give any hints to future development. However, the predicted episode count is only 12, so there may be the chance of a screw up along the way.

Animation-wise, this episode is average, with nothing extremely good and nothing extremely bad. The same can be said for the soundtrack, somewhat anyonymous at times (I admit I barely noticed the tunes).

I don’t know if I should recommend this anime or not, I guess it mostly depends on the watcher, and to individual tastes. As for myself, I’ll see how it develops.

• FFXI-URUSHI-Chaos: 01 – ¥ 735;
• FFXI-URUSHI-Chaos: 02 – ¥ 735;
• FFXI-URUSHI-Chaos:03 – ¥ 945.

The dojins are by a circle/person known as TWO-DASH, and I admit I had not heard the name before. Assured that they didn’t contain adult-only material, I took a look at the three volumes which my brother bought.

Chaos:01 is the oldest of the bunch, and it shows. The style is very nice but very rough, almost as if the pencil wasn’t completely erased when ink was put on. In any case, it’s aestethically pleasing. The story (as the dojin titles may hint at) revolves around the very famous Dark Knight flag quest, Blade of Darkness. In this case a Hume named as Yui Sofianull which happens, during the course of an investigation in Palborough Mines, to run into Zeid, the last Dark Knight remained after the Great War. What follows is basically a recap of the same quest, with Zeid giving Yui the Chaosbringer. There are some differences, in the sense that the author has brought the “Dark Knight feeds on negative emotions” paradigm to the extreme, as Yui goes berserk and slays a lot of people, including her Elvaan Paladin partner, who is shown in the picture on the left. After that, she starts traveling around Vana’diel.

For being a dojin, the gratuitous moments are quite minimal, which is refreshing and welcome at the same time. Story-wise, save for the dramatic events near the end, it is pretty easy to follow if you have played FFXI. Also, aside Zeid, Volker also appears as a guest in some scenes.

The second dojin, Chaos: 02, appeared roughly a year after the first. In this case we see that the author’s style has quite matured, and there’s no longer that feeling of “being raw”: in general everything is much cleaner. The picture on the right already gives the story of the second volume away: it’s about mission 2-3, better known as “the dragon” among FFXI players. The plot shows Yui, still heavily tormented by the massacre she did in the previous volume, getting in touch with a group of Tarutarus and an Elvaan thief. The progression of the mission isn’t really like in the game (there is a traitorous Mithra involved) but the outcome is the same, and even in this case Yui manages to go berserk and slay the dragon as shown (technically she couldn’t wear Artifact Armor, but that is minor). The dojin ends shortly after that, with a “To be continued”.

Unlike the first dojin, there are more risque scenes (nothing too much, luckily), and again we see some important characters in the FFXI universe such as Nanaa Mihgo.

The third and last dojin for now is the most recent (2006) and the one with the best art of the bunch (not too surprisingly). It is also the one with most risque scenes (also not too many). The story here seems original, and involves Yui and a new partner, aided by a White Mage and a Beastmaster, looking up a Weapon in Delkfutt’s Tower (which ends smashed like in the picture). In the end, Yui gets detained by the Jeuno palace guards and the story is again continued on the next volume (which sadly isn’t out yet).

What to say on these three dojins? I’m quite pleased overall, both because they aren’t H and because they talk about FFXI. It is a plus of course that it is a coherent story instead of small, unrelated tales like some of the (officially licensed) FFXI manga and they’re quite recommended (also given that they’re not expensive at all).