Casshern Sins

FUNimation is at Otakon anime convention and is releasing three announcements of new anime series. Casshern Sins is a 24 episode (first season) post-apocalyptic sci-fi series. Casshern tracks down Luna, a girl that is supposed to save mankind, and kills her. This cause events to start to end the world. Hundreds of years later, Casshern has no memory and is on a journey of self discovery and redemption.

The series will start in fall 2010.

FUNimation then announced that is owns the original masters for the entire Dragon Ball Z series including episodes and films. The first of seven Dragon Boxes will be available this fall. Box one has 42 episodes, uncut and on 6 discs. Dragon Box One will be our on November 10 for $79.98.

FUNimation’s last announcement is that they have acquired the rights to the live action comedy movie, Daytime Drinking from StONEwork Film Production.

Here is a summation:

After breaking up with his girlfriend, Hyuk-jin hits a bar in Seoul with his friends. They decide to take a drunken trip to a festival in Joengseon, a small town out in the Korean countryside, to console his broken heart. They agree to leave first thing the next day.

However, when Hyuk-Jin gets off the bus the next afternoon, he finds out he’s the only one that made the trip. He calls his friends, but they all had horrible hangovers and completely forgot. Worse, he quickly finds that the festival they were headed to was weeks ago, and the tiny beach town is shuttered- the shops aren’t open, there are no other tourists there, and the beach is freezing cold. Hyuk-jin is truly, honestly, alone.

When one of his friends suggests Hyuk-jin wait for them at a hostel run by an old pal from college, he agrees. He seeks it out, not realizing that not only is the place he’s sleeping in not the right hotel in the slightest, but that this is just the beginning of a very strange adventure.

Daytime Drinking will be out in 2010.

Rating: 8.0

The story behind this, the latest of many in the line of Dragon Ball games, is the same tried-and-true storyline that the classic DBZ series has followed for years and years.

Well, you get the picture. The main story mode of this game, Z Chronicles, follows the story of a young “man” named Goku, his friends and his rivals through some of the epic sagas portrayed in the anime and previous games. You mainly fight through the first three sagas from the anime. Starting out in the classic “Saiyan Saga,” playing right through the “Frieza Saga,” and moving all the way to the acclaimed “Cell Saga,” you battle your way through some of the most important fights of the Dragonball Z universe.

Graphics
The graphics in this game are exceptionally well done. Featuring 3D cell-shaded characters and backgrounds, you really get the feeling of playing through your favorite anime. The character models are dead on, the special effects of the energy attacks are brilliant and the colors are vibrant and true to the anime. Even the menus are interesting and easy to read and navigate. Just as in previous games there are destructible backgrounds, which are triggered by especially powerful Ultimate Attacks. Ultimate Attacks also trigger special sequences on the opposing character if you happen to be hit full-blast with an energy attack. They’ve also added something new to the mix with the addition of “drama pieces,” which are special cinematic sequences which are unlocked by certain completed actions during the fight. Even the normal fighting effects were pretty amazing. The punches and kicks connect swiftly and fluidly. I especially liked the effect of landing a hard punch on a character and watching my fist follow through to his back.

Control
The controls are easy enough to master for anyone to pick up and play. There aren’t many difficult combos and there are plenty of interesting tutorials there for those of you who want or need them. To master the most difficult challenges in this game means to perfect your timing and use your block, dodge, and recovery moves effectively. Your blocks and dodges are one of the most interesting aspects of the game play and they really add to the fluid feeling you get when playing the game. If you happen to spike a character beyond the boundaries of the set arena, a button pressing clash begins to see who can end up with the sorest fingers. Just like in the previous console games, this one makes use of a “Ki” gauge. Unlike the other games however, your Ki gauge requires no charging and automatically refills itself, making it much too easy to unleash your special attacks. This takes away from some of the challenge to the game and makes it feel pretty pointless to having larger sized Ki gauges for more powerful attacks.

Sound
The music in the game is really appropriate. The opening sequence song is classic Japanese greatness. The Z Chronicles menu’s music really makes you feel like your playing someone’s memories of the sagas. The voices are well dubbed with all of the familiar actors from the 2nd English dub of the anime. Some of the characters have opponent-specific phrases that they say before and after the fight in VS mode and during some of the drama pieces. Through some of the scenarios that you play through Z Chronicles; the characters have small conversations while you fight. They sound a bit off beat sometimes, but they add to the effect of playing the anime. The energy blasts and other SFX are the same used in the anime, so how could they go wrong? When you clear the last stage of a saga, you’re treated to a nice music montage of the feats you’ve just accomplished in cinematic form, including some happenings they have re-done and added from the anime. The only thing I would’ve liked to see added would be real-time changes in the music when something dramatic happens due to the drama pieces or background destruction.

Flow
If you’re not knowledgeable of at least the first three sagas of the anime, you might be lost on the story progression as they lack description in the game. On the other hand, if you followed the anime, you’ll feel right at home with the story. The online mode feels hastily done since it kicks you out of the lobby after every match. What’s the point of having a lobby that’s going to reset after every match? Also since it kicks you out after every match you play, you have to take the time to reset your options for the match every time you want to fight. The flow of the online mode is also severely interrupted by the drama pieces. If you defeat your opponent in the air, at the end of every fight; you have to watch your opponent fly to the ground which takes up a little too much time.

Fun-factor
I must admit, I had a blast with this game. Personally, it was a nice to take a break from my 360 “achievement hunting” and just have some fun with a good fighting game. If you are a fan of the series, you will enjoy everything, as usual, about this game. If you’re not, you will enjoy being introduced to the characters and will have fun with a solid, casual fighting game, or you can turn up the difficulty for a bit more challenging experience.

Female Aspect
Despite there being a few female characters in the game (and by “few,” I mean one), this game is in no way geared towards females or meant to cater to the demographic as a whole. But for those of us girlies out there who aren’t so girlie, it works both ways.

Replay Value
As with all multi-player fighting games, there is tons of replay value. Even the story mode has unlockable difficulties and a ranking system that you can attempt to master. The online and VS play alone adds tons of reasons to keep on picking up the controller. Not to mention the Survival and Time Attack modes. It gets a tad repetitive in Survival and takes forever to complete, but is a ton of fun to finally accomplish the feat. Time Attack on the other hand gets really annoying. If you lose a round in Time Attack it starts you at the beginning, unlike a normal time attack which would just add the time lost to the clock, working against your overall time.

All-in-all DBZ: Burst Limit is a fun, interesting game that you will be playing for weeks after you first pick it up and will keep going back to. As a fighting game, it’s something that just about anyone can enjoy, yet there is enough to be challenged by the multiple difficulty levels for those who seek it. True to the story line of the anime and satisfying the basic needs of a fighting game, DBZ hits the mark again with the Burst Limit game.

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Read the press release for details:

VIZ Media, one of the entertainment industry’s most innovative and comprehensive publishing, animation and licensing companies, has announced the upcoming release of a special SHONEN JUMP DRAGONBALL: EVOLUTION posterzine, based on the upcoming live-action film from 20th Century Fox starring Justin Chatwin as Goku, Emmy Rossum as Bulma, Jamie Chung as Chi Chi, and Chow Yun-Fat as Master Roshi. Dragonball: Evolution opens nationwide on April 8th and is inspired by Akira Toriyama’s smash hit DRAGON BALL manga (graphic novel) series, also published domestically by VIZ Media and featured in SHONEN JUMP magazine.

The new SHONEN JUMP DRAGONBALL: EVOLUTION posterzine celebrates the upcoming live-action adventure feature film Dragonball: Evolution. Both the movie, directed by James Wong, and the DRAGONBALL: EVOLUTION posterzine, published by VIZ Media, bring to life the action and the characters from the eagerly awaited film. Look for the posterzine on newsstands wherever SHONEN JUMP magazine is sold and online at store.viz.com beginning March 31st. The SHONEN JUMP DRAGONBALL: EVOLUTION posterzine carries an MSRP of $9.99 and is rated T for Teens. The posterzine features 11 full-color posters that fold out to 16 x 22 and depict a variety of vivid action shots and all the film’s main characters.

“We’re very excited to announce our first live-action Hollywood posterzine product to support the highly anticipated release of the Dragonball: Evolution movie,”says Christopher Boily, VIZ Media Sr. Director, Newsstand. “It’s great to see our hugely popular DRAGON BALL manga get the full Hollywood treatment for the big screen and the high quality glossy images will help bring everyone’s favorite characters to life and offer a fun way for fans to pay homage to this incredible new movie.”

Dragonball: Evolution, the live-action feature film (rated PG) centers on a team of warriors, each of whom possess special abilities. Together, they protect Earth from a force bent on dominating the universe by controlling the mystical objects from which the film takes its name. Dragonball: Evolution features Justin Chatwin as Goku, Emmy Rossum as Bulma, Jamie Chung as Chi Chi, and Chow Yun-Fat as Master Roshi. Dragonball: Evolution the movie is based on the popular Japanese manga series created by Akira Toriyama (also published in North America by VIZ Media). For more information on the DRAGONBALL: EVOLUTION books, or DRAGON BALL manga series please visit www.viz.com.

DRAGON BALL has become a global pop culture and entertainment phenomenon that has generated more than $3 billion in worldwide sales of a vast array of products including manga, DVDs, video games, toys, apparel and other collectibles. Over 1.6 million copies of the manga series have been sold in North America to date, while the animated counterpart remains the most successful domestic anime series ever with over 500 episodes and 17 animated movies broadcast or released on DVD to date. Over 30 DRAGON BALL video game titles are also available for the PS2, PS3, Wii and Xbox 360 platforms, and have sold a total of more than 11 million units worldwide.

The new books include:
- a Jr. Novel (available now!)
- 3 Chapter Books (available now!)
- a Sticker Book! (available 3/24/09!)

Here comes the movie tie ins. Read on for all the details:
[img width=300]http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t278/vainya/Screenshots/DBM_JrNovel_Cover_FINAL.jpg[/img]

[img width=300]http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t278/vainya/Screenshots/DBEvolution_StickerBk_Cover-sm.jpg[/img]

VIZ Media, one of the entertainment industry’s most innovative and comprehensive publishing, animation and licensing companies, has announced a fun array of DRAGONBALL: EVOLUTION books, including a Junior Novel, a Sticker Book and a trio of Chapter Books in support of the debut of the action-packed 20th Century Fox film, opening nationwide on April 8th.

The new DRAGONBALL: EVOLUTION books are based on the upcoming live action adventure film. Directed by James Wong, the movie and the books center on a team of warriors, each of whom possess special abilities. Together, they protect Earth from a force bent on dominating the universe by controlling the mystical objects from which the film takes its name. DRAGONBALL: EVOLUTION features Justin Chatwin as Goku, Emmy Rossum as Bulma, and Chow Yun-Fat as Master Roshi. Each of the books include glossy color pages with photos from the movie. DRAGONBALL: EVOLUTION the movie is based on the popular Japanese manga series created by Akira Toriyama (also published in North America by VIZ Media).

“VIZ Media is very excited to celebrate the upcoming release of the live-action feature film DRAGONBALL: EVOLUTION with a variety of fun, kid-friendly books,
” says Gonzalo Ferreyra, Vice President, Sales & Product Marketing, VIZ Media. “The DRAGONBALL: EVOLUTION Junior Novel and Chapter Books are published under our popular VIZKIDS imprint, and are an ideal way to introduce the mystical world of DRAGON BALL to younger fans and help them develop a lifelong love of reading.”

[b]DRAGONBALL: EVOLUTION JUNIOR NOVEL · Recommended for Ages 9-12MSRP: $5.99 US / $6.99 CAN · Available Now![/b]

Goku thought he was just a normal high school kid until his whole world turned upside down and he found out he’s actually a martial-arts whiz with all kinds of special powers. It was bad enough that his grandpa just died. But now he must save the whole world from a madman named Piccolo who is looking for the seven fabled Dragon Balls. Whoever finds them all will have any wish come true instantly! Can a regular guy like Goku become the strongest fighter in time to stop the end of the world? The Junior Novel is aimed at readers ages 9 through 12 and also features 8-pages of full-color glossy photos from the live-action film.

[b]DRAGONBALL: EVOLUTION CHAPTER BOOKS · Recommended for Ages 7-10 · MSRP: $4.99 US / $5.99 CAN · Available Now![/b]

The DRAGONBALL: EVOLUTION Chapter Books is a series composed of 3 volumes designed for younger readers, ages 7 through 10. Based on the upcoming feature film, the Chapter Books depict the adventures of Goku as he tries to save the world from a madman that is looking for the seven Dragon Balls. Whoever finds them all can have any wish come true! Can a regular guy like Goku become the strongest fighter of all in time to stop the end of the world? Find out in these fun new Chapter Books from VIZ Media.

[b]DRAGONBALL: EVOLUTION STICKER BOOK · Rated “A” for All Ages ·MSRP: $6.99 US / $7.99 CAN · March 24, 2009[/b]

All the excitement of the DRAGONBALL: EVOLUTION movie is featured in over 100 stickers. The book collects 8 pages of stickers and 8 pages of full-color backgrounds to bring the fun of DRAGONBALL: EVOLUTION to fans of all ages. The stickers are reusable and adhere to just about anything to give a fun DRAGON BALL flair to any item.

DRAGON BALL has become a global pop culture and entertainment phenomenon that has generated more than $3 billion in worldwide sales of a vast array of manga, DVDs, video games, toys, apparel and other collectibles. Over 1.6 million copies of the manga series have been sold in North America while the animated counterpart remains the most successful domestic anime series ever with over 500 episodes and 17 animated movies broadcast or released on DVD to date. Over 30 DRAGON BALL video game titles are also available for the PS2, PS3, Wii and Xbox 360 platforms, and have sold a total of more than 11 million units worldwide.

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