Yesterday was my birthday.

[tsubasahome]

I got some silly drama CDs and some yarn. And sushi.

I'm not going to talk too much about the Tales of Legendia drama CDs, but I'm glad they were gag CDs, because serious CDs based on Tales games have a tendency to be horribly boring. Though I certainly wouldn't let a kid listen to them(especially not the first one, with the frequent appearance of Moses Jr. and all) It's also nice that the second CD has the missing tracks from the soundtrack. Heh heh. I think they were about as good as that Tales of Phantasia gag CD, but even more tasteless(but in a funny way!) My only complaints are that 1) Mimmy Bread is really damn annoying and I can't understand why anybody would find her funny(granted, this was true in the game as well), and 2) As with most boy characters with female voice actors, without the benefit of video I needed to suspend my disbelief about Jay being a boy. ^^;; Because it's one thing having the girly voiced boy in game, and another to have said character's voice broadcast directly into your eardrums! Granted, I do like Jay's voice, and I think it suits him(it actually looks like it should be coming out of him, unlike with his English voice), but...well...in the emotional scenes he really sounds like a lady! I remember having the same problem with Tobi in Noein(who shares a seiyuu with Jay and sounds exactly like him). Granted, if they were really girls, everybody would say that they sounded too boyish!

Wow...didn't I just say I wasn't going to talk a lot about that CD?

Well, there are a lot of girly-voiced males Tales characters who sound weirder than Jay, though! Like Ion, and Synch, and Ion... Mao didn't even remotely sound like a boy.

I finished Persona 3 a few days ago.

Well...I won't say that it's a bad game at all, because it's very fun to play, and it's well worth the money, but...I found the story and characters to be very disappointing. The story was really weak and at times felt like the writers were pressed for time and just plagiarized big chunks of story from popular anime(like Evangelion) I liked some of the community characters/storylines, but the actual playable characters ranged from hateful(Yukari, Junpei) to uninteresting (Mitsuru, Akihiko, Fuuka) to completely superfluous (Amada, Koromaru). They didn't even bother to go into Akihiko's "tragic" past--all you get is a vague mention. I found Fuuka's characterization to be really unconvincing--she's this timid, bullied girl who actually considered dropping out of society, but she seems completely well adjusted and friendly, has no resentments toward anybody, only vaguely says that she doesn't fit in at her house and other than that, nothing. She's a completely flat character. And her voice is very annoying. Mitsuru is basically Nanjo plus T&A. Except Nanjo had to deal with being a misfit as well, instead of being this impossibly beautiful/rich/stylish school idol. The villains were so underdeveloped that I'm surprised I remembered their names. I didn't find Junpei's relationship with Chidori to be touching at all--basically this annoying loser guy starts stalking the generic personality free Gothic Lolita girl, and acting like he's so important because he has a girl, and of course she falls for him...ugh ugh ugh. I don't want to talk about Yukari--I hate her too much. She makes Lisa from Persona 2 seem like a nice girl.

Maybe the plot/characters would appeal to the younger anime otaku, because that's who the game seems like its geared toward. It doesn't have the style of the earlier games. It makes Innocent Sin with the crazy Nazi garbage and aliens seem like it has a mature plot.

This game was obviously not made for Persona fans. It was probably an attempt to attract a younger, more anime-obsessed audience. I thought the series was supposed to be about coming to terms with your issues and finding your true self, not being a cheap Eva ripoff. Sigh. I wouldn't say that Kuzunoha Raidou was the superior game, but at least it had a soul.