István, a király: Hungary's answer to "Jesus Christ, Superstar"

Istvány: eleventh century ruler, 80's hairdo

The Hungarian rock opera István, a király was created in 1983, during the waning years of the Communist regime. The musical tells the story of the first king of Hungary, St. Stephen (Szent István in Hungarian). The best way to describe the rock opera is to say that it is like a Hungarian Jesus Christ, Superstar, complete with the juxtaposition of historical subject matter with 70's clothing and hairstyles (Hungary was a little behind when it came to fashion).

Mushi-shi: A Beautiful, Contemplative Anime Series

Mushi-shi is an anime series about a man named Ginko who travels the countryside to learn more about mushi, creatures that are neither animals nor plants that are invisible to most people. Ginko can see mushi and has studied them, so he can help those people whose lives have been affected by mushi. Ginko is a mushi-shi, part biologist and part doctor, who helps people learn to live in balance with mushi, curing the illnesses and other phenomena that mushi can cause when they come in conflict with humans.

It's time to get excited about The Legend of Korra again

I was already planning on writing a post with this title after Nickelodeon released the trailer to Book 3 of The Legend of Korra:

Then Nickelodeon announced that Book 3 will start to air on Friday (June 27), giving us even more reasons to get excited!

Contains spoilers for previous books!

One Epic Knight: A fun, hilarious endless runner

When was the last time you played a free mobile game that was genuinely fun, made you laugh out loud, and was endlessly enjoyable without spending a single cent? One Epic Knight is a free endless runner from Simutronics featuring a wise-cracking knight venturing forth into a dungeon to collect loot, fight monsters, and avoid traps before inevitably dying hilariously. If you own an iOS or Android device, there's really no reason not to check it out!

Lupita Nyong'o and Gwendoline Christie will be in Star Wars VII!

Photo from the starwars.com announcement

What a time to be alive!

The folks at starwars.com have announced Lupita Nyong'o will indeed be joining the cast of Star Wars Episode VII, and will be joined by Gwendoline Christie. Christie, known for playing Brienne of Tarth in Game of Thrones, will bring the total number of new women characters to three. When you add Carrie Fisher's return as Princess Leia to the number, you get four major roles for women, which is four times the number found in both the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy.

A New(er) Hope? Star Wars VII may still cast a woman of color

Lupita Nyong'o; image from Forbes

Maisie Richardson-Sellers; Image from The Hollywood Reporter

In the wake of the cast announcement for Star Wars Episode VII, the internet is up in arms about the single new woman and the single person of color in the cast. It sounds like there may still be hope, though: J. J. Abrams has announced that he is looking to cast one more woman for a major role, and rumors indicate that it may be a woman of color.

'Star Wars: Episode VII' Casting: It's Not Over Yet on The Hollywood Reporter

The EU is Dead, Long Live Star Wars

Probably the most reposted picture on the internet today

Today the Star Wars website announced some big news, ending months of rumors and speculation. In addition to the returning, original Star Wars actors Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford, the seventh Star Wars movie would star John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Andy Serkis, Domhnall Gleeson, and Max von Sydow. Also returning would be famous suit-wearers Kenny Baker, Anthony Daniels, and Peter Mayhew.

In with the new, out with the old: today's announcement follows up on another announcement a few days ago that the Star Wars creators are setting aside the established "Expanded Universe" of Star Wars novels, comics, video games, etc, and relegating them to "Star Wars Legends."

I feel like I am still wrapping my brain around some of these changes, and clearly a lot is still left to be revealed, but I wanted to share some of my first thoughts.

Manga Review: Pluto

These are the covers for the American translation of Pluto

If you've been reading my blogs for a while, you know that I love the Protomen, who sing a rock opera about a robot boy who fights to save mankind, and you know that I love Naoki Urasawa, the genius manga artist who created 20th Century Boys. So it should not come as a surprise that I was blown away by Urasawa's Pluto, a manga series about a robot boy who saves the world.

Broforce: Liberating the world with bullets

The art for Broforce is like a collection of movie posters for the best action movie of all time

Do you love...
FREEDOM?
EXPLOSIONS?
DEMOCRACY?
HIGH FIVES?

If you answered "Yes" to each of these, you are awesome!

If you answered "YES" while pumping a fist in the air and chanting "USA! USA!" then you are BROSOME and you BRO it to yourself to check out BROFORCE!

Warhammer Quest: My Kind of Quest

My guys cut their way through a pack of Skaven

Warhammer Quest is a mobile game by Rodeo Games based on the Warhammer Fantasy Battles setting by Games Workshop. It is a turn-based, single player game where you take a party of four warriors through dungeons in search of loot, gold, and experience points. Loot makes you tougher, gold can be spent on loot, and experience points allow you to level up and learn new abilities. That's pretty much the whole game.

And I love it!

The Room: A Gorgeous, Spooky Puzzle for Your Mobile Device

Imagine receiving a note from a friend who urges you to come over at once. When you arrive, you find that your friend has disappeared, leaving behind only a safe and a mysterious note. You open the safe to find a beautiful, handcrafted box inside, with intricate locks and mechanisms built into it. As you begin the task of opening the box, you start to wonder what sort of research your friend was engaged in...

If that description captures your interest, and if you own a mobile device or tablet, I recommend checking out The Room by Fireproof games. It is, simply put, the best mobile game I have ever played, and I cannot recommend it enough.

Saints Row IV: Even better than Saints Row the Third, which was great

You know I'm born to lose / And gambling's for fools / But that's the way I like it, baby, I don't want to live forever!

I've been meaning to write a review for Saints Row: The Third for a while. So long, in fact, that in the meantime, Saints Row IV came out and I loved it so much that I decided to review Saints Row IV instead. I will still talk a bit about Saints Row: The Third, because it is a great game. They're both great games. If you want to play a game that tries as hard as it can to make sure you're having as much fun as possible at all times, you should check out these two games.

I try to avoid spoilers in this review, but there is some info that you may find slightly spoilery.

Rogue Trader: Review (Part 2 of 2)

Imperial Navy vessels engage an enemy. Artist: Zach Graves

Picking up where I left off in my previous post, I recently bought the Rogue Trader core rulebook on DriveThruRPG. I have spent the past several days reading through it and absorbing the rules, and while I have not yet had a chance to play the game, I can conclude that the book looks great and the game looks fun.

My previous post dealt mostly with how cool it is to be a Rogue Trader and his/her crew. This post will provide more of a review of Rogue Trader, both as a rulebook and as a system.

Rogue Trader: Gothic Baroque Space Piracy for Fun and Profit (Part 1 of 2)

Rogue Trader cover, from the Fantasy Flight Games site. Artist: Andrea Uderzo

I love the Warhammer 40,000 universe. I really dig the epic scale of it, the grim feel of constant danger, the unabashedly gothic design of everything. But I always thought that, given a chance to play a Warhammer 40,000 pen-and-paper RPG, I would jump at the chance to be an Inquisitor. Playing as a badass religious fanatic who hunts down the demonic enemies of mankind sounds right up my alley. But when I decided to buy one of Fantasy Flight's Warhammer 40,000 RPGs, I ended up choosing Rogue Trader over the Inquisitor game, Dark Heresy.

The reason for that has a lot to do with the image above. Before I saw that image, I had always thought of Rogue Traders as reckless fortune seekers who explore beyond the borders of the Imperium, only to inevitably uncover something that should have been left buried, get wiped out, and need the Inquisition and/or the Space Marines to come clean up the mess.

But then I saw the image above and something clicked.

The Wolverine: A Wolverine film worth watching

Though the first three X-Men movies were pretty hit and miss, the best decision the people behind those movies made was to cast Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. No matter what else was going on in those movies, Jackman as Wolverine was always worth watching. He walked the fine line between being likable and being badass, and between being a superhero and being believable. I liked the character, so naturally I looked forward to the first Wolverine movie. I was completely disappointed with it. For weeks afterward I found myself wondering when I would finally get to see the Wolverine movie, because my mind had not yet processed that, yes, I had seen it, and yes, it really was that bad.

If I had known at the time, I would have skipped over the first Wolverine movie and seen the second one in theaters instead. The second Wolverine movie isn't perfect, but it is good, and it gets my recommendation.

There are some spoilers under the cut.

I watched the Teen Titans Go! TV series and it was better than expected

DC Comics have always made good cartoons: Batman the Animated Series, Justice League, and the first season of Young Justice are all excellent. These shows have exciting action, fun adventures, and interesting character arcs. A worthy entry in that lineup is the 2003 Teen Titans animated series, which ran for six seasons. This is not a review for that series.

Instead, this is a review for the current series that re-imagines the Teen Titans as a bunch of slapstick, self-absorbed slackers. The new show makes no attempts at character development, plot arcs, or an underlying message.

And yet, I still kinda like it.