Month: September 2007

General

Akira

By on Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Akira is one of those classic animes. It is noteworthy because it was one of the first ones that featured detailed scenes and fluid-motion. I read about it before but haven’t had the chance to watch it until Bianca lent me her copy.

Akira is about a top secret government experiment gone wrong. A street gang gets tangled in the experiment and one of the gang members, Tetsuo, started manifesting unusual mental powers and destroying things. The gang leader, Kaneda, took it as his responsibility to set out and stop Tetsou. It culminates in an action-packed showdown that shifted towards the metaphysical.

I noticed that such shifts seems to recur in quite a few of the animes I’ve seen. I noticed it first in Robotech, then Evangelion, and now Akira. It somehow reminded me of Stanley Kubrick’s Space 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Rating: 3/5

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General

Neon Genesis Evangelion

By on Saturday, September 1, 2007

I’ve heard about Neon Genesis Evangelion or Evangelion before. In fact I’ve seen an Evangelion movie (forgot which, see below) and Rei Ayanami is a favorite anime character. However, I haven’t seen the TV series. This is bad since Evangelion is supposedly one of the best as well as one of the most influential animes. This changed when I was able to borrow a copy of the TV series from Aby. I immediately and eagerly watched it over several days.

Evangelion is set in a post-apocalyptic Earth under attack by an enemy referred to as Angels. The Angels are invulnerable to conventional weapons because of their AT shields. The only weapon that can combat the angels are Evangelions or Evas. These are experimental highly-unstable mecha which also have AT shields. As the series progresses a lot of combat ensues and a conspiracy unfolds. This plus the focus on the characters makes for a quite compelling story.

Unfortunately, the ending– specifically episodes 25 and 26– was, to say the least, confusing. It was all a sequence of psychological and metaphysical meandering occurring purely in the characters’ heads. I did some research and found out a lot of fans were also confused and dissatisfied with the ending.

Thus, when the first Evangelion movie, Death and Rebirth, was released it included an alternate ending. It is composed of two parts: Death which is the merging of the truncated TV episodes and Rebirth which is the the alternate ending. Rebirth however is not the full ending as the movie was released before it can be completed.

So another movie called The End of Evangelion was released which is composed solely of the alternate ending episodes (episodes 25′ and 26′) to the TV series. After watching this, things become a bit clearer but also a bit more muddled. But heck, it rocks!

All these were finally brought together in Renewal of Evangelion which is composed of an edited Death part of Death and Rebirth plus End of Evangelion. This movie is considered the complete Neon Genesis Evangelion movie.

But wait! There’s more! A new movie called Rebuild of Evangelion with new scenes is coming out. And there’s even rumors of a live action movie.

Rating: 4/5

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Gadgets

USB 2.0 to SATA/IDE Adapter

By on Saturday, September 1, 2007

This one is one of those indispensable techie tools. It’s a 3-in-1 external drive adapter from large IDE, small IDE, and SATA interface to USB 2.0. This means that with only one kit, you can connect practically ANY disk-based storage device via high-speed USB 2.0 to your PC. That would be 5.25″ form-factor CD and DVD drives, 3.5″ desktop hard drives, and 2.5″ notebook hard drives. You can also connect both a SATA and an IDE device at the SAME time. And here’s the clincher: there’s no fancy shmancy casings. Only exposed wires and circuit boards. How geek cool is that?

It’s available in most computer shops (I got mine from AWD at Robinson’s Galleria) or online (including, of course, the famous Brando).

Here is a more comprehensive review.

Rating: 4/5

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