Month: April 2017

Categories
Debaser

Sunday Morning Cartoon Cavalcade Vol. 5

I’ve realized that when it comes to my Sunday morning cartoon sessions, I much prefer to keep it to traditional 2D animation (or if it is CG, that it’s made to look like traditional animation). That’s why I stopped watching Star Wars Rebels on Sunday mornings (although I finished up season 3 a few days ago, really enjoying the last 3 episodes, especially the Obi Wan Kenobi one) and Trollhunters (which, to be honest, is also because I just don’t find myself particularly compelled to keep watching it). Yesterday’s session started as usual with the latest episode of Samurai Jack, which again featured some gorgeous visuals (see the image used for this post) — and it feels like we’re starting to head towards the end of the series (sadly). I then watched an episode of Tangled, which is still fun, followed by another couple of Mickey Mouse shorts — one of them was surprisingly long, at around 7-8 minutes (they tend to be 2-3 minutes long). I then decided to hop on another nostalgic trip, by starting to watch classic Looney Tunes shorts. I started off with the classic “Hare Tonic” — incredible to think it was released in 1945, as it still feels so dynamic.

Categories
Anime Debaser

Atom: The Beginning

I watched the first episode of the new Atom: The Beginning series, which acts as a prequel to Atom (or Astroboy). Can’t say that this first episode super hooked me, although it is neat to see young Ochanomizu and Tenma interacting as young researchers. I’m open to giving it another episode or two though, to see where they go with it.

Categories
Debaser

The Get Down (Part 2)

I absolutely loved this series, and couldn’t wait for the second part of its first season to come out. Well, it’s out, it’s short (only 5 episodes), and now that I’m on the 3rd episode I can’t help but feel slightly disappointed. I’m still enjoying the performances immensely, but the story is falling flat for me. I kinda wish each episode was just wall-to-wall performances by the The Get Down Brothers.

Categories
Debaser

The Color of Money

The funny thing about revisiting this movie is that I had completely forgotten that it was directed by Martin Scorsese. It’s still a pretty entertaining film to watch, although Tom Cruise’s character can get on your nerves — feels like he could have found a better balance between innocence and cockiness. That said, the scene with Cruise showboating to “Werewolves of London” is still pretty fun and iconic.

Categories
Magazines

On Magazines

I was reading the latest issue of Wired this morning, and with the mention that the title is starting to gear up for its 25th anniversary (in 2018), and with Monocle just last month celebrating its 10th anniversary, it made me realize how loyal I tend to be to magazines I really like.

Not only are these magazines part of my very small pile of regular reads — along with Entertainment Weekly, which celebrated its 25th anniversary a couple of years ago — the other thing that these three titles share is that I’ve been reading all of them since the very first issue. For all of them, there have been very short periods where I may have fallen off for a few issues — mostly because of big changes in my life, like moving to Asia (China, and then Japan) — but it’s still interesting to see how loyal I’ve stayed to these titles.

I say that these are the only three titles I regularly read, and that’s not to say I don’t read any other magazines — I love a lot of indie titles, I still listen religiously to Monocle‘s The Stack podcast about magazine publishing, and would like to be reading titles like Edge and Time regularly, but for the former I can’t find print copies in Montreal and dislike the PDF-like digital edition, and for the latter I don’t want to buy the print edition and also dislike the PDF-like digital edition. In fact, I do most of my magazine reading digitally (I’ve been reading Wired and Entertainment Weekly digitally ever since they launched their iPad editions), and so there’s only Monocle that I read in print — sure, it’s because they don’t offer an iPad-edition, but to be honest, it’s also a beautifully produced paper product that I love holding in my hands.

There’s not real point to this post other than to say, shit, I’ve been reading these magazines for quite a while now.

Categories
Music

You Make Shibuya

Maki Nomiya and Hideki Kaji are turning into ambassadors for Shibuya — you’ll remember that they’re doing a weekly Shibuya-kei radio show together these days — and on this official Shibuya-ku website, promoting a “You Make Shibuya” campaign, you can listen to a song they made together. Below (photo by Patrick Benny), you can see them on the cover of the Shibuya-ku News free paper (love that Shibuya-ku News logo).

Categories
Music

3350 Tracks from Haruki Murakami’s Record Collection

Need some music guidance? This Open Culture post shares a Spotify playlist made up of 3350 tracks form Haruki Murakami‘s record collection — which you can partially see in this post’s photo (taken from his website).

Categories
Debaser

Graceful Explosion Machine

When I first saw the screenshots and video of Graceful Explosion Machine, I was smitten, and was really excited to play it when it came out — I do love me shmups, and the art direction looked fantastic. Then the game came out a couple of weeks ago, and since I was still juggling a bunch of big games (Breath of the Wild, Persona 5, Nier: Automata) I figured I’d wait a bit. But I couldn’t wait anymore, and so I grabbed it the other day, and oh my this game is fun. As expected, it looks beautiful, and the action is very satisfying. And although it can get a bit tough, it’s the kind of game that you just can’t seem to quit, trying again and again until you manage to finish off a level. Definitely something to add to your Switch game collection.

Categories
Debaser

Fast RMX

I can’t for the life of me understand why I don’t see more people talking about Fast RMX. I got this on the Switch about a week after Breath of the Wild, and continue to play it fairly regularly. This is basically the F-Zero game I’ve been hoping to get for years, and to be honest, I can’t see what an actual new F-Zero game would give me that this doesn’t. It may also be heresy to say this, but I love the gameplay in this more than in the Wipeout games. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of the Wipeout games, especially for their aesthetic, but I always found the racing itself to be a bit awkward. Not only do I have much more fun racing in this, I think it’s a beautiful game to take in — the only aspects of the game I think look crappy are the crashes — and I really love the Ikaruga-like switching between colors to use the boost pads on the tracks. I never ended up playing the previous game in this series, Fast Racing Neo on Wii U, and although now I sorta regret it, I think Fast RMX is probably a better version of it. If you miss F-Zero and Wipeout, definitely pick this up.

Categories
Debaser

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

I don’t know if it’s because of all the movies I’ve been watching of late, but I haven’t been keeping up with everything I’m playing in my Debaser diary — and I have in fact been playing tons of stuff, same as always. Might as well kick off my efforts to catch up a bit with Breath of the Wild, which not only is one of the best gaming experiences I can remember having, it’s certainly up there as one of my favorite games of all time — I know, maybe too soon to say something like that, but that’s how I feel. It’s no secret that the Zelda series is my favorite game series, and so despite everything Zelda I’ve played in my life, it’s amazing to be so excited and happy about a Zelda game at this point in the franchise’s history. It also made me fall in love with the Switch — even though I played most of the game on the TV, I loved being able to play sessions late at night in my bed, and now as I play Persona 5 and Nier: Automata, I just keep wishing I could do the same thing. But yes, I loved Breath of the Wild immensely, and although I “finished” it (defeated Ganon) after about 55 hours of play, I’ve already gone back into the game to keep exploring the world, and do more shrines (I had only done around 50 when I completed the game). I’m excited to see what the story DLC for the game is going to be like, and also can’t wait to see how they’ll follow-up this game — although I am still wishing they do another 2D sequel to Link to the Past and Link Between Worlds.