Favorite Anime Music - The Sixth Station (Spirited Away)

Studio Ghibli's Spirited Away was the first Japanese anime to win an Oscar, and it certainly deserved it.  Great movie, great story, great animation, and great music.  Here is one of my favorite tracks from the soundtrack.

A Brief Review - Pokemon X (3DS)

The Pokemon series of games is one that you can keep playing long after you reach endgame - there is always a ton of stuff to do.  So while I am not quite finished playing the game (watch out full pokedex, here I come!), I'm going to give a brief review since technically I have beaten the main part of the game.

Long story short - this game is EXCELLENT.  It is just about everything a Pokemon fan would want in a game, and is a great introduction to newcomers just getting into the series.  The new customization feature has been a long time in coming, and while there are fewer options than I would like, it's a great start to making your Pokemon trainer your own.  The wifi capabilities of the 3DS are really taken advantage of with the new Player Search System, and they make trading and battling so much more accessible.  The sheer variety of the Pokemon available from the start of the game make the pacing completely different than previous games, and the graphics are such a step up it makes playing Black/White give you a bit of culture shock.  While I cannot include any screenshots in this review, I can give you my final Elite Four team:

That being said, I do have some complaints.  I was not affected by the game breaking glitch that was included in the original release, but I do think it's quite amazing that Nintendo was able to release a patch to fix it and it just.... applies itself to your copy of the game.  I do not like the fact that you cannot control the camera angle as you travel.  It can make some areas extra confusing, especially the big metropolis Lumiose City.  And my other complaint is that you cannot transfer Pokemon from any previous games into X/Y... yet.  Next month, Pokemon Bank will be released along with the Transporter, so that gripe may get erased.

The music is pretty great, and I am looking forward to getting the soundtrack in the near future.  It's on iTunes for $10!  What a steal! 

Overall, this game gets a 5/5 from me.  I'm still playing it. 

Favorite Anime Music - Sora (Escaflowne: the Movie)

The Escaflowne movie had mixed reviews.  I certainly didn't love it, but the music was still excellent.  Yoko Kanno is a master at all sorts of types of music.  This song is a favorite, and Kanno's music made the film redeemable. 

Video Game Music - Smooth McGroove

I recently came across this guy when looking for Zelda tunes on youtube.  His music is excellent, and the cat is a great touch.  This is one of my favorites. 

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds comes out soon!  

A Brief Review - Pokemon: The Origin

To gear up for the release of Pokemon X and Y, a 4-episode miniseries was released in Japan titled "Pokemon: The Origin".  The story revolves around the trainer from the original Pokemon games, usually known as Red, and his adventure to become the Pokemon Champion and capture all 150 Pokemon. 

For fans of the original games, this series is AMAZING.  I have gotten tired of the long-winded nature of the ongoing Pokemon anime, and while they could have made this miniseries longer, everything important is still covered in 4 episodes, and the creators did an extremely fine job.  I was sold as soon as Eevee appeared from its pokeball and jumped into Professor Oak's arms, but you can imagine my reaction when I saw this:

Red grows as a trainer, as does his rival Green.  The twist of this miniseries comes at the end, tying together the story from the original games to the new concept of Mega Evolution introduced in X and Y.  It's a nice touch, and done tastefully. 

While there are no openings or endings really to this series, the music is still excellent.  You may recall that the soundtracks to the original games made it onto my top 10 video game soundtrack list, and all of the music in this miniseries comes from those original tunes. 

If you are a Pokemon fan, definitely don't miss out on seeing this.  5/5 from me!

Favorite Video Game Music - The Light of Jupiter (Golden Sun: The Lost Age)

The Golden Sun games have excellent music.  This particular selection is from the second game in the series - The Lost Age (for Game Boy Advance).  The song captures the mystery of the Jupiter lighthouse and the magic that surrounds it. 

A Brief Review - Fairy Tail

Yet another long-winded shounen series..... No seriously though, parts of Fairy Tail made it worth it.  Unfortunately, the anime just recently went on hiatus, so fans have to wait for any sort of conclusion for a while yet.

Story - Fairy Tail's plot follows a young celestial spirit mage named Lucy who joins the magic guild Fairy Tail.  All across Fiore, wizards are part of magic guilds, which is where ordinary citizens can put up ads for mages to get work.  The magic systems in this world are pretty well-done, diversifying from Lucy's Celestial Spirit summons to Grey's Ice-Make magic, from Natsu's dragon slaying magic to Erza's magical equipment.  The series does suffer from filler plots, far too much fanservice, and stupid comedy found in Happy the Little Blue Cat, but the good stuff kept me coming back for more.  

Animation - Definitely a plus for the series.  Most of the time, the animation is done quite well, especially the magic.  Character designs are fairly good as well.  

Music - BGM definitely comes to the forefront a few times, particularly in showdowns between Natsu and whoever the current baddie is.  The opening and ending themes tended to be more hit-and-miss with me, but the consistent chibi themed animation in the endings was well done for sure.  I was sad when they took out the mysterious wheel spinning in each of the first few endings, whether the song was cute and happy or more introspective and melancholy.  

Overall, I give this series a 4/5.  I look forward to watching more when the series resumes.