Every once in a while, we may want to play a video game just for fun, rather than doing the usual stuff like blasting away the endless waves of bad dude with Big Gun™ or stratching our heads after that intricated plot thread which resulted in a mindfuck ending. We want a game where we can genuinely enjoy its charm while relaxing on our seats. Well guess what, I have this little indie game that just perfectly fitted  for you to play!

Botanicula is a point-and-click adventure game from Amanita Design, which some of you probably recognized by their previous work Machinarium. Just like Machinarium, Botanicula is a point-and-click game which you played by clicking stuff on the screen and solving puzzle to proceed to the next area. Point-and-click genre has been long known as one of the most popular genre on PC. Some older PC gamers can easily remember titles such as Monkey Island series or Maniac Mansion which were really popular back in the days.

Back to the topic. I enjoyed all of Amanita Design previous works. From Samorost to Samorost 2 to Machinarium, and also their several flash adventure games on browser. That's why I was really looking forward to Botanicula. After watching the trailer, I was rather surprised after noticing its design was more like Samorost's art style instead of Machinarium's. Not that it's bad or anything though but I always fond of Machinarium beautiful hand drawn art style.

While in Machinarium you are a small robot in a depressing steampunk world, the world in Botanicula is more colorful. In this game you control a group of five botanical creatures which are trying save the last seed of the tree of their home tree from this black evil thingy creature that look like that big ass spider from Limbo. And then you began your journey through different area to avoid that thing (actually those things because there were more) and met different unique creatures along the way. Like any other Amanita Design games, Botanicula has no dialogue (either written and spoken).

The puzzles themselves weren't too hard since they have less to do with the thought process of solving puzzles and more to do with figuring out what exactly needs to be done with those strange creatures which moves when you clicked on them (and of course, some pixel hunting too). In fact, they were easier than the puzzles in Machinarium and Machinarium's puzzles were already this easy. Well, that's why I said in the first paragraph that this game can be enjoyed when you relax in your free time without having to think too much. I finished it in two days with total play time around 4 hours. Yeah, it was short but totally worth it.

The soundtrack is one of the strong points in Botanicula. It was done by Czech alternative band called DVA and these guys knew how to make perfect tunes for this game. The music in Botanicula can't help but made you feel relaxed during the playthrough. It was the kind of music that made my body feels lighter when I listen to the tune:



Botanicula is such an unique experience, at least for me, because how it tried to suck the player into its own beautiful world that filled with charm and successful in doing it. I commend those guys at Amanita Design for its imaginative visuals and sounds. It might be true that Botanicula won't be easily called as an example of 'modern classic' in point-and-click adventure genre like Machinarium did but at least it earned a special place in my heart forever as one of the most charming video game I've ever experienced.
"War. War never changes." -- Fallout series

Now and Then, Here and There (or Ima, Soko ni Iru Boku in glorious nihon tounge) is one of those anime I constantly found on the list of 'classic anime you must watch' everytime someone made one. I myself was quite excited to watch this series since I got this Kino no Tabi (my favorite anime ever!) vibe when I looked at the art. Luckily a few days ago I had some free time on my hands and I was like, 'well why the hell not' and proceed to marathoned this series.

My first impression of this anime, I must say, was pretty indifferent. The main character is your generic shonen protagonist with nothing to lose personality (don't really want to say it, but he reminds me of Naruto). One day he met a emotionless mysterious girl with blank look sitting on the top of smokestack and suddenly shit happened: some people appeared out of a sphere-like light and trying to capture the girl. Being a typical shonen protagonist he is, Shu (the boy's name) did his best to protect Lala-Ru (the girl). He eventually failed, but he succeeded in getting transported along with those people to another world.

The place he ended up was called "Hellywood" which ruled by a tyrant with silly haircut named Hamdo. Before he knew it Shu already trapped in a harsh world where children kidnapped from their village and trained as soldier in Hellywood military. Hamdo was apparently trying to conquer the planet and declaring war against other villages. Later other characters were introduced such as Nabuca and Boo, two kid soldiers from Hellywood army; and Sara, a girl from the same world as Shu who probably had the worst fate in this show.

At first there's nothing special about this anime yet. That's it until you learned horrible things Hamdo had done all these times. It also showed us how war can affect a person's life and screwed it up so bad. Brutal things happened in this show, either implied or explicitly shown. It wasn't that kind of 'in-your-face' violence but more like what would actually happen during the war times. In that way, I must say this anime is very realistic.

The story is not really deep by any chance but it's really powerful and emotional engaging. I also like the overall 'teenager got mysteriously transported into another world' theme that reminds me of adventure video game "The Longest Journey" which has similar theme. I also happen to like adventure genre in general so this  anime gets additional point for that.

I don't want to go into technical detail but at least the music in this anime needs to get mentioned. The music is amazing. From the opening theme to background music until the ending, everything was great. That's all I need to say.

For my overall enjoyment, MAL reviewer Prede has better words for it:
This is not an anime you will "enjoy" as a form of entertainment. This is not an action show, this is not a comedy, this is some serious stuff! This is an anime that will be hard to re-watch because it is very depressing, very dark, and very distrubing. But this is an anime you will be very happy you watched. This is an anime that truly uses the medium to it's full advantage, much in the same way Grave of the Fireflies did. I can't imagine watching this as a live action movie, or reading it as a book. Anime is the perfect medium for this story. It may be a little too dark and depressing for some, but if you have the strength to finish it, you will look back at it and say "that was amazing". 
That was truly a great watch. I'm glad to be an anime fan.
HAHAHA OH WOW. DAT TROLL ENDING. I always know that spider girls are evil. 10/10 would watch again. It's the closest thing we can get to a real monster girl anime.

PS. Hey guys, I'm back from my blogging hiatus (kinda) and ready to blog more silly cartoon with my shitty writing! Kindly stop by my blog, will ya!
Lancer why are you so fuckin' hot? Too bad next week will probably the last time we see him ;__;

Man, this episode once again blew my mind. It has the right amount of action scenes which is awesome. However it was the scene above that I found touching. Diarmuid is a true knight. But as always, being Lancer is suffering. Another one thing that I want to point out is the fight between Tokiomi and Kariya. That fight is supposed to be emotional but instead it was just a plain pathetic fight. Also, looking forward to the duel of kings, Gilgamesh vs Iskandar. Not in a near time though.
Hell yeah, another good one from Space Bros. This time it involved Mutta got anal'd. Not once, but twice! This episode made me FEEL SO MOON that rainbows start to come out of my nose.

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