I'm engulfed in everything HNK right now

I was a few weeks ago too. Watched the entire series for the first time (150-something episodes), then went back and flew through every character's Legend Mode in FotNS: Ken's Rage. Fun few weeks, that was. Never thought a "fight" anime would appeal to me as much as HNK did.

Can't believe I haven't posted this yet!
One of the only cases where I absolutely love the use of a non-Japanese song or piece of music for the theme to an anime. It just sets up the vibe of the show so well.
I still haven't seen the show all the way through. I'll definitely be picking up the bluray collection that's coming out soon so that I finally can. Absolutely loved the slow, somber tone of it all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9CXmEUwvgM

I have a thing for 80's anime... and Kimagure Orange Road is one of my favorites.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUzpBqHKmw0

I really like the animation in this one, it reminds me a lot of that one music video by a-ha. Also, the music in Kimagure Orange Road has always been fantastic.

I also have a special place in my heart for this ending from Hajime no Ippo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rapewtS7bcE

If you've never seen it, highly recommended. One of my favorite animes.

To carry on...



Spent so much time doing this.

Also bring back indoor games EA.

This plays for a couple seconds when you first boot up the 2010 game, just before the title screen comes up, and I loved the first few notes so much I had to go searching for the full song.
Such a great little retro-arcade tune. I think I know when it plays in the original game (though I've never played far enough to hear it for myself), and it seems pretty appropriate for its scene. Really like this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr4PTaitszc

I played Apples to Apples for the first time a month ago. It was pretty fun, more so if you're sloppy drunk.

I used to play that game all the time in the arcade. I remember finally getting it for the Master System but I was always a little disappointed with the port -- still loved it though and is one of the few master system games I still own. Plus the music is cool. :)

Would it be too much to learn to read, write, and speak japanese just so I could move there and be a happy gamer again?...

You cannot truly, truly be the AnimeGamer until you are living among your kin, speaking and understanding the language of your people.

Sleeping with a five foot tall pillow is just not enough.

Anna Tsuchiya.
Proof that interracial breeding is pretty freakin' great.

http://oi62.tinypic.com/1vgqc.jpg http://oi57.tinypic.com/iddfmv.jpg

Was randomly looking up stuff on Japanese movies and saw her. Instantly enamored.
Literally never seen her before ; never seen any of her movies, never heard her music. But whatever, I'm a fan anyway. I'm not normally as much a nut for Japanese or otherwise Asian pop stars or models as some are around here, but here's an exception. High on my list now.
Extra points for not playing into the cutesy, peace-sign-throwing, "innocent" bullshit that so many other Japanese or Korean lady-celebs do, nor does she seem to thrive on the slutty factor either.

Just re-bought Project: Overkill for the PS1. Was probably the first game I ever got for myself on the system.
Popped it in my computer just for the hell of it, and found that the soundtrack was actually readable right off the disc. Most of the music is a bit samey, but the occasional rock tracks are actually pretty cool. Really liked this one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9kUS4my4Ks

Maybe a little silly, but this is easily one of my favorite fighting game intros. Admittedly it's all because of nostalgia. There was an Art of Fighting cabinet at a store my parents would take me to a lot in the early-90s, and even if I didn't have the coinage on-hand to actually play it every time, I remember seeing this intro over and over. Somehow that shot of the picture frame cracking is so classic and near-iconic to me personally.
Nothing complex, but it means something to me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9vInRl93vo

It's an incredibly weird paradox. I mean, kids are clearly getting smarter in general, thanks to the internet and all that. But then you see that this is the kind of entertainment they watch... and you can't help but think that we must be raising the single dumbest generation the world has ever seen. I can't figure out which one is the truth.

I was watching a rerun of Boy Meets World and Feeny was just as pissed about this as us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhiiewUgQpc

I also caught 10 minutes of Girl Meets World while flipping through the channels. Wow, you weren't kidding. It really is that bad.

I have problems with Trigun as a whole, but the soundtrack ain't one of them. I remember way back in high school, back when I'd only seen the first five or six episodes of the show and still thought it was the bee's knees (a simpler time), a friend of mine bought a couple of the soundtracks, and we kind of passed it around our little circle of friends so we could all burn a copy. Used to listen to this stuff all the time. I still want to learn how to play the opening theme on guitar someday. Tsuneo Imahori is fantastic (apparently he was a member of The Seatbelts on the Cowboy Bebop soundtrack; didn't know that until just now).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsvBj-oIBdA

Trigun also happens to be the greatest anime of all time full stop, but I won't get into that now.

Ehhhhh...
I personally think the first 5 episodes are amazing. Seriously, they're an almost perfect mix of action, comedy, and style. First episode is honestly one of my favorite individual episodes in all of anime. And sheezus, that soundtrack don't hurt one bit. If the rest of the series were able to match those golden first five, I absolutely agree that it would be among the greatest ever.
But man, the production values drop right off after that; the animated gets lazier, the character designs get worse, the stories get sillier while at the same time becoming more and more serious, while the attempts at humor become more and more out-of-place and really badly -timed. Eventually it feels like the show doesn't even know what it wants to be; it ended up feeling almost vaccuous as it kept trying to find new footing, hopping between extreme seriousness and goofy cartoonishness. I had only seen the first DVD (those first five episodes) for about a year before I got to see the rest, so I spent so much time thinking the rest of the series was going to be just as amazing. But man , it almost hurt seeing how poor it became after that.
Just like Eva, I really want so badly to like the whole show, but there's just so much keeping me from it. But y'know, subjectivity and all that.
At least the music stays excellent.

Opposite end of the spectrum, Outlaw Star is one I loved the whole way through. Strangely, as far as I remember reading, it wasn't exactly all that popular in Japan, nor was it all that big of a production from a budget standpoint. Over there, despite the comic being popular, the anime was apparently just another middle-of-the-road show taking up a time slot on tv (a late-night time slot at that; something like 1AM).
That's the kind of stuff I had always heard about its reception and production in Japan. And knowing things like that, it makes it feel really impressive to me that the soundtrack managed to have such a big , polished sound to it so often. Far as I can tell, this particular track is all legitimately orchestrated; I don't hear any trace of synth in there. Some of the stuff on the OST is genuinely big-budget film quality, and that's always struck me as really impressive for a supposedly middling production.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr7k1kIHxxo

I think I need to watch the show again. It's been years. Used to be a real "feel good" kind of show for me.

Holy jesus mary and joseph.

^^Funny, I actually stumbled across that earlier this morning. I've never seen the anime itself, but a friend showed me that opening a couple years ago. Amazing how something so cheerful-sounding and colorful can still come off so disconcerting. Great opening.

EDIT: This one hits a really odd spot of nostalgia. It's one of those that, even the first time I heard it, already felt nostalgic in my mind. It's just such an amazing melody.
And I absolutely love the movie it's from, possibly even more than the original series. The use of this song near the very end of it, the way it cuts out when it does, then slowly pans upward as the credits roll... It's another one of those that can actually manage to make my eyes well up a bit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztHQXIIRnss

Such amazing final boss music.

oh sorry, my bad then. yeah I agree that the 100k and following she got could be used for much more important issues for feminism rather than women being sexually depicted in video games. Between female circumcision, acid attacks, forced marriages (including for children), inability to access proper education due to gender segregation or even pay inequality the resources of this whole thing really could have been used for better causes. To be honest I find people like Anita who create issues over the tiniest things in the name of feminism really detrimental to the movement.

Funny you should mention that, since I was just looking at his work on Front Mission 2 the other day since so many great artists worked on that series, his work probably stood out as my favourite even against the likes of Amano (FM1 and Gun Hazard) and Yusuke Naora (FM4 and FM5), both of whom I am a fan of too. Speaking of Jun Suemi, who I've liked for a while now, I tended to get his work mixed up with Shinobu Tanno who worked on games like Culdcept, Vandal Hearts 2 and Bladestorm: Hundred Years War. He's definitely one of the most...underutilised artists in Japan, I feel. His day job now seems to be as an artist for the covers for the Guin Saga novels.

When said artist can roll out artwork like this:

http://i.imgur.com/jdnLlV1.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/k3PBWXa.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/mdnCh4y.jpg

More here:
http://i.imgur.com/drOkPjQ.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/F3w7ki2.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/I5S9jap.jpg

...Why isn't Shinobu getting more work?

Art gallery here (I was constantly wide eyed by this guy's work):
https://www.flickr.com/photos/janus-amator/sets/72157643377604825/

Guess guys like these (like yourself and Thief both posted) don't draw "kawaiiiii desu uguu uguu" [under age girls] enough for most Japanese game companies nowadays. :roll:
Good art sure is a hard sell now in that country, dunno what the fuck happened over there.

EDIT: Thief - Yoneda also seemed to be the illustrator/artist for Silent Bomber (PSX) and Elemental Gearbot (PSX) too.
Also just found his artbooks on Amazon.co.jp
http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E6%9C%AC-%E7%B1%B3%E7%94%B0%E4%BB%81%E5%A3%AB-KADOKAWA-%E5%AF%8C%E5%A3%AB%E8%A6%8B%E6%9B%B8%E6%88%BF/s?ie=UTF8&page=1&rh=n%3A10805931%2Cp_lbr_three_browse-bin%3A%E7%B1%B3%E7%94%B0%E4%BB%81%E5%A3%AB

It's absolutely beautiful art.

^^My experience with Double Dragon has always been a little limited; always liked them, but never owned any. But yeah, I always thought that boxart was fantastic. It's just so... exemplary of what I think of when early beat-em-ups come to mind.

I've recently become very fond of the art of Jun Suemi. I'd seen his art on various boxes over the years, but never realized they were all the work of the same guy. The guy seems completely at home whether he's working on gothic fantasy or hard sci-fi subject matter.

http://oi59.tinypic.com/f6f0h.jpg http://oi58.tinypic.com/15cy6if.jpg
More in the spoiler:
http://oi62.tinypic.com/aajj0w.jpg
http://oi62.tinypic.com/or4g2a.jpg

He also did the character art for Front Mission 2, and a large number of other works outside of videogames.
Truly a great fantasy artist.

I'll always identify Psygnosis with the Amiga. The games looked and sounded best by far on that platform.

Lemmings and Shadow of the Beast were fantastic, but don't forget about Barbarian! A classic.

And their box art goes down as among the best in the biz:

http://i.imgur.com/j5xVT.png
http://i.imgur.com/Qc4A4.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/3cFFe.png
http://i.imgur.com/CW2JQ.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/9TtFt.jpg

Just finished Daredevil.
Pretty great overall. The best thing about it is how they actually manage to sidestep any semblance of cheesiness for the grand majority of it. Seriously, it's a breath of fresh air seeing something officially part of the Marvel cinematic universe that isn't all about wisecracks and airship showdowns (though that stuff is still cool; Winter Soldier was the bee's knees). It's surprisingly tough and mean and violent, and I'm goddamn serious when I say that it's just as good (for the most part) as I'd always imagined a realistically-handled Daredevil film could be, way back when I first read the Man Without Fear miniseries (recommended read, by the by).
Vincent D'Onofrio was absolutely the greatest choice possible for playing the Kingpin. Just has to be mentioned.

Of course, with all the stuff the series does so, so right, it just makes the stuff it doesn't do right hurt even more.
It sidesteps cheesiness for the majority of the series, but it totally, utterly stumbles in that department in a few cases, such as when Nobu dons a bright red fucking ninja costume that looks like he got it down at the Party Barn last Halloween. Good God that was embarrassingly cheesy. And it stood out like a sore thumb, what with everything before it being so grounded and cool.
Likewise, despite really enjoying the episode with Stick, the ending segment with the muscley movie-trailer-voice-guy felt like a bad omen of more cheesiness planned for future seasons.
Not quite as offensive, but the last episode drops into cheesiness a bit too much as well for my tastes. Every shot of Matt "listening to the city" to find out where to go makes him look like a bird, tilting his head all wide-eyed and whatnot. Just looked silly. Like a pigeon. And when he finally dons the red costume at the end, I thought it looked frickin' awesome... until I got a better look at the mask, which looks really dumb. I'd grown really fond of the black mask, being like a damn blindfold and all... it was just plain badass in that regard. I think they should have run with the blindfold idea for his "official" costume, just make it red and add horns. Would have been much better than the silly molded helmet they ended up with. Plus, the last fight had far too much in the way of tilty camera angles; made it look no less silly than the Affleck DD movie.

And I really have to say this: I hate Karen. Hate, hate, hate her.
Fuuuuck , I hate her. So much.
Honestly, they could have kept the writing the same, kept the character the same, I wouldn't have minded all that... they just should have cast someone else. The actress playing her is terrible . Just about one of the most irritating people I've had to put up with in a show in a long damn while, with her constantly-quivering voice like she's always on the verge of tears, the shit-eating grins she gets on her face when she thinks she's being clever (hint: she's never being clever, because she's an idiot ), that goddamn whispy ginger mustache she has which shows up under the wrong lighting... and all those fucking moles and shit all over her face.
She's ugly and unappealing and annoying and I hate her.
Seriously, couldn't they have found a better, more appealing actress for one of the most prominent fucking roles in the entire series? It just boggles the mind how horrible the casting calls must have been for them to have eventually settled on her for the role. Got to the point I almost felt like fast-forwarding every time she came on screen.
And worst thing of all?
It just has to be her that kills Wesley, one of the most interesting characters in the whole show. That just made me hate her even more.

But all those things aside -- and yes, they are mostly small things when you consider this is like a 13-hour movie I'm talking about -- it was still a really good series. It's stronger near the beginning than it is near the end, but it is a really interesting step for Marvel's cinematic universe. As surprisingly violent as it is, it also strikes me that Netflix would be a great venue for Marvel's more violent properties from here on out. Henry mentioned it before, but a Punisher series in this vein could be absolutely amazing.
Here's hoping.

I think it's hilarious no one was enthusiastic about this year's E3, not wanting to join Riku in the live chat.

Now EVERYONE is ecstatic and talking about it. Well, the Sony press conference of course.

Peter wrote: Bethesda are walking E3 so far. Unless Sony hit a home run

HAAAAA

shenmuedojo.net

"Most users ever online was 1810 on Mon Jun 15, 2015 9:24 pm"

Corey Marshall has recently just found out he has just landed his only job in 14 years.

BRACE YOSELF LAN DI IM COMIN FOR YOUR ASS

this is it, my friends

we've reached the mountaintop~

SaM_4000 wrote: I am from Australia.

I only know of one other Aussie Shenmuedojo-er, where the bloody hell are you Oppy?

He's going through stuff at the moment. Once it's all settled, he might pop in.

I remember waiting ages to load the QuickTime trailer on my crappy ISDN connection. Watched Xiuying wave her arms about 50 times while waiting for the rest of the trailer to load.

I remember that I would not turn off the pc for almost a week to see that trailer. It was an ordeal because every phonecall could kill the load.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0Izd2f6k2I

It's giving me the chills

FOR FUCKS SAKE, SHENMUE III IS COMING !!!!

I personally really like a good bit of Jamiroquai, and the sudden appearance of this song near the end of a movie whose soundtrack is otherwise all intentionally-poor 80s-ish keyboard stuff... yeah, it works. :lol:
The fact that it was eventually co-opted by hipster Hot Topic losers makes it easy to forget, but Napoleon Dynamite was pretty fucking great before all the idiot hooplah started.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELBy5stH3b8&t=1m50s

Funny, I was listening to some Jamiroquai for the first time in forever recently, and one song has this series of notes that kept sounding so familiar to me. I knew I'd heard it (or something similar) elsewhere, but it's one of those things where it's been eating at me trying to figure it out for the past week.
Finally figured it out.
Here's the Jamiroquai song (there are a few variations first, but the first real instance of the notes show up about :48 seconds):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtCC7NwA-bM

And turns out this was the tune I was thinking of:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aF5rUcOXUGA

Not saying ZOE ripped anything off at all (absolutely love that track, and it's just a few notes/a certain manner of playing them anyway), I just find it funny that anything resembling a Jamiroquai song can actually be found on the ZOE soundtrack. :lol:

I love this song. So relaxing.

Click bait.