Jyu-Oh-Sei (Planet of the Beast King) - Review

Duration: 11 episodes (24 mins each)
Genre: Action, Adventure, Mystery, Drama, Sci-Fi

I managed to come across Jyu Oh Sei by means of a simple you may also like: recommendation through Hulu.com. When first reading the premise of Jyu Oh Sei, I was pretty interested despite not having a large interest in science-fiction-like environments. Two kids cast off to some primitive planet with its peculiar traits and hierarchal system; it sounded like something similar to Golding's Lord of the Flies. Surprisingly when looking at duration of the series, I was curious to see how the plot would play out in only 11 episodes. Typical adventure and action anime (Dragonball Z, Naruto, Full Metal Alchemist, Trigun) span over 30, 40, and more than 100 episodes, so I decided to give Jyu Oh Sei a whirl. Whether it would be good or not, I wouldn't be committing too much time to it.

Story

After witnessing the deaths of their parents, Thor and his twin brother Rai are cast off to a distant unknown planet (Chimaera) drastically different from their own. Originating from a technology driven planet, they are stuck in an environment where plant life has a heavy influence on the daily routines of every person. With only a beam knife to defend themselves with, Thor and Rai seek to find a way off the planet and to unravel the mystery behind their parents' deaths.

The planet is governed and separated by a set of various rings, each ruled by a respective leader called the "Top" (hehe there's some innuendo there) and his subordinates, a second and third. The planet's inhabitants are mostly men, thus women play an invaluable role of bearing children and are given special liberties including the freedom to choose their own mates. Civilization concentrates itself on strength and values those with the will to survive; is one able to abandon his humanity to inevitably be presented with an opportunity to leave the planet?

Characters

Thor: Not really exuding much manliness, Thor is the typical brat of this 'coming of age' story. Despite sharing the name with the awesome Norse God, he isn't very likable but his character grew with me as the series went on--it's probably the silver hair.

Tiz: A random girl who happens to stumble upon Thor at an opportune time to save him from a vicious plant beast. She takes a liking to Thor and declares him her mate. She's very energetic yet sound at the same time and the only bit of female eye candy you'll see for most of the series.

Third: Yup, that's his name. Not really unique like Thor or a tease like Tiz, he plays a vital role of informing Thor about the in and outs of planet Chimaera. As you would have guessed, he also the Third in ranking of the local ring. A fairly minor character early on, I didn't think too much about him until it was too late. Quite the opposite of Thor, he's the epitome of the cool, calm, and collected character.

There are some other minor characters I could delve into, but in the interest of keeping this review brief and spoiler free as possible; might as well leave them out.

Voice Acting/Sound

Oh where to start. It may be my personal preference to experience the original Japanese dub with subtitles first, but you can't go wrong with it. Everyone's voices seems fairly on par; nothing out of tune or out of place. To be honest, voices sound recycled and generic, but it's not bad. The English dub by Funimation is another story on the other hand. I can't say it's horrid, but Thor at times (and by at times I mean quite frequently) sounds like a five year old girl. Understandably he's an adolescent who hasn't gone through puberty yet, but if one were to just stumble in a room while hearing Thor voiced by Alison Viktorin, one would mistakenly suspect it to be an adolescent girl's voice. Aside, this could simply be my bias towards English voice actors and my initial liking of the Japanese VAs.

Although the soundtrack is fairly average, the ending track Te wo Tsunaide by Younha is gem and worth a listen through (below). No other track really stands out as much unless you count the opening, which is fairly cheesy, but has a distinct charm/campy feeling to it--it's polarizing to say the least.

Loved
Action Sequences: In each episode there will be at least a tidbit of action sequences with some fluid and detailed animation. The few scenes in which Thor takes action are well done and kept me interested going on to the next episode and so on. With respect to the rest of the animation, everything looks great though I found their noses a little too high-bridged for my taste.


Hated
Storyboard work anyone?: This series could have easily been stretched into 24 episodes or more. The story simply went at a blisteringly fast pace; as a result I was surprised to see so many things happen over the course of few episodes. I do have to say I was impressed how they were able to squeeze so many significant plot twists and turns within the few episodes. Regardless, some characters could have been fleshed out better and some incidents which occurred made me ask myself, "What the hell just happened?".

The Lowdown: If you're looking for a highly engaging anime, but in short of free time, Jyu Oh Sei fits the bill. As long as you don't let the plot holes bother you too much, it's quite enjoyable and fairly thought provoking to an extent. C'mon, the main character's name is Thor...

Notes: Watched official Funimation subs beginning to end and parts of English dub.

Finds! - Generic Apple Magsafe

Banner image courtesy of joelsuplido from Flickr.
Call me elitist, but I'm a pretty big fan of Apple. Long story short, I got fed up with poor quality PC products from Compaq, eMachines, Toshiba, and HP. Aside from my old Pentium II IBM Aptiva computer from 1995, my other computers have only lasted me so long. My last PC was an HP pavilion laptop that only managed to last me about a little less than two years; quite disappointing to say the least. I was pretty much done with PCs for the rest of my life and several recommendations later, I decided to get myself a Macbook. Two and a half years later, it's still going on strong and loving every moment of it.

This doesn't mean I devoted my life to loving Apple products. I don't have an iPhone, or AppleTV, or multiple iPods (just one--my refurb 30GB iPod video). I like the build quality of most Apple products, however for some reasons you can't help but notice some serious design flaws with some of their other products, especially the magsafe power adapter.

What do you mean? It's an awesome little box that's portable and has little hooks in which I can wind up the power cord. It also has that mini-magnet connector that ensures that it will disconnect if you put any type of strain on the cord. The connector also has a neat trick using an LED light to indicate when your Macbook is charging/fully-charged--it's so clever.

Okay fair enough. I can say those features are pretty nice. Despite all the praise it gets, there are some catastrophic flaws with the design. I'm not sure if this is still a recurring problem with current magsafe chargers, but for a period of time they had a tendency of overheating, creating potential fire hazards. If you take a look on the Apple store website or other online vendors, you can see numerous notes about people encountering problems with the wires fraying, shorting, overheating, and melting. A class action lawsuit resulted because of the defects; since then Apple has offered replacement power adapters for those damaged ones, provided they show no signs of accidental damage. Although this didn't happen to my old power adapter, I've met people who have indeed encountered this problem. Long story short, it wasn't a pretty sight to see.

Another problem with the power adapter is its unbelievably short and thin connector wire. Riiight, wire durability tends to be a problem for a lot of products these days. In this day and age when nearly everything needs to be charged by a power adapter (either for your laptop, cell phone, bluetooth headpiece, digital cameras, etc), it would be nice to have a sturdy durable wire connection in case there's any strain or tension put on it; it simply needs to meet standards of daily wear under normal use. I for one have taken extremely good care of my adapter, never wrapping it around those damned hooks on the adapter nor have I tangled the cord in any fashion. The end of the cord with the magsafe connector must be one of the thinnest charger cords I have ever seen. It's basically a piece of spaghetti, and I bet if I took a bite into it, it might just tear into two. As a result of two and a half years of normal wear, the wire seemed to fray near the box and I was left with no means of charging my Macbook. It makes me wonder sometimes since the AC cord with the ground connector has a significantly better cord and would prefer that same thick cord for the connector. Sheesh, what was Apple thinking?

Regardless, I had to go find a new power adapter. What $80 Apple? I know a lot of PC users like to say that people are paying the Apple tax when people buy their products; and in this case, they're right on point. There's absolutely no reason that small box is worth $80. It's obviously produced in China (most likely by child labor) for $2, perhaps even less, and sold with a 4000% markup. Being a cheap ass, I went into the wide world of eBay looking for a reliable cheap knockoff (hmm that's an oxymoron if I ever heard one) power adapter. Alas, I found one for roughly $16 + free shipping, a huge difference from $80.

In some of the comparison pictures, it's fairly generic looking. No Apple logo engraved into the adapter, but that's not what I'm buying it for. It did not come with the AC cord, but I tested it with my original AC cord and it worked perfectly. I've been using it for a good four months now with no hiccups at all. I definitely was unsure about buying an unauthentic/generic $16 power adapter to charge my thousand dollar macbook with my life in it, but in the end I was glad I made that purchase.

If you'd like to receive information about the particular eBay seller I bought it from, please leave a comment below.

I'm an Old Fart. Let me Rip...Snow

It's been a long time since I've written anything substantial. Call me lazy, but I'm lacking any type of motivation to write this month. Come to think of it, I've been slowing down the number of posts since the winter started. I guess it must be a seasonal thing. I just want to curl up in a blanket when it's cold outside; not to mention all the snow that came this past winter. It's pretty sad really, since I used to love the snow as kid. Nowadays, it's just a big burden whenever it starts piling up.


If you ever grew up in a region with four seasons or in one with typically colder weather, snow kicked ass. Not only could you engage in some awesome snowball fights, you could make a snow man, go sledding (if there's a nearby hill), lie down and make some snow angels, or if you're ambitious enough, sculpt an igloo (I never got around to making one).

It's still only April, so there could still be a possibility of it snowing again. Everyone or at least I think everyone knows the saying "April showers bring May flowers." Well, in Michigan, April snows bring May woes, the spring April owes, I suppose. When will Spring come? Who the fuck knows? That was a terrible rhyme, but it's that strong Dr. Seuss influence from all of his books I read during my childhood. Living in Michigan, those damned lakes will most likely be affecting the weather as spring rolls around.

Since I've grown up, snow has become more of a burden for me. During college, you weren't really offered any type of snow day, if it snowed five to six inches, you were still expected to make the trek to class. The only time I had a class canceled in college by means of snow accumulation was when the professor wasn't able to make it to class. Even at that time, I still made the cold bitter journey to class only to be infuriated by a paper notice on the classroom door notifying class was canceled. What about an email? Eh, regardless, I was pretty pissed to know I could have been snuggled up in my bed at the same time.

Nowadays I work a temporary job at a freight carrier. Snow is never friendly to them honestly. Snow causes delays upon delays and dangerous roads for truckers going through a given area. As far as I know, Pennsylvania experience record snowfalls this years in terms of accumulation which definitely did not make my job any easier trying to explain to customers why they hadn't received their freight or whatever they may have. To them, regardless of rain, snow, hurricane, tornado, tsunami, or shine, they want their freight--and on time. A heavy case of tunnel-visioned customers makes for a very unpleasant day on my end; taking verbal abuse nearly every minute of the day. This is not to lessen the severity of a typical day since I do get yelled at at least three or four times daily. People just don't understand that it's extremely dangerous for a 53' truck and trailer to be moving through slick unsalted roads and try to power through snowy days. Some shipments are just going to take longer to get to their destination as a result.

Alright this is probably an extreme case of trucker trouble, but it really is risky for truckers to be out in snowy conditions.

Speaking of dangerous conditions, this last winter was the first one I experienced commuting on a daily basis. Honestly, it's scary as hell when snow and freezing rain are involved. Just think about it. It's already scary enough to be traveling down the road trusting everyone in your vicinity is competent enough to stay in his/her lane and to maintain a safe distance away as well as abide traffic lights and signs. Add in some hazardous and snowy conditions and you'll have one hell of a commute.

Boy do I hate the snow. It sure creates more problems than it solves. I guess you can take into account that it is imperative to have balanced seasons, but for me, snow is just mere eye candy every three the four months of the year. Alright...Perhaps I'm being a little bit too cynical. I could technically still have fun during the winter after a snowfall. It's purely the lack of free time that's driving me insane. Snow also isn't particularly that hazardous compared to a hurricane, tsunami, earthquake, or some other natural disaster; it's fluffy and wants to be left alone, but can be pushed and packed away when need be. There's simply no stopping hurricane when it comes around--Katrina you bitch.


So honestly, I felt pretty angry and flustered all about nothing. With anything regarding the weather, there are going to be some good and bad aspects. Some people could say rain sucks equally hard, or some people might not like sunny days. Snow doesn't completely suck; it blows sometimes as it interferes with your daily grind, but whenever I gaze outside my bedroom window after an overnight flurry, the view is quite nice.