Summer Wars

It’s been a while since I’ve watched any anime so when I got to watch this film, I was so amazed by improvement of animation from Japan and also the story.

Summer wars is about a high school student, Kenji who went to a small vacation with his senior, Natsuki on her ancestral home in Ueda wherein Kenji had to pretend Natsuki’s boyfriend for a certain time. During his stay in Natsuki’s place, the social network where he is into, OZ, suddenly came into a bizarre mess due to a release of a hacking A.I., completely bringing the whole world into a big confusion and problems. With Natsuki’s family and his epic skills in Mathematics, Kenji battles on with this A.I. together with his friend to bring the world back into order and also save Natsuki’s family from deep danger.

This film brilliantly blends the futuristic era with Japanese family values. Debates are very apparent in the film on which to prioritize, saving other people’s lives due to the disorder or the family’s safety. Cooperation also plays a good part in the film with the desire to bring everything back into place after the chaos. Social networking is shown as good and bad as it can be a great way of accessing things but also deals a great blow within its connections once the links are exploited and misused for malicious intent.

The animation is brilliant and the storyline was fantastic. Everything is also accurate such as the brands present in the film. No brand was changed into a same-looking alternative. The accuracy is also present with the whole setting such as the whole ancestral home is actually existing. Although the animation drawing may not be as good as the animation of series with all 3D rendering included (Initial D, Gundam Unicorn) it is still not bad seeing the detail created with bare hands. Although there are digital parts at some points but those are just minor parts included compared to the 3D frame method of animation. The storyline includes seriousness because of world and family issues but at the same time it has humour that will change the mood of the story to avoid boredom in the story.

The animation is worth watching because of the story. The values that are present will show how important family safety but at the same time how important the lives of other people and how much should we be concerned about it. How should we help others with skills at hand, how to make decisions that will save people on the spot of seconds-away danger. This is an excellent film and should-watch one.

Top Gear Season 11 IS FOR REAL~!

I’m a big fan of Top Gear TV series and I’ve never thought that this series will come back again. There were rumors before that this TV series will end as TG host Jeremy Clarkson was “tired” already. However, there are signs of its return as Jeremy revealed in an interview here that he raced a bullet train in JAPAN using a NISSAN GT-R! Come to think of it, a race of a car in its home turf. Then I stumbled on the TG blog that they were really going to push through with the new series. If you want to know what’s about to come for S11, here are the links:

Final gear : News for TG Season 11

Got this news from GTRBLOG.com

NFS SHOWDOWN : MW’s EVO 8 versus CARBON’s EVO 9

I’ve been playing Need Speed Most Wanted since a friend of mine brought the game into my course block and Need for Speed Carbon since the time when I got my PSP. To be honest, the NFS Carbon for PSP was surprisingly easy. I even finished the game without knowing the game’s story. (since I got a choppy CSO file of the game) The Most Wanted is one of the game’s I consider as a pain-staking game especially when you play and study at the same time. It’s not like NFSCARBON that’s full of circuit races, crew takedowns and the like. The NFSMW carries a lot of tournament that bores me a lot.

Anyway, I’m here to talk about one of the cars that is common in both games. This car is the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution and both games have one but technically,  each of the game has a “unique” LanEvo to offer. The MW game offers the not-so-good Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution 8 and the Carbon carries the Lancer Evolution 9. The REAL world tells that Lancer Evolution 9 is far better than Lancer Evolution 8. Lancer Evolution 8 carries a lot of technical problems when it was released, especially the high end ones. Lancer Evolution 9 came solving the 8’s problems and eventually made a good exit to make for the Lancer Evolution 10. Back into the game and with the information above, the Evo9 of CARBON should perform BETTER than MW’s Evo8 but that’s just about to go wrong.

Let’s start first with NFSCARBON’s Evolution 9. I designed it with the same manner as the one with MW although I painted it differently but the rims and spoilers and other visual upgrades (except bodykit) are the same. The Evo9 looked good at every angle. The Evo9’s performance figures are here:

 Seems slow? For me, it is. Probably the clue for my impression is the Evo’s position on the list. The Evo9 is one of the cars at the bottom of the list so probably it’s one of the slowest. When you drive it on FREE ROAM mode, everything is tolerable except the speed. When I floored down the accelerator, the car doesn’t feel as fast as what you can expect from an Evo. As you can see, the top speed is unbearable and the handling too. (Although I still love it). What I like about the Evo9 is that you can perform perfect drift donuts with all the counter-steer and stuff:

 

 

 

 

The N2O for CARBON is not bad either. You can feel that every drop is used efficiently. The classic N2O blur effect is so nice that I cannot see the corners that are coming:

 

 The Top Speed of the car, fully tuned, only reaches around 162 mph, no N2O applied.

 

So how does it compare with MW’s Evo8?

 

 Look at that! compared to Evo9, the Evo8’s performance figures are overwhelming and almost the opposite of Evo9. The Evo8’s Bodykit made the evo8 look like Evo7 and I like it since I hate the Evo8’s bird-face-like front grill. I was inspired by Tokyo Drift’s LanEvo9’s design and adapted my Evo8 to the movie’s Evo car although I’ve changed the rims to white Volks and the vinyls as well.

 

 The Evo8’s bodykit really looked very well and the Carbon Fiber hood and spoiler. When it comes to the performance, the car amazes me a lot. The car might not possess the Evo9’s donut capability but the Evo8 can perform technical corner drifts at good speeds. Although it can drift at technical corners, the worst about the Evo8 is that once its rhythm is disturbed, it spins off quickly like the Lamborghini Gallardo in steroids. The best thing with the Evo8 is that it surpasses the Evo9’s top speed, no N2O. The Evo8’s top speed is more than 200 mph, flat out. Both cars have 6 gears and the Evo9 can rarely reach more than 190 mph.

 

 Both cars are amazing with each having unique ways of performing but it is the Evo8 that captures me. The Evo9 is enjoyable, no doubt with it but if you want a seriously performing EVOLUTION, I’ll suggest Need for speed to put back the best performance figures of the Lancer Evolution.

 

Takara Tomy’s Q-steer, PART 2 – Specs and why this mini IR Car is a big leap from Bit Char-G

 Big Leap Forward

Q-steer was one of the advanced in mini R/C. It really overruns Bit char-G in many aspects. Both Bit Char-G and Q-steer were designed for table-top or indoor use. First of all, the device used for communicating the car from the transmitter. Bit Char-G used radio frequency like all other conventional radio-controlled cars and it really carried a lot of defects since these cars were expected to run more that 2 cars at the same time, for Bit Char-G, it really is a nightmare of bringing different frequencies. My experience was when I got my first Bit Char-G which was the 2-speed Nissan Fairlady Z, the car carried a 57-MHz microchip. And it was embarrassing because I cannot play in the living room since it distorts some of the stations of the tv. Bit Char-G dropped in a very interruptive frequency that prevents you from playing around. On the other hand, Q-steer understood what it is for and instead of carrying an R/C unit, it carried an IR system or Infrared for command transmission. This was amazing because I can now play anywhere without interrupting anyone or anything. Although one thing worries me, it is the range of the car from the remote. The manual says it can go as far as 1.5 meters from the remote or 5 feet with the car staying within the remote’s range of 30 degrees below horizontal axis. I tested that claim and it seems it can go as far as you want as long as the 30-degree range covers the car. Another reason why Q-steer is a big leap is that it catches more attention than Bit Char-G. It catches more attention since Q-steer is smaller than Bit Char-G.

Q-steer also had a very good background in the toy industry. Q-steer was an adaption from the pullback cars, Choro-Q. Choro-Q was so famous that kids love buying each and everyone of them, just like Tomica’s. Choro-Q resized almost all japanses cars, from old times to present, into small cute little pullback cars. The Bit Char-G on the other hand had one similar thing to the Q-steer, which was the Bit racer. It’s the same with CDS or Choro-Q deck system which was mini-4wd cars that run along a track. It wasn’t  famous at that time until Bit Char-G came along.

Specifications

Q-steer was smaller than Bit Char-G. As a result, more and more details of the real car vanished. Although it’s not a problem for enthusiasts and hobbyists because they’ll understand why.

 Q-steer has the 40-mm S-tech IR chassis developed by Takara-Tomy. It runs with a smaller Bit Char-G motor “Micro-B”, according to some Q-steer hobbyists. The chassis is 4-cm long andabout 1.5 to 2-cm wide. The body of the car is not like the Bit Char-G that can be removed easily and replace another body that can be purchased separately. Q-steer’s body is similar to Choro-Q except that the front end of the body is glued onto the chassis. It can be replaced with Choro-Q bodies but requires hobby skills to do it. You need to remove some excess areas in the Choro-Q body to make sure that the body fits. Sometimes, you’ll have to be picky with the bodies because it’ll become difficult for the infrared to penetrate throught the very dark transparent windows. Choro-Q bodies sometimes carry opaque windows that are colored black. The S-tech chassis features a front suspension. Judging the car from underneath, the suspension is different from the Bit Char-G.

 The car’s S-tech chassis features two-band system in every car. The remote can control up to four bansd, A,B,C and D. Each car comes in two bands, A-B or C-D. The car can switch from each of its bands to another band. For example, the Sprinter Trueno (AE86) Q-steer above runs on C-D band. If another player wants to play, carrying one of the bands, say band D, I can switch the car’s band below the chassis to band C. The ON/OFF switch has been lifted from the remote and dropped to the car. This prevents the car’s battery terminals from corroding. The batteries have been replaced with dry button cells so that it will be cheaper and more efficient to operate the car and lessen the casualties. The car features a standard “BOOST” feature which is an optional to Bit Char-G. This brings another button onto the remote that makes the car run faster than normal speed  while being pressed with the Forward or Backward run button.

 The Boost button is located at the upper right of the remote. Since the car runs on 4 bands, up to 4 cars can play at the same time and place. The wheels can be removed for cleaning purposes and the motor can also be replaced with a new motor that comes with the car, depending on the package you will buy. Some even come in two cars, with pylons or cones for additional game thrill.

Techincal Specs:

Chassis: 40-mm S-tech Infrared Control Chassis

Band: Twin-band per car, up to four bands for remote

Dimensions: 4cm x 2cm X 1.5 cm (approx.)

Motor: depending on package, most carried Normal speed type

Steering: Magnet steering system (Rack and Pinion is impossible for a car this small. :D)

Assembly Shots : AEUG 1/100 Master grade Gundam Mk-II [RX-178]

Here’s a taste of what’s coming up in the future review of this kit.

 Gundam Mk-II after assembling all parts. Outer Coating for Matt finish will be the next step. The Gundam’s cockpit is open.

 Gundam Mk-II docked.

There’s still a lot of things to do like the shield and other weapons. The whole model is now good for Matt-finish coating. Wait for my review of my first Master Grade Gundam ModelKit, RX-178 Gundam Mk-II A.E.U.G.

Gran Turismo HD

High Definition? Maybe! It’s seems that the “HD” logo is the same with Sony’s BRAVIA Flat screen TV. Gran Turismo HD will be the latest racing game to come in December under PlayStation 3 Format. What’s amazing now for Gran Turismo as well as Sony Entertainment is that they finally got the license every Gran Turismo enthusiast longly awaited for. Finally, they’ve got in their hands the precious license in putting Ferrari GT cars into their famous simulation game. Yup, they already have the license from Ferrari and the flagship car is the Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano, a Grand Tourer car with the Enzo’s V12 6-liter engine. The GTHD had a big leap from their GT4 graphics and physics engine. To try that, you have to own a PS3. How can you try the game? Well, people say that you can download the demo of GTHD although I have absolutely no idea how to use the download file since I cannot afford a PS3 unit at the moment. There are only few cars available at the demo.

Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano

Toyota Celica Rally Car ’95

Mazda Eunos/Miata roadster ’89(the one with open-up hidden headlamps)

Nissan Skyline GT-R Vspec-II (R32)

Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IV GSR

Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX GSR ’05

Lotus Elise 111R ’04

Suzuki Cappuccino

Honda Integra Type-R ’04

Infiniti G35 Coupe ’06

To show you how the game looks like, here’s a video of the game. Although online video uploaders such as Google Video and YouTube cannot show the full capacity of videos such as this one that runs at 8Mbps, the graphics might not be as good as what I’ve just saw. If you want, you can go to Gran Turismo Japan to watch this movie, including the other clips of time trials and drifting runs available. Here you go:

Gran Turismo ROCKS!

The Final TransFormers Movie Trailer!

Will appear in the screen section shortly.

“Precision” – in Porsche terms

GO Keiichi Tsuchiya!!! Battle of the Supercars!

Porsche Carrera GT