Hot Women of Classic Anime

Well... Classic In terms of 80's Science Fiction Anime.  At the TheZF we've had a semi-regular feature highlighting some of the hottest girls in Anime.  Today I'd like to talk about a more innocent time, when Fan-Service was a blush, wind in the hair, a glinting smile, and glistening eyes, as opposed to huge boobs, short skirts, and gratuitous panty shots... Not that there's anything wrong with that.  

First on the list is Sayla Mass of Mobile Suit Gundam.  Sayla is Amuro's Soul Mate, though heir relationship is merely hinted at in the animated series, it was on in full display in the novel written by Yoshiyuki Tomino.  For me it was her character in the Novel that I like the best, she wasn't a background character, but a main player in the saga of Amuro and Char.  Her New Type abilities give her exceptional abilities to helm the White Base as well as a Psychic connection to Amuro and Char (her long lost brother, it wouldn't be Gundam without a little melodrama).  

• Blond hair: Check 
• Blue Eyes: Check 
• Cute and Quite Personality: Check
• Sex-Appropriate Pink Uniform: Check

By today's standards I'd say she may even be considered Moe.  If she only had Glasses...

Next on the docket is the mysterious Maetel of Galaxy Express 999.  Strong and beautiful, to me she's like a Bond girl.  Princess of the mechanized empire, her day job as a guide to those who which to become robots hides her secret plot to bring the whole mechanized empire down.  The warrior princess is a much overused archetype today, but i wouldn't really describe her as a warrior.  I think the secret agent designation is apt.   She's also the epitome of 80's anime beauty; long blond hair, huge eyes, demure smile, and a certain air of Mystery.  

That's it for today.  Come back tomorrow for part II.  

RIP Capt Lou.

Louis Vincent Albano -- July 29, 1933 – October 14, 2009

I don't want to play Bayonetta

Her head is too damn small and her body too damn big. If they fix this, then I'm in.

I did my own Photoshop work to see what she would look like with more normal proportions and this was what I came up with.





Old Bayonetta


















New Bayonetta












Fix her Sega.


Email Lonecow

Bandai Releasing a Limited Edition Gunpla set...

For Gundam 30th, Bandai will be releasing a box set of 1/144 models of every Gundam from all 12 series. They will be made of Glitter Injected clear plastic. It's a Limited Edition, and will only be available in Japan...

For some people :) I've been lucky enough to have an friend of mine who has family in Japan order it for me. A more in depth review of this set will be forthcoming.

Source: ANN, Bandai.jp

Special Thanks to Japandan.

Gundam Unicorn to get World Wide DVD release.

This is old, I know. Gundam Unicorn is going to be release worldwide on March 12th. The Blu-Ray will have Japanese and English dubbing, and English, Japanese, Chinese, French and Spanish Subs. The DVD release will have Japanese Dubs with English Subs.

It's not what I hoped for, worldwide, simultanious, mult-language dubbed, full series relesse; but it's a start. Frankly this is pretty big news in my mind. If this works out we could see more OVAs released with subs simultaniously or at lease close to their Japanese release.

Source: ANN

What should Castle go as for Halloween?

How about Mal Reynolds? I actually watched this episode Monday night, but I must have gotten in late as I didn't see this. Gotta Love the "Didn't you wear that like five years ago" comment.

Windows finally learns how to advertise

No, not all those stupid "normal people" going into Best Buy and buying a PC, or the even lamer "I'm a PC ads".

This.

At least Microsoft Korea knows how to advertise. Model Gu Ji Sung was there in a tight little outfit to help sell the newest Microsoft OS.

More pics at the source, but I'm still going to post some more here cause she is super cute.

I love Korea.

Source: ReallyCuteAsians (don't worry the site is pretty
worksafe)

Warren Spector wants to make a DuckTales Video Game

A lot of people gave Warren Spector hell for signing an exclusive deal with Disney, but I was only excited.

Epic Mickey is looking to be a dark fantastic take on Disney characters, moreso then Kingdom Hearts could ever imagine. And now in the most recent Game Informer, Spector says he wants to make a game based on DuckTales! Right now Disney won't let him, which really shows how the current Disney sees DuckTales as a dead property. Very sad.

But now that he has thrown that idea out there to the public, it's up to the fans to write Disney and demand that he gets the chance to make this game. DuckTales is timeless. There is no reason kids today wouldn't love it as much as we did growing up. Plus, a lot of people in our generation are parents now and would be more then happy to buy a DuckTales game for their kids. Disney has been slow jumping on board this current nostalgia train that everyone else is on, and it's time they man up and let Spector do a DuckTales game.

Source: Joystiq

Game Review: Mass Effect Galaxy

I'm playing through Mass Effect a second time right now as a douche bag, and I must admit the game is a lot more fun this way.

So I'm once again having Mass Effect fever, and am eagerly anticipating Mass Effect 2. Part of that anticipation led me to look up Mass Effect Galaxy, an iPhone side story set in the Mass Effect universe.

Now, I avoided this game for a long while because of the negative press it has received from many game sites. Most seem to agree that the story elements are fantastic, but the game elements are horrible.

I'm here to tell you they are all wrong.

It is actually a fantastic game all around. Now I won't say it is the greatest iPhone game in the world, as it does have its issues, but currently it is my go to game when I have a few minutes to spare, and that says a lot (sorry Peggle you've been dethroned).

The problem I see most people having with it, goes back to the age old argument (or as age old as motion controls are), of how to review a motion controlled game. This whole ordeal I think is a plague spread across gaming press as no "professional" game reviewer seems to understand the concept behind it. They are stuck in a train of thought that game controls must be perfectly accurate, and if they aren't the game is a failure.

While I agree even motion control games need to have some level of control, the fun factor you are having playing the game should always outweigh how tight the controls are.

Are you having fun? Yes? Then the game is a success.

This isn't even an issue with Mass Effect Galaxy because the designers made a game based on imprecise motion controls. It uses the weakness of the control method as its strength. Let me try and explain.

When a casual observer looks at a Mass Effect Galaxy screen they might think of something like Diablo or Warcraft. When the game doesn't control like that, they might think the game fails.

But Mass Effect Galaxy isn't supposed to be played like a loot collecting game, or top down RPG, it has more in common with a Marble Madness, or maze game. The difference here is that your marble has a gun and can use super powers.

You guide your character, Jacob, through different sections of space ships and space stations killing the intruders, or pirates, or whatever. But the ship sections are mazes you tilt the iPhone around and have Jacob navigate as you would a marble through a maze. He automatically fires at the enemy you target.

On the right side of the screen are options you can use to further increase your attack power. You can use biotics to slam a virtually barrier into him, take down their shields, or shoot a missile at them point blank range. The game is a puzzle/shooter more then anything.

The only problem with the game part that I have is that it auto targets the enemies for you. Say there is three enemies in a room. It targets the bad guy closest to you. After he is dead, for some strange reason the game almost always targets the guy furthest away from you. Of course, you can tap on the guy closest to you, but when you need valuable seconds, this can sometimes become disorienting. Also the game is a memory hog, and can chug along sometimes if you haven't rebooted your iPhone in a while.

The other half of the game is the story, which has you preventing an terrorist attack on the Citadel, when a controversial ambassador is set to arrive there. The story is excellent, and all the characters are beautifully drawn and fully realized. The two main leads, Jacob and Miranda, are also key players in Mass Effect 2, which releases in January 2010. Bioware promises some kind of extra content for those who successfully finish Mas Effect Galaxy. If anything the game helps add some great character depth to some characters before you meet them in the main game, which will naturally make me more inclined to pick them on missions.

The conversation system is more, old school adventure game style, where you pick directly what you will say to other characters. However, you can judge the impact of what you say beforehand by Jacob's facial animations or by an icon by your choice. It works really well, and as with the main games, you can make Jacob as nice or as jerky as you want.

For Mass Effect fans I highly recommend the game. And even for someone who never played Mass Effect, it's a great introduction into the series, with a nice scaled back storyline, that isn't as complicated as the main game, and is a great introduction to how the games handle character development.

Hadouken!

Live Action Macross

For Pachinko, unfortunately not a movie.

Reminds me of the Evangelion Pachinko machines I saw in Japan. They also had 3D animated scenes, but not to this quality.

The amount of money they spend for Pachinko games over there is amazing. I guess it probably is more profitable then doing a full length feature film, and cheaper, but damn those are some great effects that most of the world will never get to enjoy.

Source: DannyChoo

Hot Women, Electric Violins...

Personally I hate System of the Down... but this cover using nothing but electric violins is very good. The girls are hot as well.

Ronald McGundam

I was going to post a picture of Saber from Fate/Stay Night as a Gundam from this site, but saw this and it won.

Source: HERE

John Titor? Marty McFly? The Borg? Kyle Reese?

So as we all know something fishy has been going on with the Large Hadron Collider. According to some theoretical Physicists there may be more going on than just some random Gremlins. Not one but Two different essays have been written regarding the possibility that the reason there has been so much trouble getting these things off the ground may be because the future is working against them. The theory is that discovery/observation of the Higgs boson or the "God Particle" goes so badly that either 1) someone from the future is working to stop its discovery, or 2) the universe itself is working to stop it's discovery.

So... That leaves us with at least three possibilities. The LHC will destroy us all, and Kyle Reese has come back to save us from ourselves. The LHC is good, and The Borg have someone sent some someone back in time to prevent First Contact. Or God's Shy and doesn't want us to look at him in his underpants....

Source: io9.com

Don't Panic! Someone wrote a sixth Hitchhikers Guide?

Well I must have been living under a rock for the last year, as I had no idea Eoin Colfer had been commissioned to continue on with the Hitchhiker Guide to the Galaxy series and that the book gets released this week.

The book is called "And Another Thing...", a reference to the third book in the series, and not the first book, like all the others have been.

I honestly have no idea how I feel about this. I'm not familiar with Eoin Colfer at all. I've just downloaded the first Artemis Fowl book that he wrote just to get a sense of how he writes before I plunge into the new H2G2 book. Supposedly they are very good books, and I never read them before because I thought they were just Harry Potter clones. So I can't be excited or scared about the new author.

As for the, "Is nothing sacred?" point of view, I'll say I never liked that the series ended on a sad note, considering it was such a light hearted series. I also felt like Mostly Harmless was setting things up for the future (Arthur and Trillian's daughter), that was never fully realized. And there are countless documented interviews where Douglas Adams said he wanted to do another Hitchhikers and end it more positively. So this book was in the cards, had he not met an untimely end.

And this isn't the first attempt to rectify the bleak ending of Mostly Harmless, as the radio dramas gave the story a happy ending, and no one argued the canonicality (yes I made up that word just now) of those instances.

Ultimately I'm still torn, but I will give it a read and I will go in with an open mind. Douglas Adams seemed like such an easy going and nice guy I am pretty certain he would be fine with the continuing of the series. It will just be hard for me to consider it as anything other then fan fiction.

A Unified Theory of Superman's Powers...

The only thing that would have made this thing would have been using Offcial S.T.A.R. Labs coverpages and letterhead...

Abstract

Since Time immemorial, man has sought to explain the powers of Kal-

El, a.k.a. Superman. Siegel et al. Supposed that His mighty strength

stems from His origin on another planet whose density and as a result,

gravity, was much higher than our own. Natural selection on the planet

of krypton would therefore endow Kal El with more ecient muscles and

higher bone density; explaining, to rst order, Superman's extraordinary powers. Though concise, this theory has proved inaccurate. It is now clearthat Superman is actually ying rather than just jumping really high; andHis freeze-breath, x-ray vision, and heat vision also have no account in Seigel's theory. In this paper we propose a new unied theory for the source of Su-perman's powers; that is to say, all of Superman's extraordinary powers are manifestation of one supernatural ability, rather than a host. It is our opinion that all of Superman's recognized powers can be unied if Hispower is the ability to manipulate, from atomic to kilometer length scales, the inertia of His own and any matter with which He is in contact.

Link--> http://www.qwantz.com/fanart/superman.pdf

SD Gundam + Romance of the Three Kingdoms?

I'm no huge SD Gundam Fan. That's not to say that there is anything wrong with SD Gundam. My hate mostly comes from the fact that Bandai decided, wrongly, to push SD Gundam in the US over the more serious Gundam Stories after the success of Wing and G. Not realizing, the fact that SD Gundam was doomed to fail in the US without the context of the previous shows because most it's humor is inside Gundam humor.

Regardless, this current project will probably never see the light of day in the US so there really isn't much to talk about on that front. Apparently there's been a fairly successful SD Gundam model series based off of the characters of the Chinese Epic "Romance of the Three Kingdoms."

"The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is a very famous story in Asia and a favorite subject of anime writers to be retold. "ikki Tousen" anyone? SD Gundam is probably the only Genre that hasn't touched on the story yet. That, and Moe. A Moe ROTTK would be awesome...

Source: ANN

John C. Reilly: The Vampire's Apprentice... WTF!?!

For a while John C. had a fairly promising career as a character actor. It's seem though, after "Talladega Nights" he's decided that money and face time is more important than respect and obscurity. Now his character in "Talladega Nights" was quite funny, especially since it was essentially a parody of himself (He played Cole Trickle's best friend and teammate in Days of Thunder.) I love "Walk Hard." it was a pitch perfect parody of formulaic music biographies that we've been bombarded with over the last few years. Those two movies are the exception to the rule at this point for him. "Step Brothers" Sucked, and is indicative of his overall problem. Since "Talladega Nights" he's eschewed real character work to be man-child side kick to Will Ferrel.

Which Brings us to "Cirque du Freak: The Vampires' Assistant." Now I'm no professional movie reviewer so I've obviously not seen the movie yet, but based on the trailer this looks like a typical shitty Walden Media, Tween friendly, also-ran vampire movie. Which in and of itself is fine, and frankly to be expected considering the sucess of "Twilight." Then I saw John C, and realized his career is pretty much over at this point. Not only is he IN the movie he STARS in the movie. Here's a Synopsis of from IMDB:

A young boy named Darren Shan meets a mysterious man at a freak show who turns out to be a Vampire. After a series of events Darren must leave his normal life and go on the road with the Cirque Du Freak and become a Vampire.

I mean seriously... This is a guy who 7 years ago was nominated for an OSCAR! Who knows who's making his career decisions but whoever they are they need to be fired.

All Hail the Queen! HARUHI the MOVIE!

Announced at the conclusion of the new season of Haruhi was the reveal of "The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya the Movie"!

I guess half of the ridiculousness involving this last season was to keep people confused and frustrated as to not let it be leaked that this film was in production. I think it will probably hurt the film a little becuase now, anything involving Haruhi will be met with a heavy dose of skeptisim as to what trick they will try and pull this time. And I can pretty much guarantee they will try and pull something. I wouldn't be surprised if the first ten minutes of the movie start off like an "Endless Eight" episode just to get the loudest collective groan in the history of cinema.

Of course, I was never negatively effected by Endless Eight, and can't wait for 2010 (Or 2012 probably by the time someone gets it over here, if Evangelion 1.0 is any indication.)

Source: ANN

Hatsune Miku is trying to enter our world

It has been a gradual process. First she made a CD, despite the fact she contains no physical preseance in our world. Next, she held a concert, in which her animated form appeared for hundreds of concert goers at "Animelo Summer Live".

But that isn't good enough for Japan's most popular virtual idol. She won't stop until she physically enters our dimension and interacts with us personally.

I, for one welcome our new Japanese singing idol overlord:

Who is sexier? Mai Shiranui or Bonne Jenet

SNK knows how to make beautiful females. And unlike some other game companies *cough* Team Ninja *cough* they don't necessarily flaunt it. In fact, at times they seem to try and hide the fact that they have been responsible for some of the sexiest moments in gaming.

The first of these moments was provided by Mai Shianui, who holds the Gaming Hall of Fame Record (that I just made up) for the first bouncy breasts in a video game. Chun Li might have been the first fighting female in the arcades that pimply adolescents had crushes on, but it was Mai that had them utterly transfixed.

Her design was both meta and brilliant. There is actually a logical reason as to why those breasts bounce with such fluid motion. Mai's design actually hails back to her ninja origins, where female ninjas, or Kunoichi, would use their sexuality to catch their targets off guard and then slay them. The same thing applies with Mai. While at the time she might have not been the best of the characters to choose from, your victory was almost guaranteed because your opponent would be so mesmerized by her chest, that you would win the match while he was distracted. It was a brilliant move in that the very nature of her character transcended the walls of the game world and affected your opponent in the real world.

For this Mai Shiranui deserves respect.


Bonne Jenet has less of an impressive back story, as she was really just included in Garou: Mark of the Wolves (the final installment of the Fatal Fury franchise) because Mai wasn't there and the game needed much more sexy. Essentially she is a Mai replacement.

So it seems pretty cut and dry huh? Mai Shiranui must be sexier because she wrote the book on sexiness in video games.

Well, not so much.

Bonne Jenet's fictional backstory is that she was a beautiful spoiled rich girl, who didn't want to be spoiled any more by her parents so she leaves, becomes a self made pirate and gains a crew of men who are at her beck and call. The King of Fighters tournament is her way to get to the Kingpin at the heart of the tournament and rob him blind. Her entire character is based around the fact that she knows she is sexy and she uses that sex to gain power and money.

In contrast, this is where Mai Shiranui's sexiness falls apart. Sure she looks great, and she is a nice girl, but in the 20 some odd games she has appeared in, she spends 90% of that time chasing after a guy who just barely shows her any affection. This is tragic. Andy Bogard is the only man in Mai's life and she makes a point of talking about him every chance she gets. When she gets defeated she screams, "AAAAAAANNNNNNDDDDYY!"

Let me put that in a real world scenario. Essentially, Mai is the equivalent of that beautiful girl you were friends with in high school who started every sentence with, "My boyfriend does this," and "My boyfriend says that." If you are a guy, you know this trait will likely make you watch all 24 episodes of Evangelion back-to-back until you are laying on the floor in the fetal position.... whoa flashback.....

Also, when Mai faces Andy in some of the King of Fighters games, she pulls out a baby to scare the poor guy into thinking he's a father. That is just cold blooded.

As for their playing styles, Bonne Jenet wins hands down. Over the years the SNK team has improved Mai's skill set where she is now actually a really capable and easy to play fighter, but she has had some dark times.

I still remember the first time I played Garou: Mark of the Wolves. There was a kid playing as Tizoc. Everyone that went up against the kid fell, and fell hard. He would line up his opponents and shut them down. He had a winning streak unlike any I have seen before. That was when I decided to try my hand.

I had never seen Garou and at the time had no idea it was a sequel to my beloved Fatal Fury. Also, since Terry had changed outfits, and the names were all in Japanese, I didn't know he was a selectable character. So I went with my default with any new fighting game: pick the hot girl.

My rational behind this is, if I'm going to get my ass kicked, I want to at least have something nice to look at on the screen if I'm paying money for it. However, that wasn't what happened. It was like a demon awoke inside me when I selected Bonne Jenet. A force unlike any other took control and with her by my side I demolished that kid in two rounds.

Sadly, I only lasted three more opponents before I got my own ass handed to me, but still it was a great feeling.

Maybe I'm bias towards Bonne Jenet just a smidgen.

So sorry Mai, I think you are cute and all, and I do like your character a lot but Bonne Jenet takes the cake as the sexiest SNK gal.









THE WINNER!











(Yes she is way sexier then Leona, who I named Sexy Game Gal a couple of days ago)