Miscellaneous Reviews Lists

A Certain Scientific Railgun Silly Opening Mistake

A Certain Scientific Railgun Season Two-Silly Mistake

Take note of the position~

U...Uiiiihaaaaaruuuuu.......

Haha! I somewhat accidentally browsed it one day, and found this picture!! Oh man, how could the developers made such silly mistake?!

Poor Uiharu... And check out what's next! Misaka jumps out in the next scene like "phew! I've done my job!"

Goodbye Uiharu~ *Sinister smile* 

Opening Video here

Art by:  白水姬子CureSword
Anime: To Aru Kagaku no Railgun / A Certain Scientific Railgun season 2
Original Pirture

Freezingfeathers' Reviews Glossary

The rating of each section is 10/10. Get ready for my nagging~

Blah Blah Blahh~

Settings: 
The place where the story took place or the theme of the story.

Complexity of Storyline: 
The difficulty to understand the story. For example, most medieval fantasy has the most complicated story lines.

Unexpected Events: 
The sudden turning point of the story. The higher the rating, the more difficult it is to predict the events.

Characters' Development: 
The interactions between characters. Better relationships between characters has higher ratings. Having a character talk tons and tons of conversations to another character does not mean that their relationships will increase. It is the feeling that matters. The events that occurred is much more important than talking tons of nonsense. It is different than "Characters' Fame" and "Characters' Characteristics".

Characters' Characteristics: 
The characteristics of the character itself. This is more individual.  It is different from "characters' Develpoment" and "Characters' Fame".

Characters' Fame:
To me, the higher the fame, the less impressive the story is to me. I do not like handsome and sexy characters as I feel they were created to impress the fantasy of fellow anime/movies watchers. Does one need to be handsome or sexy to be attractive?? I hope the answer is no, but this... is the fact... People rather watch handsome and sexy characters rather than judging a show by its story line...
Usually does not apply to anime, but applied to movies. It means weather the actor or the characters are handsome or beautiful, AKA: physical appearance. Well, you know, some people watch movies just to look at handsome guys and sexy ladies... Oh, the reality... It is different than "Characters' Development" and "Characters' Characteristics".

Actions: 

The number of actions scenes after a conversation, especially long ones and weather the action scenes are interesting enough.

Sword Art Online Full Story Reviews

Oh! Are these the two main characters? Wee! or Wee?

Suitable for who?
* MMORPG Fans, especially maniacs~
* Those who like Medival era Fantasy stories.
* Similar Genre Examples: Tales of the Abyss, A Certain Magical Index, A Certain Scientific Railgun, etc.

Intro
The first impression of SAO (as in this picture) is the main characters is the girl (Asuna) and the boy (Kirito). But nevertheless, this is actually a story which features ON THE BOY ONLY!! *sob* *I want Asuna...*

This is a 25 episode long anime, but surprisingly, the storytelling is divided into 2 parts. The "Sword Art Online" part and the "Alfheim" online.

The first part is very comprehensive. It is as thought one is brought into the MMO world just by watching this anime!! Too bad that the second part doesn't make any sense. But why?
MAJOR SPOILERS~

You still have the chance to turn back before reading it!


Turn now or regret~


Answer:
The first half is life threatening. Die there and you'll die... forever~
Although the second half is about saving someone in coma, but... the story line makes me feel like its all just a game~ You know, game... Secondly, it also focus more on Kirito saving Asuna than the other fellow players in coma. It feels... a bit of selfish...

Must Watch Rating: (7/10)
This is the rating for those who did not play MMORPG. For MMO players, the rating is 10/10 ! Weee!

Storytelling Technique
Settings: (9/10)
Complexity of Storyline: (3/10)
Unexpected Events: (3/10)
Characters' Development: (4/10)
Characters' Characteristics: (3/10)
Characters' Fame: (5/10)
Actions: (7/10)

*Ever wonder what these vocabulary mean? Find out more here

The Good
It is very relaxing, especially when you see when the characters interact in each other, in this beautifully enhanced fantasy world. The MMO theme (gaming system) is fully expressed, which include Guilds, Party, Bosses, etc.

The Bad
The side characters, Silica and Lisbeth only appear only once, I mean it, ONCE! (In terms of episode). But they seemed to be portrayed as the main side characters. Leafa which had more appearance than both of them doesn't seem more important than those two.
The "Kirito X Asuna" story also seem to be so sudden. Asuna appeared much more less than Leafa, but was still the main heroine. Plus, Asuna just.. OMG !@#$% in just less than 10 episodes! (I think? But it was around 10-13, I have forgotten the actual episode.) LOL, too sudden...

Beautiful place, ain't it?

Settings
This story took place in a artificial fantasy world, which was a VRMMO world, where players can control their game characters by just inserting a helmet-like machine onto their heads. What makes a story interesting is that it allows you to imagine that it might one day happen in the real life world, and SAO did the job. That was why a "fantasy X reality" story is always much more interesting than all other just pure fantasy stories.

As said above, this story brings watchers into the world of MMO. Since I believe, majority of anime fans / Otaku played MMO at least once, so SAO did bring back memories in the MMO world. But I think, if one NEVER PLAYED MMO, it would be hard to catch up to the story. For example, in episode 1, it mentioned about keywords "Beta testers". For those who never played MMO would most likely wonder, "What's that? Maths equation? My breakfast?? " In the later episodes, for the mentioning about "Guild", if one never plays MMO, one could not fully admire the beauty of MMO. What a pity... I thought that SAO should at least give a brief explanation on these terms.

For example, the story of Silica portrayed the wonder of higher level 'senpai' bringing the lower level newbies  to a higher level, helping them to level up, share experience, assisting them in quest, etc. For Sachi case, it portrayed the beauty of joining a small yet friendly Guild. It does not mean joining a bigger Guild will be much more better than a tiny Guild.

Although my bad comments on setting exceeded the good ones, the pro in settings actually outweighs the cons a tons more! The setting is actually the main attraction of SAO!

Didn't it happened too fast? LOL? In just 13 episodes?

Story
Since this anime had 2 parts of storytelling, there would be, of course, 2 beginnings, 2 climaxes, and 2 endings.

For the first part (1-15 episodes), it had a very boring beginning... (Come on man, climb up to the 100th floor and beat the boss? Is this a game or something? ITS AN ANIME!) In the middle of the beginning and climax, things are getting more and more interesting. It was really unexpected that the players will spend 2 years plus in this whole MMO game. This was the part which I loved the most. But I sense a flaw here. Since the time in SAO has passed for quite some time, I suspected they make viewers assume Kirito and Asuna has spent much time together and skipped this part of character development. What a pity... How could they skip this most interesting part of all! The climax and ending took place around episode 14-15. I think some viewers predicted that they would not reach the 100th floor after all, and yea, of course. If they really did reach there, the story would have ended in a pretty dull way. The climax and ending took place almost simultaneously, causing an illusion that the climax didn't even existed! There were only mentioning in Kirito and Asuna's speech that they wanted to live peacefully. So finally, the team just found out who's the game master and BAM BAAM! KO~ Victory! With some sacrifices, the main hero and heroine was lost forever, AS IF! The ending is beautiful, showing Kirito and Asuna spending their so called "last meeting" under the sunset~ What I was not satisfied was that they... (In this part more to Kirito), suddenly woke up, without any proper explaination (Well, I do not know wheather the novel said anything about it, but in the anime case, no)

For the second half part, Alfheim online, it doesn't make any single sense at all. But weirdly, the appearance of Alfheim heroine, Leafa aka Kirito's sister, exceeds Asuna a tons more! This part of the story, both beginning and climax, are quite boring. The ending is a little bit more interesting as wow, someone wanted to assassinate Kirito (What's his real name already?? lol) in real life.

So, the overall complexity of story line is not that impressive compared to other anime.

There there, happy family.

Characters' Developments:
The character interactions between each other flowed moderately smoothly in SAO. It could have been better if those side characters appeared more than once or had larger role in the story.

Characters' Fame
Sort of high, which is not necessary a good thing. Kirito and Asuna both make a wonderful couple, so some people will watch this anime just because Kirito's handsome and Asuna's elegant. But I had to admit, Asuna sure is elegant~
The first impression on Asuna was indeed, very accurate. By just one look at her face, I sensed that she is sort of the "oh help me help me" kind of person,  and bingo! It was portrayed in the second part of the story.

Actions:
It could also be considered as an action packed anime. Almost every episodes had battle scenes.

Conclusion:
Despite being a great anime, my reviews on it seemed to be more on the negative side than positive side. Ever wonder why? It was not like this is a lousy anime, its just that I personally thought SAO do not deserve the popularity it has now.
To me, this was just an averagely great anime. But I'm not satisfied with its popularity. Actually there were other much better animes out there, but most of them do not get the popularity they deserved.
The current trend was this: If you do not watch SAO, you do not deserve to be called an otaku fans, or you are an outcast in the anime kingdom. Unfair, wasn't it?
This was similar with the Angry Bird trend. You don't use some special technique, you won't be popular.

Full List of Freeze's Story Reviews

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Persona 3

Q

R

S

Sword Art Online

T

Tales of the Abyss Anime

U

V

W

X

Y

Z

Persona 3 Full Story Review

Persona 3

Since this is a story review blog, the reviews will be based more on storyline instead of gaming features...

Suitable for who?
* Maybe "Bleach" fans~ Actually I think these 2 are almost alike, but both series has stand alone themes.
* Slice of life. Like "Fantasy X Reality".

Intro
HEAVY SPOILERS!!! If you haven't play the game and intent to play it one day, DON'T READ THIS YET! This game has minor story plots, so a little spoilers will destroy the entire fun of this story... SERIOUSLY!!!

I played this game at the year 2012... Man, the year where the end of the world is predicted~  ha! (Homo Sapiens' still living on Earth, though.) The intense feeling on playing this game increases dramatically as 21 Dec coming~~
**Above statement's out of topic, this story takes place at the year 2009-2010. Heheh~**

Storytelling techniques:
Settings: (9/10)
Complexity of Storyline: (1/10)
Unexpected Events: (8/10)
Characters' Development: (5/10)
Characters' Characteristics: (10/10)
Characters' Fame: (9/10) *Oh! Of course, that Minato! One Minato alone could score 9/10!!! (*sobs* Now his name is Makoto...) *
Actions: (5/10) *Although being a RPG, there were sufficient events to keep you from boredom.*

*Ever wonder what these vocabulary mean? Find out more here

*A bit off topic talk, skip this part if you only want story reviews*
Actually I never planned to play "Persona" series games, but after I took a sneak peek at "Soejima Shigenori"'s illustrations, I became curious on trying it~ His artworks are SO awsome! SO AMAZING UNTIL IT CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS BY EVEN LOOKING AT IT! (The very 1st art in p3 review section is one of his...) His "Persona 3" artworks contain mainly the 2 characters,

                                               

Arisato Minato(Left)         Aigis(Right)

This means that these 2 characters has main role in Persona 3? After playing it, the answer is 'yes', main story lines DO take place around these 2~ But it was a bit weird, it ended with Aigis being the main character after all, somewhat.

Must play rating: (10/10)
Sounds ridiculous, is it? But this is my rating. It's too awsome! Even though it has minor plot lines, the character characteristics (although not as good as Persona 4) and theme stands out a lot.

The Good

The Bad
Too simple story line. If you looked at it overall, it was only a story where high school kido with special power fighting with monsters, and save the world... Luckily this was a RPG game, or not... But I was certainly impressed that the way this story draw viewer's(or players, in this case) attention was not the complexity of the story, but instead, other interesting minor factors where most stories, both anime and games, would not risk it.

Yo, remember the first thought when you saw your first animation in  P3?

Settings
I would review this in a different way. It was not like the "place where the event took place", but more to "the theme of this story". Settings was not limited to "place where the event took place" only, ya?

Tales of the Abyss (Anime) Full Review

Suitable for Who?
-------------------------
*FA (Fullmetal Alchemist) fans, another philosphy story with magic and tech.
*Like fantasy stories and RPG*



Must Watch Rating: (8/10)
---------------------------------
This anime is an adaption of a PS2 game, "Tales of the Abyss" from "Tales of" series. If you have PS2 and can affort to buy it, I highly recommend you to play it 1st, then watch its anime. The PS2's story was explained better than anime. (Lolx, what would you expect? Cutting short a 70+ hour gameplay story into a 10+ hour anime..) But the anime was well adapted~ (Well, only the begining..) The anime's flashback is awsome! A must watch for all who played the game as it lacked too much flashback..


Intro:
-------------
Welcome to my review! This is my very 1st review, hope to get useful comments from my dear readers~
Might contain SPOILERS. Please don't read it first if you scared being spoiled, intend to watch this anime and want to be surprised by special events. But if you want to judge wheater to read it, please do.
This review is based on a person,me, freezingfeathers, which never played the PS2 game of TotA. (I didn't even know that its a game at the 1st place!!) So this review is based SOLOLY on the anime~ I've played the game, its awsome!! This section of review is based on before I played the game and even know that it's a game~ Rare review, ya? I heard that most review is based on either those who played the game and know its a game but never played it.

One day, I had some extra pocket money and I bought this anime randomly from the store (I was supposed to buy "Rangaok"(How to spell??), but changed my mind). When I watched almost 13 episodes of it, I realise that the story have a RPG feeling. Then later on, it sounded more and more like a RPG. For example, when Luke was trying to confort Tear when he know that she's going to die due to the extreme amount of miasma in her body and the conversations in the headquarters of Order of Lorelei when Luke was going to replace die in Asch place (Tower of Rem incident). Only RPG has this type of conversation, I knew it! Cuz I'm a RPG maniac! (>.<) I started to wonder, it would be great if its a RPG~ After watching the whole 26 episode, I wiki this anime and found out its actually an adaption of a RPG game!!! (How silly of me...) This is when I started to know the "Tales of" series. Later I found out "Tales of Symnopia" was also one of its series..(I saw it in the store before, I SHOULD'VE BUY IT!! I can't find it in the stores now.. *sob) This is also when I started to become "Tales of" fans~ I bought "Tales of Legendia" and "Tales of the Abyss" game and played it. They're all special RPG! Play them if you have the chance!



The Good
---------------
* Its magical fantasy dosen't sound fake. Some magical story environments and system sounds too fake because they just simply use the power with ease. TotA (Short name for Tales of the Abyss) has technology like-magic feeling. With these "High-Tech" machines in it, it just... feel more logical~
* Excellent character interactions, especially the 1st plot. It's just like a party, everyone's chatting and joking~
* Good animations. The battle scenes are smooth and awsome! The magic casting and Guy's sword attack are attractive~
* Some characters have outstanding characteristics. For example, Luke, Jade and Guy. Luke's annoying brat and ignorance attitude is not like other 17 years old attitude. In the 1st plot, everyone's like babysitting him~ Its not usual for teens(Except Jade) babysitting a teen..
* Touching flashback which is not included in the game. If it dosen't have flashback, Asch's story will be left unxeplained on what he's been doing after his kidnap. (This's one of the game's weekness..)
* Special ethical issues like the "Score". It potraits human overreliance on something, the lazyness of human nature to leave the future decided by Score, the egerness to know about the future and the unending greed to know more after knowing some.
* Average character designs. At least they have noticable visual characteristics (Eg: Tear's hair, Jade's red eye, Luke's red with little yellowish hair at the end etc) The costumes are exclusive in TotA only~
* Feels like travelling when watching~ After the Kaizur Checkpoint, the travelling increases~ I love this vacation! Poor Luke had to be the audience's tourguide~ :P

The Bad
----------------
* Too much plot rushing in 2nd and 3rd plot. It gives me the feel that 50% + Of things are not explained.. (After playing the game, I found out that 60% are skipped..)
* Lack of slice and dice interaction in Plot 2nd and 3rd, especially 2nd plot. They only talk how to lower passage ring, this ad that... Quite boring..
* Too many minor characters without background stories... It feels.. ok to just skip them away..
* All protagonist character's indentity. All come from the upper class society (Hmm, Guy's also one, he's a servant in a DUKE'S MANOR and USED to be upper class..) It feels like only the upper class has the chance to save the world..
* Dull background music. Sounds sleepy..
* Too mush spoilers in the Opening Theme. They should't have shown Asch's face first and Tear is related to Yulia. There's also brief preview of the episode.. No more surprises.

Setting
--------------
Graphic: (9/10)
One word: Beautiful~

Setting: (5/10)
Too much unnecessary places, especially when they activating the passage rings... 2 seconds on the scene and bye bye~~

Society: (10/10)
To be continue....