Suikoden I & II now in Manga

I couldn't believe myself when I found out but it's real! Thanks to Nanami's World I discovered that, since 2009, a manga series for Suikoden I as well as another manga series for Suikoden II are being releashed!

Suikoden ( 幻想水滸伝 Gensō Suikoden) is a classic series of RPG videogames. Fuck Final Fantasy, especially talking about Suikoden II most RPG fans can tell you this is one of the best RPGs ever created and even now it surpases most modern RPGs in graphics, plot, enternaiment, and playing system.

There were mangas for the other games but never for the first two! The first game is from 1995 and the second from 1998, why would they releashe the manga version in 2009? Japan is crazy but I don't mind because the first two Suikoden games are some of my very favourite videogames ever! (actually, I know pretty well why they are releashing these mangas now, I'll talk about that later)

 So, let's get started with the review! I bought three tomes from YesAsia, the ones releashed so far:

-Suikoden / Tome 1
-Suikoden / Tome 2
-Suikoden II / Tome 1 

Both the Suikoden I manga and the Suikoden II manga are by the artist Yu Hijikata and are being releashed slowly, at the same time. I wanted to put a link to the artists but didn't find his website or any other info, but it's the same artist from the Valkyrie Profile manga (another classic RPG) . The tomes are 160 pages long, more or less, and come with a map of the Suikoden world, a tablet with the 108 starts of Destiny and other stuff.

COVERT ART, THE FIRST TOME OF EACH MANGA

As you can see, the cover art is very beautiful: good anatomy, cool poses, great colouring, good layout design for the covers... the first pages of each manga have a couple of coloured pages too, that are equally beautiful and reminiscent of the artwork seen in the games. I'll let you some examples here before getting to the black and white pages:

Now with the actual story and black and white pages. The anatomy is not bad, on the contrary is pretty decent most of the time and the fighting scenes have really cool effects and movements. Sometimes, especially when it comes to bulky guys faces, the faces look a bit too strange XD And some of the young, teen guys in this manga (like Luc, Ted, Tir McDohl, Ryou etc.) look really girly, I was kind of a bit disappointed with Tir at first because not only he looks girly, he actually acts very girly and childish too... then I realized it's just because it's the begining and he rapidly started to man-up and mature by the end of the tomes, ha ha ha. As said, most of the drawings are really cute, maybe too cute for a manga in which thousands of people are going to die XD

Let's see some examples of the first tome of the Suikoden I manga!

On the left, Black the dragon and the heroes. On the right, Luc (told you he looked girly XD)

 

Leknaat on the right; on the left, McDohl, Ted and Gremio arriving at her place. As you can see, not only the characters look beautiful but also the backgrounds and illumination! 

Let's go now with examples of the Suikoden II manga, the author is the same as I said so the style is pretty much the same, so let's show some "awesomeness" from two of the most charismatic heroes in all the saga... of course, I am talking about Viktor and Flik!

 They are cool, they are strong... and they are adorable. Look at Viktor at that last panel XD

Let's not forget about the others! Luckily for Joey, he managed to look manlier than Ryou and Tir XD Look at those backgrounds, they are cool, so loyal to the source material!

Well, Luca Blight looks as mad as usual, doesn't him X_D He's and awesome bastard, and he looked damm sexy in the illustrations of the novels and in Suikogaiden... let's see if we get some sexyness in these mangas too XD

I tried not to spoil too much with the pics... If you are interested, I found scanlations (scans with English translation) of the first tome of Suikoden II here as for the Suikoden I manga, Nanami's World said they are scanlating both tomes too. As for "yaoi fangirls" who won't fucking read a thing unless there are some hot guys they can pair up, there is more than plenty of bromance in the Suikoden series and a consecrated yaoi fandom. Like, seriously XD

It hasn't been too long since I discovered there is a  Breath of Fire IV manga, and now these Suikoden I and Suikoden II mangas... Japan is releashing lots of new stuff based on classic, popular videogames lately, and it's probably because of the japanese videogame market crisis. On one hand I am happy because I always wanted material based on my favourite retro games (I wish someone would make a Vandal Hearts manga lol) but on the other hand it's such a pity no one would releashe new stuff beyond Devil May Cry or new RPGs beyond the Final Fantasy shit... though it seems lately the Atelier series is regaining fans and sales with the lastest Atelier Totori for Playstation 3, as well as other sagas, but they still are already popular series...

So yeah, this is long enough and I wasted much more time than I should have X_D See you guys!

Long time no see!

First of all, APOLOGIES because I deleted the comments you guys left in my posts, thinking I were just deleting them from my inbox... I really need to tinker around more to get used to how things work... but seriously, why deleting them from the inbox deletes them from the posts too? Makes no sense to me. I am sad that I deleted them, sorry guys T_T

So, yeah, I haven't updated in a while! I've been busy with exams, work, illness, family stuff... all of that. Now I have summer vacations and I'll hopefuly draw, cosplay, program more for our Hetalia videogame, play some videogames myself...

Right now, I'm replaying one of my all-times-favourite-RPGs ever, the one known as "Breath of Fire III"... the reason why I felt like replaying it it's because I recently realized there is a Breath of Fire IV manga (scanlations here or here) so, yeah I felt quite some nostalgia XD Back in the day I was too young to fully understand the plot in those two games (both because of my inmadurity and because of my level of English lol) so I am fully enjoying reading the manga for BoF IV and replaying BoF III.

 Breath of Fire III

Nina & Ryu, the heroes of the Breath of Fire series

... I wish they would have done a BoF III manga too, it was my favourite, much more than BoF IV XD I am also playing Sengoku Basara 2 (when I feel like killing tons of stuff lol) and Dynasty Warriors 7 at my boyfriend's place because I don't own a Xbox or PS3 myself (awesome game dears, JUST AWESOME) 

Breath of Fire IV

Though, as I said, my favourite Breath of Fire game is the third one, I have to admit that Breath of Fire IV 

art is of much more quality, and very beautiful as you can see in the pics. Click to enlarge the images!

 

 

Review: La Cure Gourmande

As I said in my last entry, I visited Madrid some weeks ago. One of the places we stopped by was "La Cure Gourmande", a French store full of delicious and cute-looking candy, cookies, and sweets in general. Yummy! Everything looked so pretty that I couldn't help but take lots of photos! So bad I was using a bad camera and we were in a rush, but some of the pictures turned good enough >w<

THE ENTRANCE

As far as I know, La Cure Gourmande has stores in France, Spain, Belgium and other Euroepan countries. In Spain there are two I know of, one in Madrid and another in Toledo. They come from Provence, in the south of France, and their sweets seem to be  traditional of the zone. They have a wide variety of stuff and flavours: chocolate beans and olives, orange cookies, your typical chocolates with different kinds of cream, alcohol and cacao...This one store in Madrid is not very big, but it looks even more cute that way! Definitely, you can say this is "eye-candy"! XD

SOME OF THE AMAZING PACKAGES THEY HAVE

  

THE GREEN PACKAGES ARE LOVELY! TOO BAD THE PHOTO HAS HORRIBLE QUALITY

BUT I HAVE A CLOSE UP TO THE CHOCOLATE OLIVES! 

FULL VIEW HERE (LINK) BECAUSE I THOUGH IT WAS WORTH IT

When we got into the store, they offered us some chocolates for free (figs with chocolate and something else) and we all loved it!!! The prices in these kind of stores are higher than in your usual multistore of course, since you are paying not only the really delicious and good quality stuff, but also the amazing design (god, look at the pictures, you don't need me to tell you about the design, right? XD) But it wasn't that much more expensive for most of the products, so it's a good deal!

I don't think most of us can afford to buy from here frenquently, but it's great if you need a gift for someone, because it's original, unique, and you can buy the package you like me most and fill it with candy of your choice, and they put some cute stuff like ribbons and such on it so it looks even better!

If you want to visit it in Madrid, they are here (LINK) and if you want to visit the one in Toledo, here (LINK). Also, this is their official website:
http://www.la-cure-gourmande.com/

Well anyway, I'm getting so freaking hungry reviewing this shop! See you!!!

Travelling memories: Visit to Madrid!

I visited Madrid a couple of weeks ago: a friend from Chile was in Spain and asked if we could possibly meet after so many years! So I called for back-up (a.k.a asked dear Eli and Ali who study in Madrid to be my "turistic guides" since I get lost in my own hometown xD) because we also wanted to find a good excuse to meet again... it's like 40 euros each time I visit Madrid, so it was good I could meet all of them in the same day!

I arrived at Madrid early in the morning and had breakfast while waiting for Eli and Ali >w< But surprise, the one who arrived to pick me up was Iggy Diana who I met at Hetalia Day last year! XD She is friends with Eli and Ali and wanted to meet me too, it was this kind of a coincidence, they were talking about me when I called them to ask if they were somehow free enough to accompany me XD So yeah, she called to say "hey, I am at the station let's meet here!" but I forgot to ask "what are you wearing" or something so I could identify her (the first and last time I saw her, she was wearing her Iggy Arthur Kirkland cosplay so... XD) ... anyway, I arrived at the meeting point and somehow thought "it has to be THAT GIRL!" and pointed at her for 10 seconds... seriously, I have no manners X_D She obviously noticed my stupidness me, and so she got to me and we chatted until Eli and Ali managed to arrive in a different train -because they had problems with the usual one-.

We had arranged a meeting with Karin (my friend from Chile) at 12:00 and it was like 10:00 yet, so what to do? Go and have breackfast AGAIN! XD Well I have had breakfast already but they didn't, so we went to Dunkin'Donuts (actually called Dunkin'Coffee in Spain) and they had, like, pretty-girly-heart-shaped-pink-donuts because of St Valentine's Day! XDDD

GOD THEY ARE SO CUTE AND GIRLY IT'S A SHAME EATING THEM

 

Those are Eli and Ali during breakfast doing what they do best: READING YAOI (lol XD)

And so, after eating, reading some yaoi (I brought the latest published doujinshi in which I colaborated to show them XD) and talking nonsese we left to meet Karin at Puerta del Sol, where the statue of "El Oso y el Madroño" is. On the way, we found stuff in the shops that I couldn't help but photogarphy XD

MINIATURE FOOD!!! SO CUTE XD

 

I LOVE OLD STUFF LIKE THIS ANTIQUE COFFEE GRINDER. 

High quality picture of the bread in my Deviantart if you want (LINK)

WHY DO I WANT TO EAT THOSE TOWELS XD

We walked from Atocha to Sol and I bought some really cute star-shaped hair clips on the way for my femAmerica Hetalia cosplay (I'll show you on another post when I talk about my latest cosplay) and we finally arrived at El Oso y el Madroño... and I took yet more photos! XD

So we were just standing there at Sol for quite some time, looking around for Karin... in the end, I got my notebook, wrote a big HETALIA on it, and finally a girl approached us ha ha ha! XD It was a silly thing to do but that way I was sure she would know it was me, lol. It was almost 13:00 and we only had until 15:00 to be with her, so we showed her around Plaza Mayor, the market, and a couple of stores. AND, GUESS WHAT, I TOOK PHOTOS XD

 PLAZA MAYOR, MADRID

CUTE AND YUMMY STUFF AT THE MARKET

 

THIS IS A "TRAJE DE LUCES" (BULLFIGHTING ATTIRE)

It was the first time I ever saw one in real life, it was in a store near Sol. Everyone around the globe seem to think we Spanish are like very related to -and fond of- the bullfighting tradition, but most of us are totally unfamiliar with it or are actually against it.

LA CURE GOURMANDE

  

Our last stop before lunch was La Cure Gourmande and I took many photos there because everything it's so good looking ;A; Loveee love love that place. Going to post a new entry later just to review that beautiful and delicious French store, that's why I'm only submitting these pics of Karin and the others in the store for now. 

So, for lunch we went to Oishii Sushi & Ramen near Sol. While eating our ramen, we read yet more yaoi, talked about yaoi anime and manga, wondered how Feliks Łukasiewicz from Hetalia would sound in Peninsular Spanish and in Latinoamerican Spanish (lol what) and we made some drawing (gonna submit them when they send me the scans >w<). AND WE TOOK PHOTOS OF COURSE XD

                                   ME AND KARIN

                                                                                                         IGGY DIANA

ALI AND ELI

And then... we had to get back to Sol and say goodbye to Karin ;A; It was fun being with her, though it was everything so fast, we didn't really show her anything and we were so excited because we all meet that I feel like we wasted the little time we had with silly things... but we enjoyed nonetheless! XD

So after that, we went to the University to check some stuff and stopped by the cafeteria at Fine Arts. We talked about stuff and had a snack (well, obviously, why would we stop by the cafeteria otherwise xD) and while Ali and Eli were busy I went around campus and took some more photos (this is the university in which they study, not me XD) I wish I would taken a photo of the toileds too... no, seriously, they were so cool XD

It was time for me to take the train back home, but in the way we saw yet another couple of interesting things in the shops in the tube... THAT SCARED US FOREVER AND MADE US CRY OF LAUGH XD 

PORN!!! HARDCORE PORN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREETS!!! XD

 

"YOU NEED TO SPEAK ENGLISH!!!" OK OK JUST DON'T HURT MEEE ;A;

 

AND THAT'S IT. That was my last visit to Madrid. Gonna review La Cure Gourmande later, as I said, because the things there are just great XD Thanks for reading (or thanks for looking at the pictures if you didn't read since it's so long XDDD ) See you!