Persona 4

Hello folks. Since this is a free talking stuffs, I'd like to speak about one of my recent favorite series I'm getting at. This is... Persona 4.

Shin Megami Tensei series is a series which involve demon-contacting to traverse through a dangerous world full of demonic horrors ready to pounce on you anytime. Starting from the sub series of Persona, we're given concepts of 'summoning our other selves' called 'Persona', in order to combat the enemy. The story overall is pretty pessimistic dark, but Persona 4 takes the cake of being actually light and hopeful, while keeping some of its darker elements.

Basically, you take control of a white haired boy (third from right in the picture) from a town getting transferred for a year in the town of Inaba. In the town, aside of making friends, he heard rumors about a new channel called 'Midnight Channel' and for some reason, he's able to put his hands into TV and eventually it turns out he CAN enter the TV, along with his friends. Within the TV is a new foggy world where creatures called Shadow lurks. Complicating the parts is that there are some murder case going on in Inaba, and those who were murdered usually appear at the Channel first. So it's up to you to probably solve this murder.

What makes me like this section very much is the concept of Shadows here. Rather than a bunch of mindless monsters, they actually represent a repressed feelings of people. So, for instance, did you just meet an idol singer just retiring? Her Shadow is actually a strip-teasing pole-dancing attention whore. Did you just meet a tough delinquent guy who turns out like to sew? His shadow is a big... gay... uh, I think we'll stop there. But this allows for great characterizations for your teammates, and knowing that they've got their own issues, and helping them sort it out is part of the game.

These paragraphs probably don't do justice to the game, so I suggest that you grab it ASAP. Either the PS2 version or the upcoming VITA release. Or watch the anime. Or later, grab the Arc System Works-made fighting game in the future.

Last words, I'll just say this is a bear-y good game and you'd bear-tter give this game a grizzly shot, it's that good!

Winners of Poll#4 and Poll#5 begins!

Again, these series of overnight working is taking the toll of my free time here, so here's the winners of the previous rounds... At least there are more votes for this batch.


ZYURANGER (21 Votes)
Well it's pretty obvious that Burai is gonna dominate, he leads with 16 votes. All I hope is that this is not largely due to him being a Tommy counterpart. Tailing behind is surprisingly Goushi with 8 votes. I wonder if it's because of his appearance in Gokaiger, or one of his PR 'successors' is Adam (who's played by the famous Johnny Yong Bosch)? Whatever. And behind them is a tie between Dan and Mei, 5 votes each. I'm not pissed, really. At any rate, Geki is next in line with 4 votes, and behind him is Boi with 3 votes. Regardless, all I say for this round is... Burai is DOMINATING.



DAIRANGER (21 Votes)
And leading up in the first place is Ryou for 17 votes. Yep, we're definitely amazed with his utter badass fighting scenes, not to mention going shirtless many times and shows us just how ripped his body and abs are (and it was glorious). And tailing behind him is Daigo with 13 votes, I suppose the Kujaku story arc help him give some edge. And behind him... Shouji with 7 votes, followed by Rin with 6 votes, then Kazu with 5 votes, and lastly Kou with 4 votes (I suppose the 'image of Tommy' did not help at this occasion...)



KAKURANGER (21 Votes)
We have another dominating vote, the one dominating today is Tsuruhime with 14 votes! Guess that shows why female leaders are things to make popularity. Behind her is a tie between Sasuke and Jiraiya with 9 votes. I'm not gonna guess who's more popular between those two. Behind them is... Ninjaman with 4 votes, Seikai with 3 votes and Saizou is the last with 2 votes! Wow, guess Ninjaman's appearance in Gokaiger do help out a lot.



OHRANGER (21 Votes)
This is a much closer battle. The winner this time is Gorou with 10 votes... in which he took the narrow victory from Momo who was at first leading heavily, but in the end could only amass 9 votes! Surprisingly, those two are the ones appearing in Gokaiger, but I do realize that Momo also had this darkhorse feel amongst many. Anyway, behind her was Juri for 7 votes, and a tie between Yuuji and Riki with 6 votes, and the last one being Shouhei at 5 votes. All in all, tight, solid voting for this one.



CARRANGER (22 Votes)
For once, a vote with number not 21 votes total! And it was quite the dominating battle too, with Kyousuke on the lead for 14 votes. And behind him is what would be another 'darkhorse' character that is Natsumi, but only for 8 votes. Followed by... Signalman for 6 votes, wow! Behind him is Naoki for 5 votes, Minoru for 3 votes and then Youko for 2 votes...

I realized that with the exception of Kou, the winners of these polls are the one who at least got to be Tommy Oliver's alter ego from Power Rangers original to Turbo. Does it influence what you vote, I wonder? Regardless, just enjoy the next batch! Later!

Trivia: Coincidence? Nana Mizuki & Nanami Nono

Okay, you may be totally shocked and said "Are you out of your mind, ChrisX!?" But this is one trivia I find REALLY funny and coincidental and could be a little awesome.

First off...

Folks, this is Nana Mizuki. You anime fans probably knew her as the seiyuu/voice actress of Naruto's Hinata Hyuuga, but ESPECIALLY Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha's Fate Testarossa, along with so many other roles. She's really famous too, even for a seiyuu she managed to be one of the top J-Pop idol singers today and winning many awards. Yes, I know, her songs are awesome. You might not believe it but she started her career as an enka singer at the age of five, and released her first single (enka) at 1993, when she's 13 years old.

Hmm... a former enka singer, who eventually exploded in popularity as an idol-singer and very talented at that. Where have we seen that before in the world of Toku?

Oh.

Maybe they're totally unrelated, but interestingly I find that Nanami's path of life as shown in Hurricaneger kinda looked like Nana Mizuki... just added with being a ninja. She guised herself as an enka singer, who eventually had a lot of trials of being an idol singer, and by the end of Hurricaneger, she's a full-fledged one and proved to be quite popular as well.

Not to mention, when you take Nanami's name (without Nono), it's like saying Nana Mizuki's name, just without the 'zuki'. And Nanami's stage name is... well... 'Nana'. This is one pure coincidence, I gotta say, because Toei couldn't have recognized or predicted Nana's eventual boom of popularity, when Hurricaneger aired, Nana was just gaining a 'darkhorse' fandom being Hinata of Naruto.

This is seriously just coincidence and nobody planned or based on Nana Mizuki. But this coincidence is something I kinda found out and thought it'd be kind of interesting to share between us Toku fans and Anime fans. Well, thanks for hearing my ramble, and I hope you had fun listening to it along with my silly discovery or sorts.

Winners of Poll#3 and Poll#4 begins!

For some reason, the number of voters here are really less than usual... But the score's pretty solid so far. Also apologies for the delay, the work in me is getting hectic. Here we go, though.


MASKMAN (10 Votes)
Akira won over for 8 votes. Man, I really could've expected this, since I think Akira is one of the most favored characters in Maskman I see everywhere. At any rate, second place is tied for both Takeru and Kenta for 5 votes, with Momoko tailing behind for 4 votes, and Haruka last place for 3 votes. Solid scores, I say.


LIVEMAN (10 Votes) 
And the winner is... Yuusuke with 7 votes! I suppose his appearance in Gaoranger vs Super Sentai really helps, I do admit he's a real badass over there. Second place is surprisingly Megumi, with 6 votes, beating Jou at 5 votes, even if Jou appeared in Gokaiger! While Jun'ichi at least got 2 votes... Tetsuya got zero. I wonder what could cause that...


TURBORANGER (9 Votes) 
The lowest vote from the batch. I do wonder how that came to be though. At any rate, obviously Riki leads with 6 votes. I'm more or less surprised on how Youhei got 5 votes. That certainly can't come from how I included him in my fic! And behind him is Haruna with 3 votes, while Daichi and Shunsuke tied for last with 2 votes. Well one could go worse...


FIVEMAN (13 Votes) 
Lots of votes for today... and once again we had a Yellow Domination, with Remi dominating on 11 votes! Gee, I really should see this coming as she's sometimes considered the darkhorse of Fiveman, plus appearing in Gokaiger. And far behind her is Gaku with 5 votes, followed by Ken with 3 votes, all while Kazumi and Fumiya were last in 2 votes. It's a bit lopsided, admittedly.


JETMAN (10 Votes)
For one lauded as one of the best oldie Sentais I'm surprised there's only 10 votes. And surprisingly, even if Gai expectedly leads with 7 votes, he's tailed closely by Ryuu with 6 votes rather than dominating like Remi before! Both Raita and Ako, meanwhile tied behind Ryuu for 4 votes, and there's only 1 vote for Kaori... Well, there's quite little I could say for this...

At any rate, the next batch is up. Happy voting!

Winners of Poll#2 and Poll#3 begins!

Sorry for a little late posting. Busy with work. Regardless, this batch has quite some surprise, and more votes.


GOGGLE V (23 Votes)
With happiness, I am proud to announce that Miki won with 14 votes! Aww yeah! Although the rest of the votes kinda surprised me. Akama was second place with 12 votes, while both Aoyama and Kijima ties in the third with 10 votes, and Kuroda, who was taking the lead in the first place, got last at 9 votes!? Come ON, I thought you all like him. Pity, I like him too and I don't feel he's that overrated. Oh well, results are results...



DYNAMAN (22 Votes)
Now this is also surprising. I really didn't expect the winner... Nangou with 10 votes! Wow, and I thought he's usually dismissed when mentioning Dynaman. Second place were both Hokuto and Hoshikawa with 9 votes, while Rei, the one who leads in the first place, was 3rd place with 8 votes... Shima only got 6 votes as last... But still, this is definitely a surprising result. I mean, who would expect Nangou when everyone talking about Dynaman were mostly (as far as I heard) about Hoshikawa and Rei?



BIOMAN (23 Votes)
This part is dominated by Jun Yabuki, who won with 17 votes total. The one that is second place are just Gou with 7 votes... that's some gap all right... Unfortunately the rest of the Bioman only got low votes, with Nanbara only 3 votes, both Hikaru and Mika 2 votes, and Shingo with only 1 vote... What is wrong with the Bioman cast if it's like this?

 

CHANGEMAN (25 Votes)
This is at least much more balanced, very similar to the Goggle V one. Leading in first place is Tsurugi with 15 votes, followed by Sayaka with 14 votes, then BOTH Mai and Oozora with 13 votes and Hayate... after leading in numbers for the first days, became the last in 11 votes... VERY similar to Kuroda. I guess early start doesn't speak for everything in this case...



FLASHMAN (28 Votes)
Most votes so far and I say the vote amounts are spread in good balance... sort of. Sara expectedly leads with 19 votes. Of course, one can only expect as such from the 'Ensemble Darkhorse' of Flashman. Jin tails behind with 17 votes, while Lou got 13 votes as the next place, Bun with 12 votes afterwards and Dai with 11 votes as the last. I suppose it is some sort of stigma that the one who leads in the first days are nearly doomed to be the last one.

Don't get your hopes down though, I'm sure it's just coincidence (it didn't happen to Bioman!). Regardless, let's see how the standing goes for the next poll, ranging from Maskman to Jetman!

(Pictures coming soon)

Winners of Poll #1 and Poll #2 begins!

The first five team favorites are in... Here are the scores and the winners:

GORANGER (11 Votes)
Both Tsuyoshi and Peggy won with both 7 votes! Well of course, THE original red and THE original pink would be the most popular. Tailing far behind them is Akira with 3 votes... surprising that even Hiroshi Miyauchi's popularity didn't help him much, but then again his popularity begins in the next series. Daita and Kenji got only 2 votes, while Daigorou got 0 (that was pretty sad, but then again when the replacement was just completely temporary, I guess it can't be helped)

JAKQ (12 Votes)
Soukichi takes a leaping lead with 10 votes! Oh boy... I guess it'd be expected that people know Big One more than the JAKQ and it didn't help that when Big One appears, he took over and beforehand, JAKQ's rating was failing. Regardless, Gorou and Karen are second place with 2 votes, I guess because they are responsible for the first instance of Sentai canon romance...

BATTLE FEVER J (15 Votes)
Shirou leads with 8 votes. Guess being played by Kenji Ohba totally helps, plus he reappears in Gokaiger. Tailing behind him is Kyousuke (6 votes) for... um, I'll leave it to his voters. Masao and Kensaku are 5 votes together, with Maria behind them for 4 votes, Makoto for 3 votes and 1 vote for Diane.

DENZIMAN (13 Votes)
And it's a tie between Daigorou and Tatsuya in 8 votes! I guess Daigorou for the Kenji Ohba factor, and Tatsuya for being the token 'cool loner guy'? Well, I wouldn't know. Jun goes second place with 4 votes, while Akira was surprisingly 2 votes... but then Ippei got 0 votes! My God, what's wrong with the Red of this series? Too standard? I'll never know I guess...

SUN VULCAN (13 Votes)
A very similar situation with JAKQ. Takayuki takes a leaping lead with 10 votes! With Asao just 3 votes, Kin'ya 2 votes... and Ryuusuke got no votes like Ippei. I suppose Takayuki just overshadowed his predecessor? Wonder how... but regardless, he won.

Images courtesy of Super Sentai Time Capsule.

Now enjoy the votes from Goggle V to Flashman!

Poll Result & New Polls

Welp, sorry for not updating the poll long after it's gone... at any rate,  the results are in.



The results of the poll about Goggle V is...

-Best. Sentai. Ever	1 (7%)
-I love it for real. Awesome! Even if there are newer Sentai, it's still high on my list!	2 (15%)
-It's good, but there's a lot better Sentais out there	8 (61%)
-Uh, what is Goggle V? I never watch, I never bother.	1 (7%)
-Bad... though I've seen worse	0 (0%)
-It sucks. ChrisX, what are you thinking, obsessing this?	1 (7%)

From a total of 13 votes. Well I guess my hunch is true that it's rather underrated. Many would call good, but too many new bloods, which also improves its formula is on the plate, and I really can't blame them. Oh well, I may as well just hold this nostalgia feeling and always appreciate the series as it is. Just as long as people don't constantly refer it as a team of gymnasts...
Anyway, didn't I say 'New Polls'? Yes. In a short time, I'll be making a series of polls of favorite characters in a Sentai team, to see who's the top 2 characters in each team. Then maybe each team will duke it out on the ultimate favorite. And I'm not going to limit to the ones I've watched only. Even the non-watched one (Goranger, for example) gets its place. Stay tuned!