tegaba
Tegami Bachi/Letter Bee
The second season of this series, titled Tegami Bachi Reverse has began to air sometime last week. The previous season is riddled with fillers (if it doesn't include Zazie/Zaji, I don't bother) and occasionally, one or two plot episodes in between. The last episode is a prelude to the second season.
Haha, but I read the manga (a rare thing since I couldn't bring myself to read manga version of certain anime adaptions) so I didn't missed out much. Lazy to look up how many episodes there would be for this season but I think there MIGHT be fillers again. But since it was titled REVERSE and the OP spoils some of the events in the manga, I knew what to expect.
Which of course made me anticipate the Zazie/Lag moments... unless they toned it down or remove it completely. I don't think they will, it's not like they did anything or have the hots for one another. Lag is already the shota icon for this series and there are Gauche/Lag pedo moments early in the series.
The story isn't really that stellar (the anime is horrible enough with fillers) but I watch and read it for the characters, especially Zazie and Lag. The first few scenes between the two of them reminds me of an angry wolf and a helpless bunny/puppy. It's obvious who is who here. And maybe my mind is playing tricks on me, but Zazie seems to act tsundere-ish when it involves Lag. Nah, maybe he just really don't know how to deal with others unlike with animals. His sharp-looking appearance (his teeth and eyes) also reminds me of a wolf, and sometimes, a cat.
Here's hoping for more screentime between the two!
Tales of Innocence
One of the Tales titles on the DS system. Like other Bandai Namco (Bamco/Scamco) Tales games, it never got localized so it remains a Japan-exclusive release. Many fans gave up hope that Bamco Japan will ever release/allow any of their Tales game outside Japan's shores so it was a really pleasant suprise when a fanmade translation patch was released.
Absolute Zero, a fan translation group released the patch for the game few months back. Everything is translated into English, and there's even an option where you can choose between localized version of Artes' names or literal romanjis. The voices are still in japanese, but I loved it nonetheless.
I won't detail everything in the game but for a DS game, I must say, I'm impressed. The characters, skits and events are aplenty. The combat can get difficult at times, especially with bosses. Random encounters occurs often and dungeons are hard to navigate due to a lack of map. It doesn't help much that the dungeons uses the same surroundings everywhere. Lol, I often got lost after a long random encounter battle since I'm bad with memorizing paths and directions.
Still, it was an awesome Tales game. The characters are likeable, and I find one of the villians "interesting" despite his sanity. Maybe it was his weirdass manner of speech. Also, I'm such a shipping whore as I could not help but to ship Spada and Ruca together. Certain main story scenes and skits doesn't mind helping my cause, either. As for the girls, I like Ange the most. Her skits can be hilarious at times, then again, so does the rest of the casts'. Skits are definitely what made Tales game unique. I can't help myself to grind friendship points just to unlock character specific skits.
Ahem, despite what I wrote, I have yet to beat the game. I was in the final area (I think!) and for some reason I couldn't pick up the game to finish it. I knew there was a new game plus feature (where like other tales games, you can transfer over stuff depending on your accumulated grade points) but maybe it was because I spoiled myself too much at gaming forums that I suddenly don't feel like continuing anymore. But, BUT! I WILL finish the game sometime soon, maybe before the end of this year or once I got bored of other DS and PSP titles.
Currently, I'm engrossed with the Last Window, a sequel to the DS mystery-solving game Hotel Dusk. I forgot the subtitle for both games. Anyway, I didn't play Hotel Dusk yet as I can't find it near my gaming stores but I'm enjoying Last Window very much at the moment. Maybe because it has an intriguing story and it was interesting enough for me to want to keep on playing, unlike Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, where the story is convoluted and boring except during the end-game. I didn't touch it after I finished all the episodes on Proud and watched the "secret cutscene." It was still a graphically pretty game, though. Ah, I'll write about KH: BbS sometime in the future. I got a feeling it'll be lengthy and boring. This game made me ship Roxas/Sora even more, and in a way, Ven/Sora. I mean, Sora mends his hearts and bonded hearts for 10 years! Lol, do ignore that last bit.
I think I enjoy writing entries in this format better.