Someone should shoot me for taking so long at this. In any event, in the November timeframe I went to a small convention for about a day called Pacific Media Expo to meet up with an old friend who, while being an old friend, I'd never seen in real life. While there, I did what I typically do at a convention, and that's to take a few pictures.

It's coming up on the close of another year, and we thought we'd spruce things up a bit here at Dragon's Anime. We hope you'll enjoy the new layout! As we do every year, please accept our wishes of a happy, safe, and warm holiday this year for you, and your loved ones. Happy Holidays everybody, from the staff of Dragon's Anime!

And finally, I get the last of Mayhem's pics up for Anime Expo 2009. I figure I made the point to myself, and demonstrated to everyone else what could be done with the pics to make them look real good for the first 100. There's no need to do 300 more pics like that unless someone specially requests theirs...and I do take requests.

Having finally managed to resurrect the Platinum Dragon as an undead Lich (J/K man, heheheh) I once again turn my attention to the final torrent of this season's convention videos, that being the Anime Expo 2009 Masquerade. It was entertaining, but I must admit, nothing stood out in my mind this year, other than the half time show. Either way, it was a fun time.

Overview

1984. A relatively unremarkable year, all things considered. Ma Bell was broken up, Michael Jackson provided his own stage lighting when his hair caught on fire during a Pepsi commercial filming, and Ronald Reagan tries his hand at humor with the line, "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes," during a radio voice check. Nothing particularly interesting. A legion of little transforming toy robots invaded and forever corrupted my co-writer's consciousness as Transformers debuted. Like I said... small potatoes. And oh yes... A little town on an island on the East Coast got overrun by ghosts, goblins, ghouls, spirits, apparitions, and one really nimble little minx with a flat top... But who you gonna call when something like THAT happens?!

Overview

There's something that we've lost as gamers in the years since the shift from 2D to 3D based graphics. Sure, you might say, we've gained the more immersive world of the Halo series or Gears of War shooters, or the riveting, beautifully crafted vistas to be found in games like Final Fantasy and Mass Effect. The shift to 3D allowed us to focus on world crafting, on building settings in which the player could lose themselves in as easily as the story itself. Remember how incredible that opening area in Metroid Prime on the Gamecube was? The stunning, pouring rain, the rich, lush vegetation and the ripples of the water as Samus ran around in it? The Metroid series, though, highlights that something that we lost in the transition from 2D to 3D. After all, long before Samus was running around the world of Tallon IV, she was an explorer of the dark, side-scroller tunnels of Zebes – a platformer. For all the advantages of 3D, it just doesn't do platformer style games well, much less the sort of huge-map, backtracking, hunt-and-seek style gaming of games like Super Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. What does all this have to do with this review's target, Shadow Complex for the xBox Live Arcade? Everything.

Overview

One of the things that the entertainment industry often draws upon is that of the mob. From Al Capone to The Sopranos, and more episodes of Law & Order than I care to admit to having watched, America has a love affair of sorts with the notion of the mafia. It's not just an American obsession, of course, but we're certainly in the running for being the head of the family, so to speak. It's a popular setting – and thus we come to this week's review, Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~, an exploration into the dark and seedy world of the mob, and what happens when you drag an otherwise normal person into it.

Overview

Synethesia is a classification for a neural phenomenon in which two or more senses are linked. For instance, somebody seeing a tree might hear a particular note or tone in their head at the same time, or when they see a written number they might involuntarily see it as a given color. There's a number of different medically recognized forms of synethesia. So, what does this have to do with Canaan, the series that I'll be taking a look at to day? Well, the titular character, Canaan, is a synesthete. Her particular form of the condition grants her ability to see intent and emotion as an aura of color. And what's any good little girl with the capability to read people like a book just by looking at them to do but become a full-fledged mercenary?

Overview

I think that I've mentioned a few times in a couple of game reviews that I rather enjoy the whole World War II era story world. I'm a big fan of the classic Call of Duty series – which is not to say that CoD4 didn't kick ass and that MC2 won't kick even more. But I've always found there to just be something better about World War I and II than today's conflicts. Valkyria Chronicles is a Strategy RPG game that was released for the Playstation 3 late last year, and earlier this spring it made the jump to an anime format. It's billed as an alternate universe take on World War II – the European portion of it, at least - but of course this being an anime it's not at all as simple as that.