Twenty-One of Fifty-Two

Books

Republic and Imperial Commando series

These books were a very interesting take on the star wars universe that I had never seen before. From the point of view of a small group of elite soldiers, the Republic Commando books showed the nitty-gritty side of the Clone wars, the perspective of the clones.

Everyone knows how the Jedi fared in the Clone Wars, and we know what happened to the clones at the end, but what about up until that point?  Were they just mindless flesh robots unable to emote, or were they something more? It asks questions like 'does a clone have a soul?' and 'does DNA determine your personality?' and answers them quite spectacularly.

It shows how the Clones are treated in day to day life, shows how they are considered expendable, and are sacrificed if their injuries are too severe. It's an amazing set of books that does characterisation really well. After all, if every character looks the same then the character is what has to set them apart.

The books are loosely based on the game of the same name, but focussing on a different squad of commandos (though the squad of one of the characters, Darmun, is mentioned in the first level). The squad from the game show up a couple of times but they aren't the sole focus.
The books follow a squad formed of the survivors of other squads, hastily packed together to form an elite squad right before the assignment and one padawan who doesn't seem very good at anything, though as a Jedi she is put in charge. As the books progress more characters come to the fore front, but for the most part these five characters are the primary focus.

Usually I would take a moment to plead with you to read these books, but I'm not going to do that. They were really good and I wouldn't have missed reading them for anything, but a couple of years ago Lucas arts retro-actively changed everything about a prominent race in these books, making it impossible to continue and making these books non-cannon, all to make a single episode of Star Wars Clone wars cartoon series.
It was awful, they did bad and should feel bad, but regardless Karen Traviss was removed from the star wars writers list and the books stopped without a conclusion.

They were great, but don't bother if you need an ending.

Angry-Star-Birds - James

Twenty of Fifty-Two

Characters

L

L is, simply put, awesome. He's the Sherlock holms of Anime. Autistic, brilliant and rich with a major sweet tooth, L - we never discover his real name - is a consulting detective who finds solving crimes fun, much to the distaste of the police he is working with.
For his entire career L has remained un-seen, communicating with people through audio chats and via his butler. Nobody has ever met him, until the case of Kira and the Death note when he approaches the Japanese police, realising that he must become more involved to find this killer.

In only a few hours L discovers more about Kira than the police had in the entire investigation. He and Kira spend the first half of the Anime and the Manga in a dangerous cat and mouse game. L makes a move and Kira counters it. L even goes as far as to invite Kira into the fold to watch him closer.
Eventually Kira, the main character does outwit L, but not before he discovers his identity.

The reason I like L is because he's not the normal anime good guy. He's weird, a little creepy, he has obsessions that go beyond sexual - in fact he's not remotely interested in sex as far as I could tell - He's brilliantly intelligent, forcing us to think on our feet as we try to keep up with him and Kira's incredible battle of wits and he doesn't care what people think. He's just in it for the mystery.
L is the opposite of Light Yagami and yet so similar to him in many ways. If it weren't for the death note the two of them would likely have become great friends.

L really is a great character and Deathnote is worth watching/reading if only for him.

Musical-Suicide-Video
- James

P.S. Just so we're clear, this isn't just the 'of 52' blog now. I'm just trying to catch up with what I missed. Usually I'd just do two a week or something to catch up, but I have a Christmas film scheduled for Christmas week and want to write it for Christmas week!

Nineteen of Fifty-Two

Television

Blue Gender

Blue Gender is one of the most underappreciated shows I've ever seen. This is a classic fish out of water scenario where the main character, Yuji Kaido, and others are put into cry sleep while the best scientists in the world try to cure an illness that they have. They go to sleep with the hope that when they wake up they'll be cured, only to be awoken amidst a post-apocalyptic waste land where insectoid monsters known as the blue have taken over and the majority of people live in space.

The first half of the series shows Yuji being evacuated back to the space station, but on the way to the space port the elite team of soldiers sent after him is picked off by the blue to the point that there’re only a couple left and Yuji has to learn to fight. By the time he reaches the space port he has fallen for the last remaining soldier, Marlene Angel and when given the order not to help her and to stay in the ship, he chooses to go save her life, ultimately getting severely injured in the process.

The Second half of the series show how Yuji and the handful of other infected that returned are trained to use new mech suits to kill the blue. This half of the series is more from Marlene's perspective as she has fallen for him and she has to watch as he changes from the sweet guy he once was into a monster. She ultimately helps him return to a neutral ground, and they manage to destroy the blue and re-take the world, but not before a massive mutiny on the space station that gets everyone who remained there killed.

The whole show follows the idea that the world is a living entity. It suggests that the Blue was a natural immune system that the world brought out to cleanse it of over population and technological destruction, culminating, once the purge was complete, in the blue all going to one spot and dying.

It's an awesome story, full of intrigue, romance, horror, sci-fi and mechs.
One scene that truly sealed it's awesomeness for me was in the middle of the first half of the series where Yuji comes across a town where earth people still live. It turns out that the space people abandoned them and continue to use and abuse them, considering them less than human, killing them if necessary as they're already dead.
Yuji convinces his companions to help them though, as an attack of Blue is imminent. Ultimately Yuji and his team are unsuccessful, losing the town and a lot of recourses.
The scene that sticks with me, however, is one of a little girl who he's been looking out for. Yuji's just fallen down and he looks up to see her standing there and a moment later the blue just power through the space where she'd been standing. You don't even see her die, but you know.
It's just one of those moments where you can tell just how bad the world has become.

So that's Blue Gender. If you ever get the chance to watch it, you should. Its old and I haven’t seen it in shops for a long time, but if you get the chance, do. (In fact I believe FUNimation's you tube page has a few eps)

Blue-Gender-Opening
- James

Eighteen of Fifty-Two

Games

Assassin's Creed

So I haven't played the most recent game and I've only played the main console games, and I am yet to read a book, but other than that I think I can speak on this subject with confidence.

So, ok, I've only enjoyed four out of the  thirteen games and none of the six novels, four films, five novels and I've never even seen the encyclopaedia, but still I really like what I have played. The Assassin's Creed games are third person games set the near future and in historically significant eras of the past including the crusades and the renaissance.

I find that the worlds are beautifully designed, straight out of the history books. With historical characters like Richard the lion heart, Saladin, Da Vinci, the Borgias and others, all fully fleshed out, realistic and as scary/creepy as you'd expect.

The thing I love about the Assassin's Creed games isn't the settings or the characters, though they are awesome, it's not the story, which isn't amazing to be honest, it's the way you move, how you travel around. It's like parkour in ancient times. Climbing things, jumping, running, it's done really well.
As far as I know this was the first game to ever make it so that anything that looks like you can climb it; you can climb it.
Before Assassin's Creed game's you'd have games that would have you jumping around all over the place, but only on specific objects. Objects that were highlighted, or a specific object used over and over again. In Assassin's Creed (and all of its subsequent releases) if you think you should be able to climb it you can. If you can reach it you can climb it.

In the subsequent games the tech and the gameplay has only gotten better, strengthened and become more fun. I still love Altair, the main character from the first game, but after three releases with the sequel's character, Ezio, I've grown to love him as well.

These games have been released on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC, steam sells the first for £9.99, though its really a controller game.
Go play it.


The original AssCree Trailer.
- James