Does It Suck?: Sailor Moon Crystal

     Ladies and gentlemen, She's back! The pretty sailor soldier, Sailor Moon is back with a brand new anime series. Ever since making her debut in 1992, Sailor Moon has became a hit, forever becoming an anime staple and is even responsible for putting it on the map here in the U.S. Sailor Moon has build an empire not stopping with anime and manga, but branching out to cosmetics, musicals, toys, a live action drama, and video games to name a few. It's not a surprise that she is being introduced to a new generation with a brand new anime series. The new anime christened Sailor Moon: Crystal is described as being a reboot and not a continuation of the previous anime series that ran from 1992 to 1997. There have been a few setback trying to launch the series. The studio, Kodansha, had to postpone it a few times due to things not being ready, but it is now ready to be seen to fans worldwide. But the question is, does it suck?

The Story
The story is the same as the other adaptations. If you don't know: Usagi Tsukino is a crybaby 14-year-old schoolgirl that is given a magical brooch by a talking cat named Luna that transformers her into the Soldier of Love and Justice, Sailor Moon. It is up to Usagi to find and reawaken the other Sailor Soldiers to help her find the Legendary Silver Crystal and the Princess in order to defeat the Dark Kingdom and save the world from destruction. The studio says this time around, the new series will be following more closely to the manga. This is can be both good and bad. I enjoyed reading the manga more so than the anime. With most adaptations you try to diverge from the original content in order to have your version stand out and make it individual. The new anime has the opportunity to do just this. I'm worried that (and this is the huge problem at hand) the new anime would follow too closely to the manga. This is a major problem as it wouldn't be anything new. It would just be a glorified animated comic. This is just the first episode so let's see how far they go.

The Animation
Since Sailor Moon Crystal will follow more closely to the manga, it is drawn as such. The animation is drawn to look as closely to the manga as possible. A matter of fact, some of the illustrations from Crystal are drawn exactly as they appear in the manga. They did make some subtle changes like Usagi's alarm clock. It's fun to look at the manga and the anime and compare. The series' eye catch and title card is done in the classic Naoko Takeuchi-designed that we all love. With it being a modern spin on the series, the animators decided to incorporate CG into some scenes like the transformation scene and the opening sequence. This is a win and lose situation. It looks amazing in the intro, but it is poorly executed in the transformation scenes. The transformation scene looks a little shoddy. It looks like the original transformation only added with unnecessary CG added which drags it much longer than the original. Hopefully hey can fix this in later episodes.

The Music
I'm actually impressed by the BGM if the anime so far. The score is done by Yasuharu Takanashi who has done the music for PreCure, another popular Magical Girl anime. At first hearing the choir-sung BGM music in the trailer and transformation scene, I was a bit skeptical, but hearing it in high quality I actually like it. It's also a plus that you won't be getting all vocal featured music. The opening and ending songs are sung by the popular idol group Momoiro Clover Z. The opening song, Moon Pride is energetic and action packed, which is MomoClo's style. The ending song, Gekkou is a bit unusual hearing the girls sing  and but they do a good job.

The Voice Acting
The cast of Sailor Moon is mostly new. The castors have gathered themselves a crew of well known voice actors like Kenji Nojima (Mamoru Chiba/Tuxedo Mask) who has Naruto, One Piece and Blood+ and Ami Koshimizu (Makoto Kino/Sailor Jupiter) who has worked in Death Note and My-Otome. Kotono Mitsuishi reprises her role as Usagi. Oddly enough, her performance was strange. She sounded a bit different than what she used to sound like in the old anime. Everyone else did a good job. We haven't heard the voices of the other soldiers yet so I'm excited to hear them.

Final Verdict
Sailor Moon Crystal has a lot potential. It shows a lot of promise. It's great that it wants its story and art to be more faithful to the manga, but again, it can back fire by not having any originality and make the series dull. The first episode overall did an ok job, but I'll watch more to see how the series develops. Sailor Moon Crystal premiers an new episode ever first and third Saturday of the Month. The second episode debuts this Saturday. You can watch it either on Hulu or Crunchyroll.

Feeling Prideful

     In the past few days at work, I've been asked not once, but twice by my co-workers whether I would be going to the Pride Festival this Sunday. I reluctantly said that I wouldn't. My reason was that I would be working that night and I didn't feel like being out in the heat, taking the bus and train downtown to Halsted where they always have the parade, and rushing all the way downtown to get to work that afternoon. Reflecting on my co-workers asking me about pride, I realized just how far we've come as gay people have progressed towards equality in society.
     When I was taking a few steps coming out the closet, being gay and going to gay pride would almost feel like a secret that only a few knew about. Like every other gay person before they came out, I was afraid to let people know of this secret. Now, it's not that big of a secret anymore. Everyone knows and they seem to be ok with it. We have came far. Over the years, we have marched on to combat ignorance and hate. The world is starting to accept us.
     I see us in media. We have shows like RuPaul's Drag Race and Ellen that shows we can do things. We have characters in books and TV that represent us in all different spectrum and tell our stories. We even have our own channel, LOGO. I see us in music. Not only do we have gay rappers like Fly Young Red and Le1f to name a few, but we have people in Hip Hop like Kanye West and T-Pain, another genre that didn't accept us, that have spoken against the homophobia in the genre.
     We are in sports. In the past year, we have professional athlete like Darren Young, Michael Sam, Derreck Gordon, Jason Collins, and Tom Daley who have come out. Bravely dispelling the stigma that Sports is no place for us since we are not "manly enough" and have been given mostly support and love from fans and their peers alike. We have President Obama who seems to be the first president to not only acknowledged us, but gas been on our side. We have passed gay marriage in a total number of 19 states, including one where I live in, Illinois. We have come so far, but we have more to do and more to go.

Douchebag Celebs and the Delusional Fans That Defend Them (A Justin Beiber/Belieber Rant)

So, Justin Bieber is in trouble... again. This time he is being scrutinized after a video of him, 15-years-old at the time, saying some pretty racist things. This time he decides to sing a special rendition of his song, One Less Lonely Girl, but with a few changes: Instead of Lonely Girl, Beiber decided to repeatedly sing out the lyrics One Less Lonely N***** he would kill if he was in the KKK. This came out shortly after another video of Justin Beiber making an offensive and racist joke about black people was dug up days apart. This year hasn't been too kind for Beibs at all. A police raid on his mansion after throwing eggs at his neighbors and cocaine being found inside, an arrest for a DUI and resisting arrest in Miami, an embarrassing deposition that doesn't show him in the best light. All of these and we haven't aren't even at the halfway mark of the year.

     All of these things are horrible, but not as horrible as the defending from his fans. As quick as the news of his videos came out, his fanbase, the beliebers, have flocked to all forms of social media to defend the pop stars, like the good fans they are. Belibers have been making such claims in order to calm down the outrage and excuse him from the backlash like Beiber was young when he made those videos and for that reason, we should leave him alone and the most popular excuse when something racist happens, citing the black friends he has. These claims coming from the beleibers are just as idiotic as they are sad and delusional. What they fail to realize that even as young as he was, Justin should know better than to say those things. You learn growing up that racism and discrimination is wrong along with saying racial slurs is wrong as well. Age doesn't exclude you from anything, again, especially when you are 15-16 and you are well aware that saying certain things like the n-word is wrong. You can also be racist or harbor some negative feelings towards a person of color even if you are friends with them so the "he has black friend(s)" argument is invalid as well.

    This isn't new. Everytime Justin fucks up, his fans always try to deflect no matter how inexcusable the act is. I have know idea what is going on in the head of these teen girls but it obviously isn't reason. I don't know why these fans would go to such idiotic lengths to make up excuses for something that shouldn't and can't be tolerated. I understand that as a fan, you have to be there for your idol and have their back when things get rough, but that doesn't mean that you have to turn a blind eye to facts and act like they did nothing wrong. That isn't admiration, that is what we call denial. Beleibers should realize that they are not helping by turning a blind eye to the BS, they are enabling. Your idol did something wrong and the outrage for his errors are justified and he deserves to be ridiculed. Justin should also be accounted for his actions and face them. Leaving him alone and pretending like this didn't happen is not the best counter. Fortunately, Justin Beiber has done Just that. Beiber has somewhat acknowledged what he did was wrong and has attempted to apologize for saying those racist remarks, maybe his fans can do the same.

Will Mario Kart 8 Be The Wii U's Savior? Probably Not

     Ladies and gentlemen, Mario Kart 8 is here! After months and months of waiting, wishing, hoping and praying, it is finally here. Saying this game was highly anticipated is an understatement. Nintendo has been dropping gameplay and new stuff that has been having us begging and begging for this game to be released and in our hands. Anti-gravity, Koopalings, new updates of retro tracks, the new Mario Kart TV feature that let's you edit, mix, remix, and share your races with your friends, and let's not forget a new horn item that get's rid of the dreaded Blue Shell, what more could you want? Nintendo has been responsive to the fan feedback, making sure that the game delivers and gives everything a person could want from having an Mario Kart 8 app on your iPhone to you being able to race across the Mushroom Kingdom in a Mercedes Benz as DLC to ensure that it be a hit and get consoles to sell like hot cakes, but the question is will it?
     Mario Kart 8 will do good, but it might not do well enough to help Nintendo raise to its former glory. One of the main problems that has plagued the Wii U since its launch was its lack of games that would guarantee people to buy the system. They have had the horrible idea to let its consumers wait in-between months to have something worth playing for it. The games that were considered to be its console grabbers haven't done what they were suppose to do. It's top 3 highest selling games for the Wii U: New Super Mario Bros U (4.16 million), NintendoLand (3.09 million), and the most hyped of the bunch Super Mario 3D (2.17) while good, but fails in comparison to other titles. And without any good games to play along with it, sales are effected. It's no secret that the Wii U is doing poorly, even before the release of the other consoles of this generation, the PS4 and XBox One. The sales for the Wii U have been approximately over 70k for the month of March which is short compared to its console rivals XBox One (311,000) and the PS4. The Wii U did however did better this year than last with its sales in February with an 25% increase, but they're not out of the clear yet. The combined sales of Wii U so far has been 6.17 million which is not only dwarfed by the success of PS4 and XBox One, but its predecessor the Wii.
       Again, I'm not saying that Mario Kart 8 will be a total dud in sales. The reviews from both critics and gamers have been well received. A game this anticipated will do nicely, but at this moment, Nintendo has no need for anything to do nicely. They need an absolute hit. In order for Nintendo to catch up, they need in order to catch up with Microsoft and Sony they need a sure game that will have its system flying off the shelves. Hopefully Super Smash Bros. will be it.

Horrible and Creepy Mascots are Horrible and Creepy

Earlier this week, McDonalds and Lemonheads decided to unveil their new mascots in hopes to get new customers to buy their products, except by looking at them you wouldn't want to do any such thing. The new look bad. Really bad. Often when companies decide to put a face to their company, they make mistakes. Often, these mistakes happen to often. In celebration of the new, bad, face of these companies, I made this list of other bad mascots that Happy and new Lemonhead will soon be a part of.

The Original Ronald McDonald

We all know the Ronald McDonald of today with his yellow jumpsuit, red hair and happy face, welcoming children to urge their parents to buy the toy that comes with a hamburger and fries. What you probably don't remember is the original Ronald McDonald from the 1960s. This incarnation, played by radio personality Willard Scott, was a clown with a freakish cup nose and a creepily overdrawn red grin. No wonder people think clowns are scary. Anyway, McDonalds changed the appearance of the character over the years to what he looks now, interestingly, the 1971 version was even creepier than the original version.

Pierre the Pelican

Of course, no horrible mascot list is not complete with out Pierre. Sports has its share of creepy mascots. There was Izzy and King Cake Baby, but none take the cake like Pierre. Pierre was introduced as the new mascot for the New Orleans Pelicans last October and cause a internet and media storm. This led to the Pelicans redesigning Pierre citing it as an "beak accident" playing basketball with other mascots.

The Burger King

That blank soulless stare. That creepy mischievous smile. Makes you want a Whopper right? Burger King was actually introduced in the late 60s. In 2003, Burger King did a more creepy version of the character, which was a guy in an oversized creepy king mask. This Burger King would be featured in several commercial vacantly staring deep into the souls of people offering food from Burger King. The King has become an internet meme being photoshopped as a even creepier persona. Burger King retired the character in 2011.

Mr. Balls

Senor Testiculo or Mr. Balls was created by AAPEC, a Brazilian organization devoted to fighting breast cancer. Mr. Balls is described as a friendly "snowman" covered in hair that was created to help raise awareness of testicular cancer. Mr Balls goes around reminding people of testicular cancer and how they can check themselves to see if they have it. The AAPEC says that he's fun for both adults and kids and they love taking pictures of him. That's right. A giant ball sac is fun and is apparently popular with adults and KIDS!

Captain Crunch

I know you're all surprise to see Captain Crunch is on this list. He seems like a standup guy. He's a captain afterall... but here's the thing, he's not! The stripes on his cufflings don't indicate him being a captain. Captain Crunch is actually Commander Crunch. Why would a man lie about his rank? To get you into some false sense to security only to attack when you least expect it? This man is obviously up to no good and his cereal that shreds the top of your mouth adds to that belief.

Do you have any creepy mascots that you would like to add to my list?

Video Game Mythbusters: Digging Up E.T. Cartridges in Desert Edition

     On Saturday, one of life's great mysteries was solved. E.T. cartridges were unearthed in the desert in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Filming for an upcoming documentary, XBox Entertainment Studios, along with Fuel Entertainment, hired a excavation crew to go out to into the site and attempt to dig up where the cartridges were supposedly buried. There's not a complete number of how many E.T. cartridges are buried. So, far they have found a few hundred copies and are still digging to find more. The tale of Atari burying millions of E.T. cartridges in the middle of the desert one of the great urban legends of video games, if the not the king of video game urban legends being referenced and the talk of gamers for years.

     For those who haven't heard of the urban myth, set back and I will tell you the tale. Once upon a time E.T. came out in a June in the year of 1982 and it was good. It became a blockbuster hit debuting at #1 with a gross over 11 million and stayed at the top spot for seven weeks. E.T. became the highest grossing movie of all time with $359 million until it was dethroned by another Steven Spielberg film, Jurassic Park in 1993. With a hit movie, it's only right to further cash in on its success with a potentially hit game right? Atari secured the rights to make the game in July 1982, giving its designer, Howard Scott Warshaw, five months to make the game as they wanted it to be released for the Christmas season.

     E.T. the Game came out as planned in December and it was bad. Actually, it was horrible. Due to Atari wanting the game to be released for the holiday season, it was rushed leaving an incomplete and buggy mess. According to Warshaw it took five weeks to make the game. The game started off strong, but after word of mouth on how bad it was and negative reviews, sales dropped and the game became what is considered to the biggest failure in video game history and one of the contributors in the video game crash in 1983. Atari suffered hard in losses. E.T. the game sold 1.5 units and made $25 million in sales, but left Atari with $100 million  loss and 3.5 million cartridges that nobody wanted to buy. The only solution Atari had was to bury the unsold copies in a landfill in the middle of the desert and try to recover. E.T. the Game was a pioneer, not only being the first of its kind, video game/movie tie-ins, but also the trend of them sucking.

This Is a Hot Video Game Character Post

     On Thursday, Nintendo did a direct conference for its upcoming game Super Smash Bros. for the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS. It presented a ton of news about the new game, most importantly, one announcement was that not only would Samus Aran and her Zero suit counterpart would have their own separate slots, but Zero Suit Samus was getting a updated look. In the previous game in the Smash Bros. series Samus, when performing her final smash firing her Zero Laser. This attack would cause her power suit to break apart, becoming Zero Suit Samus. Zero Suit Samus was a weaker form with most of attacks not racking as much damage compared to her suited counterpart. To accommodate this better, director Mashiro Sakurai made some tweaks to Zero Suit Samus, designing her with a new pair rocket heels. Good news, right? Nope. News of this has set the internet on fire, in a bad way.
     Zero Suit Samus's new footwear has caused a bit of outrage to fans of the series. Samus' new redesign has people addressing the issue in gaming with oversexualizing its female characters for the sake of fanservice. This isn't new with female characters in video games, as in almost every game, there is a female character who is just T&A. The video game industry is a male dominated industry where it is made for men for men so, it's no wonder that we have female characters that are designed to be fanservice. Oddly enough, the issue mirrors this situation has been the design of women in games, being styled as oversexualized objects of male fantasy. There have been concerns of women in MMORPGs, being dressed up in armor that doesn't necessarily does what it design to do: Protect. I understand that video games are suppose to cater to fantasy and that seems to be the excuse for the fanservice but it still, in some form, have to portray things in a realistic manner and fully represent people as accurately as possible. Meaning that we might to give up a bit of the fanservice fantasy and have to design women, most notably in fighting games and MMORPGs, in outfits that make sense to their roles in games.

     Samus is suppose to be a kickass bounty hunter and is suppose to be the representation of female empowerment. You can't really carry that mantle in a pair of rocket heels, not even good looking rocket heels.  Overall, I'm not saying that Samus should be in a burqa in the next Smash Bros. or Metroid game, but designer her in a way that makes sense. Even though the heels are suppose to make her attacks more powerful, are still not believable that a person who regularly engages in fights, would wear. In the last Smash Bros. game, the developers were aware of that issue and gave her boots with a short heels. Samus hasn't been a stranger to being sexualized in the Metroid series, but the past directors did it in a way that matched who her character was, except for the people who did Other M. The only thing worse than rocket heels are wedges.