High Score Girl Review

The 80's gave me two of my favorite things from Japan Super Dimensional Fortress Macross And Street Fighter, And High Score Girl takes aspects of these two things and manages to make one amazing story!
The story revolves around Haruo Yaguchi and the 90's arcade and gaming culture, notably the fledgling FGC and Street Fighter II. The story begins with Haruo in 6th grade who is caught up in the 2nd arcade renaissance when SFII hit arcades. During one of his visits to the local arcade Haruo, who mains Guile, meets his match against a Geif player who turns out to be Ono Akira a quiet girl from his class. Haruo finds a true rival in Ono but through his fiery spirit to surpass her he begins to learn more about Akira and a relationship begins that Haruo is completely aloof to.
Meanwhile another girl Hidaka Koharu who went to the same elementary school as Haruo finds his laid back, yolo lifestyle fascinating and harbors her feelings for him. Haruo, again completely oblivious to her feelings only sees her as a means to an end when her father puts a Street Fighter II Dash arcade cabinet in front of his store. Hidaka quietly watches Haruo play, simply enjoying spending time with him, in time Haruo introduces Hidaka to his "realm" and discovers she has dormant potential in fighting games.
High Score Girl is a love letter to those of us who grew up during the 90's arcade rebirth and the 4th - 5th console generations. There is so much for me to relish in this show with all the gaming nostalgia! And the triangle between ono, Haruo and Hidaka brings me back to my youth watching Hikaru, Minmay and Misa Hiyase in SDFM.
My one and only complaint is the art style, yes it's faithful to the manga source material, but it is (IMO) just slightly better than Shin Chan from Cartoon Network.
High Score Girl launched on Netflix last December and I meant to check it out sooner but RL lately has really impeded on my time to watch all the shows I want to.
I'm very excited to watch Season 2 when it launches later this year!!

Macross Delta Preview Episode .089

I'm kicking off 2016 in a Super Decultcha way, watching the preview episode .089 for Macross Delta!
M: Delta takes place in the year 2067, only a few years after Frontier, there was a lot to take in this preview and the pace was relentless but I enjoyed it. For those new to Macross it might be a little overwhelming. I was happy they kept the galactic map that showed the courses of the immigration fleets across the galaxy that was seen in Macross Frontier!
I was actually surprised this episode introduced so many characters, we first meet Freyja Wion the young stowaway that dreams of competing on Planet Laguna to be the newest member of Walkure, an idol group that is dispatched along with the Delta Squadron to combat the Var Syndrome, a mysterious disease that destabilizes the victim and sets them into a violent homicidal rage (terrorism). I thought Freyja Wion was adorable and displayed many of the same naive tendencies that we've seen in the past with other young wanna be idols...Minmay, Mao Nome, Ranka Lee.

Then we meet Hayate Immelmann a laid back kid working on planet Al Shahal on the cargo docks, he hasn't found anything in life that truly excites him....yet.
Next we meet Mikumo Guynemer the lead vocalist of Walkure who appears to be undercover on a mission but is aware of Freyja, soon after we meet Second Lieutenant Mirage Farina Jenius! Hayate reminds me of Max and then Mirage has his last name.....interesting.
Then the Var outbreak strikes at a Zentradi base and all hell breaks loose at Al Shahal City and the Delata Squadron with their respective Walkure procede to neutralize the threat!
It was cool seeing the old school Regults in action after so many years, seeing the Walkure "transform" to "go live" was kinda silly in a Sailor Moon kinda way, not cool like Kill La Kill,  I hope they don't show this sequence every time they "transform".

After my second viewing I'm getting a Macross II vibe from certain aspects of Delta such as when we hear the dirge like hymn that causes the Var outbreak on Al Shahal on the Zentradi base. The long staircase with the throne at the top reminded me of where Ishtar sat in MII . And the Walkure remind me of the Minmay Attack from MII as well.
Seeing the Aerial Knights come out of fold was a relief, the Vajra were ok but I much prefer humanoid enemies over bugs, the dog fight between SV 262 Draken and the VF31 Siegfried was ok, but nothing extraordinary.
I tried to rationalize why the Aerial Knights hate the Walkure so much and the only illogical conclusion I could come up with was they hate rainbows and pop music groups (I can relate).
I do know the Aerial Knights are from the Kingdom of Windmere....and so is Freyja, that is gonna be a thorn in the Aerial Knights plans to vanquish the Walkure! Ahhh the drama!
I enjoyed the episode and look forward to future of the series and franchise as a whole.

Macross Delta Update: Live Stream 10/28

It's been awhile since I've anything worthwhile to report about the next Macross series since Frontier! I'm hyped to say come October 29th we will finally get some details on M Delta via a live stream, the winner of the idol contest, characters, the location and hopefully a teaser trailer.
Also there's a great article on Forbes ( yes that Forbes) about Macross and the upcoming new series...
Macross Delta on Forbes.com

Fear the Walking Dead My Thoughts and Impressions as of S1 E3

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So we're now three episodes in and last nights had some decent tension, knowing where the world is headed from here makes watching the Clark family playing monopoly oddly unnerving knowing there are walkers lurking right outside.
The funny thing was I found myself putting each character in FTWD from Madison, Alicia and Nick Clark (Johnny Depp Clone) to Daniel Salazar and his barbershop familia in Rick Grimes family and only 2 members of Fear might survive....
I say Nick Clark and Daniel Salazar would survive in Rick's world which they are about to enter.....Maybe Liza Ortiz...Travis' ex wife.

Speaking of which, if no one has noticed yet FTWD has basically flipped the triangle...instead of 2 guys 1 mother...Rick, Shane and Lori. We now have 2 mothers 1 guy...Madison, Liza and Travis. I don't think we're gonna have a ctrl C, ctrl V situation in FTWD with Madison and Liza but I have no doubt there will be drama! Travis my man play it cool and you could be the first man with a post apocalyptic harem!

Also we still don't know a fucking thing about this "virus", but if you were paying attention it's already affected 11 states as of the 3rd episode...what ever caused this moves fast!

One of the things I enjoy discussing with my wife and friends is what would you do in the (__X character's__) situation?

If I were Travis, I definitely would rethink staying till morning...there will definitely be more traffic the next day! And why would you head east into a desert???? I know this show is a great deal of biblical references but I don't think wandering the desert for 40 years to wait out the zombie apocalypse is gonna grab the ratings. Personally I think Krogenar's got the right idea, become apocalyptic pirates! Commandeer a large yacht from some 1%er and head out to the high seas! YAAAARRR!