Sutaa Oshian Irasuto wa Ichiban Desu!
Jun. 23rd, 2003 09:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
azuriteOk, so my Japanese is probably very rusty above, but I think you get the gist (if you know Japanese, that is) -- my brand new, spiffy Star Ocean TREASURE and SECOND TREASURE artbooks are the best! ^_^ I got them for $72.37 (tax included) at Kinokuniya, and I'm glad I did-- they were the last two! They didn't have them at Fanime, so I'm glad I spent the money on it. Whoo... lots to say, too.
First off, there's tons more illustrations than I've seen on the 'Net. I saw some ones on the 'Net before, but the artbooks feature so much! They're so detailed and everything-- I just wish they'd included more 'original' artwork, like they did in the Prima Guide. The manga artwork is just stunning-- and it's funny at times too. Notes are as follows:
* Celine's hat is mostly yellow/gold, and there's no weird face on it.
* Claude is actually 'Crawd' in the official artbook. But then again, Precis is called 'Precis F Neuuman' (instead of Neumann). Plus, there's a part in the back with a comic in English that has Celine asking if Rena is 'writting' a novel (she's writing a letter to her mom). And one of the chapter covers, featuring Dias says 'A Feeiling Lag.' So... yeah, I don't trust their Engrish.
* There's several characters not in the anime (of course, since they cut off before the Energy Nede saga) featured in the artbook, and ones I don't believe are in the game. Usually what happens is, since a manga takes longer to produce, 'filler episodes' of the anime are created, featuring scenarios and characters never seen in the original manga. Here, it looks like it's the other way around. The anime never saw characters like Chisato, Noel, and the Ten Wise Men, but the manga has.
* I wish Filia were illustrated in here-- she's very beautiful in both the anime and the manga, though her part in the anime differs greatly from her part in the manga.
* Some of the characters in here not featured in the anime are apparently from the Drama CDs, which I'm hoping to either get my hands on (though 5 CDs of straight Japanese would be a pain in the ass to translate-- still, a challenge!) or find translations of. One of these characters is a cute chick that apparently has some animosity for Ashton (he looks pretty terrified/pissed of/at her), but I can't find a translation of her name. She looks Fellpoolian (like Leon!) There's also a green-haired wolf boy, along with a big baddie (also whose name I can't translate) and two other baddies, one of which is 'Lucifer,' while the other is a female that resembles Rena, but is... well, not (I THINK!)
* Apparently the storyline that extends into the game sequel, "Star Ocean: Blue Sphere" has its role in the manga AND the drama CDs. The illustrations so popularly associated with the Star Ocean 2: Blue Sphere game are found in the SECOND TREASURE artbook-- and they reveal that the characters have indeed aged, but haven't changed... much. Celine HAS hacked off much of her hair, so one wonders if she's still involved with Chris (Prince Clother of Cross) like she was in the manga (he was shadowed in the anime, and never made a real appearance)
* A few character seem to have 'color edits' in which their costumes and apperance are the same, but the colors are different. For Rena, she has a purple color edit (her normally blue-and-red outfit is changed into various shades of purple) and Celine's normal lavender gets darkened into a bluish-purple color, almost indigo. Ernest, Noel, and Chisato also appear to have color edits as well.
* There's this downright HILARIOUS image of the cast (Celine, Ashton, Precis, Leon, Claude, and Rena) at the beach-- Precis and Leon are playing in the water, Rena and Claude are on the outskirts of the image, and an embarassed Ashton is trying not to look at a topless Celine-- who's yelling at a watermelon-painted Bobot who just ran off with her bikini top! And Precis seems to be behind it too, since she's grinning while she controls the walking watermelon. ^_^ *snicker*
* You know how Leon has all those "books" in the game, like the Book of Chaos, the Book of Darkness, etc.? He has those in the manga too, as the images of the various books he holds change from illustration to illustration.
* The two dragons, Gyoro and Ururun can apparently evolve-- in the SECOND TREASURE image of Ashton, their appearance differs from those of them in earlier parts of the book, featuring Ashton and the dragons from the first half of the manga. Poor Ashton still looks quite unhappy though.
* Leon had a huge growth spurt between the first half of the manga and the second 'Blue Sphere' half. Bowman starts looking less like a married man (and professional physician) and more like Claude-- his jacket is even a bright green lined with leather! Chisato starts to look more professional and less 'sexy' (on purpose, that is) and dons a business suit look for the 2nd half of the manga (well, the 2nd half of the 2nd half that she's in!). Noel looks happier, and ditches his plain Earthy-color outfitting for some bright, almost circusy-clothes. Opera and Ernest remain mostly the same, though Opera gets more daring in a red version of her usual body gown. Her gun gets bigger, too. ^_^ Rena gets a new outfit too (I believe two, actually, though one might have just been a color edit of the original) where she looks like she's part of the Federation, in a tailored-yet-sci-fi-y jacket, with a yellow miniskirt and sheer drape. She gets taller boots too, somewhat reminiscent of something Sailormoon or Sailormercury might wear!
Okay, so Jtown Video HAS Eikoden, and it's $30. -.- But I didn't have enough, since I still have yet to drop off my film at Walgreen's (picked up my Grad Week film though, and Mom's camera from graduation and Helena's party) and such. Maybe later. But I still want to get...
* ConAir Triple Braider
* Cute purses I spied at Walgreen's for $4.99
* More of that One Night hair color for streaking (hair streaking, that is!) purposes.
As for the Unison OST, I went through a couple of game FAQs and got a songlist...the Japanese and the American English version. KazAa's being a bitch though, so who knows how long it'll take to get all the songs. I did get the original version of Apollo 440's "Can't Stop The Rock" though, and discovered a whole slew of Star Ocean soundtracks, including the original game soundtrack (with some cool tracks, though the snippets SUCKED, being *.rams), the SO2 Fantasy Megamix, the Arrange soundtrack (which, even with only 10 songs, is still over an hour long, and remixes several of the original tracks on the OST, despite its release being dated TWO WEEKS before the game OST), and of course, the original game OST. There's also 2 anime OSTs as well. @_@... wow...
Eh, I have to go to Safeway and get a bunch of stuff. If I decide to write anything more on games or music, I shall.
Oh yeah, FFnet's back up for me! Finally... and I uploaded my weird (aren't they always) oneshot for Sailormoon (for the SMRFF June 2003 Lyric Wheel), "Forever Never Ends," a lyric fic to Queen's "Who Wants To Live Forever." But it's in its beta stages, and I really want to revise it. But I have to get the SMRFF Usa Day layout and awards finished first, and work on MY pages as well... augh, so much to do!
*pout* I hope Jonathan calls tomorrow.
First off, there's tons more illustrations than I've seen on the 'Net. I saw some ones on the 'Net before, but the artbooks feature so much! They're so detailed and everything-- I just wish they'd included more 'original' artwork, like they did in the Prima Guide. The manga artwork is just stunning-- and it's funny at times too. Notes are as follows:
* Celine's hat is mostly yellow/gold, and there's no weird face on it.
* Claude is actually 'Crawd' in the official artbook. But then again, Precis is called 'Precis F Neuuman' (instead of Neumann). Plus, there's a part in the back with a comic in English that has Celine asking if Rena is 'writting' a novel (she's writing a letter to her mom). And one of the chapter covers, featuring Dias says 'A Feeiling Lag.' So... yeah, I don't trust their Engrish.
* There's several characters not in the anime (of course, since they cut off before the Energy Nede saga) featured in the artbook, and ones I don't believe are in the game. Usually what happens is, since a manga takes longer to produce, 'filler episodes' of the anime are created, featuring scenarios and characters never seen in the original manga. Here, it looks like it's the other way around. The anime never saw characters like Chisato, Noel, and the Ten Wise Men, but the manga has.
* I wish Filia were illustrated in here-- she's very beautiful in both the anime and the manga, though her part in the anime differs greatly from her part in the manga.
* Some of the characters in here not featured in the anime are apparently from the Drama CDs, which I'm hoping to either get my hands on (though 5 CDs of straight Japanese would be a pain in the ass to translate-- still, a challenge!) or find translations of. One of these characters is a cute chick that apparently has some animosity for Ashton (he looks pretty terrified/pissed of/at her), but I can't find a translation of her name. She looks Fellpoolian (like Leon!) There's also a green-haired wolf boy, along with a big baddie (also whose name I can't translate) and two other baddies, one of which is 'Lucifer,' while the other is a female that resembles Rena, but is... well, not (I THINK!)
* Apparently the storyline that extends into the game sequel, "Star Ocean: Blue Sphere" has its role in the manga AND the drama CDs. The illustrations so popularly associated with the Star Ocean 2: Blue Sphere game are found in the SECOND TREASURE artbook-- and they reveal that the characters have indeed aged, but haven't changed... much. Celine HAS hacked off much of her hair, so one wonders if she's still involved with Chris (Prince Clother of Cross) like she was in the manga (he was shadowed in the anime, and never made a real appearance)
* A few character seem to have 'color edits' in which their costumes and apperance are the same, but the colors are different. For Rena, she has a purple color edit (her normally blue-and-red outfit is changed into various shades of purple) and Celine's normal lavender gets darkened into a bluish-purple color, almost indigo. Ernest, Noel, and Chisato also appear to have color edits as well.
* There's this downright HILARIOUS image of the cast (Celine, Ashton, Precis, Leon, Claude, and Rena) at the beach-- Precis and Leon are playing in the water, Rena and Claude are on the outskirts of the image, and an embarassed Ashton is trying not to look at a topless Celine-- who's yelling at a watermelon-painted Bobot who just ran off with her bikini top! And Precis seems to be behind it too, since she's grinning while she controls the walking watermelon. ^_^ *snicker*
* You know how Leon has all those "books" in the game, like the Book of Chaos, the Book of Darkness, etc.? He has those in the manga too, as the images of the various books he holds change from illustration to illustration.
* The two dragons, Gyoro and Ururun can apparently evolve-- in the SECOND TREASURE image of Ashton, their appearance differs from those of them in earlier parts of the book, featuring Ashton and the dragons from the first half of the manga. Poor Ashton still looks quite unhappy though.
* Leon had a huge growth spurt between the first half of the manga and the second 'Blue Sphere' half. Bowman starts looking less like a married man (and professional physician) and more like Claude-- his jacket is even a bright green lined with leather! Chisato starts to look more professional and less 'sexy' (on purpose, that is) and dons a business suit look for the 2nd half of the manga (well, the 2nd half of the 2nd half that she's in!). Noel looks happier, and ditches his plain Earthy-color outfitting for some bright, almost circusy-clothes. Opera and Ernest remain mostly the same, though Opera gets more daring in a red version of her usual body gown. Her gun gets bigger, too. ^_^ Rena gets a new outfit too (I believe two, actually, though one might have just been a color edit of the original) where she looks like she's part of the Federation, in a tailored-yet-sci-fi-y jacket, with a yellow miniskirt and sheer drape. She gets taller boots too, somewhat reminiscent of something Sailormoon or Sailormercury might wear!
Okay, so Jtown Video HAS Eikoden, and it's $30. -.- But I didn't have enough, since I still have yet to drop off my film at Walgreen's (picked up my Grad Week film though, and Mom's camera from graduation and Helena's party) and such. Maybe later. But I still want to get...
* ConAir Triple Braider
* Cute purses I spied at Walgreen's for $4.99
* More of that One Night hair color for streaking (hair streaking, that is!) purposes.
As for the Unison OST, I went through a couple of game FAQs and got a songlist...the Japanese and the American English version. KazAa's being a bitch though, so who knows how long it'll take to get all the songs. I did get the original version of Apollo 440's "Can't Stop The Rock" though, and discovered a whole slew of Star Ocean soundtracks, including the original game soundtrack (with some cool tracks, though the snippets SUCKED, being *.rams), the SO2 Fantasy Megamix, the Arrange soundtrack (which, even with only 10 songs, is still over an hour long, and remixes several of the original tracks on the OST, despite its release being dated TWO WEEKS before the game OST), and of course, the original game OST. There's also 2 anime OSTs as well. @_@... wow...
Eh, I have to go to Safeway and get a bunch of stuff. If I decide to write anything more on games or music, I shall.
Oh yeah, FFnet's back up for me! Finally... and I uploaded my weird (aren't they always) oneshot for Sailormoon (for the SMRFF June 2003 Lyric Wheel), "Forever Never Ends," a lyric fic to Queen's "Who Wants To Live Forever." But it's in its beta stages, and I really want to revise it. But I have to get the SMRFF Usa Day layout and awards finished first, and work on MY pages as well... augh, so much to do!
*pout* I hope Jonathan calls tomorrow.
