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• This Functional Game Boy Costume Will Show Us the Way

  Video game cosplayers, take note. We've seen enough of that smelly Cloud costume that gets dragged out of the closet year after year, convention after convention. The cardboard sword is sagging, and a moth ate through the crotch of your pants. I don't know what continuity you're honouring by letting Cloud go commando, but either way, the fantasy is dead and the children are frightened. Give it up. Cosplay has long been the Internet's equivalent of that guy who sits above a dunk tank at a carnival. I have nothing against this particular perched gentleman, same as I have nothing against cosplayers. I just can't resist taking a shot. In fact, everyone jabs cosplayers now and then. There is an ancestral instinct that causes us to mock men in tights; it's how our forebears protected themselves from bards. But it's a petty person who won't recognise true costume-design talent when they see it. I've seen some fantastic costumes in my (regrettable?) years of anime con attendance, but there hasn't been anything quite like the functional Game Boy who waddled around Ohayocon 2009 and graciously put up with people playing Tetris on his chest. A video of the costume in action lies under the jump. Read More... Posted Feb 09 2009, 01:06 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with no comments Filed under: game boy, tetris, fan stuff, anime, nadia oxford, ohayhocon, cosplay, convention

• WTFriday: The Super Mario Bros. Anime

  Note to readers: WTFriday is a weekly feature where I find something stupid about video games and get you to laugh until it goes away. Please try to forget this is what I normally do every day of the week. For as popular as Mario is, it's surprising that anime adaptations of The Mushroom Kindgdom have been shockingly few in number. That isn't exactly the case for American animation, though; if you were "lucky" enough to grow up in the late 80s and early 90s, there's no doubt that at some point your butt was parked in front of a TV airing one of the three Super Mario Bros. series painstakingly crafted by trained apes. For whatever reason, Japan never thought to inflict an animated version of their most popular fictional celebrity on the nation's youth, aside from two projects--and if you think I'm being unfair to the American Mario cartoons, watch about one minute of Super Mario World and feel free to change your opinion after you purchase a seeing-eye dog. Today's WTFriday spotlight falls upon the 1986 Japanese movie, Super Mario Bros.: Peach-Hime Kyushutsu Dai Sakusen! (or, if you don't know what any of those words mean, Super Mario Bros.: Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach!). Read More... Posted Jan 16 2009, 02:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: nintendo, mario, super mario bros, anime, cartoon, bob mackey, wtfriday

• Actor's Scene Re-Dub Attempts To Make Up For Mega Man X4's Past Sins

  Mega Man 8 and Mega Man X4 are two of the first games we point at when we talk about the awkward spasms gaming went through in its transition from 16 to 32 bits. “Hey, remember when voice acting in Playstation games could make your dog's ears bleed?” we say. The death of Iris in Mega Man X4 still holds in our memories, not entirely for good reasons. For starters, the romance between the two has since ignited way too many message board conversations about how/if robots Do It. Second, Zero's voice actor sounds like he drank a scalpel blade smoothie before he recorded. Third...well...WhatamIfighting4rrrrrr?” Capcom did get its act together admirably in the latter Mega Man X games. Mega Man X: Command Mission, Mega Man X8 and Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X employed the same voice actors for all three games, giving the characters some much-needed consistency. Moreover, there is a hint of professionalism here, as the actors were all employed from The Ocean Group, a Canadian-based anime dubbing company. Zero's adopted actor is Lucas Gilbertson, an Alberta native who voices the red Maverick Hunter by day and draws some awesomely effed-up pictures by night. Gilbertson was interviewed by a fansite/blog that asked him if he'd try redubbing Iris' death scene in Mega Man X4. Guess what! He did! He also got a bit close to the microphone, so you might want to lower your volume a titch. Read More... Posted Jan 14 2009, 07:38 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Playstation, fan stuff, anime, nadia oxford, mega man x4, mega man x5, ocean group, dubbing

• FMV Hell: Mega Man X4

  Let us board our DeLorean and travel back to 1997. Gaming was going through a massive transition, as was American culture in general. We were still excited about anime and wanted nothing more than to lick rigid Playstation cutscenes up and down. We pressed our noses longingly against the panes of computer shops that ran the Mega Man X4 intro over and over. We said "Ohhhh!" Now we say, "Ohhhh," as in, "Oh God, my eyes feel like moles are scratching them." I'm not even referencing Mega Man X4's awful English voice acting. I don't need to. The low quality of the anime stands by itself, like a putrid pair of underwear. Read More... Posted Oct 24 2008, 07:06 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: fmv hell, anime, nadia oxford, mega man x4, maverick hunter x

• WTFriday: The Chrono Trigger Anime

  Note to readers: WTFriday is a weekly feature where I find something stupid about video games and get you to laugh until it goes away. Please try to forget this is what I normally do every day of the week. We're all excited about Chrono Trigger again--and why shouldn't we be? This November, we'll finally have the chance to pay $40 for a game we could've plunked down $70 for back in 1995. I'm such an unabashed Trigger fan that I actually unlocked all of the bonus content on the terrible PSX port of the game. Hey, it was new, and it was Chrono Trigger, so I was all over it. So when the Chrono Trigger anime surfaced just a handful of years ago, of course I wanted to see it. It felt like some sort of crime that an animated version of one of my favorite games could be made and hidden from the world for so long. Only after watching it did I learn that the real crime was the making of the Chrono Trigger anime. But you don't have to take my word for it: Insightful criticism after the cut. Read More... Posted Oct 17 2008, 10:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: snes, rpg, chrono trigger, square, anime, bob mackey, wtfriday, chrono trigger ds

• In My Fantasy World, There is a Final Fantasy VI Anime

  That's right. Back when I had a brief anime phase in college, which mysteriously coincided with a long sexual drought, I had strictly non-sexual fantasies of a Final Fantasy VI anime.  Two reasons: A.) Final Fantasy Unlimited was so bad that not even Japan wanted to see more of it, and B.) Final Fantasy VI's epic, operatic storyline that actually made sense (an important distinction) seemed perfectly tailored for serialized, animated fiction. Unfortunately, Square's forays into the world of non-interactive entertainment have been affronts to even the unholy god who allowed them to exist in this world to prolong the suffering of mankind. Thank whatever applicable deity for obsessed Japanese fans, who have the spirit and free time I lack to make my own dreams come true. Yes, it's essentially Full Metal Alchemist characters cosplaying as Final Fantasy VI characters and rotoscoped over previously-existing animation, but--damn it--a man can dream. Am I the only out there with such a far-off, adaptation-based wish? (This is where you respond and I feel better.) Related Links: Rockman Lucky Star TVTropes' "Woolseyisms" Posted Sep 03 2008, 10:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: final fantasy vi, square-enix, anime, bob mackey

• Rockman Lucky Star

  Ewww, who stunk up the blog with religion and serious crap?...Oh, it was me. Sorry guys. Friday is not for thinking. Friday is for sillies, especially Fridays that herald the looong weekend. I'm gonna drink a beer and get so drunk. And by "a beer" I mean fifty. I don't think I'd want to live in a world without silly anime dances. I don't know how many of you are fans of Lucky Star (I personally haven't seen it yet), but the adorable Mega Man parody of the opening can be appreciated no matter your alignment. There's some impressive sprite work to be had. Bonus footage of Gravity Man flipping Roll and Kalinka upside-down. It's not quite what you think. Sorry. Lord, the whole thing is very innocent. I wish you the best long weekend ever. Read More... Posted Aug 29 2008, 09:41 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: music, mega man, 8-bit, retro, parody, anime, nadia oxford, rockman, lucky star

• FMV Hell: Lunar, The Silver Star

  Time once again for a brief look at the Sega CD games that made us women and men (if you're currently a twenty-something, I mean). The full-motion video in games like Lunar, The Silver Star is unique stuff for a few reasons. First, it was an unfiltered assault of glittery, shojo-eyed anime during an age when most game localisers struggled to hide any cultural evidence that video games indeed come from Japan. Of course, Working Designs is still known for taking some, er, extreme liberties with their own translations and localisations, but by God that's another tome for another night. All you need to know is that Lunar saw its US release in 1993, ages before Pokemon made anime mainstream (bonus fact: anime became mainstream in Canada in 1996, thanks to Sailor Moon recieving an after-school time slot). The intro for Lunar is also made special by its...lack of animation. Maybe we were too busy drooling on the television screen at the time, but when you watch Sega CD intros in today's age of a thousand frames per second, you begin to notice that the "cut scenes" that wowed us over a dozen years ago are little more than kindergarten-grade cut-outs with pinned, movable limbs. Read More... Posted Aug 14 2008, 07:07 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: working designs, pokemon, japan, lunar, sega cd, fmv hell, sonic cd, translation, anime, sailor moon, lunar the silver star, localization

• Turnabout Animation

  Capcom's Ace Attorney games (Phoenix Wright and Apollo Justice, with an upcoming spin-off for Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth) have developed a large and enthusiastic fanbase around the gaming world thanks to their dramatic courtroom stories and outlandishly hilarious characters. Naturally, this fandom is at its most excited in the publisher's native Japan, where the original trilogy was released twice (once on Gameboy Advance and again on Nintendo DS), there is a wildly popular serialized manga (set to be released in the United States by Del Rey Manga next month), and even sold-out concerts by an orchestra that only plays songs from the Ace Attorney games. In fact, it was on the orchestra's blog that rumor recently broke about the possibility of a Phoenix Wright animé in the works. Read More... Posted Aug 06 2008, 02:00 PM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: derrick sanskrit, capcom, ace attorney, phoenix wright, manga, anime