Ongoing Investigations: Case #164

When they finally announced a SGFiguarts Sky High from Tiger & Bunny, I was poised and ready for that pre-order; I had been waiting none too patiently. It finally arrived last week.

This is my first Figuarts purchase and I’m very happy with what I see. This looks dead-on like Sky High, I’m a real stickler for that authenticity. The paint job is flawless without a bad seam to be found. Somewhat like a Revoltech you have many hand options and other little details such as jet pack blasts as well as number of points of articulation. The possibility is good, though I did have some trouble getting his shoulder armor to stay on, after I settled on a pose I was really able to keep it. This is also thanks to a sturdy stand.

Even though this figure is on the smaller side for me, the craftsmanship makes me really happy with my choice.

I watched Another with my roommate partially because he likes horror stuff and partially because someone recommended the series as a good mystery. In a way, the series is both a horror anime and a mystery so I can discuss how those parts work individually and together.

As a horror series the plot works much like a Final Destination movie with a classmate dying every episode in some gruesome manner with an absolute bloodbath in he final two episodes. Not everyone dies like a Final Destination movie but the body count is high, the deaths near the end are gruesome, and some serious sacrifices are made. In that regard, the series pretty much gives you what you want.

The mystery is decent. I have a feeling that some people are going to find the identity of the ghostly classmate as brilliant and others are going to pass it off as a bit of a cheat. I think parts of the reveal have clues pointing to them and other parts are pretty much a surprise. The show does not cheat by say making the extra student someone you never saw but it is a bit of a major misdirection. I was glad they brought up and then quickly disapproved most of the super common twists you would have expected about the extra student early on.

My only real complaint is that one person essentially has a ghost detector and does not mention it to anyone until the last possible second.  That was a plot convenient bit of withholding information.

Overall all it was an enjoyable little show. It is very much more a horror show than a mystery. The show revels in its deaths and mostly just plays in the detective aspect. Watch it for a horror show with a mystery element and not the other way around.

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Mahou Tsukai no Yoru Demo: House on Haunted Hill

SPOILERS! I played the Mahou Tsukai no Yoru demo and enjoyed it immensely. I know this is s shocking development that no one could have seen coming but it is true. Mahou Tsukai no Yoru is the newest Type-Moon visual novel that comes out on April 12th. Mahou Tsukai no Yoru is based on an early unreleased novel by Kinoko Nasu and takes what can be seen as the foundation of the Type-Moon universe and turns it into a visual novel. It stars Aozaki Aoko and looks at her before she became the force of nature that is the Magic Gunner Miss Blue that we have come to love in Tsukihime and Melty Blood. Type Moon recently released a demo of the upcoming game that got a surprisingly fast English patch. I finally decided to sit down and test it out before the game came out.

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Manga of the Month: Shoulder-a-Coffin Kuro

Shoulder-a-Coffin Kuro (棺担ぎのクロ。~懐中旅話~) by Satoko Kiyuduki

Shoulder-a-Coffin Kuro had the pleasure of showing me there are 4-koma manga that I like! But then again, Kiyuduki doesn’t use the format in a traditional sense. Her low-key humor and simple but precise art makes this series a real charmer.

Shoulder-a-Coffin Kuro follows the story of a haphazard group of travelers headed up by the mysterious, coffin-carrying, black clad, girl going by the name Kuro. She along with a bunch of bats (one snarky one in particular, Sen) pick up two little cat girls along the way. Where they are headed remains a rather amorphous concept though they do seem to be looking for someone. Along the way we learn bits of pieces of character’s past. Each traveler plays off the others; Kuro being none too talkative while the kids are little balls of energy and mischief. The series has a melancholy undertone, not unlike Kino’s Journey but also not that heavy, though it is balanced out by the adorable art style and banter.

The way Kiyuduki plays with the format is of particular interest from using one giant panel to tell a story to expanding an adventure to two or three times that of usual 4-koma. At times she is using the format merely as a structure but still these adventures feel like quick bites. The printing is also nice with many color pages to enjoy.