Tag: Match

Animini: Hikaru no Go Episode 24: Akira Vs. The Oza

The Merriest of mornings to you my dear Island Guests.  My anime adventures this week have been.. lackluster, with a great start on Monday but after that it’s .. been .. okay. Luckily Hikaru no Go lifts the level with another amazing episode and I do mean amazing there is just so much to appreciate in this episode again. So many layers and subtle insinuations. I really love that a lot about this show and this episode might even take it to another level.

The Summary

I have said before that I have trouble writing a summary but this one leaves me in quite a pickle. The entire episode is dedicated to the match between Akira and Oza and through clever dialogue , facial tics and looks  we can tell how the match is going. As someone who can not play Go and has no real idea how the territories work still I am quite amazed with how I can follow a match on so many levels. Not only do the students and pro’s following the match offer exposition we also get told about facial tics of Oza while we already know Akira’s!  Thus we constantly see a shift in balance. Akira and Oza are having a very close match while Hikaru tries to move through his own match to watch the spectacle himself. 

Hikaru soon wins his match but is kept in place.. by formalities. Meanwhile we see Akira make plays that challenge Hikaru to come closer as it were.. almost as if he is taunting him.  Hikaru finally walks into the specating room just in time to see one of the final taunts before the match balance begins to shift. Akira is put on the backfoot after dominating for a while. However  He is not satisfied anymore with just winning.. he wants to soar beyond Hikaru’s reach and begins to play super aggressively.  For a brief moment he seems to put Oza on the backfoot again. Yet as the onlookers are distracted by the fact that it is starting to snow outside..then  Oza strikes back.. and finishes off Akira.. forcing him to resign and now having been defeated by not just Sai but by Oza as well.. how he reacts happens off camera.

The Positives

This episode really did a lot for me! I loved this episode! It was so subtle in everything. Let’s begin with the way how the music alternates between its three main themes. The Heroic theme signalling how strong Akira is playing, the excitement team signalling he is losing ground and the sad theme to clarify the match has been fought.. but what was strongest was the end for me. No emotions no reactions, when the match is over.. we do not get tears.. we get no prolongation of the sad theme. We get silence.. with just a visual of snow falling in the background. It tells us how Akira will feel.. without showing us… without making us hear it from his mouth directly. The visual of the snow beginning to fall.. almost as the white stones Oza is using on the board almost seems like a omen.. of Akira’s defeat .. it makes sense and it puts levels in perspective. Akira has lost to one of the strongest players out there..but he did not get washed such as was the case against Sai.. leaving us with the notion that Akira IS not infallible and it keeps Hikaru’s dream alive and probably also keeps Akira from turning into a full on Antagonistic character.

What might be better is how subtle we are once again clued on Hikaru’s amazing progress.  He fought the same girl he had his first match against (I think)  the one he lost to pretty badly. Now he manages to win.. but that is not even it’s true strength. Hikaru plays this match very distracted yet he still won. He is SO good now that he  can beat the girl he lost to initially while being distracted, once again showing how insanely fast Hikaru progresses.  The way  he looks at Akira’s match.. wanting him to soar once again makes him a bit of a counterpart to Akira. Where Touya is shown to at least pretend to want to blow Hikaru completely out of the water and to  become unreachable , Hikaru wants Akira to do well.. yet we also see him kind of content.. not at first.. but we see him go outside and be a bit of a kid again. Almost as if we see him allow himself to take a bit of breath. I do really like how subtle everything is but also how there is such a sense of progress even when it’s not about our main character.. we still get that amazing measuring stick.

The Negatives

The show is super subtle it does tend to juggle with too many characters, Akiri, Mitani, Tsutsui all seem to have completely vanished.. and while I hope we will see some of them again, I do think a few of the new characters aren’t as strong. I still don’t know how that guy besides Waya is called. He is never referred to by his name except for maybe once or twice subtelly.  He has his own arc like thing though .. with his wish to be a pro and his time as an Insei coming to an end. Touya’s older friend is there as well.. but again I do not have a good idea of his name.. he is just there to spectate. There are many people active here.. and while it makes sense for so many to be interested in Akira and I do remember the characters but they have a bit of that “who the heck are these guys”  vibe.

While the visual references in this episode are great,  there is a bit of a lack of pisaz sort  of speak. The snow falls against a pitch black sky No details. We get very sterile and clean environments, and sometimes characters lack detail when there really is no need for them to lack such detail. I get it’s school and it will look clean.. but everything looks just a bit too clean. The match part between Akira and Oza is fine for a location where we spend almost half an episode I at least would like just a BIT more of “set dressing”  I get it from a manga panelling sense that lacks a whole lot more space but the backgrounds can be a bit bland. Add an interesting cat poster.. or  a ticking clock on the background.. a mani neko or heck even some transparent images of the match you are talking about. Saki and Beyblade are examples on how boring scenes can be made more interesting.. If people talk in imagery down in the stands we get these detailed still shots.. for example they say Akits is on the offense.. in Saki or Beyblade they would have depicted him as a Samurai running in for an attack. While it clashes with the subtle tone of the rest I don’t think it would be detrimental as the worlds already are spoken.. no need to be subtle about that. Offer us an interesting visual to break that monotony.

The Score 

While that last point might seem like a big negative.. it isn’t really. I enjoy the show thoroughly so that last point doesn’t keep this episode from getting my highest score. After all I deeply enjoyed this episode. It is simply a discourse between the genius moments in the show and the “regular” exposition. Like I said this show is very VERY good on  cinematic level..when something is going on… when LESS is going on the show can feel a bit… on a budget…and while it doesn’t make me enjoy the episode less I do  realise it has the potential to do better. Both itself and other shows not that much older show how it can be done. Cowboy Bebop which is even older has a lot of grey visuals as well but it just adds something in the picture so a background is always interesting, so it’s more that I want more of a good thing than I think this is bad.

I thoroughly like  the outcome of this match.. but like I said last week.. it has been set up to not really matter.. or so I thought..the implications for Hikaru made me enjoy this episode so much more! The clever little hints on what is going on really sing! When it began snowing I first felt like… awww shit Akira is going to lose.. and when the music stopped I was like .. Holy Arceus.. he really did lose!  Followed by.. Oh wait this is actually really good at Hikaru.. aww look at that he is so happy and Hikaru isn’t losing who he is just in this pursuit.. this was an important match! I am happy! This is a good episode.. This is better than a good episode. I hope this show can keep it up!

Pinkie’s Who Would Win: Naruto VS Luffy

Hello my dear island guests. It is time for yet another new series on my blog. It’s all based around a simple question. A question anime fan ask all the time! Who would win? Now of course Pinkie’s Paradise is a haven of peace and joy! Gladiatorial combat will not be part of it. Ram would have to much cleaning to do! That’s right she stayed! So instead for each face down we let our combatants duke it out in more mundane situations. This time the Gum Gum Pirate and the Nine Tailed Ninja duke it out…. in my game-room!

<This post features some atmospheric music suggestions found below each segment title viewing this post on the actual site is recommended for the full experience>

The Challenge

Of course the challenge will vary every installment of this. Combatants are allowed to use their abilities and we take into account how their mindset works. By placing them in a much more humble situation we do not need to do some math to find out that Luffy punches with the power of one octillion ton of tnt or having to go to weird science to show that Naruto’s beast bomb can blow up the moon.. which is more than Luffy can handle or something! No! These fights would cause planetary devastation and that’s not nice!  We would pick something you and I could compete in and feasibly win against them, why? Because that is how we make friends with them! Also I think it’s a bit more of an original idea than just analyzing their abilities or letting people vote who would win! This is more on brand for me.

Culling the competition!

So how do we place a flexible man and a duplicating man on equal level? Well it is very simple! We call in the help of Nintendo! In februari 1999 a game of theirs released that could test how flexible your hand was, how fast you could tab buttons and how strategical one can be! It forces people to work together..as well as against one another.  Today we will find out who of these two will be our Superstar. That is right! We are playing Mario Party. Now there are a lot of Mario Parties to choose from and the winner may depend on our choice. Obviously the ones with the car would bore both to death.. as those are proper mario party games. To keep things a bit simple.. I decided to go with the first game. This way there can always be a rematch, should there need be one!

The Set-Up

Luffy and Naruto would meet in an epic staredown, but smiling, both be handed their N64 controllers for the first time. Immediately we see a difference between our two contestants. Naruto like any normal human being has difficulty  holding this weird spaceship shaped controller, while Luffy wraps his hand around it with ease! The Rubber-Devil-Fruit Powers are coming in clutch already! Now since Naruto is Japanese he will hold the controller by the middle prong, tiny hands and all that, as the N64 controllers were designed that you could hold it depending on our hand size or what stuff you needed. Since the D-pad is barely needed in this game Naruto is not to disadvantaged but Luffy struggles less when needing to switch positions and has an advantage in minigames.

Now it’s onto selecting their characters, this doesn’t give them a advantage… or does it?  Luffy would as mentioned before have less trouble with the controller and would be able to select his character first. Choosing Yoshi.Why? Because I believe Luffy would get excited of having a dinosaur as a Nakama. Naruto who saw the frog like features of Yoshi would have most likely picked him as well but now decides to choose Peach. A choice which will come into play later.  Donkey Kong and Wario would be selected as the computer controlled opponents, as both tend to fight villains and these two are the closest to that..even if they are thinking of the wrong Donkey Kong. 

Now for a board they will select DK’s Jungle Adventure. Luffy would be to distracted by the cake .. in Princess Peach level and Luffy would not want to give Luffy the advantage of duking it out on a tropical island, as a pirate, islands like that would be Luffy’s favored terrain. They would consider the Wario Stage for a bit but both have had their fair share of war and are not to keen on reliving it.  Which brings me to what versions of both characters we use. We use both their “young adult” post time skip forms with most of their abilities intact. However transformation states are not allowed. So no foxfire Naruto and no Geared up Luffy. 

The First Half

Immediately after the turn order is decided,  Luffy tries to activate his conquers Haki to knock Naruto out or gage his inner strength, which obviously would not knock out Naruto but would knock out just about everyone else on the island… maybe if Irina is visiting she would have already been knocked out by the cocktails beforehand. This action does come back to bite Luffy in the posterior though. Now that there is no one to tell them how to play the actual game.

Naruto is much more likely to pick up video games more natural than Luffy. His world is a lot more contemporary than Luffies. Just less for ninja’s .. however there are computers and technology in his world. Additionally Naruto is less obsessed with his goal. While in his free time Luffy would eat, train or think of what new Nakama he wants to at, Naruto would actually spend his free time more “normally” making it much more likely he can slip into the right mindset. As a result in the first five rounds of mini games or so, Naruto would most likely come out on top, though perhaps still losing to the A.I. ..at least in the first two games.

In the second quarter of the game however we will see a much more balanced and equal game.  Luffy would use his gum gum arms to completely dominate the stick spin minigames, (these are mini games where you rapidly spin your analog stick around to win a minigame) and Naruto would use his shadow clones to win the rapid button presses minigames, however since Luffy is cute used to his Gum Gum Gatling Gun.. he develops a finger technique based on it called the Gum Gum Mini gun as he gains ground on Naruto. Having two clones aid with button presses is less effective than a flurry of rubbery fingers, so it looks like the most minigame award would go to Luffy. 

There is a reason that Naruto chose Peach. He readies his ultimate distraction technique as he asks Luffy. “Can you see my character”  he uses his Sexy-No-Jutsu to transform into a bikini Peach. This distraction would work, for about two minigames. Not because Luffy got a nosebleed.. but because he is super excited that he now might be able to add a Genderfluid-Ninja Nakama to his team and become Pirate King for sure.  Naruto would tease Luffy for long enough to win a couple of games and take some momentum back.

Luffy gets excited about a cool trick he sees!

The Second Half

In the second half of the game Luffy would recover, Sanji would somehow burst in and begin to swoon over Naruto causing him to turn back and yell at the chef. Where he came from nobody knows.. but when there is a half naked girl he just would show up. Luffy is gaining more and more advantages in minigames.  In games like Bumper Balls, where you try to bounce each other of a small island using big rubber balls for example would be akin to physics Luffy is very familiar with, there are a few similar games like swimming around a rubber hammer and other things. 

However in the water based games Luffy is a bit overly careful and ends up losing more than once.  For some reason in the bonus game you can dive up treasures he manages to get his character down under water.. but he can’t get it back up, not because he really can’t but because he believes he can’t .  As a result Luffy is not very good at the bonus games that allow you to earn more than 10 coins.. as a large part of them include water. Around turn 15, Luffy has won about 8 minigames, Naruto won 5 and the NPC’s have won two. However since Naruto wins the bonus games.. he would most likely still have the most coins…it doesn’t really help that Luffy likes to land on red spaces as that is is defining colour.

Team games are alway won by Luffy.. if Naruto is in his team or not.. he is very good at working with other people, while Naruto technically should he is much more a I need to do this guy. Something that really developed more after his time skip. Luffy is having more fun than Naruto, he lands on more question mark spaces and would luck out more having three stars where Naruto only has one. He is enjoying himself so much he loses sight of the tactical aspect of the match, as Luffy is prone to be distracted. 

This will end up costing him dearly in the final five turns, coins are ample except with Luffy who keeps spending them. Still seeing Naruto as a potential Nakama he shows him kindness and doesn’t steal from him using Boo. The Water 7 arc shows how easy to forgive Luffy can be and in general he really treats his friends well. Now Naruto  is not a bad person but he had Sakura tell she had feelings for him even if she did not and his best friend betrayed the village.He also wants to knock sense into said friend…destroy his goals and motivations and drag him back to the village. He also has more drive to win. Naruto has been in way more petty competitions than the stretchy pirate and he wants to win them all, while Luffy is more prone to see non essential competitions as “fun”

This will result in Naruto tactically allowing an NPC to steal a star first, as Luffy has the most he would always be the target of the NPC.Naruto holds off until this has happened to snipe a star of Luffy as well, planning it out as close to the final turn as possible, just to end up using his coin lead to buy himself an additional star as well. Luffy who is just having fun would tactically not be prepared for this being considerably less intelligent compared to Naruto. While both are tactically about equal in combat, Naruto’s time with Shikamaru makes him much more likely to pick up some of the strategic skills needed here. He has also displayed them more in finding enemy bases and plans where Luffy usually shouts enemies out of hiding or creates other ruckus.

The betrayal would anger Luffy and cause him to go all out in the last phase. Activating his armament Haki for more rigid button presses and even faster spinning. Most of the future pirate king’s  big fights end with an enraged Luffy giving it his all. This can result in either two things of which the latter is more likely to me! Luffy completely dominates the last two minigames crushing all former records OR he accidentally breaks the analogue stick or buttons during a flurry of matches and in actuality losing the last two matches due to controller failure. Since normal people already break N64 controllers when Mario Partying to zealously, this would be the scenario I’d think would unfold with angry Luffy as well.

The Super Star

Now that the match is over it is time for the bonus stars.  First of is the minigame star, a bonus star that has been present since game one. This would be very close since Luffy won more mini games but really struggled with bonus games..because his fear of water. Naruto would have won less but he is more money aware than Luffy and would have  bested him in the bonus mini games, partially due to more natural gamer instincts part due to a lack of fear. Wether or not the controller broke for Luffy during the end phase will decide whoever wins this bonus star. Which in fairness would be more likely to be Luffy so we will give this star to him.

The Happening Star is a bonus star that would be awarded to those who landed on the most green event spaces. This would definitely go to Luffy, he is much more prone to experiment on a games board and just see what happens if he goes on that square. Naruto oftenly being short on cash would prioritise blue spaces and getting cash..because he also is put on the backhand of minigames.


The Coin Star would be close again but I feel like this would end up going to Naruto, even though he spend more money than Luffy. Here is my “math” for that.  During an average math on DK Jungle you can buy about 5 ish stars. Due to him dominating in the Minigames I gave Luffy 3 and Naruto 2. However Naruto spend 50 coins to steal a star of Luffy as well. So Naruto spends 90 coins and Luffy 60. From minigames Luffy wins somewhere close to the 150 mark the Ninja boy not being that far behind due to the bonus minigames paying out a lot more. However where Luffy would explore a board and see what stuff does, plus he likes his icon being red I feel on the board Naruto would easily make double of what Luffy makes.  Easily compensating for the 30 coins he spend more. Luffy would want to try out a bowser square just to see what it would do and from that alone losing that amount of coins is fairly easy. The fact that Bowser is on this board and sells you fake golden banana figures for 10 coins is something I feel Luffy would also fall for more than once thus Naruto ends up with the most coins.

Now depending on how RNG went four likely scenarios can unfold.

–Naruto did not manage to buy a second star after stealing Luffies, because he needs to time it close to the end if the game, in which both players would end up with three stars.
–The NPC blundered and did not steal a star, in which case both the heroes would end up with four stars.
–Naruto’s strategy worked completely, in which case he would end up on 4 stars and Luffy on Three.
–The NPC would fail to steal a star, and Naruto would have bad rolls on the final dice and not make it to his third star. In which case Naruto would end up with 3 stars and Luffy would take 4.
Now it would seem that we have two ties and and one victory for both, but in Mario Party in case of a tie the victory goes to he who holds the most coins. So in most of our simulations ..victory would go to the blond boy! Naruto is the super star!

Now I hope you all enjoyed this first edition of Who Would Win! How do you think should win?! What type of match up would you like to see you next? I had a blast making this post so there will be a lot more of these!
I shall all wish you an amazing day and will leave you with the teaser for the next one.