The priorities of people varies between us all, but I think the men in the audience will find that the punch line for today’s comic holds especially true on what should be top priority in a troubling situation. Perhaps the topic for this week came out of all those masculine things I had to do in order to wash the yarn from my mouth from last week. Who knows? But on that note, Kirby’s Epic Yarn is getting better as we go on.

Today we also poke a bit more fun at Square(Enix) for being so terrible. They are an easy target these days and our deep distaste for their actions is especially acute. I think this has to do from the fact that they were such a cherished and admired company. It’s like if you have someone you love turn on you, you start to become more critical and cynical of them (and perhaps in general) because that underlying sense of affection catalyzes your emotions in the stark opposite direction.

Further delving into that topic is the idea of games being rehashed over and over. SquareEnix is not the only offender by far, as MANY companies do this in the entertainment industry. SE is just really egregious with how often they tap the same cow for milk; I’m honestly amazed that it’s anything more than pure powder at this point.

We as buyers though are the source of this by voting with our spending money by buying into this. I am certainly not immune to it – I have Chrono Trigger on the DS and a couple of other re-makes but looking back on it I think it was probably a poor “vote” being cast. I want to give my money to those who are pioneering into new directions and cheer them on for their ingenuity so we can see more diversity and less homogenization.

Chrono Trigger is one of my favorite games of all time; it has left such a huge impression on me when I was young. Now of course that the old RPG formula is changing, there are better ways to approach the genre; Persona 4 being a rather good example. I don’t believe the JRPG is dead, but it certainly is in intensive care. As someone who grew up playing these games as their source for story book adventures, I hope it makes a strong recovery and comes up with innovative ways to craft the tales they are trying to get across.

Anyways, thanks for reading and hope you all enjoy this one!

P.S. - Sorry for another (sorta) late comic...11:55pm on Friday as I write this. We've been extremely busy this week but next week we should be on track with some bonus art! Make sure to check it out =)

I was originally going to talk about my current bitter feelings against Square Enix and their tendency to rehash and milk their successful franchises to death. I'm not really in the mood to talk about corporate stuff now aside from stating that fact, so I suppose I'll talk about movies.~

I've been a rather big fan of Astro Boy since I first watched the 2003 cartoon series on TV. I really liked how a number of the episodic stories involved real-life and/or very human issues, how the main character Astro was portrayed, how you watch him grow throughout the series from a innocent young kid to a strong-willed hero wanting to fight for what he believed in, and the element of him being on the fence between the racial conflicts of the world from having the soul and appearance of a human but being a robot. I think Astro boy is definitely one of those series that is much deeper than first glance. The 2003 animated series' incredibly high production value probably helped a lot in getting the modern generation of kids to give the series a chance. I admit that if I hadn't seen it, I'd be much more reluctant at the idea of watching or reading the older books or cartoons.

The animated studio Imagi (known also for doing the more recent Ninja Turtles movie which I thought was good by the way XD) did a movie on Astro Boy which released in theaters in 2009. There were a number of changes from the series' original story, but I think it carried over a number of its basic concepts. I admit that I was a liiiittle skeptical when I first heard about an American-made Astro Boy movie and I know I wasn't alone, my dad and a friend of mine also expressed those feelings. Years passed, the movie came and went, and I ended up hearing that despite the movie not being completely faithful to the original manga, it was actually really good! I know I'm kind of a purist (or at least I used to be) but it doesn't bother me to hear that it's not completely faithful to the manga; there were some things I've read about the manga that I'd rather not see (like Astro having a robot family made for him later on. @_@).

There've been a number of movies I've been interested in seeing over the past few months and I think I've gotten to the point where I've come to terms with the idea that I might never see some of them on a TV. So I decided I might as well listen to them as I work if I can find them on youtube and if they're interesting enough, I'll go back and actually watch them. For some reason, though I have a horrible time reading and writing with music playing in the background, I have no trouble listening to dialogue and movies as I draw; I even think it's beneficial sometimes because it can be motivating. I normally only listen to movies I've seen at least once so I can visualize everything as I listen, but I listened to Disney's Brother Bear about a month ago and it wasn't so bad.

I found the Astro Boy movie a few weeks ago on youtube and decided to listen to it while I worked, but I just couldn't do it! The movie just sounded too interesting. I had to stop after about fifteen minutes because I just wasn't being productive enough and decided to wait on watching until when I had meals. Bear was around when I started re-watching the beginning and he seemed to really get into it too! XD I was really happy because he didn't seem to display any interest in Astro Boy whatsoever before then. We really wanted to continue watching the movie even after we finished eating, but a huge segment of the series of youtube videos we were watching scrambled so we couldn't finish it. We've been talking for the past week about buying a copy of the movie soon. I'm really looking forward to it; not just to see the movie, but because I love seeing Bear happy and so interested in it! XD