Category: Features

Amish Otaku, Comics, DC, Features, Movies

Bat-mania: Batman

Guest Post

“Decent people shouldn’t live here. They’d be happier some place else,” deadpans Jack Napier (the great Jack Nicholson) when District Attorney Harvey Dent comments on making the streets of Gotham safer and a quote that summarizes the plight of the Batman in Tim Burton’s 1989 classic of the same name.

It is true that I have seen ittoo many times to count. It was one of my favorite movies when I was a little kid and my beat to Hades VHS copy somehow still has some life in it. I have most of the lines memorized to the point where they taste like McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets after you’ve eaten your 25th one in a single sitting which is essentially like dirty rubber.

Ah hah! Dirty Rubber! Just like the Michael Keaton Batsuit which in retrospect seems a little silly, on paper at least, compared to verbally advanced Christopher Nolan/Christian Bale model, which brings an intriguing question: which was the better Batman film? Batman Begins or Batman? My brother challenged me to watch them back to back. And thus was born the first official installment of Bat-Mania, in which I will try my best to provide the readers with a review of something Batman related every week until the release of the Dark Knight on July 18th. Continue reading “Bat-mania: Batman”

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Amish Otaku, Eastern Culture, Features

Eastern Culture: Japanese Holidays

Guest Post

There are plenty of holidays that the United States and Japan share. Buuuut, there are also plenty of holidays unique to Japan, and that’s what interests me. What are these holidays and why do the Japanese have them?

If you haven’t been able to figure out from all the anime you’ve watch over the past ten years, Japanese culture is workaholic. You know how some Americans work 80 hours a week and never have time for family or friends or anything besides working? Well, the whole Japanese culture is like that. Over there, when you’re in business, you’re in business, and if you’re not… you might be a slacker. Continue reading “Eastern Culture: Japanese Holidays”

Viannah Duncan
Amish Otaku, Features, Video Games

Non-Gaming: The State of Play

Non-games are not new to video gamers. Nintendo’s Mario Paint was an early innovator that can still be seen in YouTube videos. The now-defunct GameTek released a series of titles for the original Game Boy in 1991. From DS Fanboy: “[the series] included French and Spanish dictionaries, a personal organizer, a travel guide, and a spell checker/calculator. Not a dictionary – a spell checker.”

It’s not surprising that these games didn’t sell well and also didn’t do much to expand the non-game market anywhere. More than 10 years later, though, the descendants of the original Game Boy – the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP – have realized the early promise and potential of non-games with their greatly increased power and portability. Continue reading “Non-Gaming: The State of Play”

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Amish Otaku, Convention Coverage, Features

Animazement 2008

The Monarch's Henchmen

Animazement 2008 happened this past Memorial Day weekend – May 23 through 25 – at the Sheraton Imperial in Durham, North Carolina.

Since this was my first anime convention experience I don’t have anything to compare it to. It’s a sea of fans, some dressed in costume and others in street clothes. The lobby and grounds of the Sheraton were literally overrun with otaku for most of the weekend.

Looking at people is one of the big draws of any convention and Animazement ensured there were plenty of safe outlets to get your gawking done. The cosplay talent show is the most visible event of this type but other events like the Loli fashion show gave more outlets for people to show off their costumes and craftsmanship, as well as be seen. Continue reading “Animazement 2008”

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Amish Otaku, Caught My Eye, Comics, Features, Image

Caught My Eye: Noble Causes Archives Volume 1

Guest Post

Noble Causes is a book that has caught my eye for a long time, but I just never got the full urge to read it until the recent archive collections were solicited. While some comic books are often compared to soap operas due to the themes and long running plots, Noble Causes embraces that concept and bases the entire series on it.

That does not mean the comic is looking for an audience within stay at home moms and grandmothers, but that it focuses on the characters and builds on them in ways few other comic books do.

The release of this archive collection (and soon the second volume) coincided with a new push in the series. These two huge collections contain the entire series up to the point in the series where it takes a five year jump in the story as a way to get new readers to try out the series and feel comfortable with all the history of the title. From a marketing perspective, that seems like a good idea since DC did something similar with One Year Later following the Infinite Crisis crossover.

Continue reading “Caught My Eye: Noble Causes Archives Volume 1”

Clint Page
Amish Otaku, Caught My Eye, Comics, Features, Viper

Caught My Eye – Gypsy Joe Jefferson

Guest Post

It would seem that I’m turning into something of a roadie of writer Jason M. Burns, but the truth is he’s sending me advance things to review that no one else has! One thing that can be said about Jason’s work is that he has a billion ideas rumbling around in his head. I kind of think of him as a new up-and-coming version of Grant Morrison because he has some pretty out there ideas that are just different from what you’re used to. Gypsy Joe Jefferson proves this trend continues.

Gypsy Joe Jefferson is a former boxer who has retired from the sport due to getting older and not being able to compete with the new, younger guys. His wife is a corporate woman who landed him a gig in security where, naturally, the bigwigs decided to take more from him than his yearly bonus. The basic plot is that he was altered in such a way that after being around people for five minutes, they start to go stark raving mad. The story follows Joe as he comes to terms with this and tries to find those responsible. Continue reading “Caught My Eye – Gypsy Joe Jefferson”

Clint Page
Amish Otaku, Features, Kosher Kuts, Manga

Jew Unit’s Kosher Kuts: Fairy Tail

Guest Post

It has been said that every basic story possible has already been told. Derivation in Japanese manga in this day and age is nearly unavoidable and ends up being encouraged to attract readers who may not know art, but who know what they like. Eventually, though, mangakas must separate themselves from the pack somehow. With stories that have been told many times over – whether inspired by Genji, Journey to the West, or video games – the distinguishing attributes of the media are in the “how” and “why.”

An old plot can shine like new if it is presented in an interesting perspective or given significantly more depth than the reader had thought possible. The creation of an enjoyable world that the reader longs to explore certainly doesn’t hurt either. Even if the plot breaks down, good characters can carry a manga on their shoulders rather effectively. Quirkiness, character progression and the all-important empathy factor can all breathe fresh life into an otherwise mundane story. Successful manga tend to do one or the other fairly well. When the manga cannot, you get something like Fairy Tail. Continue reading “Jew Unit’s Kosher Kuts: Fairy Tail”

Joshua Goldberg
Amish Otaku, Comics, Features, Viper

A Dummy’s Guide to Danger: Lost at Sea #2

Guest Post

It wasn’t too long ago that I wrote a review for A Dummy’s Guide to Danger: Lost at Sea, but I was given an opportunity to check out issue number two in advance, so I figured I would dust off the cobwebs on my keyboard and give the second issue a mini review. The second issue in the mini series continues the trend of mixing humor and mystery with an assorted gang of interesting characters that is hard to put down.

I won’t go into the general plot in this review since I covered that in first review. The first issue leaves you on a cliffhanger and this one picks right up from there. But if you can’t find the first issue at your local comic shop, you won’t be too lost since it was written in a way that you can pick it right up.

One thing that I will give the writer, Jason Burns, credit for is that he knows how to set up proper cliffhangers in each issue. The first issue leaves you with one, and the second issue continues that. Having good cliffhangers is very important in comics and I think Jason agrees with me in that regard. The end of this issue leaves you in a place where you just have to march down to your local nerd den and plop over the money that Big Oil was expecting that week. Continue reading “A Dummy’s Guide to Danger: Lost at Sea #2”

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Amish Otaku, Bargain Reviews, Features, NES, Nintendo, Video Games

Bargain Review: Ninja Gaiden and Strider

We’re bringing back the Bargain Review with two NES games that first saw the light of day in arcades in the 80s. And since this is the NES we’re talking about, you already know the arcade version of each of the games was better than its console counterpart. Grab your swords and cover your face because today Bargain Review is looking at the first console appearances of Ryu Hayabusa and Strider Hiryu.

Ninja Gaiden
Tecmo, 1989

The first thing you notice about Ninja Gaiden once you start playing it is that it’s nothing like the arcade game which was very similar to Capcom’s early brawlers. In fact, it’s very much like Castlevania. While the physics of the game and the hero’s weapon are different, the core mechanics of the games are nearly identical. Continue reading “Bargain Review: Ninja Gaiden and Strider”

Daniel Allen
Amish Otaku, Features

Yakuza: more than “Gungrave” and “GTO”

What do you think of when you hear the word Yakuza? Many people on this side of the Pacific kind of get a blank look – the concept goes right over their heads until you say, “You know, the Japanese Mafia…” and then suddenly: recognition! Explaining the Yakuza as the “Japanese Mafia” is also apparently an acceptable way of describing the crime syndicate in the American press; I don’t know why. It could just as easily be argued that the Italian crime syndicate (most commonly associated with the word mafia) is the “Italian Yakuza,” except the Italians “were here [in the USA] first” (or whatever); but, I digress.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Yakuza than GTO, Gungrave, Gokusen, Texhnolyze, and Black Lagoon can give you, or if you’ve played Yakuza and are curious about the tendency toward full-body tattoos, I suggest starting with Wikipedia and working your way up from there. (The Yakuza 3 game trailer is here, by the way.) Continue reading “Yakuza: more than “Gungrave” and “GTO””

V.E.