Finished watching Macross Do You Remember Love

Finished watching Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Do You Remember Love (1984, Studio Nue, Tatsunoko, 115 min.) on 03/17/2017.

A massive alien spaceship crash lands on Earth and is years later reverse engineered by Earth's UN Spacy who names it SDF-1 Macross. It is then launched into space as part of a ceremony celebrating the project's completion, but the launch attempt is interrupted by an attack from an alien species called the Zentradi and the ship teleports itself to the edge of the Solar System taking an island city along with it. In the midst of the messy launch, Valkyrie pilot Hikaru Ichijo rescues pop idol Lynn Minmay and in doing so they become trapped in an area of the ship for days. The Macross must now return to Earth all the while dealing with various Zentradi attacks.

8/10 - DYRL? is supposedly an alternate retelling of the original Macross series with certain events unfolding differently than the TV show. While the movie itself is pretty good, I still prefer the original story. Specially with how Roy Fokker is handled. But the animation quality is great, specially with Lynn Minmay's shows. And it's always nice to hear her songs as well. I'm not trying to say the story isn't interesting just because it's a different retelling, on the contrary, that's what's interesting about it. Oh, and Kaifun doesn't have much of a presence in this movie. So far as him being replaced as the actor for Shao Pai Long. Ichijo plays the part instead which I thought was great. I can't stand Kaifun...

Finished watching Super Dimension Fortress Macross

Finished watching Super Dimension Fortress Macross (1982, Studio Nue, Tatsunoko, 36 epi.) on 03/14/2017.

A massive alien space ship crash lands on an island on Earth. It is then claimed by a military organization called U.N. Spacy who attempts to rebuild the ship and reverse engineer its technology. Over the years a city begins to grow around the ship. The ship is named SDF-1 Macross and in 2009 an attempt to launch it into space is made. Suddenly an alien race of humanoid giants called the Zentradi attack and the Macross automatically fires its main cannon in response, destroying the alien fleet. Still pressured to launch the ship, the Macross crew attempts the use of the Fold System to teleport themselves out of the Moon's orbit, but in doing so the radial area of the Fold's effect takes the island and its civilians along with them to the edge of the solar system, including a young pilot named Hikaru Ichijo and his new friend, Lynn Minmay who dreams of one day being a music idol. With the Fold system now damaged, the Macross crew salvage the civilians and everything they can from the island city as they try to make their way back to Earth.

8/10 - Yes, not RoboTech. Macross! And yes, wasn't that a long synopsis? Eesh! Oh, but this show is amazing! I mean the art quality is okay, with only a few episodes really going down the toilet. It's like a different studio worked on them or something. But they did have different studios working on this so... I don't know. But the story and the characters are great! Even the characters I hated I feel like I did because they were intended as such. Gaddang that Kaifun, Shao Pai Long faced, good fer nuthin', piece of!!! Sorry... Hahahah! But it's awesome! The show is really well written! It gave me quite a wide range of emotions. You'll enjoy watching the robotic animations too. Just keep in mind it's an early 80's show, though. And naturally the music is pretty good too! The plot is very dependent on Lynn Minmay's musical career so there's quite a couple of songs in the show by her, and I like most of them. The opening and ending are pretty good too. Can't wait for my next karaoke venture.

Finished playing Final Fantasy VII

Finished playing Final Fantasy VII (1997, SquareSoft, PlayStation) for the third time on 03/11/2017.
Hours: 85

The Lifestream. Life energy in its purest form flowing from the planet's core, giving life to all kinds of lifeforms on Gaia and even crystalizing itself into colored orbs that allow the knowledge within them to be used as magical powers. Shinra Inc. A company whose technology syphons the Lifestream, turning it into Mako Energy to fuel human civilization across the globe. And Jenova, a mysterious being of extraterrestrial origins captured and experimented on by Shinra to strengthen its military force. Caught in the middle of this trio of elements is Cloud, an ex-Soldier of Shinra who finds himself spiraling deeper down into the messy maelstrom Shinra has stirred in its hunger for power.

This is SquareSoft's most lucrative title we're talking about here and one of my favorite of the series without a doubt. And look at that! Over 80 hours to complete the game with everything unlocked and all items collected! Heck, I could've easily passed the 100-hour mark just trying to finish a couple of last few things that I sort of left half done, hahahah! Ahem, anyways, I'm sure you don't need me to tell you how popular this game is or how amazing the story and characters are. What I will tell you is that I haven't played this game in a while and playing it again has made me realize how some of the scenes in the game would be a bit awkward to see Cloud in when the recently announced Remake finally makes its way to home consoles around the world. Among some of those funny scenes, I hope they at least keep the cross-dressing chapter and the one where Cloud infiltrates Junon city by jumping on a dolphin. I mean, think about it! A brooding, emo Cloud high jumping on a dolphin as the sun beautifully sets in the horizon. Magical! Hahaha! But there's also other things that don't quite fit the Cloud we're so used to seeing in HD. Like jumping in celebration of his first place victory in a Chocobo race, among other things. But anyways, I've read that the Remake will be a bit inconsistent with the FFVII Compilation so I'm hoping that means that they're polishing up some of the writing to be more consistent with the image Tetsuya has of the characters and other details that didn't quite make sense in the original. But getting back to the actual review, I think the only things that bothered me were the map and the battle controls. Sometimes it was kind of annoying trying to figure out which direction the D-Pad would take you on each different screen and as for the battles, trying to target overlapping enemies or characters got frustrating at times depending on the camera angles and even as characters moved around performing their attacks.

9/10 - Ultimately it's really a deep game in all of its aspects and I can't wait to see what the Remake is going to be like.

Finished reading Dragon Ball

Finished reading Dragon Ball (1984-1995) on 1/23/2017.

Story & Art: Akira Toriyama

Chapters: 519

Son Goku is a super-strong young boy with a mysterious tail on his back. When he meets a boisterous young lady named Bulma he learns that the four-starred orange crystal ball his late grandpa left him is one of the seven legendary Dragon Balls that summon the magnificent Shen-Lon dragon who can fulfill almost any wish. The two depart to travel in search of all seven Dragon Balls and on the way they make countless friends and enemies. As Goku grows older the fate of many worlds are in his hands as incredible foes attempt to misuse the power of the Dragon Balls.

9/10 - Yes, I know. But hear me out. Reading Dragon Ball was a very interesting experience. I've never witnessed a manga go through such drastic storytelling phases. As I was reading Dragon Ball I found myself often laughing at Akira's amazing jokes and slapstick. Sometimes it was just how wrong those jokes were. Some things he wrote and drew would obviously not fly today, hahah! And it just kept on coming and coming. It was so much fun! It was like reading the "funnies" but with plot and character development. But then came the Saiyans, things gradually tensed up but Akira's comedy was still there. Then Freeza tensed things up even more, I found Dragon Ball wasn't making me laugh as much as it used to. Not necessarily a bad thing. Just... interesting. The manga was maturing right in front of my eyes, something I had never witnessed before. But it wasn't until Cell came into the picture that things got really serious. The Cell arc wasn't playing around and things got really serious and even gory at times. But I feel like Akira knew that, otherwise he wouldn't have created Hercule. A character that was supposed to liven things up. However, for me, that didn't work very well. I found Hercule to be a nuisance and a distraction. Finally, I feel like Akira found a good balance of funny and mature with the Buu arc. Not only was Buu fearsome he was also very goofy. But that wasn't the only source of comedy in the arc. Young Goten and Trunks were quite the mischievous duo, and when you put them together (literally) against Buu, well, you get the perfect Dragon Ball recipe. And that's my story, folks.

Finished reading Uwakoi

Finished reading Uwakoi (2011) on 1/17/2017.

Story & Art: Masahiro Itosugi

Chapters: 36

Yukiteru-kun is a college student with many lovers, but he is trapped in a love triangle with the two he is closest to, Yuno and Rena. But as Yukiteru tries to juggle between all his affairs without them knowing, will he come out of it unscathed?

7/10 - Wow... Wow... Y'know, I always try to type up my own synopsis for these reviews and I think this may have been the hardest one yet. I honestly don't know how to put this manga into words without spoiling much. For those of you familiar with Future Diary (Mirai Nikki) you'll notice an uncanny resemble between the two. Not only are the plots somewhat similar but the character's names, Yuki(teru) and Yuno and how they behave as well. Honestly, it was very interesting reading this manga and I really couldn't put it down, however the ending was underwhelming and a bit abrupt for me. If you're just reading this for the light-hentai like I was, you got nothing to lose, m8. And the art style is pretty interesting, I guess... Hahahah!