Internet Superhero

Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.

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London Style.

It’s been a long time since my last post, mainly because I now have twitter and post most short messages there.

I am currently in London, landed at Heathrow yesterday. Haven’t had much time to do stuff yet, I was too tired yesterday. But today we got around to some sightseeing.

Woke up around 8:30 am and went down to breakfast. I love hotel breakfasts, even tho the bacon was kind of crappy here Afterwards we headed towards Waterloo station, to visit the London Aquarium and The London Eye.

: The London Eye with The Big Ben in the background.

Unfortunately The London Eye was closed due to the weather We might be back later but chances are it will stay closed for a while. We went and visited the nearby London Sea Life Aquarium as planned though. Tried taking pictures but with no flash and a compact camera it’s hard. Got a few decent ones though. Such as these “Up-side down Jellyfish”. I have no idea.

: Upside Down Jellyfish

When we left I happened upon Namco Station, and had a quick stroll inside. Nothing out of the ordinary, some rail shooters and whatnot. Except this one.

: Silent Hill The Arcade

Why does this even exist :S Really crappy Rail Shooter. The Silent Hill franchise sure as hell isn’t what it used to be.

Afterwards we went looking around in shops on Oxford Street. Nothing particularly interesting. Later in the evening we went back to the hotel and I left alone to visit Trocadero Funland on Picadilly Circus. After a short ride on the tube I arrived, but spent probably 10 minutes trying to find the place Finally found it and checked the whole place out for interesting games. There was a fighting game corner where people played mostly Tekken 6, but there were a few Street Fighter 3 and 4 cabinets. Didn’t stay long though, because I wanted to check out the music games. Lots of DDR/Pump it Up machines. But what I wanted to play was this:

: DJMAX Technika

They were out of Platinum Crew cards, so I had to play without one, but Technika was very entertaining. Loved it. A really great feature which isn’t really visible in my blurry picture is the headphone jack and the volume control for that jack under the touchscreen. Lovely to be able to shut out the annoying 14-year olds playing Pump it Up by your sides. Also found this lonely poor old thing in a corner:

Beatmania 3rd Mix

Wasn’t that fun to play though, and kind of hard

Well that concludes my day, I might drop another one or two posts like this if I find the time.

Posted in Life, Personal.

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By Mikolan – January 9, 2010

Bokurano – “Ours”

I wasn’t really quite sure what to expect, when I came across this anime opening when surfing around randomly on the net two days ago:

I read a quick description about the series and it seemed to be a very Evangelion-esque show, and I like Evangelion. So I decided to download the first episode and watch it, only to find out that the director for the anime apparently disliked the original manga and made some heavy changes. Which lead me to start reading the manga instead. Bokurano_v1_cover_front

I started reading Bokurano Wednesday night, expecting a evangelion clone. I finished it about 24 hours later, and what I got was very different from my expectations.

Maybe I should explain what Bokurano is about before I continue. You’ve no doubt noticed the huge robot in the opening video, and might be thinking that it’s probably just another mecha show. Wrong.

Bokurano begins when 15 kids at a summer camp find and explore a cave by the sea. Inside they find computers and other equipment, which make it seem like someone is living here. At this moment a man enters the cave and reveals himself to be the one living there. He introduces himself as Kokopelli, and he has been developing a game. A game where you pilot a large robot against 15 other robots, and he wants the kids to play-test his game. The kids, thinking it sounds like a fun idea, enters a contract with Kokopelli by placing their hand on a weird metal object. Everyone but the youngest girl agree to the contract, and just as the last one agreed everyone wakes up on the shore, with Kokopelli and his contract seemingly being a dream. But that night two 500m tall robots materialize out of thin air, and a levitating creature calling himself Dung Beetle appears to the kids and teleports them inside the cockpit of one of the robots. There they find Kokopelli who shows them how to pilot the robot and defeat the other robots, by destroying a weak point which is a spherical object hidden somewhere on their body. Just as he defeats the enemy robot the kids are teleported away again, and Kokopelli can be heard whispering “I’m sor…”.

It is now up to the kids to pilot the robot, taking turns in doing so. But there are rules. The most devastating one being that the robot, which the kids dub “Zearth”, uses the pilots life force to move. Meaning the pilot will die after he defeats the enemy robot. And they can’t choose not to fight, or earth will be destroyed.

From here on Bokurano follows one pilot at a time, from the end of the last fight where the next pilot is announced, to the current pilot defeating his enemy. During this time the pilot is certain that he/she is going to die, and have to ask themselves, how should I spend the final time of my life? The pilots have no way of knowing when the next enemy will appear, which makes it even harder on them.

Bokurano is probably one if not the most beautiful and intense manga I’ve read, but don’t misunderstand my intentions with this article. I’m not saying that you should read Bokurano, I just want you to know that it exists.

Posted in Entertainment, Philosophy.

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By Mikolan – September 25, 2009