Accel world story revolves around virtual reality game called Brain Burst. Our main protagonist is Haruyuki Arita, a short, fat and low-esteem high school boy; he is a typical loser if you want to put it that way. Despite of his unattractiveness, he’s approached by Kuroyukihime, beautiful, popular and is a vice-president of student council at his school. She introduces him to an online virtual game called Brain Burst and since then, his new life has begun.
Thoughts
Other than the main protagonist, I think Accel world is pretty interesting. Story wise, it differentiates itself from other anime series and in addition, it reminds me a lot to .Hack series, which another good series on its own, except Accel world switches setting between virtual and real life back and forth instead of just virtual which I think it’s a good way to tell the story. If you noticed that Haruyuki’s voice sounds family that’s because Haruyuki was voiced by Yuuki Kaji who also voiced Shu Ouma in Guilty Crown.
Most, if not all, anime series that I enjoy or like tend to have a good opening and ending song and it seems to be the case with Accel World. For the opening, the title is “Chase the world” by May’n and the ending is “→Unfinished→” by Kotoko. It can’t go wrong with May’n and Kotoko, couldn’t it ?
Overall, from what I’ve seen in the first four episodes, Accel world has a lot of potential to be a great series and since it’ only 12 episodes, we can expect a lot of actions and dramas. Is Accel World in your watch list this Spring 2012 season ?
Inspired by recent TEDx talk at TEDxUCIrvine about eSports, I wanted to share my thoughts about eSports popularity.
To begin, what’s eSports? eSports stand for electronic sport. As with normal sports such as football (or soccer), basketball, hockey, etc, a person or group of people are competing against each other to become the very best. One major difference is that eSports uses games on different platform and turn them into competitive matches.
Image via Destructoid.com
Now, before you start saying it’s not a real sport because it does not involve a physical activity, let me point you guys out to a sport called chess :). Unlike majority of sports out there, chess does not require a person to do some sort of physical exercise and moving a chess piece does not count as one. Similar to how we use our hands to move chess pieces, we use our hands on mouse, keyboard or joystiq to compete.
With the release of StarCraft II back in 2010, a game developed by Blizzard, eSports are becoming widely popular especially in North America. Before Star Craft II was out, eSports are barely heard as there weren’t that many tournaments back then compare to now. Before, all we heard was World Cup Gaming (WCG) and it involves games such as Counter Strike, Halo and a lot of fighting games. After Star Craft II was released, I heard many tournaments such as MLG (Major League Gaming), NASL (North America Star League), GSL (Global Starcraft League), AHGL (After Hours Gaming League), IPL (IGN Pro League) and many others small and medium tournaments.
Just like any kind of sports, there are spectators such as myself cheering for my favourite teams or pro gamers and maybe enjoy a beer or two while watching :). In addition, there are commentators (known as casters in SC II scene) who gives prediction, comments on each player/team, etc just like regular sports commentators. To name a few, individuals such as @day9tv, @dApollo1337, @Totalbiscuit, @HuskyStarcraft, @Artosis, @Tasteless, @djWHEAT, @itmeJP, @followgrubby and many many more, also plays a big part in spreading the eSports fame. Thanks to social media such as Twitter and Facebook, eSports are gaining more and more audiences every day.
Image via arsenal.com
My favourite football club is Arsenal in English Premier League. On Arsenal’s jersey, it shows its sponsor which is Fly Emirates just like any other football clubs out there. Now, if we compare to Star Craft II, we haven’t reach to a point where big companies are willing to support Star Craft II teams but we are heading there for sure.
Image via splitreason.com
Starcraft II team such as Evil Geniuses has a lot of big companies as sponsors such as Intel, Kingston and Steel Series. As the popularity of eSports grows, I am hoping there will be more and more teams similar to EG with big sponsors. One thing that I noticed is a lot of sponsors for Star Craft II teams is related to computer components manufacturer since it’s closely related to gaming. While eSports are gaining more audiences, I believe it will still take some time to mature before big companies not related to computers are willing to sponsor Starcraft 2 teams.
Image via SoCaleSports.com
Considering a sport like football (soccer) who has 100+ years of history, will eSports rise its fame on par with sports like football? I have no doubt that it will within a year or two considering the amount of social media platforms that we have these days and technology which allows us to enjoy live matches from wherever we are (Live Streaming). Live streaming actually gives birth to eSports bar called BarCraft. Granted that it only shows StarCraft matches, I can imagine soorner or later there will be more eSports bar.
Are there any BarCrafts in your area ? and do you notice an increased popularity of eSports especially StarCraft II in your area ? I don’t think Toronto has a BarCraft but I might be wrong.
PS: NASL Season 3 finals will be Toronto, anyone going ?
I am still playing it and looking to spend more hours 🙂 on it. I’ve been amazed by this game since I got it last month; not having XBOX360 nor ability to read Japanese prevented me from playing Tales of Vesperia so I am overly excited about Tales of Graces F since last time I played a Tales game was back on Playstation One: Tales of Eternia.
I finished my first play through without any guides and managed to finish the optional future arc but I skipped to the optional dungeon. As a newbie to Tales battle system, I started with Hard difficulty but switched to Moderate after few encounters because I got owned really bad :). On my second play-through, I started with Hard then Evil and finally Chaos which I am able to handle quite easily including bosses. I switched to easy to get the under 60 seconds boss trophies though ^^;; since I am hoping to get all trophies on my second play-through.
As for the battle system, I think it’s pretty standard of a Tales games but note that my only reference is Tales of Eternia. Few things that’s pretty similar such as real time battle (2D vs 3D), cooking and skills (Artes). One thing that I really like is Eleth Mixer which allows you to cook food during/post battles, generate items and many more so two thumbs up for Namco Bandai for inventing this.
In my first play-through, I controlled Asbel up until the final dungeon then I switched to Cheria during the final dungeon and future arc. I found that Cheria is pretty interesting to play as because I originally thought she’s an offensive mage type but it turned out that she’s a physical damage dealer using her A artes. Her B artes such as Divine Saber and Indignation are great but casting time is pretty long even after CC-3 or CC-4 especially for Indignation so they are not worth it so most of the time I just use Ethereal Rift.
At 60% of my second play-through, I switched to Malik and got frustrated because his B-artes cast time is just terrible and I died a lot because his defense is bad. I still think he has a potential after I get some more titles for his A-artes and B-artes.
Who’s you favourite character and least favourite to main ? what’s your team setup ? my favourite character to main is Cheria; throwing knives is fun after all :). My team usually consists of Asbel, Hubert, Sophie and Cheria. Sophie and Cheria are my main healer while Hubert is my back up healer in case of emergency. My least favourite to main is Malik and Hubert as they die so easily and can’t take couple hits at all especially in Chaos mode >.<.
Updated
Tips and tricks
I got annoyed by magic carta game in Hard mode difficulty. Despite having to pause for each quote and google the character name, I was still not quick enough >.<. So what I did is just when the game is about to start, I took a photo with my cellphone so that I can find the quote, google the character and locate the character. It’s kinda cheap and lame but I completed hard more in 1 attempt ^^.
The last chapter scanlation was released this past Thursday and it ends Bakuman after 176 chapters. It’s been really entertaining and great to follow Bakuman manga each week. As one of my fellow bloggers, @Kurotsuki, said all good things must come to an end, on the other end, no dragging is such a relieved.
Looking back from chapter 1 through chapter 176, I think we all can agree that it was a great manga about becoming a manga author which is not an easy job. My friend and I had a quick discussion on how the manga ends and we thought that it was little bit rushed towards the end especially the last 10 chapters. It’s great that Mashiro and Takagi were able to overtake/compete with Eiji with Reversi as their flagship manga but Azuki’s audition for Reversi could have been expanded more and made into its own arc (my wishful thinking). What do readers think ? Do you think it could have been made into few chapters longer ? or is the way it is now fine ?
My wife and I went to High Park today for cherry blossom (sakura tree) viewing or hanami if you prefer and to take some pictures. I brought my trusty Panasonic Lumix DMC LX5 which has not been used a lot since I got it last year; 300 photos so far so it needs more flying time.
We were planning to go last week but due to bad weather and other plans, we decided to go today. Unfortunately, a lot of cherry trees are withering already and few of them are completely bald due to wind and rain from last week. Nevertheless, we took some pictures, ate our lunch there despite the chilly weather then went back home so overall it was a good. Because of the cold weather, we didn’t see as many people as we thought it would be.
Is there any cherry trees in your area ? Do you do flower viewing (hanami) ? I hope you all enjoy these photos that I took :).
PS: More blogging to come after being hiatus for 1 year
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