Lost to the Internet: "That European girl was huge"

The faking of the lunar landing was cooler than we thought.

At one time, Anime was "exotic".  Different from all the western animation we grew up with, and with enough Boobs and blood in it for the boys to consider past the age of great changing(AKA "Puberty"). But over time, with our internet connections expanding actual access, and we all having a DA account, many are burnt out on the style and consider it a cliche already.

I guess this  applies to me a bit as well. Anime that my cousin  rented such as Vampire Hunter D made me thirst for more, and while my finances whern't on a "import some" level, I did rent certain one's like Ayane's  High Kick and Hyper Speed Grandall and Ninja Scroll. Anything that promised bare female pectorals, really.

That'll do, Hyper Speed Grandall. That'll do.

Once I aquired Direct TV and access to Animax, I did get enough of a look at Anime to realize it wasn't all nipslips and showers scenes. While that was a massive disappointment,  I did develop a love for various series.  And one of those was Ran: The Samurai Girl.

 Better known as "Carried by the Wind", it followed a Sake addicted drifter swords-woman named Ran, and her partner and...enabler, Meow as they drifted from one side of old Japan in search for drinks and money to pay them.

Not surprised It's not exactly as known as Rorouni Kenshin or Hetalia. Not as much spank material or brooding, broody broodsters with long hair. What I'm surprised at , though, is that in a time where the word "weaboo" is used, no one remembers an Anime once made fun of Otaku.

So let's talk about Episode 10: "That European Girl was Huge".

A European girl, minus hugeness.

As the episode starts, our heroines are watching a a sideshow act with an elephant. An animal foreign to Japan, this amuses and surprises the more stoic Ran, while Meow seems unimpressed. When the show ends several merchants selling what I think is elephant themed junk food show up. Ran snaps them up, using Meow's money.

But a fight erupts and our heroines rush to see what the deal is. Apparently a giant European woman is picking up a fight with  a thuggish swordsman who pushed an old lady.

Marzgurl, let the guy alone and go back to reviewing Land before Time sequels...

Now, this isn't just some foreigner who looks tall because she's a westerner in an anime.  This is truly the spawn of the gods because when no one helps the old lady, she yanks the woodden support right out of a building and proceeds to beat the hell out of everyone for not being proper samurai.

Tutorials getting worse, or what?

A quick elbow to the gut by Ran, though, and she falls down like a bag of potatoes. Ran and Meow take her in, and when she wakes up she reveals her name is Stefanie(they will not call her this because it's too hard) and that she came to Japan with her businessman father, and that she's learned all about Japan. Well, almost all.

And they are all called either Suzuki San...Sato san, or Tanaka San!

So in her skewed view, Ran is a Samurai, and then she can train her. Ran wants nothing to do with it and neither does Meow, so they run away from her, but Meows bag full of food breaks, leaving a trail for Stefanie to follow. Stefanie, of course, thinks Meow is a ninja, because she left a trail. When Meow points out her outfit is not of a ninja, Meow comes to the natural conclusion.

Also, you can turn into Kamen Rider! And tentacle-rape girls!

Unable to defeat the barriers of culture and naivete that keep  Stefanie enchanted with becoming a Samurai, Ran gives her a letter that is supposed to make her finally a Samurai when delivered, but is actually a note to the police so that they arrest the confused foreigner. And go away she does,only to later  help a group of Yakuza opposed the Yakuza Meow and Ran  where hired to help.  Then shit gets real.

We need  fresh Samurai! Check the expiration date this time!

Stefanie obliterates both sides of the battle using what I assume is the same column from before and demands a duel to the death with Ran, since she has surpassed the "master" and apparently Samurai are Sith. A fight ensues, and let me point out that in an unusual twist on the  whole slow giant vs nimble sword warrior idea, Stefanie kind of kicks Ran's ass. Meow tries to intervene(but not using her fighting skills. (Should have pointed out earlier she's a kung fu type fighter,I think) and tells  Stefanie this isn't the Way of the warrior, but Stefanie isn't falling for no Ninja shit!

In the end, Ran defeats her by fighting dirty, including what I assume is a callback to that fight from the Princess Bride with a super choke hold. But more than that, I think she was taken down by the deconstruction of her idealized version of Japan.

I don't care if it's a swordfight; sweep the fucking leg and shoot them!

In the end, our heroines convince the foreigner to go home for their own economic and financial well being and she agrees to.

Hulk saaaad...

She agrees to go back to her country and train even harder to become a Samurai using ridiculously inaccurate literature.

I for one, think the internet need to look more at this episode more. For one, in our age of  where whole sites are dedicated to whitewashing of anime adaptations, it tells  kind of a bizarro The Last Samurai, where no, you CAN"T belong to a nation because you spent a winter there. You CAN'T get it in a montage. I can tell you stories of foreigners who. after many years did become Puerto Rican, but it's not as easy as the movies show. And finally...it's a blond, freckled giantess in a Kimono. How many fetishes more does it need to become rule 34? Get on it, Internet!

Continue

What your heroes are called in Spanish

Imagine all the people...throwing each other's desks...

As a bilingual nerd living in Puerto Rico, I have had to subject myself to spanish translations most of my life.  This has good sides and bad sides, but if anything, it gives me  the ability to act as a doorway between realms of speech.

By which I mean I know what some characters are called in both languages. While you might rightly assume most are either litteral translations or no translation at all, sometimes  cartoon translators or comic translators get creative and put strange monnikers on our ficticional heroes. Some examples:

I just learned it too. I can't afford a trip though.

The Thing: La Mole
"La Cosa" would be the litteral translation of : The Thing, but for whatever reason, they took to calling Benjamin Grim, "La Mole" which is actually closer in meaning to "The Hulk." The name's stuck, even down to recent translation of the movies. So what do we call Hulk, anyway?



The Hulk: El Hombre Increible

Ok, we don't ALWAYS call Hulk "El Hombre Increible"(Lit. "the incredible man"). It's what he was known in the old Bill Bixby series. There are no stable translated names for Hulk. Sometimes he's known as "El Hombre Verde" or sometimes just Hulk. It's all La Mole's fault!

No. No mas teatro.

Spider-Man-El Hobre Araña
Spider-Man's is known as litterally as posible in most cases. But recent translations opted not to translate the name, but rather give spanish affection to the english name. So you'll see shows that refer to how much "Speeder-man" is trumping Venom, such as this.

Just don't give them any grief over it, they'll tell you it's acceptable to morph foreign words. Acceptable doesn't mean it isn't hilarious, though.

LLiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin!

X-Men: Patrulla X
Official Marvel books actually carry the title "Patrulla X"("X" reads "E-kiss" rather than "Ecks"). Because, I guess "Hombres X" sounded a little...too gay. The 90's cartoon  mixed it up and called them "X(E-Kiss) MEN).

Superman es un patan.

Lois Lane: Luisa Lane
There isn't much of a point in my mind to translate common names, but it's apparently a real life thing where William is "Guillermo" in Spanish. So aparently someone decided "Lois" was too foreign sounding and they called her : Luisa. Luisa LANE. Problem solved.  Worry not, Clark Kent, Jimmy Olsen and Perry White are still called that.

Y el avion menos compuesto.

Bruce Wayne: Bruno Diaz
As far as the 60s Batman TV Show Batman's alter ego has been known as Bruno Diaz. making many wonder why he's walking into  a building clearly labled Wayne. But  with how condescending some of the translations get, I guess they don't think the audience can read.

Funny thing is, when I was young I often passed a building called "Empresas Diaz" and I wondered if maybe, possibly, Bruno Diaz himself was up there, waiting for night to fall to become Batman. Hmm...I undestand why they do it now.

There are more, but I must end it here. Maybe later I'll tell you more about Lobezno, El Guason and  Vampira. See you!

Continue

Classic movies turned into videogames

Continue

Is that a gun, or are you happy to see me?

They have the same equipment. She just enjoys it more.

Oh. A gun it is, then. Forget I said anything.

Continue

Princess Hardcore sneak peak 2!

More from the development "team". This time it's Castle Moody, home to the evil Prince Zimo. Still some work to do on this one obviously, but it's coming along.

Continue

Thanks Yahoo!

 Because you don't get enough of this in your Facebook.

We REALLY needed this in the front page.

Continue

Scolding reviews-X-Men Anime's 1-3

'は、フロント、真の信者の顔！

For the record, I love X-Men because of the cartoon. I don't go to comics shops that often and when I do, I usually don't buy X-Men? Wanna know why? Because everytime I open an X-Book to see what is going on, I just don't know what's going on. I'm like "what's this one about, it's got a cool cover. What? Gambit is blind? Rogue lost her powers? Jubilee is  a vampire? Rogue controls her powers? Shatterstar is gay? Who the fuck is Shatterstar? Why is Xavier walking? The Danger room has tits?"

At least Ultimate X-Men streamlined and simp...Why is Wolverine Cable?

I guess for people who can afford to keep up with the stories this changes can provide dramatic buildup but for a guy like me who can't, it's a smattering of the familiar battered with strange goings on.

So I'm happy to say the first 3 episodes  of X-Men Anime series are mostly base X-Men, without any excursions into the thick layers of canon fat that make up the books.

Episode 1 opens to Phoenix kicking the X-Men's ass. Just that.They don't even delve on the Phoenix force. Can't say I blame them. It's Phoenix guys. We KNOW already.

Yeah, it's Monday allright.

Each character does a showcase of their powers, which is great for people who don't know what "Waruverinu" is. Then Cyclops starts crying. Some excepts from his script.

"Cyclops: JIIIIIIN!"

"Cyclops: JIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN!"

"Cyclops: JIIIIiiiiiiIIIIIIIIIIIIiiiIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNnnnNNN!"

Jean has enough of Scott wearing her name out and telekineticaly raises him and messes up his suit. A mental projection shows Scott a more lucid Jean and behind him... a mysterious pair of breasts woman.

Then Jean dies.

Nobody gets a day off if Jean Grey dies.

Cut to a year later, where Xavier reminds us what X-Men are, what they do and all that shit. And he also informs us that the X-Men are disbanded, but will be rebanded soon enough for a very special case. Each of the core cast members are reintroduced as of their solo career before being called into action.Wolverine is stupidly trying to get through the airport but can't make it past the TSA checkpoint in a gag he should know  about by now,  Storm is taking a cruise ship and killing the hell out of pirates and Beast is giving a lecture. In an awesome moment, Beast shows that he has given a squid human intelligence, and  leaves him teaching in his place. I begrudge a bit that there is no ethical discussions on  giving fuckin' seafood human intelligence then leaving him to do your work for you, but dammit, I wish Prof. Devilfish was an actual character in X-Men.

Is he accredited?

Scott, however, never moved on. Literally. He's still at ground Zero of where Jean died, and even Wolverine quips him on it. Yes, Wolverine quips Cyclops in this a lot.

The episode ends with the group going to Japan and Cyclopes coming out of his marasmo to join them in a misson to look for a missing mutant girl in Japan.

Ep 2 opens up with the secret underground lair of THE U-MEN! The U-Men are Human supremacists, including A creepy man wired with electronics and The Grandpa from Boondocks by way of Deadshot and a bunch of overly eager robots with skulls for faces. Apparently they are behind the disappearance of young Mutants in the region. The X-Men interview the girl's parents until a neighbor informs them that their son, too, is missing. The X-Men head out and find that it was on their Hummer and motorcycles when an ambush occurs and robots attack.

The X-Men respond the way they usually respond: By shooting lasers and missiles out of their vehicles. I mean, wouldn't you? Storm tries using her powers but becomes ridiculously fatigued. She didn't get fatigued earlier when she froze a boat filled with pirates, but I guess it's the plot somehow. 

Cyclops is a reckless jerk and has to be saved by Wolverine. What? Wolverine is supposed to be...and Cyclops is...GRR! I think the Japanese got it all confused. I think that's why this series seems to star Cyclops and not Wolverine.

He don't even care a lot about Jean!

Eventually our heroes find the evil lair and the gruesome experiments the U-Men have done, including mutating the hell out of a...Mutant. Hmm. In either case, this mutant mutant mutates the X-Men's ass into his foot's resting place while Cyclops tries to convince the mutant he had good in him. You suck at that, Cykes. Stick to eyeblasting the hell out of things. After Beast uses his machine to determine he can't be demutated, Cyclops reluctantly agrees to put him down in a humaneEYELAZORRRR!

Even when THE GUY HIMSELF thanks him for the mercy kill, Cyclopse still has to cry and moan about it. Getoveritgetovertgetoverit!


Eventually, the team makes their way to the experimental chamber, in which the young mutant they where looking for is in a pod. Also in a pod? Helena, from Dead or Alive! Dun, dun DUUUN!

In the next episode, we find out She's actually Emma frost, a member of the Inner Circle, and the woman who Cyclops saw behind Jean in his vision. So no X-Treme Volleyball or complex power schemes from her. She's also an animal enthusiast, because she has some healthy puppies on her at all times.

Seriously, the escalation in chest sizes in this series is crazy, and I don't know if they can top this. I hope they try. This is what happens when Japanese add their own exaggerated views of white women's breasts and add it to American comics perception of what normal breasts are, and then they go : "Oh, but this character's supposed to have BIG Breasts".

Music Inspired by.

Cyclopse and Wolverine alternate between who's gonna kill her and who's not so sure if they should kill her. But once they get her out of the pod, she denies any involvement with Jean going crazy.

Then they let the girl out. Her name is Hisako Ichiki, known in the comics as Armor. You know, X-Men always have this young girls who serve as the audience's eyes to the strange world of the X-Men, and Armor is no different, as she does exactly what I would want to do in this situation.

She was there for more than  30 seconds. I cut from this.

We do know that, I think.

I think I hurt my pants.

In any case, they put off the execution of Emma Frost and try to head out, but Creepy guy in tubes attack! At first he's somewhat of a person, but then he starts yelling "organs" like he's a zombie that'll settle for anything really. Suddenly Armor 's mutant power activates and she beats the guy up. Then she goes on a rampage because she can't control her powers. And Cyclopse finally does the thing where you talk to someone out of his/er rampage. Took you long enough.

So they take Hisako back to her home, much to the delight of her parents. Looks like it's all wrapped up with... LOOK OUT!

And this is regarding?

Will the X-Men, Emma Furostu, and Hisako survive this assault? Tune in, same X-Hour, Same X-Channel!


It's a cool little series. I'm hoping now that the "setting up characters and situation" part of it is over, we can we can get some advancement on the plot. Also, maybe it won't be like Iron-Man and more characters from the comics will show up. The scroll in the ending shows Mistique, Juggernaut and...

Stryfe, Cable's clone. Damn.

Damn!

Continue

Public Domain Avengers: Assemble!

Then that legend is accidentally dropped.

 Inspired by Asylum's upcoming The Almighty Thor's awesome, blatant cash in on Marvel's Thor, I decided I should prepare to cash in on the future Avenger's film by exploiting tangentially similar public domain(with help from the public Domain Superheroes wiki) character's into  my own super team, the Arrangers!! Rollcall!

You know, WW2 came upon because of complex socioeconomic things that don't matter when Hitler is being punched.

Captain Courageous!(Not Captain America)

Oh, the irony! Many adopted the measly rank of captain to dip into Steve Rogers' action during WW2. There are no limit of the options I could use, and many of them are already walking American flags., however, I'm going with Captain C because he's actually driven by  "the spirit of courage", and apparent metaphysical manifestation of bravery that possesses people and gives them Superpowers.

Not licenced to drive, but already handling deathmechs.

Scoot Suit Sammy!(Who is not Ironman)

We've seen what it would be like if a smarmy Howard Hughes impersonator built a robot suit, but not everyone can build their own armor. Enter Scoot Suit Sammy, a young boy who's uncle is smart enough to build flight enabling super armor, dumb enough to make it  only in kid size, and crazy enough to give it to a member of his family. 

He calls them "love handles"

Double Devil!(Who is not only not Hawkeye, but is not Daredevil even though that's totally his name!)

A mute man who wields the deadliest of weapons! The Boomerang!  Filling in the "you know we invented guns already, right?" spot for Hawkeye is Daredevil! Not much of a talker, but he's good with comebacks!

Can anyone help me? My Godzilla costume is melting!

Creature(Not Hulk if it tried to be)

Creature is a..uh...creature from space that brought only trouble and the military was out to get him. Damn, If only Neutro was Public DOmain...

W.i.R. does not stand for idle chatter!

Woman in Red!(who by the way? Not Black Widow)

Woman in Red is a vigilante woman who wears face concealing technology known as "a domino mask and a hood", It's like they knew what  the combination of cowardice and low budget would look like on Superheroes some day.

Is that where the bodies are, Santa?

Santa Claus(not Thor)

Nobody actually ever legally owned Thor: it's a myth from ancient times! Know what else is a myth from ancient times? Santa Claus(also, your mom.)

Seriously, Saint Nick as a hero would be balls awesome. A kick ass adventurous who is also generous and good to children. Who would refuse St. Nick membership to a super hero group?

Spider=Cape?

"You'll be in stitches!"

As a bonus ripoff, I'll throw in Doll Girl and Spider Queen  filling a spot for snubbed Avengers Antman and Wasp. Spider Queen is awesome because she invented pretty much Spider-Man's web shooters and web. So when Marvel's lawyers come over, you can have a good laugh about how you totally got the idea from the public domain.

So where's my 5 thousand dollars to film it?

Continue

Princess Hardcore sneak peak!

For those who wheren't paying attention the first time, this is my WIP Hardcore Princess in action, as well as a first look into the  Bipolar Icecap and Underwater stage graphics. What can I say? I'm a man of many 3 talents. Shout out to my sister for her work on the backgrounds.

Continue

Asylum-Watch: The Allmighty Thor

Being poor sucks. But, on the other hand, you get to experience sides of  nerddom the haves don't . For example, if this summer you can't see Thor on theaters,  could you settle for Asylum's The Allmighty Thor?

Amazingly, they managed to rope name wrestler Kevin Nash as Odin.  See, this is why people love Asylum. Not only do they make a low budget "version" of Thor but they make a low budget version of fan expectations!

Pretty sneaky! Since Thor is public domain mythology, Marvel can't do a damn thing! But don't get sloppy, Asylum! Captain America is right around  the corner, you might want to get acquainted with this. It's a list of all the superheroes that are in the public domain. My personal  choice? Captain Courageous. If only because Captain Nippo is badly needing an update...

Continue

Storyboards

Back from exile.  I did two storyboards and sequenced them like animatics, just to show off.

Continue