Birdy the Mighty: A Wonderful Surprise and Major Inspiration

So, a few days ago I unwittingly discovered this gem of an anime. I’d hit a bit of an art block with regards to my game project, not really sure where I wanted to go with it or what kind of game I wanted it to be. I knew I wanted it to be a retro-feeling sidescrolling platformer with tons of unique and colourful characters and ideas, but aside from the design of the protagonist and the main gameplay elements, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with the story or how to go about filling out such a vibrant world surrounding him. While pondering these problems, I was listening to some random anime and video game OSTs in the background, since I sometimes also get inspired by coming across great music. That’s when I discovered the main theme to a show I’d never heard of before but now love:

This is the main theme for the anime, Birdy the Mighty: DECODE, although I didn’t know it at the time. All I knew is that I fell in love with the song, and played it over and over before I finally decided to look more into the show itself; a decision which I will never regret. It’s hard to explain, but the song gave off the same kind of feelings of action, adventure, fun and excitement that I wanted to give off in my game with it’s characters, story and most importantly, gameplay. After listening to the song, I immediately felt the familiar feeling of inspiration and the creative juices in my brain flowing through and started working out what I wanted my game to be like.

To get that feeling of adventure, I needed a big world to travel around, and an even bigger quest for the hero to complete.

To get that feeling of excitement, I needed a quest that would involve a lot of action, danger, and most importantly, fun.

And to get that feeling of fun, I needed to fill that world with vibrant and colorful characters to guide the player through the adventure.

And that’s how I eventually settled on the final concept for my game project. Just in case you missed it, here it is:
Curtis and Calvin Yang are a legendary, father-son archaeology duo, investigating ancient mysteries, recovering lost treasures and discovering historic monuments all over the world. Take control of Calvin the rat as he travels across a world of adventure in search of ancient artifacts to find a kingdom lost for centuries, using a simple yoyo to get around, fight enemies and explore 13 sprawling, danger-filled levels. He won’t be tackling this adventure alone; his elderly father Curtis will be supporting him all the way, and a mysterious group of Zodiac-themed villains will be doing all they can to crush them both.

I probably would have never made up my mind about what direction to take my game in had I not indulged in the wonderfully epic funkiness of the Birdy the Mighty main theme. In fact, I’m listening to it as I type this blog entry 😀 It’s just so catchy!

The show itself was a wonderful ride as well. It tells the story of an intergalactic police officer, Birdy Cephon Altera, sent to earth to track down some alien criminals hiding amongst the human populace. In a fateful battle against one of the criminals, Birdy accidentally kills an innocent human boy. He manages to survive, however, but the once normal Tsutomu Senkawa now finds himself sharing a body (and life) with the feisty space officer Birdy while his original body is repaired by her superiors – one body, two minds. In the meantime, however, he’s forced to tag along with her on her investigation as she battles against evil aliens and a plot that could end in the extinction of the human race.

If that doesn’t sound like an awesome concept then I don’t know what is. It’s a great show full of action and comedy, and it has a surprisingly gripping plot as well. I’d recommend it to any anime fan out there and encourage everyone to check out this underrated gem.

Why Does Anime Food Always Look So Darn GOOD?

Today, I decided to do something special for lunch. There’s a little ramen shop on 18th street that serves authentic, delicious Japanese cuisine; I would know, as I’ve been there several times. I ordered a regular sized miso bowl with an egg and when I got it, my mouth started watering almost immediately. It looked so GOOD! Exactly like all the imposibly delicious looking ramen bowls I’ve seen in all of the anime I’ve ever watched.

Then I suddenly found myself thinking: why does all food look so darn delicious in anime? I mean, I can’t smell it since it’s only an animation, and it still looks somewhat cartoony. But still, just look for yourself:

Most of the time I can’t even tell what the heck they’re eating but I still find myself wanting a piece of it. I also can’t help but feel like the artists always put special emphasis on the food – they always look a lot more realistic and emphasized than the characters or environments shown in the anime. Heck, you can literally see the steam coming out of the second picture as the character cuts into their….whatever they’re eating.

I’m a guy who loves food, and my favourite kinds of food all come from Asian countries, and I have a feeling that its images like these that sparked my interest in Asian food in the first place. When I first saw a bowl of ramen in ‘Naruto’ when I was little, I was dying to try a bowl of ramen myself. I had to settle for lame instant-ramen for many years before tasting the real thing at Nom Nom Ramen on 18th street, during my first year at Drexel. Needless to say, it was DIVINE.

Geez…now I’m hungry for ramen again….

Five Days a Week: Cubes!!!!!!!! Yay…..?

Awesome!

So, for the first Creative Excercise for my DIGM 223 class, we’re supposed to pick one sepcific subject matter and then, over the course of five days, come up with five different drawings of said subject matter. We can draw whatever we want, but the theme MUST be consistent e.g. if I choose squirrels, I’ll draw squirrels and ONLY squirrels. So, that being said, what have I decided to draw for the next five days?

Cubes. Just…cubes.

Why?

Because I thought it’d be cool to see what I could possibly come up with to make such a simple yet structurally sound geometric shape fun and interesting enough to keep me motivated for the next 5 drawings. Plus, a cube’s just a basic shape; I can make it into anything I want! Just think of the possibilities 😀 Or not. Either way, you’ll be seeing a lot of boxes eventually.