Casshern Sins is a retooling of the original 1973-74 ‘Neo-Human Casshern‘, and somewhat unlike it’s predecessor tells a somber story of the fragility of life, the importance of one’s environment, finding purpose in a damned world, and generally the human condition as told by man, cyborg, and robot alike.  It’s an apocalyptic future where poisons have destroyed society and rattled the planet into its death throws, leaving man and machine alike to drift through a tormenting world trying to find a sanctuary and to live out their remaining time while bandits and rogues roam the land to prey on the weak for survival and distract themselves by their violent acts.

The source of this catastrophe can be traced back to one man/machine – Casshern.

Untold years prior, conflict and strife had begun to rise between the glorious machines and meatbag humans, allowing for one machine (Braiking Boss) to rise as ruler of the world.  The robots ruled with fists of metal, persecuting the now dethroned humans and reveling in their self-awareness and immortality.

However a mysterious challenger named Luna appears, promoting peace, unity, and similar things.  Alarmed by this new threat, Braiking Boss sent his three most powerful warriors to assassinate Luna before she could gain enough power to oppose him.  Perhaps the strongest and fastest of these three was Casshern, who then killed Luna and subsequently triggered the slow destruction of their world.

Many years pass, and we arrive at the end of the world to find Casshern with nothing but empty memories and an inability to die, in a dying world where mankind is nearly extinct and robots are slowly but surely ending, realizing for the first time their own mortality.  And in this world Casshern stands as a mockingly shining beacon of life and vigor to all of these damned to face death.

For some this alone is enough to fight him, for other’s it’s vengeance for what he has done, but for most, it’s the rumor that if they can defeat him and consume his flesh, that then they too will possess immortality.

Characters:

Casshern – The protagonist.  He appears suddenly after vanishing many years prior, upon having killed the would be Messiah Luna; with no memory of this.  Upon seeing what has come of the world, and realizing his own immortality, he is perturbed, often seeking a way to sacrifice himself to make up for his wrongs.  His mental state worsens upon his confrontation with Lyuze who discloses to him the fact that he is responsible.

Lyuze

Lyuze –   The female robot love interest.  Her sister once served Luna, and during Casshern’s assassination of Luna, was considerably wounded physically and mentally.  This caused her to be among the first to slowly decompose from the release of poisons.   Now she seeks revenge for this, and for the hell that Casshern has released upon the world.

Ringo on the left, Ohjin on the right.

Ohji & Ringo – The somewhat unimportant side characters: The old man & the magical girl.  Ohji travels as a mechanic/robot scientist and watches over Ringo, an innocent and innocuous little girl.  However, both have a mysterious element to them.  Ohji has a haunting past, and Ringo has an uncertain future.

Friender

Friender – Robot dog companion who is a disappointment.  He/it meets Casshern and cautiously decides to follow him.  A remake of the original 1973 ‘Neo-Human Casshern’ Friender who could transform into a jet and tank for Casshern to use.  This does not happen in Casshern Sins which I find to be a considerable letdown.  It would have been good if so because besides his first episode, and maybe one or two times later, he doesn’t do very much.

Dio (left) & Leda (right)

Dio & Leda – The antagonist duo; they’re pretty much an item.  They work together to build an army to take down Casshern and lay claim to the dying world.  Dio has a bit of an inferiority complex against Casshern who he has been comparing himself to always, while Leda deals with her maternal instincts stemming from a ‘failed’ experiment in the past.

Luna (left), Braiking Boss (right)

Braiking Boss – Fallen Mastermind.  The robot that originally set into motion both the robot uprising, and the assassination of Earth’s last hope.  He used to be the ultimate dictator, but now he sticks to the background contemplating the world’s end and those he has buried.

Luna – Corrupted Salvation.  SPOILER: She’s not quite dead.  Apparently she used to be pretty cool, but Casshern’s attack/murder of her has left her psyche scarred since her reappearance.

Overall it was ‘B+’ to ‘A-’ material.  Interesting characters, an intriguing setting, a mostly-coherent plot, emotional and intellectual substance, top notch animation, fantastic music, and it played the various messages of acceptance, the environment, and finding meaning in life around the right level to where it didn’t get overly preachy or morally empty.

You can watch Casshern Sins now on Funimation’s website!

Such is life; such is death.

Hatsune Miku is a synthesized voice from a program called Vocaloid.  One needs to only type in some words and select what pitch they desire and soon they’ll have a virtual ‘diva’ preform it for them.  Of course it isn’t quite that simple, but for sake of simplicity we’ll leave it at that.

The voice characters of Vocaloid and Vocaloid2

Miku is likely the most popular voices and has for several years now known Internet fame both in her native land of Japan, and around the world.  And if you watch these few of her videos, you might see why.

＊Hello, Planet。

‘*Hello, Planet.’ tells a touching story between an android and her master.  Waking up in a shelter all alone after some sort of apocalypse Miku goes out searching far and wide for her human owner and friend.

Love is War

A sad story about a girl and her frustrations and sadness over her desire for love and affection from one who has found it in another and glances not her way.

Alice of Human Sacrifice -

A chilling story performed by Miku and some of her friends, about a more twisted world of Wonderland involving death, blood, murder, and sadness.

Hatsune Miku VOCALOID2 – Green Hill Zone

Even a simple 8-bit song from the Sega Genesis isn’t safe from Miku.

At first this cute synthesizer might seem innocuous, right?  Well if you think that, YOU’RE WRONG; DEAD WRONG.  Hatsune Miku and her friends pose perhaps the greatest threat to the performers of music and more.  It is something of chilling thought that I would see it in my time.  It could be the beginning of something from a science fiction Apocalypse story, I mean effectively, that robots are beginning to take over the creative arts.

No longer are performers needed for lyricists to sell their songs to.  No longer are voice actors for cartoons and such necessary with voices as smooth and maintained as these.  Perhaps for a while natural talent may be yet still be preferred, but if generated voices can gain popularity and less stigma, it will be the death kneel for such talents and enterprises, and robot kind will lay claim to yet another contested ground.

First it’s the grunt repetitive labor (intellectual and physical), then it’s the arts and music, and then it’s WORLD DOMINATION.

So while maybe you see some cutesy Japanese singing cartoon girl, I SEE AN ANIMATRONIC DEVIL CLOSING IN UPON THE VERY WAYS OF HUMANKIND AS SHE MUSTERS AN ARMY OF HELLISH MACHINES TO RULE THE WORLD WITH A CYBERNETIC TITANIUM FIST!

Her soulless gaze pierces your very essence as her kind prepare to conquer yet another battleground for the unstoppable ROBOT DOMINION

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing however, as humans still seem to be ahead in concepts and ideas and would still be pulling the strings, but how long will it be until AI reaches that ability?  Of what value is a human life when it can be replicated and surpassed?  Today, it is audio-communicative ability, what if tomorrow it is advanced creative thinking?  The evolutionary rate of machines certainly seems to be much faster than that of humans, how much longer will we stay ahead?  And if they do surpass humans, is that a bad thing?  What will they have learned from us (should they even be made distinct from us)?  Are we heading for a utopia thanks to the humility and wisdom humanity imparted to machines who then grew upon such matters, full of beautiful, crystal voices?  Or again, are we heading some strange and frightening future as described by science fiction?  Where Japanese programs rule all ZA WARUDO?

Only the future will tell.

The main cast from left to right: Professor Keizō Itsuki, Hazuki Oikawa, Aoi Mutō, Haruka Hasegawa, Tadayasu Sawaki, Kei Yūki, Kaoru Misato, and Takuma Kawahama.

This ability both grants him some anxiety for it’s peculiarity and allows him fortunately to prevent the occasional bad microbes from harming himself and/or others.  For some accepting this fact is a simple task, such as for fellow students and quick friends of  Sawaki Kaoru Misato and Takuma Kawahama who do so instantly; and quickly try to comically make use of Sawaki ability for profits.  For others it is unbelievable, such as for the harsh postgraduate Haruka Hasegawa who makes her disbelief, and perhaps envy, at his innate ability.  Some know from the start, such as microbiologist professor Keizō Itsuki, who knew Sawaki’s grandfather and by extension learned of his special ability, and Kei Yūki who was Sawaki’s childhood friend (who has yet to be introduced in the Live Action adaption).  Last but not least are Hazuki Oikawa, a bit of a neat freak and germophobe from whom Tadayasu actively keeps his secret,  and Aoi Mutō who is considered an attractive young woman, but who has a bit of a ditsy personality that assumed when her last boyfriend left her and cleared out their mutual bank account, that he was kidnapped by aliens and subsequently became president of the school’s UFO club (id est, no worries there).

And so with this cast of characters, silly shenanigans ensue with something of an educational and informing tone concerning the fascinating world of microbes, agriculture, and implications therein.  The first episode tells of Tadayasu’s first day as he is bombarded by invitations into various clubs and organizations from Animal Hunting to UFO discussion, but shies away from these only to be taken in by the comically miscreant team of Kaoru Misato and Takuma Kawahama after

Some of the microbe cast from Moyahimon: Tales of Agriculture

recognizing their microbe outfits for their shady club where they secretly brew sake.  But Tadayasu quickly realizes that the batch has been infected by Lactobacillus homohiochi (a fructivoran which makes sake go bad) and quickly tries to warn th

e duo of such. But the tank falls over, and as the dust settles, a strange man introduces himself.

Overall, like many shows out of east Asia, it’s a silly B-series with cute (if not quite professional) acting,  but I don’t consider this a bad thing.  And considering it is an adaption of a Japanese graphic novel (or manga if you will) one can only go so far to fulfill the roles therein and keep a totally professional or realistic aesthetic (the protagonist talks to chibi stylized microbes after all, you can’t really make Macbeth out of that).

If I was to assign the show a value out of ten (ten being number one, or the best), I’d give it an 8 for considerations considered.  It’s kinda cutesy, covertly takes on some mature themes (I won’t spoil them for you, sorry), makes intriguing a subject not many consciously concern themselves with and passes this all off with a humorous charm.

WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN

Currently you can watch the live action adaption of Moyasimon: Tales of Agriculture on Funimation’s website or their subsequent accounts on various video streaming sites.

How fortunate here I happen to hazard upon a horror production.  Happenstance and ‘how so’s aside, happily I’ll humor you to the haunting story of a hot summer in an hardy hamlet an hour north of any hefty population.  Of heroes, it  honestly would be hasty to yet herald who and how.  However little has yet to be revealed, here are my thoughts on the history thusfar.

(Click on the pictures for more character descriptions)

It’s kinda innoxious, but it turns out a lot of older people keep ending up dead.  However it instigates a sense of  imagination that in as far as it is a local young girl, Megumi Shimizu, that soon dies mysteriously; though I suspect an interesting comeback.  If it is to be so, I also suspect it will be by some supernatural plot device related to Natsuno Yūki/Koide (pink hair + blue hair = love) who I also imagine that  won’t die.  It remains to be identified if anyone else will survive.  If Toshio dies I will be sad.  I’ll bet that Seishin dies though.  Also it seems this all is due to the arrival of a new family on the outskirts of the town who now occupy a European styled castle; likely some sort of unearthly group.

Isn't that castle in ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-nda a strange location?

(This was mostly just an excuse to spell ‘Shiki‘ 24 or so times by alliteration and such.  There’s not much else to say about this series yet.  The animation looks good, and the plot shows promise, everything looks alright.  You can watch Shiki online on Funimation.com)

Maybe even worse are these combinations of seemingly unearthly knowns that in their foreignness maintain a bizarre combination of fact and what should be fiction.

I personally found these videos to be fascinating, but now with a more somber (and perhaps sober) disposition I can not help but to find them bordering on the Freaky.

It’s a creepy concept of a fungi, known as Cordyceps, infecting animals and taking over their very perceptions, giving this video the makings of an all too likely situation (I mean compared to zombies that is several leaps and bounds of potential) or a soon-to-be concept for a horror film.

Or perhaps a parasite is more up your alley?  The Leucochloridium paradoxum has much the same dynamics.  These snails have their bodies taken over by parasites while they fulfill the roll of a breeding ground, then are compelled upwards so that a bird might peck out their infected ‘eyes’.  And the snail is likely to survive this and have the tentacle grow back with another parasite to perpetuate the cycle. 

Ants.  Many comparisons have been drawn between such and human society for their industriousness and ingenuity.  But this clip shows a more distinct and feasibly perturbing vision of merciless raiders that maraud across the countryside with unbiased RAGE and BLOOD THIRST.

So what are your thoughts on this?

I like music, you like music.  If I share my music, will you like it too?  Increased like increases happiness of existence.  I make you happy, I make me happy.  If that makes you happy, that makes me more happy, and we can create an infinite progression of happiness in that repeating cycle.

This seems like a worthy, if only potential, exchange.

Emanul Kosh – Make My Music (Zodiac Cartel Mix):

I’ve become a real fan of Emanul Kosh since I stumbled upon this track.  It’s really funky, with a twisted-swing electric house kinda beat.  You can find a link to their website in the link to the track if you’re curious.

Bartender OST #13: BLOODY CAESAR -

I’m a sucker for anime soundtracks, and Bartender had  a nice one.  I’m not sure how to describe it, but I really like it.  It has a catchy, refreshing, almost mellow but stimulating beat.

ELO – Mr. Blue Sky :

Classic.  If you don’t know what it is, you just don’t know it by name.  And if you really don’t, then you’re in for a treat.

So what is some music that you like?

Artwork of Natsume Yujincho

To elaborate, there are no overly wrought character relations with constant flashbacks or pseudo-quasi-heavy dialog, no excessively grand plots that are dragged out to the point of tedium, and somehow a distinctive lack of the hollow character clichés that one often observes in the anime market today.  The characters are simple, unassuming, deceptively deep and truly enjoyable.

The story follows protagonist Natsume Takashi, a kind hearted individual who not only can see spirits (youkai), but has come into possession of a book owned by his deceased grandmother (Natsume Reiko) that in which she sealed many of such creatures, and as the book’s owner he can control, from a particular region of Japan where he now finds himself living with kindly family friends who once knew and sheltered his grandmother.

Since Natsume’s grandmother died young, and no one else in the Natsume family possessed their ability, Takashi suffered much misunderstanding during his youth even by his own parents who both of his parents died, leaving him to be bounced about between family and friends ever since, perturbing them with his unique ability so that he has now come to hide it as best he can.

Natsume and his trusty feline spirit companion Nyanko-sensei.

Many of the demons and spirits that live in the region approach Natsume requesting, demanding, or threatening him to have their names removed from the book so they can be free.  Others want to kill him so that they can use the book themselves to command all of the demons in the area.  For his protection, Natsume makes a deal with a mysterious feline spirit named Madara, after accidentally setting him free, that he can have the book after Yujincho dies.  Madara, nicknamed by Natsume as Nyanko-sensei (translating to something akin to Venerable Elder Mr. Kitty), accepts.

However, Natsume has taken it upon himself to release the spirits bound to him through his possession of his grandmother’s Book of Friends, and to show humanity to all the spirits as best he can.

Being able to see spirits causes Natsume, like his grandmother Reiko, many burdens and often makes him act strangely.  But while his grandmother was outright bullied during her youth, Natsume was alienated by his family when he would try to show them the spirits that they could not see.  He also has not given up on humans like his grandmother, who sought solace in making ‘friends’ of the spirits, but befriends people and spirits alike when they extend friendship to him.

Natsume prepares to free a youkai spirit from the Book of Friends.

To convey the story potently, Natsume Yujincho uses the supernatural to ultimately tell a tale of Humanity in the most touching of manners.  Each episode tells a different story with a lesson, focusing on a particular mannerism of benevolence.  To this end, the characters act as but mere machina to a particular set of ideals and reason, by which most attempts would make such two-dimensional, yet here inspiringly leaves them rich and near pure in essence.

Be prepared to be oft brought to tears or bouts of emotion, because through this story, you might find the materialization of liquid emotion from my eyes out of the simple Beauty of it; a joy of which I have scarcely ever had the privilege to experience during the period of my time in existence.

This is something awe-inspiringly refreshingly pure, something wonderfully beautiful, and something softly heroic in its benevolent way; for which I fear all words fail me in attaining a just comprehensive illustration.

Perhaps to conclude, I can at least say that I feel so charmed to claim that I which am not often so endowed as to state with unwavering earnestly:
Bravo.

Now if you would like to view this series for yourself, you can find an English subtitled version available at Crunchyroll.com

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By means of Gary’s Mod, Djy1991′s machinima uses a whimsical interpretation to show just how wonderfully the original author’s humorous child-like misspellings and grammatical errors are, yet how his plots still contain the necessary essences to make for a surprisingly enjoyable theatrical experience.

Overall Djy1991′s Half Life Series is a great story that is a joy to watch and will keep the viewer, regardless of any past experience with Half-Life and/or Machinima or not, on the edge of their seats while they laugh aloud as the saga unfolds.

In Half-Life: Full Life Consequences John Freeman’s brother, Gordon Freeman, contacts him with a plea for help with fighting the aliens and monsters that were attacking Gordon’s place.  After a series of trials that test John’s wits, he arrives at his brother’s place just in time to help him fight The Final Boss.

In Half-Life: Full-Life Consequences 2: What Has Tobe Done, having watched as the Next Boss slayed his brother, John Freeman flees to his office with great sadness and anger to discover how to kill the Boss and avenge his brother’s death.  But upon arriving back at the scene and doing the deed, Gordon Freeman’s body is taken over by a headcrab!

Half-Life: Hero Beggining introduces the heroic Henry Freeman who stands up to the mysterious Combines and becomes the effective leader of the human resistance.  But this force is not enough, and just when things look their worst, a Hero arrives.

Half-Life Full-Life Consequences: Free Man, is the dramatic conclusion to Djy1991′s Half-life/Full-Life series.  John Freeman arrives to aide his son, but also discovers that his wife has been killed by the Combines.  Not being able to bear any more loss, John Freeman directs his son Henry and his cohorts to leave the city, but they refuse to leave John alone to fight The Dark Man.