Well, it's been quite a ride. The final episode of Death Note is out and well, I'm not going to start dropping spoilers now, am I?
No Cease and Desist fansubs, but we've got Ruberia to thank for a good sub of the final episode:
Death Note episode 37 - Ruberia fansubs
Already the episodes have been bundled together in one easy-to-download file:
Complete Death Note (episodes 1-37)
There's also three OSTs to look out for if you've enjoyed the music:
Death Note OSTs
Oh, and if you haven't read the original manga, here's a link:
Death Note manga
I feel kind of bad encouraging people to get all this stuff for free, but I know I'll be buying the manga, soundtracks, DVD boxset, keyrings, and a Death Note notebook (naturally) because I'm a bit of a collector, plus I feel it's worth giving money to things I want to support.
Anyway, I hope anyone who has watched this series has enjoyed it as much as I have. I doubt there'll be anything as good in the near future, but I'm sure a series that's just as compelling and well-realised will come along eventually. in the meantime, I'm off to read the manga for a bit to stave off my Death Note cold turkey...
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( 3 / 169 )Wasn't it Father's Day recently? Oh well, I don't need much excuses for a massive post - enjoy!
Harry Mason (Silent Hill, PS)
After finding his daughter Cheryl abandoned as a baby by a roadside, Harry and his wife raised the child as their own. After his wife's death, Harry takes Cheryl back to the town where she was abandoned. Since the town is Silent Hill, Cheryl promptly disappears into the fog and Harry has to pick up the infamous lead pipe and battle through monsters and freaky puzzles to get her back. To his credit, there's never a point where Harry considers giving up on his search for his adopted daughter, even when he finds out she's the living host of an evil god. Best dad ever!
Dad rating: 5 pipes out of 5, give him some slippers and a newspaper as well. He deserves it.
****
Bowser
Bowser's actually been around a bit. At the last count he has eight(!) children, made up of seven Koopalings and the inevitably-titled Bowser Jr. Nobody is quite sure who the mother is, but Princess Peach sure has spent a lot of time in Bowser's castle over the years. Bowser's children certainly take after their dad, running loose in the Mushroom Kingdom and Dolphic Island respectively, providing boss battles for Mario and Luigi, vandalising a whole island with graffiti, and even occasionally kidnapping the lovely Princess Peach. Their old man would be proud.
Dad rating: 2 pipes out of 5
****
Donkey Kong
Another Nintendo character that's kidnapped Mario's girlfriend and later become a father. Anyone noticing a pattern here? As a dad, he is just as unimaginative as Bowser in the naming department, calling his son Donkey Kong Jr. However, he has a more positive approach to parenting, often taking his son platforming and karting, although his criminal habit of kidnapping Mario's girlfriend hasn't entirely ceased, something he might want to knock on the head unless he wants Jr. to end up in a Mushroom Kingdom care home.
Dad rating: 4 pipes out of 5
****
King of all Cosmos (Katamari Damacy series)
Omnipotent, omnipresent and a dandy dresser of galactic proportions, the King of all Cosmos sure is an interesting guy. As a dad, however, he's a 'tough-love' type, rarely giving compliments, confusing his son (the Prince) with the various cousins in the Katamari universe, and constantly making his only son clean up after him. The original Katamari Damacy sees the King wake up after a night on the cosmic tiles, only to discover that he's accidentally destroyed all the stars in the cosmos. As the King lies in a darkened room (or maybe a black hole), nursing his hangover, the Prince is dumped on Earth to roll up stuff for making new stars. The pattern of destruction and rolling continues in subsequent Katamari installments. Great excuse for a game, but as a dad the King comes across as a bit of git (see pic, below).
Dad rating: 2 pipes out of 5
****
Seong Han Myong (Soul Edge/Blade, PS)
The original Soul Edge had a couple of unlockable characters, but to get someone's dad as a secret character is pretty cool. A Korean martial arts trainer, Seong Mina's dad seems a bit severe. He forbids his daughter from leaving to track down the evil sword Soul Edge, then sends generic bland-boy Hwang to bring her back when she inevitably runs away. The kind of dad that obviously believes that girls should either stay in their place or be tactically married into a better one.
Dad rating: 2 pipes out of 5
****
Cervantes (Soul Edge/Blade, Soul Calibur series)
The main bad guy of the Soul Edge, Cervantes is a pirate taken over by the titular evil swords. Later games in the Soul Calibur series reveal that he is the father of Ivy, though the conception was probably a random drunken encounter in one of the many ports of his pirating travels. Once possessed by the Soul Edge, he spends his time on murderous rampages and dodging child support notices. The ultimate absent father.
Dad rating: 0 pipes out of 5
****
Heihachi Mishima (Tekken series)
Tekken is more like an episode of Eastenders when it comes to family. The head of a powerful worldwide conglomerate, Heihachi is a bad father of biblical scale. He threw his oldest son, Kazuya (see below to read about how well-adjusted he turned out) off a cliff at the age of five to test the boy's strength. He then adopted a boy that he considered more suitable to inherit his multi-million corporate empire. Kazuya survived the fall through a deal with the devil (literally) and grew up just a little bit bitter. The original Tekken ends with Kazuya victorious after facing his father in combat, throwing Heihachi's body off the same cliff. Heihachi of course survived and returned to defeat Kazuya in battle, after which he threw Kazuya into a volcano. In Tekken 4, Kazuya throws Heihachi into the midst of exploding robots. At the time of writing, there's no confirmation of Heihachi returning in the new Tekken game to throw Kazuya off a cliff into a volcano full of exploding robots.
Dad rating: 0 pipes out of 5
****
Kazuya Mishima (Tekken series)
Possessed by the devil thanks to the actions of his father, Kazuya never really had a positive role model to draw inspiration from when raising his own child, Jin Kazama. I say raised, but Kazuya simply knocked up one of the lesser female characters from the original Tekken then continued on his Devil-fuelled spree, only bothering to make contact with his son when he discovered that he had devil powers that could be exploited. Jin gets an easy time, though, as Kazuya never once drops him off a cliff.
Dad rating: 1 pipe out of 5 (for not dropping Jin off a ridiculous height at an early age)
****
Jinpachi Mishima (Tekken 5)
Heihachi's dad made an appearance in Tekken 5, after being released from the 50-year imprisonment in the basement of a secret base or something. Instead of asserting his authority and getting that whole family into counselling, Jinpachi announces a new tournament so he can rid the world of the cursed Devil powers of the Mishima family, or something like that. Told you it was like Eastenders.
Dad rating: 1 pipe out of 5
****
Marshall Law (Tekken series)
Another Tekken dad, and another character whose life story would fit in to soap opera nicely. Marshall Law first started participating in Tekken's Iron Fist Tournament to gather money to start his own dojo. That established, he also set up a restaurant that went later went bankrupt, causing Marshall to become depressed and turn to drink. He picks himself back up to enter another tournament for Tekken 4, but it's his inclusion in Tekken 5 that shows his heart. His son (Forrest Law) needs money for medical treatment. Awww...
Dad rating: 4 pipes out of 5
****
Nosferatu / Alexander Ashford (Resident Evil: Code Veronica)
During genetic research into intelligence, Alexander created his children, Alexia and Alfred in a lab. When the twins learned of their unusual birth, Alexia used her advanced intelligence and did some experimenting of her own (using the good old T-Veronica Virus), and then dumped her mutated father in a base in Antarctica. Seeing as how messed up his children turned out (Alfred took to dressing up as his sister and chasing Claire Redfield around with a rifle), Alexander succeeded in his scientific experiment, but failed as a father.
Dad rating: 1 pipe out of 5
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( 3 / 141 )
Wow, look it's an update that's not about Death Note!
If you're a gamer and use the internet, you should know about the whole Manhunt 2 kerfuffle.
Me and Richie over at thatguys have been having a little debate about the situation. You can read my opinions on the issue here.
Gotta weigh in on the debate, eh?
Things I learned while doing this post: doing a Google image search for 'Manhunt 2' yields results like this.
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( 3 / 139 )
Well, not just yet, but pictures like that really make me wish there was more of an appreciation of manga and anime in the UK, or at least the US, so we could import English subs and dubs of series.
Speaking of which, Viz seem to have done a pretty shoddy job of their English dub of Death Note - Light just sounds like a whiny emo boy, not the calculated, removed sociopath that comes across in the original Japanese. I would include a link to the Viz trailer, but for those of you who haven't watched Death Note yet (hope you've got a good excuse for that), there's a ton of spoilers, so YouTube it at your own risk.
I'm not an elitist - I've watched many an anime in English, but the workaday translations that we get coupled with the popular belief that anime is just cartoons and therefore for kids keeps it marginalised, which is a shame, because there's a variety of manga and anime that caters to a wide range of tastes (One Piece and Death Note being my favourite animes for totally different reasons).
Ah well, at least the internet has pulled through again. Kuro-Hana aren't subbing anymore, but the cheekily-titled Cease and Desist fansubs look like they're going to take up the baton and finish off the final two episodes of Death Note:
Cease and Desist fansubs - Death Note episode 36!
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( 3 / 200 )
Ah boo...Animanda fansubs have dropped their subs of Death Note after getting a Cease and Desist notice from Viz Media (owners of the American license).
I could go off on a rant about the sad loss of a quality fansub (with only a couple of episodes to go until the end of the series), but instead I'll just recommend that you use Kuro-Hana fansubs, who despite receiving the same C&D notice, look like they're going to sub Death Note until the end.
Heck, even if Kuro-Hana do stop, it won't take long until someone else picks up the project...this is the internet, after all.
I'll post any updates if necessary.
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( 3 / 167 )
I'm trying to get a new word about the weather into general use. The word is drull, which is already in the urban dictionary describing a situation that is "boring and full of nothingness".
I would like to extend this word to describe days that are overcast to the point of the sky being blanketed by cloud. It's a mixture of the words 'bright' and 'dull', and they really sum up those inbetween-y days where the weather's technically fine, but overall, it's a bit depressing.
Note: if at point it should rain during a drull day, the day becomes dreich.
Another notable feature of a drull day is the lack of shadows, as illustrated below:
Interestingly enough, there's been research into heart disease in Scotland that might make drull days more than just plain depressing, but also bad for public health...
And then there's the small matter of Scotland being rated the 'worst small country in Europe' (with Glasgow as the worst city).
Makes me wonder - should Scotland use its health budget on hospitals and care or a giant cloud-removing machine?
Anyway, the new word is drull. Use it!
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( 3.3 / 153 )
Taken during Glasgow's West End Festival. If you're not from Glasgow, I wouldn't really recommend it - it's mostly an excuse for locals to drink on the street, and the weather is so unpredictable that it could be rained off in an instant. Fortunately, it remained overcast but dry, and I had my One Piece flag to rally my friends / nakama. We might do something special next year.
Depends if it rains or not.
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( 3 / 118 )
It's about time I raved about One Piece. Alongside Death Note, this is one of my favourite animes. It's all about Monkey D. Luffy, and his quest to become Pirate King by fiding the legendary treasure One Piece. On his travels, he gathers a crew (the Japanese term is 'nakama', an elegant term that means a friend who isn't related, more like a comrade), finds a ship, explores the world, and of course fights bad guys with his Devil Fruit powers.
I'll admit that when I first started watching it, I had just finished watching a lot of Naruto, so it took me a while to get used to the different animation style, also the pace and humour. But once Luffy sets off from the first town with the Marines that should be arresting him instead waving him off from the shore, crying manfully, I really started to love it.
But it's hard to sum up just what's so good about One Piece in a short synopsis (plus there's the issue of spoilers). This is an anime / manga with a lot of heart and a lot of style. There's very little of the introspective brooding that other shows use to drag out storylines (hello Naruto), and all the characters are given their good and bad sides, and are more lovable for it. Oh, and it's also damn funny.
****Side note: This is the original Japanese version I'm talking about, or course. The American version has been butchered by editing and redubbing (violence has been toned down and the orchestrated score has been removed). The good news in that Funimation (the guys behind the English dubs of Dragonball and the excellent Yu Yu Hakusho), now have the One Piece license, so hopefully it'll get a better treatment.****
Anyway, the best way to find out more is to just watch it! There's a couple of really good fansub projects for this show. The first I would recommend is this:
Kaizoku fansubs
These guys are doing a really good job with subbing One Piece, but they're a little behind with the episodes. Still, if you're only just starting to watch One Piece, you'll have 200+ episodes to watch before worrying about that problem.
If you watch 200+ episodes and need a new subber, you'll have to bounce between various places:
Gerusama (episodes 219 - 258)
ADC Elites (episodes 248 - 294)
Vegapunk (episodes 294 - present)
Go watch.
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( 3 / 137 )Hooray!
Good news - the final Subcity show has been archived. Just click Listen Again and enjoy.
01. Shango - Peter King - Nigeria 70
02. (I Know) I'm Losing You - The Temptations - With a Lot O' Soul
03. SOUL Kyuumeitai - Yasushi Ishii - Hellsing OST 2: Ruins
04. Yotsuba no Koroshi Kaigishitsu - Hideki Taniuchi, Yoshihisa Hirano - Death Note OST 2
05. It Don't Mean a Thing (If it Ain't Got That Swing) - Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald
06. Katamari on the Swing - Shigeru Matsuzaki - We Love Katamari
07. Swing Set - Jurassic 5 - Quality Control
08. Sing, Sing, Sing - Louis Prima
09. Swinging the Blues - Count Basie
****I could write a long explanation about how since last week's show was lost, the competition music form two weeks ago still stands. It's all academic anyway becasue no-one got it right. It was from Katamari Damacy. I can't believe nobody got it!****
It's the last show for now, so no competition.
10. Mandrill - Mandrill - Mandrill
11. We Are! (TV Edit) - One Piece
12. The Bomberman Lounge - June 'Chiki' Chikuma - Saturn Bomberman
13. Coffee Song - Ray McVay and His Orchestra - Ole McVay
14. L's Theme B - Yoshihisa Hirano, Hideki Taniuchi - Death Note OST
15. Theme of Nakama - One Piece
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( 3 / 94 )Yep, Subcity's servers have done their thing again, and show 23 wasn't archived.
What's worse is that since Subcity stops broadcast this week, it was my last show with them.
Ho hum.
In other news, I'm going to be working on new projects over the next month, and that includes podcasting. I'll let you know what's happening with Diversion as soon as I do.
In the meantime, take a look at Subcity's new server (to replace the one I want to destroy with a sledgehammer):
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( 3.1 / 166 )
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