Prince of Darkness

The summer continues onward without delay. Probably should start getting on with the statistic course, but it seems I'm managing...I hope. When I'm not studying (which unfortunately seems like most of the time)I settle down with some video games (it has rained nearly every day so it's almost allowed by the summer standards). Last week was last years Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia. Short story, Dracula threatens the world in the 1800's, the usual hero family has disappeared so someone has to stand up against the prince of darkness. Hack 'n' Slash 10 hours later and the game is cleared and Dracula banished again until the next time he comes back (which according to the games so far is 1820).

More gaming info. The game Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World that was released last year in America and Japan finally gets a release date in Europe this autumn. Took them long enough. This long delay forced them to ad some extras to encourage the Europeans to wait for it so it's not that bad, but this is just one of many problems when the good games from Japan after hard pressure leaves Japan, lands in North America and the ungrateful Americans don't understand the charms of these games and this scares the Japaneses to pull it onward to Europe. Of course this game probably had something else, but the other reason was very common last decade as well for some releases this decade.

Also, this year is kinda remarkable. Today is 40 years since the moon landing, other celebrations this year is the fact that it is 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Swedish Social Democrats have existed for 120 years and Iran is now in its current state 30 years old. The one thing that has effected me afterwards (I'm not old enough to have experienced any of these and remember them) is the release of the Thundersubs's series in 1979. A story of Earth set in 2052 when we finally achieves peace and has established space colonies across the whole solar system. Then some domed race from a solar system far away escaping a black hole decides to make Earth there home, after they wipe out all humankind. Operating in their space station Terrorstar, the death force (it sounds like Star Wars, but this isn't a galaxy far far away) shatter the Earth defences (and or space colonies) under one hour. The only thing left of Earths defences is a ship constructed for underwater-, sea level- and space travel, Thundersub.

Of course the problem is that this show never have had a re-release on dvd or VHS so it's almost impossible to get a copy. Thankfully for myself my family recorded the film version of the first 4 episodes when it was on Filmnet back in the days. It's an anime, but it sounds very good in the English dub. The only problem this show had (as far as I know) is the Americans way to transfer the story to relate to them. This problem starts with a picture of Earth with the middle being the pacific ocean as they talk about the 9 research centers on Earth with N1 being on Hawaii in the dub when you clearly see it being in Japan. Story wise the only problem with it is the belief that we have achieved world wide peace before 2052 or established space colonies on all planets when we haven't even arrived at Mars, but that's what you get for writing a story set 20 minutes into the future. Good news is that someone finally decided to release it on DVD so I'm happy. Together with the release of Mysterious Cities of Gold earlier this year I will remember this year as the Year of Nostalgia. I feel like a child again.