Electric Sista Hood :: Video Game Reviews, Tech Gadget Reviews, and Anime Reviews

New Podcast Day: Episode 82

posted @ 1/14/2008 12:58:00 AM by Ninjasistah

Monday again people, so you know we have to bring you a new episode of the ESH podcast. Like the many, many episodes that have come before it this one is chock full of goody goodness.

In this weeks episode of the podcast Pandalicious shares her take on the TokyoPop manga King of Thorn while NinJaSistah shares some of the HDTV tech that made an impression on her at this years' CES tradeshow. From the 1.5 inch thick Hitachi TV to Sony's pricey OLED and back round to realistic manga characters, we cover a bit of it all this week.

If you need a better idea of what we cover in this episode, here is the list of the rejected episode titles:

Parenthetical Notation Will Keep You Legal
Macs Travel In Packs
You Can't Take All 42 Inches of My TV
Who Will Pay $2500 For 11 Inches
You Can't Be An Artist If You Suck
Blue Hair And Gold Eyes Are Just Wrong
The Bronchitasaur? Now We Know Why They All Died
Marko Owen Is Not A New Swimming Pool Game
Don't Worry, There's More String On Aisle 5
Whiney Is My Kryptonite
Bill Gates Is Becoming A Charity Pimp
Nature Whoops Sciences' Ass, Everytime
and
It's Not The Size of Your LCD, But How You Use It

Grab your mornin' cup of joe and take a listen to ESH podcast episode 82: Went To CES and Partied Like A Lohan!

Labels: CES, ESH-Crew, Lohan, Manga, Ninjasistah, Pandalicious, Podcast, Tokyopop, YouTube

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.hack Your Way Into Harvard

posted @ 9/13/2007 01:15:00 PM by evermore

Click to enlarge

Anyone who has ever studied for the SAT exams is well aware of the dreadful texts they must trudge through in order to expand their vocabulary. Well, now high-schoolers don't have to hide their manga inside their SAT preparation books -- the manga is the SAT preparation book!

Kaplan, the folks who in recent years have converted popular works of literature such as Wuthering Heights into SAT preparation books, have gotten together with manga publisher TOKYOPOP to create SAT prep books based on some of the most popular manga works.

From a recent BusinessWeek story, "Alien Planets, Princesses, And PSATs":

"To beef up the books' SAT quotient, the companies upgraded some of the dialogue. But all the original art and story lines are preserved, says TOKYOPOP CEO Stu Levy. Designed for 14- to 16-year-olds, the books, says Kaplan's McMahon, may also appeal to another expanding market: English-language learners."

The Kaplan manga titles currently available on Amazon.com (the listings include excerpts of each book):

Van Von Hunter

Warcraft: Dragon Hunt

Psy-Comm

.hack: Legend of the Twilight

If they had had that for Archie back when I was a kid, I might have gotten into Harvard...

Labels: evermore, Manga, Tokyopop

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Mitsukazu Mihara: The Embalmer

posted @ 3/30/2007 03:03:00 PM by MagicMystic

Our friend, Tim Beedle over at Tokyopop heard the podcast where I raved about how much I loved Priest, and suggested this title to me.

Shinjyurou is an embalmer in Japan where his profession is viewed as taboo and unacceptable but most of all it is seen as unclean. He has accepted this life as an outcast in order to help those who've lost loved ones in the only way he knows. Because of this division from society as well as the nature of his job, Shin understands death, it's result and the psychological impact it has on those who were close to the recently departed. The series is episodic and in each of the highly personal stories he must deal with public prejudice as well as grieving families.

When I first picked up The Embalmer I had this vision in my head that this was going to be a Crypt Keeper type story. Horrifying tales to frighted children, stories of gruesome deaths and lives cut short, but I had it all wrong, or partially wrong anyways. Although the death and pain are still there, the lesson of the manga is that embalming isn't about the dead it's about the living. Making a loved one look beautiful for one final goodbye can set the heart at ease. Before I knew it I was totally charmed. Mitsukazu Mihara provides some amazing insights into grieving and healing emotional wounds without getting all textbook with the Stages of Grief.

The really interesting thing about this series is the division of Shinjyurou's world from everyone else. He intimately understands death and the emotions that stem from it, but he seems to have difficulty with the living. He craves the touch of warm flesh and is an incorrigible womanizer, always bringing home different women, but the person he most wants to be with, he never approaches.

I've read the first three volumes, which encompass Shinjyurou's path to becoming an embalmer, highlight the emotional difficulties of people dealing with death and touch on the funny ways people live their lives. I'm really excited about the next volume because if the 'Next Volume' preview is any indication there will be some light shed on Shinjyurou's relationship with Azuki, the girl next store who could be more.

This is not a series for kids, there is gore, bloody violence, nudity and bad language, but more than that it's very adult subtext is what makes the series so poignant. I give this series a 4.5/5. I can't think of anything that could possibly make The Embalmer any better.

Labels: MagicMysticGrl, Manga, Mitsukazu-Mihara, Tokyopop

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RE:Play

posted @ 11/04/2006 01:53:00 PM by MagicMystic

I was rereading one of my favorite manga for the hundred and second time today, and I decided that you all should enjoy it as much as I have.

The manga is RE:Play by Christy Lijewski, the creator of the runner-up story 'Doors' from Tokyopop's Rising Stars of Manga Vol 3. If you are looking for something great to read, this is it. RE:Play has bands, vampires, homeless guys, cross-dressers, amnesiacs, angry exes, more 'haute couture' than Rail can shake his fork at and it's funny too.

Izsak is your regular everyday homeless amnesiac, which is to say that he's a bit on the strange side. He plays guitar in subway stations for chump change, until one day Cree shows up and drags him home with her. Cree wants Izsak to join her band, Faust, and promises him a home and a bed to sleep in if he agrees. Having nothing better to do Izsak joins up. Char the cross-dressing fashonista drummer takes to Izsak immediately, but not all the band members are quite so accepting. Rail, Cree's adoptive older brother is distrustful of this random bum Cree has brought in off the streets, and he vows to stay close so that Izsak doesn't do anything creepy. Unfortunately, Izsak may not be able to help the fact that he's creepy, considering the fact that he's a vampire. (Maybe, there are strong hints) Add Cree's ex, Ed, the former guitarist and Char's twin brother, some mysterious people following Izsak and some fairly normal band drama and you have an awesome book.

I really love Christy's work, of the Rising Stars of Manga stories I have read 'Doors' is by far my favorite. She has the ability to make all of her characters lifelike and cool beyond belief, as I read RE:Play I find myself wishing that I was friends with the band. The storyline is tight, with even amounts fun, drama, character development and flashbacks of sordid pasts. The art is amazing as well. Each character has a distinct style and a variety of outfits are seen for each of them. Christy designs her own clothing and her personal style and design sense comes through loud and clear with the outfits she has put together for the book. There are no school uniform cop-outs or characters that have closets full of one single outfit. Cree, Izsak and company are living breathing Laundromat visiting people.

I give RE:Play a 5/5. It's awesome every time you read it, even the hundred and second time. 2 silver MMs for a band full of piercings and clothed in some cool ass shit, black for dark undertones and vampires, aqua green for some great one liners and jokes, and a dark pink for drama.

Labels: MagicMysticGrl, Manga, quit, Tokyopop

Finish what you start...

November Tokyopop Releases

posted @ 11/02/2006 01:23:00 AM by MagicMystic

It was three whole months ago now that I got my fall issue of Takuhai from Tokyopop. It detailed a whole list of releases for each month. After this November list there will only be one more left, December.

November Releases:
12 Days
Blame! 6
Boys Be... 11
Dears 8
Devil May Cry, Novel 2
!The Dreaming 2
*Elemental Gelade 2
Gatcha Gatcha 3
!GetBackers 16
Gundam Seed X Astray
Happy Feet Cine-manga
!ID_ENTITY 8
!*Immortal Rain 7
Initial D 24
Kat & Mouse 2
The Kindachi Case Files 14
King of Hell 14
Last Fantasy 3
Le Portrait De Petite Cossette 2
!Mark of the Succubus 2

My-Hime
Neck and Neck 6
!Never Give Up 3
Off*Beat 2
One 10
!Otogi Zoshi 2
Peppermint 2
Queens
Recast
Redrum 237 2 (of 3)
Remote 10 (of 10)
Rose Hip Rose
Samurai Deeper Kyo 20 (of 31)
!*Shutterbox 4 (of 6)
*Strawberry Marshmallow 2 (of 4)
Telpathic Wanderers 4 (of 4)
!Satisfaction Garanteed 2 (of 9)
Trinity Blood

The manga I plan to check out in November are Queens and Recast.

Queens is the story about Pil-Hyun Jun, a feminine bishonen trying to learn to be a manly man in order to win over the heart of his crush, Song-Ah Che. Pil-Hyun finds a comicbook "Escape from Being a Pretty-Boy" that reads as an account of his life. He seeks out the author, hoping to learn a thing or two, but the author turns out to be a SHE with sexually over-zealous roommates. Somehow he ends up moving in with the girls in order to learn the art of comicbooks and being a man. Meanwhile his crush is falling in love with a manly jerk.

Recast is about JD, a young boy raised an groomed by his grandfather to become the last hope for the world. He's a terrible student and is far more interested in the newest and most popular magical items than in conflict between good and evil. So when bounty hunters from the Fourth World come after JD and his grandfather will he grow into his powers or die trying?

Labels: Blood, Devil-May-Cry, MagicMysticGrl, Manga, Tokyopop

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Demon Diary Dilemma

posted @ 11/01/2006 06:49:00 PM by MagicMystic

I seem to have a Demon Diary Dilemma, AKA The Case of the Mysterious Bunny Girl. In August of 2000 writer Lee Chi Hyong and artist(s) Kara, an art duo, teamed up and started publishing a manwha series called "Mawang Ilgi," released in the US as Demon Diary. Several years later in March of 2002 Kara finished the 7th book with another writer, Lee Yun Hee. The question is did Lee Yun Hee finish the same story Lee Chi Hyong started?

Chi Hyong only completed the first of the 7 volumes, the rest were written by Yun Hee. Kara has a brief artists' note at the beginning of the second volume that explains the transition. In short, the note said Chi Hyong left the book to study for his high school exams and the rest of the story was in Yun Hee's capable hands.

There isn't much to indicate where Chi Hyong wanted the book to go. Most manga and manwha graphic novels are 200 pages or more, Volume 1 was only 144 pages of actual Demon Diary content with two additional stories, Crystal Heart and Terra. Three of the main characters, Raenef, Erutis and Eclipse are introduced and that's about it. I wasn't there for the transition so I don't know how much guidance Yun Hee got from Chi Hyong. He may have had an outline of the story for her, or he may have left it entirely up to her to decide the future of the characters.

The story itself transitions beautifully. If it weren't for the artists' note from Kara and the change of the writers name on the cover of the book I never would have guessed that the series was any different. I was initially going to write a simple review of the Demon Diary series and talk about how cool it was, but when I picked up the first volume to start re-reading it, I realized that there was one last loose end that Yun Hee missed. At the very beginning of the first chapter there is a scene that is never explained.

It looks like it is supposed to take place far in the future of the events in the series. The chapter title is My Time Remaining, a mature and older Raenef is leaning up against a busted concrete wall, his chest is bandaged and he's wearing what looks like space age clothing. The only text is Raenef speaking and he says, "I wonder what he's doing right now? It's been almost a year... You know, I can't wait any longer... I'm going to go find him. Hey... are you listening? Don't worry... you're coming too." It's only a 4 page scene and it's mostly shots of Raenef or the wreckage of the building he's sitting in/near, but the last image shows who he's talking to and it's this cute little girl with bunny ears and wires sticking out all over her body. She's got those Chobits eyes, the ones with the information streaking across them, so I think she's a robot. But that's it. There is no further information and when you get into the story there are no electronics and it's the usual fantasy story set in 'medieval' times.

So here's the question, what the heck did Lee Chi Hyong have in mind when he wrote that first scene, and do you think the Demon Diary Yun Hee finished and Tokyopop published is the Demon Diary Chi Hyong imagined?

Oh, by the way, Demon Diary is an awesome manwha and you should all read it. I'll give you the whole plotline in one sentence...

Demon lords are powerful, evil beings of chaos and destruction, so what happens when the newest of the Demon lords is a fluffy airheaded pacifist.

Pure fun, that's what. Kara is a great artist, and the Lees are great writers.

Labels: Electronics, MagicMysticGrl, Manga, Tokyopop

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Daily News: WoW Expansion Pack Delayed

posted @ 10/24/2006 11:06:00 PM by evermore

In today's news:

Gamers in a World of Hurt
There's a sale at Penney's Toys"R"Us!
Old School comes roaring back
Sony Reader gets thumbs up
Monsters, demons and detectives, oh my!

WoW expansion pack misses holiday selling season: Testing on the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion pack got started only this month, and as a result the package won't be available for sale until after the first of the year. According to an Associated Press story, "Gamers will instead have to wait until January to plumb the depths of Outland in The Burning Crusade..."

It's 3-for-2 time at Toys"R"Us: Through Saturday Oct. 28 at Toys"R"Us, buy two in-stock video games, get the third one free! Here are the weasel words: Free video game must be of equal or lesser value to the lowest priced item purchased. Limited quantities available. Sorry, no rain checks. Here are the online promotion rules.

Some gamers putting warp drive in reverse: In an age where a new video game system is close to breaking the $600 mark, some gamers are reliving the good ol' days, buying old game machines in pawn shops for a $20 bill and buying old games for a five-spot. "Maybe it's because they grew up on them," Jim McCauley, owner of JimmyJams Comics and Games in Winona, Minn., told the Winona Daily News. "A lot of college-age guys look at all the new games, but also the old Nintendo games. I see a lot of that. There's a lot of nostalgia going on." The big sellers? Games with Mario and Luigi. One customer says, "They're chick magnets."

Is the Sony Portable Reader squint-worthy? That's the question answered by Tony Salvaggio for Comic Book Resources in his review of the new portable device. Specifically, Salvaggio checked out the Reader for its ability to display manga titles. "Tokyopop has committed to releasing a collection of their Global Manga lineup for release at the launch of the Sony Reader (in fact, an excerpt of 'Peach Fuzz' should come pre-loaded with the Reader)," Salvaggio writes, "and I was able to take a sneak peak at the results."

Tactics, Vol. 2: Supernatural detective Kantaro Ichinomiya and his band of monsters and demons are back! This time, the team travels to Bride Island, Suzuku Temple and Asakusa in search of adventures, monsters and interesting journal articles. Sounds... like... fun.

Labels: Burning-Crusade, evermore, Games, Manga, selling, Sony, Tokyopop, Videogames, World-of-Warcraft

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Daily News: All I Want for Christmas...

posted @ 10/20/2006 11:32:00 PM by evermore

In today's news:

The mother of all shortages
The top 10,000
Out like a Lamb
Just some good ol' boys
Another Case Closed

Want a Wii or PS3 before Christmas? Forget about it: "This is going to be the mother of all shortages," said Larry Haverty, associate portfolio manager of Gabelli Global Multimedia Trust. He and others have told Reuters that purchasing this year's new consoles at the regular retail price before Christmas might be impossible.

The 10,000 most important gamers in the world: Are you part of the Nielsen 10,000? If you are, you're one of the most important gamers in the world. Nielsen, the folks who measure TV viewership, will be measuring videogame usage in its Nielsen GamePlay Metrics. Some 10,000 gamers have been chosen to represent the worldwide audience of videogame fans. "We are not targeting homes of gamers specifically," said Jeff Hermann, VP of Nielsen Wireless and Interactive Services. "The panel represents the media consumption habits of the US consumer. Since the panel is statistically representative of all U.S. consumers, the gaming population is a subset of the overall panel and statistically projectable to represent game title and duration of play of the entire gaming population."

Noise of "The Lamb": Tokyopop's animated production of its long-running manga series "Lament of the Lamb" will be spotlighted at the 2006 Tokyo International Film Festival next week. Described in Tokyopop's press release as "a gut-wrenching horror story of a young man who shockingly discovers he may be the last in a bloodline of vampires," the manga version was created by Kei Toume and originally published in Japan by Gentosha. While TOKYOPOP'S popular manga properties, "Priest" and "Pet Shop of Horrors", have been recently acquired for film adaptation by Sony Screen Gems and Focus Features, respectively, "Lament of the Lamb" signals the company's first move into theatrical feature film production.

Why I don't live in Alabama anymore: James Wilson and Lance Borchert, both of Athens, Ala., were playing their favorite teams in a Playstation college football game Sept. 30 -- a game that became a little too serious. With Borchert's Tennessee team leading Wilson's Auburn team, Wilson became upset when Borchert quit the game and went to bed. Wilson, Borchert's wife's cousin, allegedly entered the Borchert's bedroom and stabbed Borchert in the back with a butcher knife. Although the knife punctured Borchert's lung, it did not kill him. Wilson ran from the Borchert home into the nearby woods and was tracked down by dogs from the Limestone Correctional Facility.

Exploding Skyscrapers? Don't Blame Godzilla: The city is in the grip of a crazed bomber in Case Closed: The Time Bombed Skyscraper - The Movie and nobody is safe as a crushing wave of terror washes over the innocent citizens. Planes, trains and massive towers all threaten to light up the night sky -- the sick whims of a brutal lunatic played out in sudden balls of fire. Conan Edogawa finds himself in a desperate race against the clock, an explosive game of cat and mouse with a deviant madman, and every second counts. Can he unravel the maniacal malcontent's scheme before the next timer reaches zero? Awww, probably, but you should check it out anyway.

Labels: Blood, evermore, Manga, Movie, PlayStation, Priest, PS3, quit, Sony, Tokyopop

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Tokyopop's October Releases

posted @ 9/27/2006 08:27:00 AM by MagicMystic

Here's October, the second month of Tokyopop's fall release schedule.

Note:
! - Means that I have read a previous volume in this series and I liked it (the more "!" the more I liked it)
* - Means that there is a review somewhere in the archives.

October Releases:
.Hack//Another Birth 2
Ai Yori Aoishi 14
!Angel Cup 2
Avatar: The Last Airbender Cine-manga
Beyond the Beyond 2
Blood Sucker 2
Boys of Summer 2
!Broken Angels 3
Daphne in the Brilliant Blue
Dragon Head 4
Dragon Voice 7
!!!!DramaCon 2
Earthlight
Et Cetera 8
Good Witch of the West
GTO: The Early Years - Shonen Junai-Gumi 2

I Luv Halloween 3
Judas
!Kamichama Karin 5
Kami-Kaze 3
Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
Lights Out 5
!Liling-Po 5
Loveless 3
Mitsuki Mihara's: Haunted House
!!!!PHD: Phantasy Degree 7
Planet Blood 5
!Platinum Garden 2
!!The Queen's Knight 7
RA-I
!RG Veda 7
Snow
!Sorcerer Hunters 7
Steady Beat 2
!Threads of Time 8
Tramps Like Us 10
!Ultra Cute 4
Welcome to the NHK

The manga I'm going to check out in October are Snow, DramaCon, PhD: Phantasy Degree, The Good Witch of the West, Earthlight, Queen's Knight and RA-I.

I have already read previous volumes of DramaCon, PhD and Queen's Knight. I am super really excited that they are all being released this month. I will be checking the shelves of the nearest bookstores at least once a week for these mangas.

From what I can tell, Snow is a tounge and cheek sci-fi comedy about planetary domination and decimation. The Good Witch of the West seems to be a manga style fairy tale, Earthlight is a school drama on the moon and RA-I is about a detective who finds a boy with paranormal powers. I'll have to get back to you later in October with reviews of each of these manga and what I thought.

Labels: Blood, MagicMysticGrl, Manga, Tokyopop

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New Podcast Day: Episode 82

posted @ 1/14/2008 12:58:00 AM by Ninjasistah

.hack Your Way Into Harvard

posted @ 9/13/2007 01:15:00 PM by evermore

Mitsukazu Mihara: The Embalmer

posted @ 3/30/2007 03:03:00 PM by MagicMystic

RE:Play

posted @ 11/04/2006 01:53:00 PM by MagicMystic

November Tokyopop Releases

posted @ 11/02/2006 01:23:00 AM by MagicMystic

Demon Diary Dilemma

posted @ 11/01/2006 06:49:00 PM by MagicMystic

Daily News: WoW Expansion Pack Delayed

posted @ 10/24/2006 11:06:00 PM by evermore

Daily News: All I Want for Christmas...

posted @ 10/20/2006 11:32:00 PM by evermore

Tokyopop's October Releases

posted @ 9/27/2006 08:27:00 AM by MagicMystic