Type-Moon News

With the recent launch of a new Fate/Zero website and the impending February announcement that Fate/Zero will be a 2011 anime series to be produced by Aniplex (studio responsible for both anime series Shiki and another Type-Moon film series, Kara no Kyoukai), Fate/Zero has the potential of being among the best anime series of the year.
 
Those familiar with the original visual novel and franchise of Fate/Stay Night may also be aware of its prequel series of light novels by the title of Fate/Zero. Even if you aren't familiar with the franchise, you might recognize this infamous moment from the anime adaptation (produced not by Aniplex, but Studio DEEN): 

Memes and terrible moments in anime aside, I actually appreciated the anime series of Fate/Stay Night and the interesting universe it established. It was also my first glimpse on the works of Type-Moon. Because of this series, I actively began to look out for what works might be adapted from Type-Moon next. If it wasn't for my interest in the publisher coming out of the Fate/Stay Night anime, I never would have known the exceptional anime film series Kara no Kyoukai - my all-time favorite completed (Rebuild of Evangelion may challenge this over the next few years when it concludes) anime film series. 
 
Kara no Kyoukai is, essentially, a series of seven feature-length supernatural, psychological thrillers following the story of Shiki Ryougi, a teenager gifted with the ability of visualizing every living thing's mortality in the form of lines. By cutting those lines, she able to instantly kill any living thing. While most of the film series follows her work in assisting an agency tied with maintaining the balance of magic's delicate existence by investigating unusual, supernatural occurrences, there are some very profound conflicts in these cases and even underlying the core of this series of films. As I've said, this film was done by Aniplex and is among my favorite profound anime series of all time.   


Because of how much I loved Kara no Kyoukai and the fact that Aniplex will also be responsible for producing the Fate/Zero anime, I have high expectations. 
 
If you're getting turned off that this risks being another Fate/Stay Night, I'll present a little background that may dismiss your low expectations: this prequel follows the story of Kiritsugu Emiya, who much unlike his son Shirou, doesn't mind adopting questionably underhanded strategies such as taking advantage of technology to exploit the weaknesses of competing magicians. Kiritsugu lacks the idealism of Shirou and doesn't mind being a coldblooded killer to achieve his ultimate end of defending humanity. 
 
He has the potential of being a refreshing, anti-hero of a protagonist, something I haven't seen in an anime of this sort for a while. Aniplex has done an awesome job with developing morally ambiguous characters (once again, I cannot praise Kara no Kyoukai nor Shiki enough, here) and I expect Kiritsugu to be one my favorite anime protagonists for the upcoming year. Not to mention, I am also excited in seeing more of Saber!
 
I am definitely looking forward to the upcoming Fate/Zero anime series. Are you?

I'll present my list to you guys now in the same fashion that I sent to my parents and extended family.
 
Technical Computer stuff gifts that I would freak out about - (try looking on newegg.com or tigerdirect.com)

•  Intel X25 Solid State Hard Drive
• EVGA Nvidia Geforce GTX 260 Core 216 (or higher, for example: GTX 275 or GTX 280)
• A 24" 1920x1200 computer monitor with HDMI, VGA, and DVI plugs that ISN'T an Acer or Gateway brand

 
Stuff that isn't expensive

• A new printer that isn't HP (I don't really care so long as it works fine and I can use it for reports and stuff) 

•  Forza Motorsport 3 (XBox 360 game)
  
• Little Big Planet (PS3 game)
• another shelf that I can put the rest of my DVD collection on
•  figma Emiya Shirou (www.1999.co.jp/eng - it's a figure)
• Lunar Legend Tsukihime manga (any volume, though they do have a four pack for cheap that you can even find at Borders)
• Yotsuba& manga (any volume after volume 3)
  

 
Awesome stuff that you better have a defibrillator ready for on Christmas

• help with the Fate/Hollow Ataraxia translation project
• a reserved copy of TYPE-MOON ACE vol. 4 (aka TYPE-MOON エース vol.4 )
  
• the special edition DVD of any of the Kara no Kyoukai movies other than "Spiral Paradox" and "Murder Speculation Part 2"
• a 32" 1080p TV

劇場版Fateの公開が決定しました！
詳細は劇場版Fate公式ページにて順次お知らせします。

Taken from Type Moon's website after their C76 product lineup announcement.
No further details yet, but they've got a page up for it.

Please, for the sake of all that is good in this world, please be an Unlimited Blade Works movie by ufotable... Heck, I'll even settle for Heaven's Feel.

Today I experimented with a number of options for greatly increasing editing speed for the Gundam Wing sections I'm working on. Through experimenting with various subtitle ripping programs and screenshotting methods, I've finally settled on ways that I think I can settle for. I even have the episode subtitle version transcript up as an example, and I believe the work I've done on episode 1 will serve as an otherwise fair example of what I plan to hopefully accomplish with EVERY episode of the 49...

I realize this is quite an ambitious project I've embarked on, but if some people can write a 12 page essay on Edward Elric, then I feel it can't hurt to put in as much effort.

That said, today I spent most of my available time creating pages for all the various locations that appear in the series, and also pages for some of the more minor characters that still have a measureable role. I wasn't able to fill in descriptions for every one of them yet, but I was able to at least provide a picture of each after much internet spleunking and some episode screenshotting. Transcripting took surprisingly less time than I thought it would have thanks to the subtitle ripping program I found though it still was a lot of work editing it and adding names of who's speaking, etc.. So the transcript you see for episode 1 I've posted is basically an adapted and edited rip of the subtitles from the Bandai DVDs.

Obviously this whole project is going to take a CONSIDERABLE amount of time. I'm not even going to give a date of completion or even a rough estimate since the scope I have for this is so huge, but I'm hoping to make some fair progress (another 5 or 10 episodes?) over the next week or two, depending on how much time I have free, and considering my classes and college workload, that may be a little difficult...

Wish me luck!



Things left to do other than episodes:

Write articles for Mercurius, Vayaete, Virgo, and Tallgeese II
Filling out character profiles for all the Gundam pilots (the Heero Yuy article is in bad need of editing even...), and basically everyone except Zechs, Dekim, and Odin Lowe....for some reason I just felt like writing their articles first...
Filling out descriptions for all the locations (but now at least I've got them entered and with pictures and basic descriptions)



On a sidenote, I was also able to create articles for the concept of Zettai Ryouiki, and adding many more details to the history of Type-Moon.

First let me start this by saying Aoko is HAAAAAAWWWTT!!!11one!!!
Type Moon Ace vol.2 finally came out a few days ago, and man, where do I start! They had a few more sample images of various characters from their new titles in development, including these of Aozaki Aoko in "Mahou Tsukai no Yoru". There were also a few sample pieces of two new characters, Hibiki Hibino and Chikagi Katsuragi, who I believe are from one of the other games in production, "Girl's Work". Personally my other favorite sketch they had was of an older Rin Tohsaka: Combining this with all the news on Kanaan and the bonus scenario in the "428" game, and also how the fifth Kara no Kyoukai movie is coming out tomorrow, it's like someone took a syringe and is shooting me in the arm!

On another note, I learned something new after translating a few articles. Maybe some of you knew this but I didn't; If you remember the 'special scenario' to the "428" game that Type Moon created, well, apparently 428 serves as a setup or prequel for the new CANAAN anime that's coming out eventually.... No new news as to when that will be, but I didn't know the two were that closely related to each other...

On another note, the art for the Tsukihime remake looks very nice and cleaned up, though, I think I liked the rough style Takeuchi had in the original a little more, but then again, there's very little of the new material to compare to so I'll hold off before I judge....besides, Sacchin finally gets a route!

Lastly, the fifth Kara no Kyoukai movie. I've been making an attempt to clear out all my homework assignments and crap for tomorrow (technically today) so that I'll have the whole day free when I get back to watch it twice. I've already posted an article in the general discussion forum on the movie in a little more detail, but basically the past four movies have pretty much served to lead up to this one, and at almost 2 hours long, it's the longest of them yet. Chapter 5: Paradox Spiral, the chapter that this one is based off of, is arguably the best or at least one of the best of the series according to fans of the original novels, so my hopes are high.....

....and a few of you already know, it takes a lot of effort to get my hopes high for ANYTHING.

Oh, and one last thing, the popularity polls for the top 10 female characters according to TMA vol.2:
1. Saber
2. Arcueid
3. Tohsaka Rin
4. Ryogi Shiki
5. Karen
6. Tohno Akiha
7. Kohaku
8. Ilya
9. Matou Sakura
10. Rider

Rin is in 3rd, okay, but Saber got 1st? that's a little....strange....to me at least. Oh well.

Hello again, Heero here giving an update on his situation.

Today was pretty uneventful doing mostly mundane usual things, working on homework from my courses, studying a little Japanese, playing a little more (of my second run-through) of Valkyria Chronicles, and trying to meet up with an old high school friend of mine so she could lend me MGS4 and I could lend her VC. Unfortunately the last one never did get accomplished, but I was able to make plans to join her in February to pick up Star Ocean 4 since I'd be the one lending her one of my 360s and I'm curious what the whole Star Ocean story is about (she doesn't have a 360 but is a huge RPG fan).

In relation to all things AnimeVice, I haven't been able to make a lot of posts and submissions as of late due to coursework and my PC support technician job at the hospital, but I'm hoping to eventually get a number of things done with the following order of priority:

1. Finish the d*** Gundam Wing section already! So far I've been able to add the stats and descriptions for all of the main characters and gundams that didn't have them already, though there are a few that are in bad need of proofreading and editing - the latter part of the Heero Yuy article is a good example. You can tell where I stopped proofreading and where the original submitter's writing remains.) Unfortunately I still haven't even finished putting in the basic title information, character appearances, and episode descriptions for each of the episodes yet, let alone the series description. That may end up being a long term project that I'll do in the background ultimately.
2. (When the anime airs and I have official information to work from) Right after Gundam Wing, I'm going to put in as much information as humanly possible and confirmable on the Valkyria Chronicles anime series and characters. The game it's based off of was THE best game I have played in a very long time, and had a very excellent storyline, so I figure I owe it at least that much. Hopefully the anime won't turn into another Tsukihime...... See: "There is no Tsukihime anime". Considering it's being made by a relatively new studio and that so far they've done good work with Kannagi, Birdy the Mighty Decode, and even another game adaption, Persona -trinity soul-, I have some hope that it will be good.
3. Just as important as Valkyria Chronicles to me is Kara no Kyoukai. With the fifth film, "Paradox Spiral" (矛盾螺旋, - Mujun Rasen), coming out on DVD in Japan (and inevitably in fansubs) on this Wednesday, January 28th, I'm really getting excited. This is basically the one the first four have been ultimately leading up to, especially with the token Jouji Nakata** character finally making his appearance (Araya Souren), and it's also the first one they've made so far that's as long as a full length film at 115 minutes (compared to the others so far around 48 to 56 minutes). I'm planning on rewatching the first four again in preparation for this Wednesday, and I'm hoping to get around to filling in descriptions on each of the characters for the series as well. I've always been a Type Moon fan, and plus now there's even trailers up on the Japanese Kara no Kyoukai site for the sixth movie, where Azaka finally takes a prominent role! Alot of you know how I'm a huge tsundere fan, and Azaka is basically a prototype hybrid of Rin Tohsaka and Akiha Tohno, so I'm still wondering if ulitimately the fifth or the sixth will be my favorite, but in any case they look to be awesome. Just a sidenote, if Kara no Kyoukai ever gets brought to the US, I swear to you Ufotable, Nasu Kinoko, and whoever licenses it, I will gladly spend every penny it takes to see each of them in theaters at full theater price 3 times each, and then buy the special edition DVDs for $100 each (or blurays for $150 each if you make them!).
4. Basically whenever I get around to it I'll try to get character articles and such up for the Makoto Shinkai films, particularly Voices of a Distanct Star and The Place Promised in Our Early Days, since those are the only two I own on DVD.

Most of this I'll probably get around to doing if I have free time while I'm at work, but that's a very unstable moment of time, so don't count on me being able to blaze through any of this stuff anytime soon.

** - Jouji Nakata has done tons of voice roles in many video games and anime, but in every single Type Moon production to date (with one exception), Jouji Nakata has always played the voice of one of the main antagonists if not THE MAIN antagonist, and he's basically become known as playing the role of the typical Type Moon villian. He's done Kotomine Kirie from Fate/Stay Night, Nero Chaos in the Tsukihime drama CDs, and has been doing Araya Souren in Kara no Kyoukai. The ONLY time he did not voice a character was in the infamous Tsukihime anime, which is yet another reason many fans consider the Tsukihime anime to be fake.


Also, I see that no one has read the original Kara no Kyoukai novels that has taken the trivia quiz here so far, because according to the original light novels by Nasu Kinoko, the color of Shiki Ryougi's leather jacket when she fights Kirie Fujou on the rooftop is in fact BLACK, and NOT red. Where along the line it got changed to red between the novels being published and the anime being produced, I don't know, but all I know is I think it looks awesome!