I’ve been a fan of the anime series Slayers for many years. Hell, I have the whole 1st series in VHS. Recently I have discovered that my favorite series has been revived in DVD form! Last summer, funimation had re-released the original series onto dvd, digitally remastered & all that jazz. So now  that I have a chance to get back into the Slayers groove, I need to go over what’s out there to absorb.

It breaks down into 5 areas of entertainment:
TV Anime, Movies, OVA’s, Manga & Novels

TV: 5 Series (seasons)
Slayers - 26 eps (1995) (Watch official stream on YouTube!)
Slayers Next - 26 eps (1996) (Watch official stream on YouTube!)
Slayers Try - 26 eps(1997)
Slayers Revolution - 13 eps (2008)
Slayers Evolution-R 13 eps (2009)

Movies
Slayers the Motion Picture - 65 min (1995) Original storyline
Slayers Return - 60 min (1996)
Slayers Great - 60 min (1997)
Slayers Gorgeous - 60 min (1998)
Slayers Premium - 35 min (2001)

OVA’s
Slayers Special - 90 min total (1996) Based on Slayers Special manga.
Slayers Excellent - 90 min total (1999) Based on Slayers Special manga.

Novels (the basis for the series- later converted into anime & manga)

Manga
There’s quite a few different “series”… I don’t know where to stat that list, but on manga fox there’s a few to read:
Slayers Revolution
Slayers: Light Magic
Slayers: Suiriyuuou no Kishi (Knight of the AquaLord)

I finally got My Japanese Coach a week or so ago, & I absolutely love it! It starts off with a placement quiz, and I just played dumb to just start at the beginning. Others have said that if you’re not good with hiragana, then you’ll just start at lesson 1. I’ve also read that it’s not good at placing advanced speakers. (My thought is that if you’re that good, you won’t need this game. Use it as refresher perhaps…)

You start off with a few vocab lessons, then some kana, and some grammar. In order to unlock the next lesson, you must master each word from the lesson you are currently in by playing games & earning points. If while playing the game,  you get an answer wrong or mess up, you’ll get less points for that word. Makes sense.

Each lesson will give you new words, with a chance to listen to them being said, you can then either write them, of record your own voice to compare to the speakers’.

The 1st section of lessons goes from 1-29 (of 1000 total!) As of this posting, I’m only up to Lesson 21.

1. Basic Words
2. Pronunciation
3. Numbers
4. Colors
5. Days of the Week
6. Kana 1
7. Months
8. Kana 2
9. Pronouns
10. Kana 3
11. Desu
12. Desu Tenses
13. Kana 4
14. Questions
15. Numbers 2
16. Number 3
17. Kana 5
18. Greetings
19. Verbs in Sentences
20. Kana 6
21. Informal Verbs

As you progress through the lessons you “travel” across Japan, and while on the map screen picking you lessons, there’s a paragraph of info on the top. (Lessons 16-20 are at Puroland!)

Also as you progress you unlock new games. The first ones you get are Multiple Choice, a Whack-a-mole game, and a word search.  By lesson 21, I have 5 or 6 games to pick from.

There’s also a reference section with lots of great phrases if you’re goin to travel in Japan.

All in all, it’s a great game for beginners, & It’s supplementing my class nicely. We’re covering different things in class, but the game is really helping with my writing. The Write Cards games make me think. ^_^;

My only beef with it currently is that when playing any of the games that require you to write kana, you can’t erase. Once you make a mistake, you can’t correct it & will have to do a game again to get the points needed to master the word.

Score:
4/5 Kitties

I love Halloween!

So have a Happy one! Don’t eat too much candy!

If you are in the video game section of most stores you’ll see at least 1 of the My _____ Coach games for DS. They have SAT prep, other languages , a version to increase your vocabulary, and even a weightless coach.

IGN gives a release date of 10/14, and at 29.99 it seems like agood deal in comparison ot electronic disctionaries & all that.

Here’s some Key Points from Amazon:

Key Features

Explore Japan as each point of interest opens up your vocabulary

• Lesson plans take place within interesting locations ranging from Tokyo to the country side
• Useful information for first time Japanese speakers planning to visit the country
• The world map is identical to the Japanese map and the locations of the country

Learn to pronounce sounds unique to Japanese by comparing your voice to a native speaker

• Voice recording and playback feature of the DS allows the player to compare his or her accent to a native Japanese speaker
• Ability to listen and compare phrases not just words but also phrases as well

Develop your calligraphy skills as you trace over animations showing the proper way to write in Japanese

• Write Japanese characters using the DS stylus and touch screen
• Stroke order and comparison ability allows players to properly write hiragana / katakana / kanji

Participate in mini-games that will test your grasp of the structured lessons featured in the game

• 12 mini-games reinforce lesson plans and the ability to write in Japanese
• Variety of mini games ranging from whack-a-mole, word search, bridge builder, and kanji writing

Use the built in reference tool to look up useful words and phrases

• Japanese Dictionary and phrasebook with over 12,000 Japanese words and hundreds of useful phrases
• Strong reference points and serves as an independent tool from the game that’s very practical and useful

This won’t be the only resource you’ll need to learn Japanese, (like someone said on the gamestop site) but it’ll be a fun way to supplement the other tools you’re using now. This game won’t make you fluent in Japanese, but it’ll help for sure.

The HKO Founder’s beta opens today, at 10pm EST.

For anyone that also got in, I’ll most likely be Arcsis in game, so feel free to say hi!

The game is available for download via bit torrent, which is a program that lets you download bits of it from other people. It’s less taxing on the servers to do it this way instead of a traditional download. With a file that’s as big as this (1.85 gbs!) a normal download is insane. This makes it crucial that people seed (the BT term for sharing)

So please, Please, PLEASE seed!

Leave bit torrent & your computer on for as long as you can to let others download it too.

HKO reccommends using utorrent (which is what I use)

If this thing even finishes, I’ll see you all in game!

HKO Site   |   HKO Blog

I got Chocobo Tales last weekend & let me tell you, It’s wicked fun! I’ve always loved the Final Fantasy Chocobos, and this game serves `em up with extra helpings of kawaii.

I’ve read several reviews that said that square-enix did some research & found that younger players liked chocobo the best of all the FF characters. So they made this Chocobo game for that target audience. If you’re not in that age group, never fear this is still a hugely entertaining game for anyone, especially if you’re a fan of the FF series.

Basically, it’s a full game of minigames. (And microgames!)

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With the 3.0.1 patch on the horizon I, like many others, have opted to take up herbalism to help up-and-coming inscribers (and to make a bit of coin ourselves :D)

There’s plenty of guides out there describing what you need. This will be another one.

The word on the street is that you’ll need lots of herbs to complete this task, that much is obvious. At this point you’ll only need old world herbs because until the Wrath of the Lich King, this skill only goes to 300.

Everything in inscription requires ink, which you acquire from pigments that are milled from the different levels of herbs. Milling is a lot like prospecting in Jewelcrafting. Milling takes a stack of 5 herbs, from which it can get up to 5 pigments (but is usually closer to 2-3.) The pigments are then used to make ink to make scrolls & glyphs.

To get from 1-300 you’ll need many stacks or each pigment level of herb, beacuse milling uses so many.

As an herbalist that’s not taking up Inscription, we’ve got lots of old-school zones to revisit. Keep in mind the numbers of stacks are for 1 inscriber. There’s lots of herbs needed, and therefore lots of gold to be made!
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I was a bit bored, so I made a video of Stormwind Harbor on the PVE PTR.
Alt links in case the embed dies: Youtube | Sanriotown

This is a bunch of screens showing off the menus & other features.
Be sure to click on anything you want to see up close! They’ll open in a new window, fullsize.

That’s Me, my pet Sheep (O.o) at my farm. I’m growing Strawberries & watermelons! So freaking cool!