Review by V4sh (you can contact him HERE):

Valkyria Chronicles Episode 1.

- Generic Soldier 1 commands you to watch this-

Based on the best selling PS3 turn-based strategy come first person shooter game of the same name, Valkyria Chronicles takes place on the continent of Europa – a fictional version of Europe in 1935, and the Atlantic Federation is at war with the Eastern European Imperial Allicance.

Episode 1 kicks off with the evacuation of  Bruhl, a small town in the neutral country of Gallia (which bares some stark similarities to Belgium), as it comes under attack from the overwhelming military might of the Eastern European Imperial Alliance. The invasion is fueled by the Imperial Alliances need for ragnite, a powerful ore with many uses abundant in Gallia. As civilians are evacuated to the safety of the Atlantic Federation the town watch stay behind to provide a rear guard and give them chance to escape. It is here that Alicia Melchiott of the town watch meets Welkin Gunther in a case of mistaken identity. Welkin must find his sister and escape Bruhl before the Imperial forces take the town.

This 26 episode series is produced by Aniplex’s A-1 Pictures, who last year produced Tetsuwan Birdy: Decode, Kannagi and Kuroshitsuji, so the budget is sufficiently large enough to accommodate some rather stunning CG work, some very nice backdrops and great character design. A grainy texture has been applied to the colour scheme this entire series which replicates very well the art style of the original game, and gives the whole thing a wonderful “rustic” feel. The soundtrack, composed by Hitoshi Sakimoto who has worked extensively on the soundtrack of the Final Fantasy series, is well suited and provides a richness to the scenes as a good soundtrack should. The only downside of the audio for me was the opening theme song “Asu e no Kizuna” performed by HIMEKA. Although the song was well suited to this anime and matched the pace well, I just didn’t find it that exciting. The ending theme is “Ano Kaze ni Notte” performed by pe’zmoku the animation is rather cute and reminiscent of the ending sequence of Kuroshitsuji. Storyline wise it sticks very closely to the game so far, so ensures the approval of fans of the game and its captivating enough to keep those new to the franchise interested also. Voice actors Marina Inoue (Alicia) and Susumu Chiba (Welkin) return to the roles they played in the original game adding a nice nostalgic feel to the whole thing, and the voices fit the characters very nicely.

The best subs are provided by Ayako subs, they have added an extra 30 seconds to the end of the anime with some useful bits of information about aspects that have been glossed over in the anime, such as what ragnite is. This is very useful for those who have no experience of the game. Ayako are using the high definition MBS raw at 720p for their releases, this provides richer colours then the TBS raws used by some other fan sub groups.

In my opinion in the first round of episodes this season Valkyria Chronicles has beaten Full Metal Alchemist to snatch the well deserved number 1 position. 10/10

Valkyria Chronicles Episode 2

As episode 2 kicks off we join back up with Alicia, Welkin and Isara who are pinned down in Isara’s house by Imperial ordinance. Just as foot soldiers are closing in around them the trio burst out in the Edelweiss, a prototype tank created by Isara’s father, and go to the aid of the town watch who are trying hopelessly to hold off the advance of the Imperial war machine. As the battle draws to a close the crippled town watch meet up with troops from the Atlantic Federation for a nice scene on a hilltop overlooking the now ruined town of Bruhl.

Another great episode. Visuals and audio match up the high standards set by the first episode, showing that unlike certain series I could mention all the money has not been poured into making the first episode look great to draw in viewers at the expense of the rest of the season.

This time Ayako have made the wise decision to chapter their release into 3 parts, the opening, the anime and the ending. This is for two reasons, the first being that it decreases release time, as the OP/ED only need to be timed and typeset once. The second is that it saves space on your hard drive as now each episode will pull the same OP/ED from your computer every time, providing they‘re all in the same folder. This saves like 40Mb per episode so over the course of the 26 episode series will save you respectable 1Gb of space (if you are archiving them). It also gives you the option of not watching the OP/ED every time. The only complaint I have is that these releases weren’t batched together into one folder and had to be downloaded individually. Rather petty I know but it wouldn’t have taken much effort to do so.

Once again for me this weeks episode has beaten FMA for first place. 9.5/10

Fansub Groups doing Valkyria Chronicles(english):
www.ayako-fansubs.eu
http://www.doremi-fansubs.com/
Seibar(sorry seems their web page is broken)

Valkyria Chronicles episode 1 & 2:
[Ayako]
Valkyria Chronicles 01v2 [h264]

Valkyria Chronicles 02 [h264]

[twrev-Doremi]
Valkyria Chronicles 01 SDTV AVI
Valkyria Chronicles 01 HDTV

Valkyria Chronicles 02 SDTV AVI
Valkyria Chronicles 02 HDTV

[Seibar]
Valkyria Chronicles – 02
(could only find 2nd episode)

Other Stuff:
[Ayako] Valkyria Chronicles OP

[Ayako] Valkyria Chronicles ED

Come and join the community and discuss Valkyria Chronicles with us in the forums

Zero no Tsukaima OP Single – First Kiss by Ichiko
Release: July 26, 2006

Click Here for some info about the Zero No Tsukaima Anime

Tracklist:
1. First Kiss
2. Treasure
3. First Kiss (Off vocal)
4. Treasure (Off vocal)

—Download—

Warning Serious Ranting Ahead
[And spoilers for those who haven’t seen the series]

I watch anime a lot, well depends how much “a lot” means to you or other anime constant watchers. A lot for me is around 4 series a month perhaps. I almost never write reviews or entries for animes that I’ve seen here in the blog. Mainly because I’m either busy or lazy. But Canvas 2 just made it…

First of all, Top 5 Worse Endings for an anime EVER. The whole series up to episode 22-23 is very sweet, touching, nice, some humor here and there but mostly romantic drama/slice of life kind. Then the bomb, the extremely unexpected ending. They spend the whole first series (canvas 1) and Canvas 2 developing the feelings, frustration, tension and moments between Kiri and Hiroki (check out Canvas 2 Wikipedia here). We also have Elise (which is the cousin of Hiroki). Hiroki is also her guardian. He ended up like that because Elise lost her parents in an automobile accident. Because of that Elise who loves painting and very skilled is traumatized and can’t use the color red (because it reminds her of blood). During the whole series we see that Elise has always, since little liked Hiroki. A lot of the series focus in her reactions to the movements between the romantic developing of Kiri and Hiroki. Frustration, jealousy, and much more coming from Elise towards the advancement between Kiri and Hiroki. Although we see clearly as the sky that Elise have a lot of feelings for her cousin and guardian we never clearly see anything from Hiroki towards this. We do see perhaps some moments of Hiroki getting shy and embarrassed with Elise (when she was in the hospital bed and held his hand). But we never saw any developing what so ever.

I spent the whole series watching Hiroki at last after so much getting closer to Kiri. We even discover that Hiroki has liked Kiri since a kid, even before she liked him (I think). We see that Hiroki is really passionate and likes Kiri a lot. Of course Kiri feels the same way. We also see some kinds of hints like people telling Hiroki that he wasn’t being honest with his feelings. I thought it was all about he didn’t wanting Elise to go to france or that he felt bad because all that was happening in result of Him + Kiri. But no….

Hiroki ditched spending Christmas with Kiri, because he wanted to paint something for Elise. Hiroki who haven’t painted since highschool painted the same piece that Elise painted but in blue. She painted it in red, her farewell gift was a Canvas paint with red angels. He ran to the airport to give her the paint and he met Kiri who he ditched. After he leaves in the train Kiri meets with her sempai, breaks down and cries and says: “I’ll just become his childhood friend again”. At that moment I was like…. No… it can’t be! Well It was! He arrived at the airport and showed her the paint and screamed her name. Elise answered and jumped into him. Both of their pictures fit perfectly together like a canvas puzzle.

The credits start to roll, it shows part of the ending then some scenes about the future begin. We see the Nadesico academy completely normal and finally we see Elise and Hiroki naked in bed holding hands and kissing.

WTF?

I mean, WHAT THE F*CK? Seriously how it came into this? We never see a developing, at least nothing strong to indicate that hiroki has feelings for Elise. But the blow us away with this ending. It was just… I don’t know, It got me very angry. I wanted my 8 hours back (approximate time spent watching the whole series). Many people will go WTF because they are cousins, and even more he is her guardian! But what really got to me was that there wasn’t any serious developing between them! Why spend a whole series trying to explain and get two characters together then blow that away? I can’t understand it! I mean, I praise them for such an unexpected ending. But I really hate this ending. They make us develop feelings for the KirixHiroki relation and then blow Kiri away. WTF? I can say this is in my top 5 worse endings for an anime series. I deleted the series and will never watch it again. Is rare for anime that was very good to be blow horribly just by one episode. Well Canvas 2 is this kind of anime. One Single Episode, corrupts the whole damn series. Anyways I’m done with this. I need to watch something to refresh and wash away the frustration.

PS. This is not any way was a review, so there is not really a chronology or pattern I want to follow. Much more happens in the series, concerning other characters and other things. Also this is just personal Opinion, If you want to watch it do so, If you liked it well good for you. I didn’t.

As many of you know, china was stroke with one heck of a earthquake a few days ago. Simply horrible our brothers in asia are waking up every morning mourning the lost of more and more their countrymen and women. Students, teachers, workers, and many good people perished in this sad and unfortunate disaster.

The latest number as today May 15 in the morning is 19,000 deads, and this my friends is just too much!

Nipponmedia.net wants to express its condolences to All the people of China and beings that were stroke by this colossal natural disaster.

Even though we cant do much, we all can do a little!
We recieve many hundreds visits each day, so we hope this helps a little.

Please, seriously, if you have a penny, a cent, or whatever you can spare, think of donating to help our friends in china.

here are the links:

Redcross

Redcross china earthquake

Network For Good – China

Thanks for the support.

China has always been famous for interpreting other companie’s products as their own, making own models… Lets face it, “copy” other’s people work.
There’s copy and better the product, and there’s just sadly make a 100/100% copy of a product and stamp in your name. Which is the case of the “Wii”. If this sounds like a rant, sorry, I own a Wii lol.

*Quoting Joystiq.com*
you still may not be able to find a Wii in stores this holiday season? Don’t even worry about that, kid. We got something a whole lot better than any Wii. What Hey, what’s with the tears? What, are you still bummed that Reginald sayswe got here is the “Vii.” See, it’s like the Wii. But it’s with a “V”.

As far as China is concerned, things like patents and trademarks don’t mean a thing. Meet the Vii, a Chinese manufactured console with an uncanny resemblance to the Wii. Even the controllers have been replicated, sporting the exact same motion sensitive capabilities as the Wiimote.

Daddy, new mario galaxy is out! Buy me a wii please!
Dont worry kiddo, instead of a Wii, I got you a Vii!
Kid goes… WTF?

Video of the Vii

China has always been famous for interpreting other companie’s products as their own, making own models… Lets face it, “copy” other’s people work.
There’s copy and better the product, and there’s just sadly make a 100/100% copy of a product and stamp in your name. Which is the case of the “Wii”. If this sounds like a rant, sorry, I own a Wii lol.

*Quoting Joystiq.com*
you still may not be able to find a Wii in stores this holiday season? Don’t even worry about that, kid. We got something a whole lot better than any Wii. What Hey, what’s with the tears? What, are you still bummed that Reginald sayswe got here is the “Vii.” See, it’s like the Wii. But it’s with a “V”.

As far as China is concerned, things like patents and trademarks don’t mean a thing. Meet the Vii, a Chinese manufactured console with an uncanny resemblance to the Wii. Even the controllers have been replicated, sporting the exact same motion sensitive capabilities as the Wiimote.

Daddy, new mario galaxy is out! Buy me a wii please!
Dont worry kiddo, instead of a Wii, I got you a Vii!
Kid goes… WTF?

Video of the Vii