Trigun Anime

     Trigun is an incredible anime. I would say its the best I've ever seen but I reserve that spot for Dragon Ball Z because it had such an impact on my youth. Blame it on my youth! Anyways, this anime is about a famous outlaw with a bounty of $$60,000,000 (double dollars is the currency in this futuristic world) on his head. He's a cool blonde spiky headed guy with glasses that goes by the name of Vash the Stampede. We never learn his last name throughout the show, just Vash as his first name. It turns out that the guy isn't even human and that's part of why he's lived for hundreds of years. He's actually a plant of some kind developed in space and made with cryogenics in space. Its hard to really say what this anime is about. For the most part its about Vash trying to survive and get by to other towns without killing people or letting other people get killed by bad guys. Its also about life, death, and the rights one has to life in general.
     Anyways, the plot isn't nearly as interesting as the bad guys. The bad guys make this anime a real treat. Most of the fighting in this anime involves guns even though its in the future. People are still drawing like in westerns. This is a cowboy space western. There's a samurai bad guy, a little kid bad guy, various bad guys in badass armor and suits, Legato (a mind controller), Vash's brother Knives (the main bad guy), and my personal favorite, a saxophone player called Hornfreak. The saxophone player really plays some bebop riffs that sound so fast and technical. The actual sax player must be a great professional musician. He was my favorite bad guy because I love jazz and jazz in anime is always good clean fun.
     Moving on, I really liked the fights in this anime. Vash saves so many people and avoids death at all costs until he's forced to choose between killing Legato or letting Legato kill the girls that follow him around(girls that work for an insurance company). So many people die in the series but its not gory at all and there's very little blood. The last fight with Vash versus his brother Knives is pretty epic. They both have some kind or mechanical (or is it some kind of plant) arm that can level cities and even put a hole in what they called the fifth moon. Its triggered by their customized guns they use and in the end Vash cancels out Knives' arm blast attack using his own. Then they have a good old shoot down in which Vash comes out the victor, inevitably killing his brother.
     Lastly, what I loved about this anime is that it seems like a science fiction anime and a western. Kind of like Cowboy Bebop. I liked the characters a lot and Vash had a lot of depth to him despite being a goody too shoes who never wanted to kill anyone. The origin story episode of Vash where it describes his relationship with Rem (a woman who taught him everything he believes in) was simply one of the best episodes of an anime I've ever seen. That episode had lots of science fiction elements: space ships, escape pods, frozen human beings waiting to be transported to a hospitable planet, and Vash and Knives (plant people made by the scientists on the ship). I really loved the fact that Vash is all about peace and wanted to live in a world with no killing. Love and peace! 

Attack on Titan Anime: Story and Thoughts

     Attack on Titan is a superb anime about giant titans that eat people alive and attack cities. It takes place in a kind of old time world, where they still have rifles with gun powder. Their main means of fighting the titans are these 3D-maneuvering devices that allow them to scale walls and climb up titans easily. In addition, they have these really cool looking swords as seen in the picture above. The character in the picture is my favorite character, Captain Levi, one of the commanders of the Scout Regiment, a group of elite soldiers that attack titans. The only way to kill the Titans easily and most effectively is to cut the back of their necks out.
     Anyways, the story focuses on three childhood friends: Eren Yeager (the main character), Mikasa (a great soldier who grew up with Eren), and Armin (a wimp but a tactical genius). As kids Eren and Mikasa fought off an attack in their home in which robbers broke into their house. Eren and Mikasa fought them off and even killed them. This showed their ruthlessness even at a young age. Eventually all three of the characters join the army. While fighting in a huge titan attack Eren gets eaten and everyone assumes that he has died. But instead something else happens. Eren becomes a titan himself! So he becomes a huge giant titan and starts beating up on all the other titans, losing limbs and still fighting until all the titans are wiped out.
     When he gets back to human form he doesn't remember anything other than being eaten alive and the army is there ready to kill him with cannons until he can tell them what he is. He yells out to them that he's human. They decide to shoot but somehow Eren makes a barrier and the cannon fire is blocked. Then, General Pixis (an eccentric general) decides that Eren would be a valuable asset to take back Wall Maria so he allows Eren to live and to help. The humans live inside a series of walls and there was a wall that needed to be blocked with a boulder. Eren, with his titan strength was the only way for them to lift the boulder and block the wall off again so no titans could come through.
     Anyways, they end up blocking the wall but Eren is brought to a court hearing to decide if he should live to defend humanity and help save humankind or to be killed for being a monster that can barely control his power. He ends up being allowed to live and ends up joining the Scout Regiment, the elite squad of soldiers that kill the most titans. The Military Police, on the other hand is a corrupt organization of the army in charge of other affairs. So the Scout Regiment ends up going on a recon mission outside of the walls when they start seeing variant titans. And even a female titan that is immediately noticed by Armin to be a human female inside the titan because it had intelligence and even avoided killing Armin when it mentioned Eren. The female was trying to get to Eren so Captain Levi orders the entire squad to go to a huge forest where they can try to capture the female titan, who they weren't sure who it was. They end up trapping the female titan but she ends up screaming and calling other titans to come eat her flesh, thus allowing her to escape in human form and join the Scout Regiment. Then, somehow she became a titan again and chased down Eren and the squad. The squad all gets killed protecting Eren and he gets mad and activates his titan power. Eren gets defeated horribly and even gets his head kicked off. Then the female titan puts him in her mouth and starts running away. Mikasa and Captain Levi chase her down and cripple her until they save Eren and make their way back to the safety of the Wall.
     Later, the Scout Regiment finds out that the female titan might be Annie, a blond with great fighting skills. So they make a plan to try to capture her but when it fails Eren has to resort to titan form again and this time he ends up tearing the female titan's limbs off and almost eating her. Annie gets captured but she's crystallized in some sort of titan thing and they get no information off of her. But they all agree that this was a great hope for humankind to stop her and that there are definitely more human titans out there, and perhaps they could use them to defeat the titans altogether.
     So what do I think of this anime? Its incredible. Its one of the better animes I've seen in a long time and its relatively new still. The ending was a bit ambiguous because they don't get any information out of Annie. Why was she trying to kill Eren? How did she become a titan? Where are the other human titans? Things get unanswered but maybe there will be a second version or something to come down the road. The fights with the titans were great and the death and destruction is at a massive level. This is an anime we can all enjoy.  

Games I've been playing lately

     

 I play a lot of video games. I mainly just play on the PC because I feel like the best games are on the PC and the PC has the best graphics out at any particular time. Lately, I've been playing a lot of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. My brother got it for me for Christmas and I've enjoyed it a lot since December. In addition, I've been playing Heroes of the Storm, Dota 2, the latest Counter-Strike, and even a little bit of World of Warcraft although I find it boring at the max level except for PvP (player vs player combat). The game that kind of got me into PC gaming in the first place is Starcraft 2, which is pictured above. I used to stream Starcraft on Twitch.tv and other people would watch me play. Sometimes I did great but other times I got owned (lose miserably). Anyways, today I just downloaded a F2P (free to play) game called Nosgoth created by Square-Enix. Its a PvP game with Humans versus Vampires in 4v4 matchups. Its a great online brawler type of game unlike any I've played before. Its very fun and hunting other players is good clean fun. Lastly, I just bought Grey Goo today, a cool science-fiction RTS (real time strategy) game that has three races: humans and two alien races. Its gotten good reviews so far so I'm looking forward to playing it more. For a while I was steering more into the FPS (first person shooter) genre because of Call of Duty. I actually have Advanced Warfare and the last Call of Duty: Ghosts, which I've hardly played. There are still games I got from leftover Christmas which I haven't even played yet. These include Bioshock, Deadspace, Victoria Revelations, Endless Space, and Payday 2: The Heist. And I'm going to play all of them. 

The Mike Stern and Eric Johnson concert

   

     Last Sunday I saw Mike Stern and Eric Johnson at the Canyon Club in Agoura Hills. It was a fantastic show with plenty of great musicianship from everyone including bass and drums. It was Mike Stern on guitar, Eric Johnson on guitar, Anton Fig on drums, and a bassist named Chris Maresh. All of them are quite well known by musicians except the bass player.
     They opened the show up with a slow mellow jam and everything just went up from there. Mike Stern, who played with Miles Davis is the more jazz oriented guitar player while Eric Johnson favors a much faster rapid rock style of guitar playing. In some ways they don't quite mesh but somehow they complement each other in an interesting way. They all took solos on every song that was long and full of tasty licks. Anton Fig's drumming is quite incredible. He's a powerhouse but also capable of light touches here and there for the slow stuff.
     After a while you hear some of the same patterns and licks from both guitarists. Eventually they run out of ideas and they start to recollect the old ones and do variations on it like great jazz musicians. Even though Johnson is a rock guy you get the feeling that this is a jazz gig your at, not a rock gig at all, although there are great rock and funk type moments.
     The best part of the show for me was when the shred guitar hero Paul Gilbert came out and played an extended solo on one of the tunes. Paul can't play like Stern or Johnson but his playing kind of hits home in a much simpler way. He doesn't swing and he doesn't have complicated licks. He just has a soulful rock style and he's great. Paul is a very tall skinny guy and looks very much the rock guitar god with his beard and red Ibanez guitar. He's one of my favorite guitar players ever and him being there kind of made my night. Also, one of my friends was there watching the whole show with me and we had a great time. Even though he isn't a musician, he could really dig and feel the music. Definitely a show to see if you ever get the chance.

Thoughts on Andre 3000 Hendrix film

   

     This was an interesting movie because it features none of Jimi Hendrix's music whatsoever. Instead, this musician created little bits of a Hendrix style that was nowhere near the real thing. However, that doesn't make this a bad movie, its just a little empty in terms of the actual music. Andre 3000 plays a great Hendrix, probably the most thoughtful Hendrix. He's seen as an intelligent thoughtful person in this movie. The movie focuses on the beginning of Hendrix's career with his British girlfriend Linda Keith (formerly Keith Richards girlfriend) trying to hook him up with studio executives and managers so he can get started on forming a good career in rock and roll.

     Chas Chandler(bass player from the Animals) eventually decides to manage Jimi and he's seen as a overall nice guy but Mike Jeffries, Hendrix's other manager is seen as a knife throwing eccentric in a suit and shades. At one point Hendrix gets a red-headed British girlfriend and she beats Jimi up in one scene. A really cool scene was the one where Hendrix got up on stage and played with Cream, and Eric Clapton got off the stage because he felt like he was being upstaged. Hendrix mentioned he only wanted to go to England if he could meet Clapton. 

     Although this movie lacks the music of Hendrix its still a great portrayal of Hendrix before he made it big. If anything it shows that Hendrix was more thoughtful instead of just the usual naive and quiet-spoken. 

Thoughts on Keep on Keepin' On Film

     This was a movie that was about trumpeter Clark Terry, one of the all time greats who played with Duke Ellington's orchestra and many, many others. He's credited on being on at least a thousand records. He's a total legend and inspired people like Quincy Jones and Miles Davis. This movie doesn't show the musical giant that he is though. Rather it focuses on him being a teacher to young up and coming jazz musicians, particularly a blind piano player named Justin Kauflin who eventually gets signed by Quincy Jones at the end of the movie.

     This was a beautiful movie because it captures CT and Justin's love for jazz. Justin would come by to CT's place to work on tunes, to talk, and rehearse with his college band. Their friendship was a great one and CT thought very highly of Justin's playing. Justin's career hadn't really taken off when he moved to New York because he was blind and people didn't think a blind man could make it to gigs or learn their music. Justin was entered in the Thelonius Monk Competition somehow but didn't make top three, but in the end it worked out for him and he may become a great jazz musician working under Quincy Jones. This was a really fantastic film although it doesn't really feature much of CT's music or playing. At times I was sad to see CT in such destabilizing conditions as a result of his diabetes. The great trumpeter lives through his students!

Starwars Knights of the Old Republic 2: Thoughts and Opinions

     

     Starwars Knights of the Old Republic 2 is one of the best games I've ever played. It takes place five years before Starwars Knights of the Old Republic 1 and isn't made by Bioware. Rather it is made by a company called Obsidian. This is a much darker game compared to the first one and perhaps compared to all Starwars games. This game really pushes the ante when it comes to the dark side and what it means to be Sith or Jedi.
     You play as a general of Darth Revan's who fought during the Mandalorian wars but lost a connection to the Force, and is slowing regaining all of your abilities. Your name is Meetra Surik and you find out that you were cast out of the Jedi order for fighting with Revan in the Mandolorian wars. You wake up in a Sith spaceship and you meet a woman named Kreia, who becomes your mentor. Later, you find out that she was a Sith Lord named Darth Traya and that she was guiding you and influencing your every move throughout the game. So basically you have to escape this ship and from there the story really starts.
     For me, the game really begins when you meet Atris on Telos. She tells you all about how you were cast out and she even had kept your light-saber hanging up on her wall to remind her of you and the fall of the Jedi. Supposedly Atris says she's the last Jedi and that she doesn't care what you do but later you find out she was into the Dark side, like a lot.
     So you figure out at some point that there are a few of the Jedi order still alive so you set out to find them. You have the option to kill them, or maybe they die anyways by Kreia's hand, because at the end she becomes a villain to you. I didn't try any of the light side options in the game so I went ahead and struct down all the Jedi. Then, Kreia tells you what you have learned after hunting down all the Jedi. For me, she said that I had much to learn still and that her teachings have shown me nothing through the Force. Being a bad guy gets you nowhere with her perhaps? In between that, you can either help a revolution in a major city or hinder it as well.
     So at the end you have to destroy a Sith ship and kill a Sith Lord named Darth Nilhilus who apparently cannot speak English and wears a pretty cool mask. He's an apprentice to Darth Traya. He puts up a good fight and goes down. After you blow up his Sith ship you have to go down to Malachor V to confront Darth Traya and her other apprentice Darth Scion. Darth Scion is a Sith Lord with powers that allow him to come back to life every time he dies. So you have to kill him a few times. Then you fight and defeat Kreia or Darth Traya and the game end. She tells you that by killing her she has succeeded in training you in the Darkside and that nothing could make her happier. Pretty bad feelings huh? That's the path of the Darkside. All in all, a great story. I wouldn't say its better than the first one but its much darker in terms of themes and story-lines. What a game!