March 22, 2009

Miyamoto Musashi is Mine!!

Figure: Vagabond - Miyamoto Musashi
Size: 260 mm
Material: Resin
Manufacturer: Square-Enix

I finally got my Musashi last week and since I was only bumming around the house today, I decided to take some pictures of him. Yes, I'm not good at taking pictures but I hope that these are enough to show his awesomeness!

As soon as I got home, I opened the box so that I could display him. This entailed a lot of work in putting the other figures that were in the shelf as I have no room to display anything else at the moment. Musashi's box is HUGE!!! He was heavy too. The box had a nice drawing of him portraying the figure - all in grayscale. Musashi was kept not in plastic clamshell like what I usually get in PVC figures, but in styropore. (I guess this proves that Musashi's my first cold-cast figure.)

Musashi was a bit dusty when I took him out of the box. I dunno where the dust came from but it was easy enough to clean, so no worries there. The details were really good and I loved how they were able to make his scar on his forehead really stand out. Unlike the Fewture Musashi, whose details seem mediocre compared to the Square-Enix one, the latter just seems to come to life.

His swords are also sculpted really well and they used real strings too:
square enix vagabond miyamoto musashiDetails are good, yes?

Then there's the base. They could've done better but they gave Musashi a plain, wooden base - which I may add is heavier than Musashi. I had a really hard time setting Musashi on the base. The pegs are made of metal and Musashi had wedges under his feet that are supposed to go deep within the base. This is where I got into trouble: I was trying hard to fit Musashi on his stand. He was so not flexible so in my attempts to do this, I accidentally broke off part of the wedge on one of his feet. It's not noticeable once his actually standing already but without the base... T^T I ran out of super glue too so I just left the broken part out and kept it in the box.

I'm super excited about getting Yoshioka next. I just wish that my toy source offers Kojiro soon, otherwise, I'd have to look somewhere else :(

March 9, 2009

Busujima Saeko is just another FAIL

That is Busujima Saeko from High School of the Dead made by Chara-Ani. Scale is 1/8 and her SRP is roughly 7.5K yen. Lovely, ain't she?

To think that I wanted her so bad... It's a good thing that none of the local toy stores offered her for pre-order, otherwise I would've gotten stuck with a total waste of monies.

Just check some of these pictures out to see what I mean:
Busujima Saeko High School of the Dead Busujima Saeko High School of the Dead Busujima Saeko High School of the Dead Busujima Saeko High School of the Dead

I will not continue posting pictures - especially the cast-off monstrosity. Demmit. She's my favorite character from High School of the Dead. She's insanely pretty and awesome! Why did you have to do this to her, Chara-Ani! You made fans hope too much with that prototype only to give us a massive and epic FAIL!

If you have her on pre-order, cancel it nao!

Rest of the photos are here.

Blood: The Last Vampire Trailer

I think I mentioned this early last year, but here's the trailer for the upcoming live-action movie, Blood: The Last Vampire.



It looks pretty good, no? I hope I can find time to watch this and I hope I can quickly find a copy since it won't be showing locally, I presume. It will premiere in Japan on the 29th of May though as "Last Blood".

Otonashi Saya will be played by Korean actress Gianna Jun and the movie will be directed by Chris Nahon. I don't really find Gianna Jun pretty, nor anything like Saya but we'll see.

Any watchers?

March 2, 2009

Sword of the Stranger is made of WIN

Sword of the StrangerTitle: Sword of the Stranger
Episode: 1
Studio: BONES
Genre: Seinen

It is official: Sword of the Stranger (Stranger Mukou Hadan) is one of my favorite animated movies of all time!!!

Sword of the Stranger is a story about a boy named Kotarou who is being hunted down by the Ming of China. While hiding, he meets a lone samurai named Nanashi (meaning "Nameless") who saves his life as Kotarou is suddenly attacked by the Ming. Kotarou then employs Nanashi to bring him to a temple where he is to meet a monk who has been taking care of him until Kotarou was forced into hiding. As the movie rolls on, we discover why the Ming are after Kotarou and why Nanashi wouldn't draw his sword even if his life depended on it.

Technically, the plot of the Sword of the Stranger is pretty simple: A boy runs away to save his own life, but being a boy, he needs to depend on someone else to help him stay alive. The hero he has chosen is predictably really good in fighting but has his own demons to fight. The two team up together first as an obligation, but later on they build a bond between each other which helps the typical anti-social hero eventually face his past in order to save the boy from the clutches of some powerful villains.

Simple, right? I mean, this kind of plot is recycled over and over - not only in anime too. What makes Sword of the Stranger enjoyable though was how they made this simple plot into an elaborate story that kept me glued to my computer screen for more than an hour and a half. The producers made Sword of the Stranger's plot elaborate enough that it almost masked the simplicity of it all. Add to that some really interesting characters plus awesome, jaw-dropping fight scenes, and you got an award-winning animated movie. (It really did win awards.)

Since I already mentioned the fight scenes, Sword of the Stranger definitely satiated my hunger for good fight scenes - especially after watching that awful, awful movie last night. It was fast-paced and bloody and different types of weapons were put into use too, not just swords. Rarou (the main antagonist) uses kung-fu to aid his swordfighting - a good display of versatility as a warrior, IMO. Also, I liked the way blood splashed on the screen at crucial times, making me feel as if the fights were being captured through my eyes - except that they were in 2D.

My favorite character of all would most definitely be Tobimaru - Kotarou's dog. He is superbly amazing and is a very crucial part in Sword of the Stranger. If you've watched it, I'm pretty sure you'll know what I mean when I say that I wish I had a dog like Tobimaru ^^;

Overall, Sword of the Stranger is a really, really, really good watch. I don't think anyone would regret watching it. The movie ended really well, so there aren't any loose endings that would make you go 0.o I so wish they'd come out with a Nanashi and Tobimaru figure soon!!

March 1, 2009

Chun-Li = FAIL

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-LiStreet Fighter: The Legend of Chin-Li has got to be one of the worst movies I've ever seen. It was a total waste of money!!

Well okay, so The Legend of Chun-Li had one saving grace: the lul'z. Srsly. This movie made me laugh so many times - even during the fight scenes.

I'm getting ahead of myself again.

So Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li is...well the title basically sums the whole movie up. The plot centers around Chun-Li, from her childhood up to the time where the Street Fighter Tournament has been introduced to her. There's more story than action here as the producers tried to elaborate Chun-Li's past.

Which is where things started to go wrong. From what I remember, Chun-Li's father was a police agent, not a business man - which was his profession in the movie. I never also thought that Chun-Li was half-Caucasian. I always thought she was pure Chinese =/

Anyway, I wouldn't really want to give the story away for those who are still interested in watching Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li so I'll just focus my rants on other areas of the movie besides the plot:
  1. The story involves characters of different nationality, hence, different languages. What's the rant here? NO SUBTITLES. Even on the crucial scenes where details of Chun-Li's destiny were explained. Now I dunno if this was just something that occured in the cinema where we watched the movie, but still, the subtitles should've been included in the rendering of the movie - and not something applied like when you watch anime series right?
  2. The only character that came close to realizing how they really looked in the game was... no one. Bison looked like some uptight gentleman; Balrog looked like a goon; Vega was plain ugly; and Chun-Li? Heh.
  3. The fight scenes were bordering funny and crappy. I think I can explain it better this way: The fight scenes were so crappy, it just made me and Shad (my boyfriend) facepalm and laugh. Would you even call those "fight scenes"? They definitely wouldn't be considered as such in my book.
  4. The same goes for the special effects. Very cheap, very crappy. I can't put it more nicely.
  5. Kristin Kreuk as Chun-Li? She's skinny and her Chinese is a failure and... Man, Ming-Na (of the 1994 Street Fighter: The Movie with Jean-Claude Van Damme) was a good Chun-Li, IMO. Heck, Ming-Na looked like the 2D Chun-Li. (And yes, I loved that Street Fighter movie regardless of what the whole world says about it.)
  6. Okay, SPOILERS here: Gen (Chun-Li's mentor, member of the Web) was practically killed twice but he just kept popping up at the most anti-climactic times! He just appeared whenever Chun-Li needed help and it was funny and annoying too because I was already conditioned to the idea that he died just when he already taught Chun-Li what she needed to know in order to fight Bison. But noooo.. He just had to reincarnate every now and then.
  7. Vega is my favorite male character in the Street Fighter games. AND I HATE THIS MOVIE FOR MAKING HIM LOOK SO BUTT-UGLY! Vega (or Balrog - however you prefer to call him) is a pretty boy!!
  8. Should I continue to rant about the plot? It sux. Big time.
Bottomline is, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li is a total waste of money and time. We could've just watched something else or played arcade or got us a new Sangokushi SD Gundam with the money we spent on the movie, but being the geeks that we are, Shad and I just had to see the movie.

Regrets... *sniff*