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What Have You Watched Recently?


Susano

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Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

 

Episodes 1-24 of Basilisk and Episodes 1-11 of Hand Maid May.

 

The former is an animated adaption of the manga of the same name, which itself was a graphic format adaption of a novel written in the 1950s! It's basically Romeo and Juliet, with a ninja twist and political maneuvering. Reminiscent of Ninja Scroll, it features some of the weirdest ninja powers ever seen since the aforementioned movie. Good if you like that sort of thing, not so good if you're not a fan of series with high-body counts and grotesque (physically) characters.

 

Hand Maid May is a circa 1990 harem anime comedy with a lot of slapstick and fanservice. I watched it and chuckled, but didn't consider it all that. Curiously, it does have an slight cyberpunk vibe, since the story concerns fully sapient and interactive "cyberdolls" which are sold as maids and the like. Naturally, this being a fanservice anime, all of the cyberdolls are female.

 

Both can be of use to Game Masters. Basilisk is packed with ideas for period martial arts games set in 1615 Japan, but can easily be adapted to fantasy games set in many times and places, or even into modern supers games. As many of the ninja techniques seem to have "realistic" side effects or requirements (for example, the shape shifter needs to have someone on hand to copy them, while the human slug needs water to regain his form) you could make them somewhat street level super powers or low-key mutant powers. Hand Maid May has some ideas for robot girls and the like for those wanting to introduce insidious plots by guys like Telios, Dr. Destroyer, or even Mechanon... but I'll admit that's bit of a stretch. Still the idea of a 12" tall fully-functional 'doll' plugged into your computer's USB port is kinda of interesting.

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Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

 

Episodes 1-24 of Basilisk and Episodes 1-11 of Hand Maid May.

 

The former is an animated adaption of the manga of the same name, which itself was a graphic format adaption of a novel written in the 1950s! It's basically Romeo and Juliet, with a ninja twist and political maneuvering. Reminiscent of Ninja Scroll, it features some of the weirdest ninja powers ever seen since the aforementioned movie. Good if you like that sort of thing, not so good if you're not a fan of series with high-body counts and grotesque (physically) characters.

 

Hand Maid May is a circa 1990 harem anime comedy with a lot of slapstick and fanservice. I watched it and chuckled, but didn't consider it all that. Curiously, it does have an slight cyberpunk vibe, since the story concerns fully sapient and interactive "cyberdolls" which are sold as maids and the like. Naturally, this being a fanservice anime, all of the cyberdolls are female.

 

Both can be of use to Game Masters. Basilisk is packed with ideas for period martial arts games set in 1615 Japan, but can easily be adapted to fantasy games set in many times and places, or even into modern supers games. As many of the ninja techniques seem to have "realistic" side effects or requirements (for example, the shape shifter needs to have someone on hand to copy them, while the human slug needs water to regain his form) you could make them somewhat street level super powers or low-key mutant powers. Hand Maid May has some ideas for robot girls and the like for those wanting to introduce insidious plots by guys like Telios, Dr. Destroyer, or even Mechanon... but I'll admit that's bit of a stretch. Still the idea of a 12" tall fully-functional 'doll' plugged into your computer's USB port is kinda of interesting.

...That second one is all kinds of creepy.

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Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

 

...That second one is all kinds of creepy.

 

There's a lot of anime that get creepy when you get past the outer-flash and take a closer look at that is implied (then again, the same can be said for many comics, cartoons, and other shows). Ghost in the Shell actually considers what happens when people buy cyber dolls and then dump than in favor of a new model.

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Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

 

Episodes 1-24 of Basilisk and Episodes 1-11 of Hand Maid May.

 

The former is an animated adaption of the manga of the same name, which itself was a graphic format adaption of a novel written in the 1950s! It's basically Romeo and Juliet, with a ninja twist and political maneuvering. Reminiscent of Ninja Scroll, it features some of the weirdest ninja powers ever seen since the aforementioned movie. Good if you like that sort of thing, not so good if you're not a fan of series with high-body counts and grotesque (physically) characters..

 

Dunno if you've read the manga, but in addition to gory death it also pushes the line on terms of "adult situations" for something that isn't explicitly adult content. I inherited the manga from Kath's sister who found it too violent/gross for her taste, and I'm actually kind of liking it.

 

cheers, Mark

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Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

 

In no particular order...

Repo: The Genetic Opera: I can't believe I missed this one as long as I did. Added to my list of favorite dark musicals.

 

Diary of the Dead: Romero takes his zombies back to zero hour. I was rather impressed.

 

Day of the Dead (remake): *meh* I've seen worse zombie movies, but I've seen MUCH better. Still... Ving Rhames and zombie movies always go well together.

 

30 Days of Night: Not a half bad Vampire flick. Felt VERY White Wolf/VtM/Sabbat. At least they didn't even for a moment try and make the vamps sexy, which I deeply appreciated

 

The Devil's Rejects: Good flick, tho I don't expect I'll be watching in again anytime real soon.

 

Irreversable: Woah. That. Was. Pretty. Messed. Up. Technically very well done, but you'd best be able to stomach some amazing levels of brutality in your foreign arthouse movies

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Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

 

The world will not end in 2012; the Mayans didn't predict the end of the world.

 

They just got tired of carving their calendar and ran out of room on the rock.

 

It's ridiculous, mindless hype.

 

In truth, they simply say the next world will start. Me? I'm hoping for the magic to come back, ala Shadowrun.

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Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

 

I have recently watched one of the massive hit hollywood movie 2012' date=' which makes me to think hard what will happen if it the same occurs in the real world. This is the great movie I have ever seen.[/quote']

 

Feh! I do better science in my sleep that that movie.[/tangent]

 

I watched Mythbusters: Unarmed and Unharmed, Kim Possible (the two-part series-ender) and Jay Leno (recorded from the previous night).

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Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

 

At my GF's suggestion I started watching Jack of All Trades last night, slugging through the first 8 episodes.

 

I LIKE it! Not really very surprising, all things being equal... Over the top Sam Rami swashbuckling Regency era action, what with Bruce Campbell in the title role (as well as the identity of the masked rebel The Daring Dragoon), and Verne "Mini-Me" Troyer as Napoleon.

Oh, there's a fair bit of Steampunk influences as well, as his partner/boss (the pretty English spy) is established early on as an inventor.

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Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

 

I have recently watched one of the massive hit hollywood movie 2012' date=' which makes me to think hard what will happen if it the same occurs in the real world. This is the great movie I have ever seen.[/quote']

 

it will be a piece of cake.

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Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

 

Watched Star Trek (the recent theatrical release). I like the way they used time travel to reboot the franchise. Now maybe those Old School Trekkies will shut up and let the rest of us enjoy the show.

 

My sister got the DVD a week after it came out at the movies. It might be bootleg since she bought it in the parking lot of a truckstop.

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Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

 

It might be bootleg since she bought it in the parking lot of a truckstop.

Y'think?! :)

 

I bought the DVD for my kids for Christmas -- we went to see it as a family, and they loved it. (They had never seen any of the series or the prior movies.) Both of them put it on their Christmas lists.

 

Last night, I finally tracked down a site where I could watch any episode of Warehouse 13. Got to watch the pilot and second episodes, still need to watch episodes 3-7.

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