Anime and Video Games By Kyle Andrade
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Anime
Mirai (2008)
Mirai is about a little boy named Kun, who lives with his mom, dad, dog, and felt forgotten from his family when his new born sister, Mirai, came to his home. Through the movie he hated his little sister, the first thing he did was hit her with a toy train and she’s a few months old. He runs into the backyard crying after his parents scared him, than some magic entity happened and a man that looked like his dog tells him how he felt when Kun came into the picture. The second act was his little sister, Mirai, as a teenager. The third act was his mom, but the same age as he is. His fourth meeting was with his great grandfather after World War II was over. And finally, unknowingly, he meets his older self, but that was just one minute. I would loved say what happens after, but that would spoil the surprise. The movie teaches Kun about life and how his family tree went through the same situations he is going through. He even met his younger sister, Mirai, as a grownup. What I did like about the film is that it guides Kun through many different points in time where it’s showing and not telling. He even becomes part of those events. I also like that his experience in each points in time helps him grow as a person and learning the things about his family, despite him still hating his sister. Children needs to learn things by themselves sometimes in order to fully grow and learn in life. What irritates me was that one scene with him ripping off his human dog’s tails I have no idea what happens next after that. He just puts on the tail and he’s like either Mario or Kirby raccoon, he’s a boy dog and he runs around the house. Even his dad noticed and has no idea, but that was it. He somehow turns back into a kid and nobody mentions it again. What also annoys me was the kid, Kun. He keeps wining and doesn’t shut up. I get that he’s a 5 year old kid, children are always sensitive and gets upset when a new born sibling(s) comes into their lives. They think that the newborns are taking everything away from them, when the newborn literally has no idea what’s going on. The last thing I would want to do is yell at and tell him to shut up, but that really wouldn’t help at all. I’m no parent, but that wouldn’t be the case. Overall, I think it’s a great movie for all ages, because it teaches the viewers how events from the past and future ties in the present.
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JOJOs Bizarre Adventure
Most anime are usually mythical, set Japan or in another country, and usually follows one protagonist until he/she dies or manga/anime series ended. However, none of them can be the same as JOJO’s Bizarre Adventure. Created by Hiroko Araki, one of the greates mangakas of all time, JoJo is a series where each character of the Joestar bloodline has their own part. The fighting against your adoptive brother who turned himself into a vampire, to fighting along side a Nazi cyborg against Greek gods, to traveling fifty days with the power of ghosts called stands to kill a one hundred year old vampire that took your great great grandfather’s body, and the list goes on. “Bizarre”, isn’t it. What I love about this series is how crazy and random the show gets. Unlike any other anime where it’s usually set in Japan, this show sets from England to America to Italy to Japan to Middle East. Places like those you rarely seen in other anime/manga’s unless it’s the anime called America. Araki is best known for the most creative art styles, which some would say is gay while others including myself says it’s a masterpiece. The fandom however is basically believed to be gay even though they’re not(anymore, because the part 6 adaption). Like many artists who uses references for their work Araki uses references from Greek, magazines, and other art pieces. He is also a big fan of western musicians, so he named everything after his favorite musicians, such as Robert E.O Speedwagon is named after the ban REO Speedwagon, Esidisi is the pronunciation of AC/DC, Stone Free is named after the song titled by Jimi Hendrix, and Bites the Dust which is Another One Bites the Dust by Queen. What I dislike about the series are either too much masculinity or not enough masculinity. When I think of Jojo the first that comes to mind are the poses, I think it’s too much that I’m looking at. Mysuggestion is to bring down the poses a little bit. Or maybe it’s because we don’t get to see other character spinoffs beside “Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan” where it’s about a character named Rohan who talks about his stories of the most paranormal activities he encountered. Overall, I love Araki and his creative work on JOJO and I really hope Part nine would come out eventually. I’m currently reading stone ocean. and after that I’m reading part seven and eight. I would wish to commission Araki on one or two artworks he could make for me like a self portrait of me but Araki style or maybe a poster of all characters together.
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The Diary of Anne Franke (1995) Animated movie The Diary of Anne Franke is a 1995 Japanese animated movie based on a true story about a German Dutch named Anne Franke and her life trying to stay hidden from the Nazis for 2 years (1942-1944). After the war, Otto Frank, Anne’s father and the only Frank survivor, went to Amsterdam and found her diary that tells about her perspective and life while hiding from the Nazis. I stumbled upon this movie on YouTube and thought it looked old and vintage like if it was from the 1940’s, but alas it wasn’t. However, I didn’t mind checking it out, because I love animation. After watching the film, I had a few emotions such as sorrow, guilt, and sadness from how I experienced watching the film for the first time. What I really like about the film is how it encapsulates the setting of WW2. How the German Soldiers are scattered around Germany. How Jews have to wear a badge to tell that they’re Jewish. This gives more glance of what happened in wartimes. What I didn’t like is that it feels like the movie is taking forever, because the moment it was getting interesting, it was already over. I also wish the movie could show Anne Frank’s life a little more before the plan had started, so we could know more about her and her family, instead of watching them staying in a room for 2 years. In the end, it’s a movie that is worth experiencing. You can watch this on YouTube right now by going here: https://youtu.be/qAIRFyR6NyQ
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Video games Everyone including myself loves video games, because its a part of our childhood. What I love about video games are the different worlds to explore, for they have the potential to give players creative imagination. One game is where you’re in a 1940’s steampunk fantasy, the next would set in cyber-where, and there’s even places where monsters and most likely the universe itself is out to get you so you have to survive. So that’s why I love video game, they help shape the players’ view on the world.
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Indivisible
Indivisible is a 2d character in 3d environment RPG platform made by . What I really love about the game is the art style. The first time it caught me was back in 2020 of April last year. I opened up Nintendo Eshop on the Nintendo switch and looked up what to buy and that’s where I found it. The 2D design of the box art is what caught my attention for it felt promising. Once you’re playing the game you would already know how much effort and passionate was put in to the game. The fighting skills, the character design, and most importantly the animation for every single frame by frame.However, there were a few quirks that bugs me. For instance the voice acting. The few does a pretty good job such as Dhar being voiced by Ben Diskin, Zebei voiced by Mathew Mercer, and Razmi voiced by Stephanie Sheh. Tania Gunadi did a pretty good job voicing the main protagonist Ajna, but the way she screams is not only unrealistic but cringeworthy at the same. And then there’s Thorani, voiced by Zehra Fazal, for I wouldn’t say she’s a bad voice actor and she did some good lines and sounds like a mother figure, yet most of what she says just sounds corny. The story is great, but it does have plot holes that damages it. The biggest plot hole is when the supporting cast gets sucked into Ajna’s brain. Like the first time Ajna “accidently” sent Dhar to her brain, she then meets up with Razmi who thinks Ajna is crazy for saying she has a man in her head and then after that Razmi gets the same treatment as Dhar. That is not a bad concept, however that idea of Ajna being a crazy lady was flushed down the toilet and everyone for the rest of the game is able to talk to Ajna’s companions despite them being in her head, for I was so confused on that. So the game is not perfect, but it does have good things in it. It’s like when you’re baking a delicious cake, and you started adding too much sugar and less frosting in it, but just kept going to get it all done, that’s Indivisible. Despite the criticism I have given it’s still a good game for people to play and appreciate the good stuff they made. Creative_Writing.indd 11
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Super Smash Brothers Braw: Subspace Emmissary Super Smash Brothers has been going on for more than 20 years form 1999 with the Nintendo 64, 2001 with Melee, 2008 Brawl, 2013 and 2014 with 3DS / WiiU, and 2018 Super Smash Brothers Ultimate.
So in this blog, I will be talking about my favorite Super Smash Brothers Brawl for it was the
first wii game I had played in a new console at its’s time known as the wii which is the best console in my generation. What I love about Brawl is it’s adventure mode Subspace Emissary. What I love is it’s storytelling and world building where all your favorite characters and even the ones you never knew existed al come together to stop the evil Subspace army.
The cutscenes are one of the best things about the Emissary, where they introduce you to the
characters and also them interacting with each other without any dialogue. Not to mention when they die they turn into trophies. Just to be clear the series as a whole is non canon fanfic in the mind of a child. And this was proven since the very beginning.
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The enemies of the story have 4 groups. The first group is the Koopa army where there are Goom bas, Koopa Troopas, Bullet Bills, and the Hammer Bros. The second group is the R.O.B army where is a R.O.B sentry, Launcher, and Blaster. The third group are the primids where there is a normal one, metal, boomerang, fire blaster, gun, sword, and a big one. And finally the fourth group is the rest of. the subspace army where there is a robot chicken, an eye fish, a cloning ball, and many others. What I like about this is that there are many enemies in the game that it becomes a challenge to the player. The bosses are amazing. From Pete the Piraña to Porky to Ridley to Raquaaaza to Ridley again to two original characters Galleom and Duon. Like the enemies they are all challenging for the player. The most difficult of them all is the final boss Tabuu, for he has similar about from Marx from Kirby. Overall, the story is unlike any other story from other games. Looking back at the game as a whole now still holds up, despite the backlash back in the day. It is one of the most Nostalgic games in my generations.
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Team Fortress 2 Ever since Call of Duty blew up, a ton of video games try to copy that formula with every first person shooter game out there. Almost all of them look exactly the same. With mostly the US Marine or Navy, the faceless/voiceless protagonists, the over archy twist, and obviously save the world. However, none of them can be compared to Valve’s 2007 First person shooter game Team Fortress 2. This game is beyond ridiculousness in the right ways. You play as nine mercenaries with a lot of character in them. When it comes to gameplay, I nitpick on a few characters on each of them. For instance, when I’m in 2fort, I play as the sniper because I enjoy shooting people in the head. When I’m in other places like stopping the payload or getting the target, I mostly choose either sniper, Demoman, medic, or soldier. Soldier, because I love rocket jumping. Demoman, because I love blowing up things. Medic, because I enjoy healing and ubercharging. Sniper, because as I said earlier, I like aiming at people. What I love about this game is that unlike any other FPS games, it’s not a hero’s mission to save the world. It’s mostly about nine mercenaries hired by a company called Mann Co. just to beat the crap out of each other. It also has life with its cartoony vibes, there’s characters with actual personalities, even when Soldier is an American “soldier”. Even if you don’t know what it is or it’s existence, you may have seen it through memes, Gmod, 4chan, etc.
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There are people who say this is a ripoff of Fortnite or Overwatch when the game came way before them. They just didn’t see their history. It’s been 14 years and people are still playing the game and it aged like fine wine. The game is great and all, but there are always problems in everything. For those you who don’t know, there have been countless times where aimbots occur in the game. They are usually snipers with mostly a skull hat that looks like its aiming up and without moving they easily shoot at the player in the head, and to make it worse they typically turn on loud sounds to annoy the player. The community tries to kick them out as much as possible even the team is trying to fix it. It’s not just snipers, other characters like Heavy have recently became bots. There’s also those that try to steal the player’s name (mine included). Overall, it’s still the best FPS game, in my opinion. And it’s free on steam. So if you have a chance to play it, go right ahead.
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Sonic Unleashed Sonic Unleashed is a 2008 game for PS3/PS2,XBOX 360, and Wii. Directed by Yoshihisa Hashimoto
The story starts off outside of Earth with Sonic doing his daily agenda, and that’s taking down
Eggman’s space fortress. However the blue hedgehog fell into the doc’s trap and removed the seven jewels called chaos emeralds (which Sonic had brought with him) out of him. Eggman uses the seven emeralds to blast on the Earth so he can make his own amusement park. The Earth breaks into pieces with each continent in there, unleashing (no pun intended) a powerful dark spirit to spread across the globe. The power also transformed Sonic into a werehog. Eggman then throws him back to earth and landed on Apotos, for sonic met a little Chihuahua with memory loss named Chip. It is then revealed that Sonic turns back to normal at day and turns in the werehog at night. They eventually find out that the planet broke into pieces and must restore the world like it’s a puzzle piece. There are two types of gameplays, both night and day. At day you play as Sonic, the fastest hedgehog alive. You boost around the city and land, while running over Eggman’s machines. At night, you play his counterpart, the werehog, where you climb on top of buildings, use Sonic’s stretchy arms to collect objects, and fight against not only Eggman’s robots, but also Dark Gaia’s minions. As a Sonic game, people including myself would prefer the daytime Sonic for it’s incredible boost formula. However, I personally prefer the werehog for it’s multiple fighting abilities that can stretch Creative_Writing.indd 21
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the werehog’s limbs. As a kid I loved the werehog back then, I still love it now. What I really admire about the game is not just the gameplay, but also it’s locations and culture inspired by the real world. For instance, Apotos is inspired by Santana, Greece, with it’s structural buildings and landscapes. Other countries around the worldwere mostly inspired by Western Europe like Spain, France, Italy, England etc. And one country called Chun-an screams out China, or somewhere else in Asia. What I don’t like about the game are the sun and moon medals for they help you unlock your next stage, which most of the medals are hidden in different places you can’t find, making it feel like a chore.
Back in 2008, the game hasn’t gotten that much appreciation then it’s predecessor. After the
big failure of Sonic 2006, other games like Secret Rings, Black Knight, and Sonic Unleashed never got that love and attention until the future games. Sonic Generations help bring the franchise back up, Lost World kind of tinkered a bit, and then the Sonic Boom spinoff struck it back down to the same level as Sonic 06 but even deeper. Sonic Mania helped bring back the franchise again, but then Sonic Forces came in and brought the series to the middle. Now people are looking back at the old games and giving them the appreciation they deserve, especially Sonic Unleashed. You look at Sonic Forces and feel how dated it is, and you look at Sonic Unleashed and how much it had aged well. So with that being said, I would recommend gamers to play this game, for it feels more of a Sonic game. Creative_Writing.indd 23
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