Tribute to One Piece

As a big Anime fan of TV series, most of them available have been shamelessly similar to others, as they tend to simply copy traditional visualisations of the Japanese based cartoons. Over the top emotional responses, big eyes, the most strangest stories possible and everyone seems to swallow it all up. I'm talking very general in here. Honestly, most of the series aren't even worth watching because once you have seen a popular one, most of the time you will have seen plenty and plenty of similar ones in the past or future.

A few selected have been able to touch me with joy, respect and other positive feelings though. Some honorable mentions are Hajime no Ippo (great motivating story about strength) , Texhnolyze (dystopian science fiction about prosthesis and has a dark story) , Legend of the Galactic Heroes (if you want a genuine epic story, look no further) and my second favorite Anime, Monster (the most brilliant and darkest thriller that never let go of me).

But the one and only currently airing series that has practically never lost it's magic during it's countless episodes is One Piece, one of if not the most famous Anime in Japan available. As to why it is my favorite Anime I have seen so far, there are many reasons for that which I am about to describe, but it is most of all about an enormous story that if possible, I would had probably very much liked to live in.

With countless of background story, mysteries, twists and lore, One Piece already has a lot to offer before even beginning on the rest of it's awesomeness. The series tends to have a natural flow of eagerness towards me because either it is busy laughing my ass out, or it's thrilling me with the craziest and entertaining fights, or it's using drama and introductions to remind us that the situations have depth to them plus the story has to carry on and cannot hang too long onto the already established things.

Humor is nothing new in One Piece, as each episode almost ALWAYS has atleast one funny joke for the viewer to enjoy. And that is something really impressive, considering the vast amount of episodes and situations already available. Some of the oldest music from the earlier airings of the Anime are now, like ten years later, STILL playing, and it is still effective to listen to. The opening songs are sometimes very effective and make me excited for the current arc (a temporary storyline that is split up into smaller sections).

Perhaps the best thing about One Piece are it's countless interesting characters. From a lovable, strong protagonist team to the best villains I have ever witnessed in Anime, to the even more countless characters that only appear briefly or until an arc is over, literally, One Piece has atleast one character for everyone to enjoy. I could probably talk hours already about each famous character and their development, but I am moving on now to explain more about why I love this series.

The series has done very succesfully so far by being as original as possible with each new arc appearing, and the world of pirates keeps growing as we continue to watch this beyond epic voyage of romance happening. Unlike famous Animes such as Naruto or Bleach, One Piece never shows bad repetitiveness and fillers (filler ins exclusively for the Anime in order to give the creator of the Manga more time to continue the story) are very rarely unwatchable. It also is leaps beyond them with originality and unlike them, it seems that One Piece has only just started regarding it's huge story to tell.

It's a sad fact that an English translation raped the magic of One Piece to the West, by changing and censoring A LOT of stuff, cutting away entire arcs and making stupid replacements instead. Fortunately, the Japanese version will always be available and if you are curious to start watching this giant series then by all means watch the original version from the start. Get through the introduction episodes and arcs, and once you have arrived around say, Episode 99, then you should be able to start really appreciating it. (beware of spoilers constantly though)

One Piece deserves all of the praise it is getting for making a wonderful fantasy tale about the age of pirates, and I will definitely keep watching this amazing series and let myself get engulfed by all of it.

Metroid: Other M

We are dealing with a serious mixed bag here. Nintendo and Tecmo have delivered a new take for the Metroid franchise, but not all things are an improvement over the incredible Prime trilogy or the classic side scrolling 2D action platformers.

There is lots to say about Other M, and as I kept playing, both positive and negative thoughts remained in my mind. First, the good stuff:

+A variety of gameplay, obviously because of the different perspectives, including first person shooting, 2,5D and 3D action and least of all a 3rd person over the shoulder view. I said least of all because this mode is only viewed when Samus refuses to speed up. I suppose it is included to feel some kind of suspense towards the current situation, but I could had lived without it. But the rest of the different modes are good entries, giving us a bit of both Prime and classic gameplay (In 3D mostly though).

+It plays fast and smoothly. You gotta get used a bit to the controls and the responses towards each action but eventually I could get the hang out of it and control the gameplay.

+Cutscenes are impressive, well designed and fancy visuals.

Then, the bad stuff:

-Although I have no problem that there is no longer an isolation feeling, just like with Corruption mostly, the story and the direction it takes is ultimately just not interesting. It feels like someone thought it was needed to keep the player interested with familiar stereotypic characters and typical science fiction dialogue to support the game. Yes, the cut scenes are pretty as well as the voice cast, but believe it or not, Metroid never really needed to go steps beyond just logging in reports made by Samus herself in older games. Still, a nice try, but if you're gonna make a story around Samus's latest adventure, might as well make something thrilling out of it.

-The dodge system is your best friend in Other M. It's so good that is is abuseable in ridiculous ways. The 3D gameplay suffers from this system because it is always rewarding to get to those invincible moments of dodging and jumping on a creature in order to blast it to death.

-The authorization excuse of not being able to use late game advantages for Samus is at first cleverly introduced, but then becomes stupid. A good example is when Samus refuses to use the Varia Suit in the heat based stage until Adam allows it. As minor as this whining is, it still does count.

-Forgettable enemies and environments. Yes, some classic creatures return (I honestly forgot their specific names) but it is most of all bland stuff. Plus the locations felt very generic, none stood out for me.

-Stupid sudden moments when Samus forces you to scout the area in first person and then randomly find a spot where her scan visor activates. This was not executed in an exciting manner, in fact, I miss that great scan visor from the Prime trilogy. Not that it's needed for a Metroid game, but if you are gonna use that visor, might as well share the content of each scanned object.

-Proceeding through the game can be confusing, because the backgrounds are often blurred as to how to manoeuvre using Samus's jumps and morph ball. Some of the bomb blasts in the game also felt far too hidden for me.

-I really, really missed the ambience music here. For crying out loud, where was the good music Nintendo!?

Strangely, Other M reminds me of Star Fox Adventures on the Nintendo Gamecube, for they are both a new take for each franchise and both have dissapointed me. Unfortunately to say that but it is true. It's really sad that Other M has become my least liked Metroid game yet (I am not taking Hunters into consideration because I instantly disliked it the moment I played that demo years ago) , what a shame, after so many excellent titles, it seemed that the franchise would always be strong. But sometimes, too much chance can hurt the overall game.

EDIT: After beating the game plus that extra mission, not much has changed from what I already percieved positively and negatively. There are some returning bosses such as the inevitable Ridley, but also a cloned Queen Metroid, Nightmare and even Phantoon, but it's sad that they were reused in this poor title. It truly is a dissapointing game for me. Let's hope that Nintendo will notice the critic points surrounding the title and for example give us a great 2D Metroid title again, with Metroid Dread as most likely the canditate.

The Venus Project

Fellow internet surfers, meet The Venus Project during your busy lives.

Shortly summarized, it is a future envision project headed by the veteran social engineer Jacque Fresco along with partner Roxanne Meadows. I met both of them during the World Lecture Tour on the 26th of June 2010. It was a very hot day and me and a buddy of mine went to Eindhoven to attend the lecture which lasted for approximately 3 hours. I even filmed a good part of Jacque's message, surely inspiring the audience which was intriguely listening to a man thinking outside of the box.

What is it about? It's about the successor of the current monetary economy, a resource-based economy. If you still don't understand what I am talking about, I suggest that you follow http://www.thevenusproject.com/ and http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/, read the information there, and especially be sure to view Zeitgeist (2007) and Zeitgeist: Addendum (2008) for further clarification. In order to cleanse the world from poverty, war, crime and corruption in the biggest way imaginable, we must destroy the monetary system, share the resources and needs as a common heritage for all the world's people in order for humanity, nature and technology to co-exist in an equilibrium state for a long time.

Fresco goes in great depth explaining his vision and theories, handling out great examples about all sorts of topics, religion and politics being the "bad ones" and science and technology being the "good ones" basically in present time. The Venus Project isn't an utopia, but it sure as hell does smack the monetary system hard, speaking of the benefits it could bring. Politics for example are although well presented and logical currently, in the long run I would rather have it removed and instead let science take over for dealing with problems they understand, perhaps even at this very moment, if it was possible.

It will be very difficult and very time consuming to let this become reality, since enormous amounts of preparations and consequences must be dealt with. But there is no doubt in my mind though that I would prefer this future period of time instead of the rich, the middle and the poor classes, and all of the evil it brings with it, roughly speaking of the monetary system.

Before I forget, I read an interesting comment on a YouTube video that scarcity should not be forgotten before we implement The Venus Project, if humanity allows it to happen someday. I agree, it is atleast one of the many things to consider before starting on this huge ambitious project.

One more thing, if you are interested in upcoming videos regarding The Venus Project and The Zeitgeist Movement, look no further than to expect Zeitgeist: Moving Forward in late 2010 and Earth 2.0, which is coming soon.