Der Nerdery

Total episodes: 220
Year Published: 2002
Director: Date Isato
Original Creator: Kishimoto
Anime complete? Yes though continues with Naurto Shippuden
Nerdy rating 10/10

Naurto is one of my favorite anime I started watching it about two years ago when my brother introduced me to it. I found that the never give up attitude of Naurto is inspiring as well as fun to watch. You are always left with a good feeling. Naurto over the years has progressed and developed into a world wide phenomenon with it movies and video games. Naurto Shippuden is after Naurto but for the context of this post I will be talking solely about Naurto. There are four main teams on the show with 3 Genin ( new ninja) and 1 Jonin ( experinced ninja), the main teams are as follows:

Kakashi Hatake: Jonin, lighning type, poseses siringen
Nick Name: Copy Ninja
He is the son of the White Fang of Kahona, Kakashi has a very laid back additude and likes to read his “adult only” books. He is always late to every appointment with the kids. He likes to keep them waiting and then tells a ridiculous  story about why he is late. Kakashi has flunked all other Genin that he was suposed to teach, as they all failed his test.  Being the only kids to ever pass they are looked as as exceptional Genin to watch for the future.

Sakura Haruna: Genin, unknown type at this time in anime
She is the only girl on this team which, of course, creates problems. In Naurto she does not do to much in the way of fighting. She  just cries a lot and tries to “hook up” with Saske and ignore Naruto, who actually likes her. Sakura has nothing remarkable about her in Naruto but in Shippuden she will have a better part.

Saske Uchiha: Genin, lighning type
Saske is the cool bad boy character in this anime. He is the only living surviver of his clan with the exception of his brother, who killed the rest of the family. He is out for revenge against his brother and will do anything he deams necessary to achieve that goal. Naurto looks up to Saske as a rival/friend. Someone that he can try to beat. But much to Naurto’s dismay, Saske is always one step ahead of him.

Naurto Uzumaki: Genin, wind type
The main caricter that the anime was named after he is a goffie kid that just wants to be anolaged by his village. Naruto has come to the conclusion that to get the village to anoage him he needs to become Hokage( the top Ninja) as a babe the Fourth Hokage traped a daemon Fox in Naurto to save the village wich has given Naurto more chacra than most and extra powers that he must learn to control or risk destoying the village and his friends He has a never give up attitude that will have you rooting for him till the end.

Kureni Yuhi: Jonin you don’t get to see her to much in Naurto she is just kind of there they go into more details about here in Supuuden.

Hinita Hyuga: Genin. Ahhh sweet hinita she is very shy and timid in this series the next leader of the Hyuga clan. Has a crush on Naurto but wont tell him whenever he is around she can’t say any thing from being so shy.

Kiba Inuzuke: Genin. Kiba is a tough and rowdy ninja his clan fights with ninja dogs at there side they live, sleep and raise the dogs from pups to help them fight.

Shino Aburame: Genin. Shino is kinda a creepy ninja he always has his face mostly covered, his clan fights with bugs. They live on the ninja feeding on there Chakara and doing there bidding in exchange. you don’t want to meet him in a dark ally.

Sensei Might Guy: Jonin, where to start Guy sensei is your comic relief he is so over the top in any thing he does. and makes every thing a challenge just a simple trip to a ramen shop would entail walking backwards on his hands with 1oo pound weights on his arms and legs just the kind of man he is.

Hyuuga Neji : genin, neji is Hinatas’s cousin, part of the Hyuuga family that is sworn to portect the head family Neji resents this and thinks he is better than Hinata and tries to beat her in all things succeeding most times because of her timid personality. he is shown as a cool guy

Rock Lee : genin Pock lee to put it short see Guy Sensei he idolizes him and wants to be just like him. Rock lee is very good at doing just that he is a natural at Drunken boxing and they use that when he is in a big fight.

Ten Ten : genin, master of all weapons has all of scrolls on her at all times and you never know what weapon she will be pulling out next your basic tomboy

Asuma Sarutobi: Jonin, Wind Type just one cool man is all I can say is also a wind type and helps Naurto to learn wind tachniques. in love with Kureni Yuhi but he wont tell her yet.

Ino Yamanaka: Genin Ino is Sakura’s rival her family specializes in a take over jutsu that lets them take over the enemy’s mind and make them do what they want. She is very prissy and worry about her looks allot.

Shikamaru Nara: Genin lets just say it’s to bothersome to write about him…. sigh ok. He does not want to do any thing that is considered work as it is to bothersome. He comes from a long line of shadow users they can manipulate there shadows do do things grab enemy’s for example. He is a master tactician and his plans never fail. best friend is choji

: Genin Choji family uses body transformations to beat the enemy’s making various parts of the body huge. He always has a bag of chips with him and always munching on them. His best friend is Shikamaru. has vast amount of chakara hence why he eats so much its storage he says.

Chakra types

This is a hypothetical battle between similar hero’s from rival comic book universes, Marvel and DC. I am putting Plastic Man and Mr. Fantastic head to head, to see who would be the theoretical winner in several different situations and scenarios. Who do you think would win in a one on one battle to the death? Who is more powerful? Which character do you like better? After the post please leave a comment with your own theory’s and scenarios. For the purposes of this story we will ignore that they are from different comic book companies.

First lets look over each characters overall abilities and powers.

Mr. Fantastic (Dr. Reed Richards):

Background:
Dr. Reed Richards (aka Mr. Fantastic) has mastered the sciences of electrical, mechanical and aerospace engineering, human and alien biology, chemistry and all levels of physics. He has invented time travel and even warped through dimensions. He is the leader of the super hero team known as The Fantastic Four. He once told Spider-Man that he considers his stretching powers to be expendable compared to his intellect.

Super Powers:
Mr. Fantastic was given his abilities while on a space expedition by being exposed to nearly lethal amounts of cosmic radiation. The radiation damaged the ship and returned home. Shortly after he found that he had the powers of elasticity. He could reform and stretch any part of his body at will. In one severe case he was able to increase his body size and mass, similar to the same size and strength of his team mate known as  ”Thing.” Changing into non human forms takes Mr. Fantastic much concentration.

Plastic Man (Patrick “Eel” O’Brian):

Background:
Patrick “Eel” O’Brian (aka Plastic Man) grew up as a orphan on the streets living in a world of crime. As an adult he made a living by working in a burglary ring as a safe cracker.

Super Powers:
During a job gone wrong, Eel O’Brian was shot and was splashed with some mysterious acid. Being abandoned by his gang he passes out in the streets from disorientation from the acid infecting his bullet wound. He later finds himself  in a monastery under the care of a monk. During his stay at the monastery he saw the error of his past criminal behavior and reformed against his old ways. Shortly after, he found that the acid had fused with his blood and gave his body all of the properties of rubber, allowing him to stretch, bounce, and mold himself into any shape, size and even change his mass. There is no known limit to Plastic Man’s shape changing abilities except he can not change color. His powers have even made him stop aging. Batman once said that Plastic Man could most likely survive the blast from a nuclear attack.

Plastic Man vs. Mr. Fantastic: Battle to the Death

Scenario 1 – Plastic Man turns back to his criminal ways
If Plastic Man were to lose his only son, Offspring, in a crime fighting accident. He begins to lose his mind and blames and despises the general public for being weak, selfish and always needing to be rescued. Thus, indirectly putting his family in constant danger. In his psychopathic rage he once again turns against the law and goes on an unforgivable psychopathic Godzilla like killing rampage through the streets of Gotham. Simultaneously… in another dimension, Mr. Fantastic just happened to make a scientific breakthrough and travels through dimensions landing himself in Gotham city in the shadows of the massive Plastic Man engaging in the destruction of Gotham city. Knowing that Plastic Man is indestructible by any known means (According to Wikipedia), would it still be possible for Mr. Fantastic to bring justice to this maniacal Plastic Man?

Plastic Man vs. Mr. Fantastic – Scenario 1 Hypothesis
Since Plastic Man is such a giant size, it will be impossible for Mr. Fantastic to defeat the plastic super foe with his super powers alone. Luckily for Mr. Fantastic his super powers are expendable compared to his intellect and is considered one of the most intelligent superhero’s ever created by any comic book company. Even though Wikipedia states that Plastic Man does not have any weaknesses and that he is completely invulnerable, Mr. Fantastic would certainly know that Wikipedia is not considered an accurate source of information He would also try to further his research by studying as much about his foe and this unfamiliar city. Surely, during his research he would eventually watch several episodes of “Batman: The Brave and the Bold” and realize that Kite Man had already invented a death ray which would destroy anything in its path, which he tested effectively on a sample of Plastic Man’s body. Using his superior intellect Mr. Fantastic would certainly recreate a similar death ray and end Plastic Man’s existance once and for all.

Scenario 2 – Mr. Fantastic receives brain damage and is convinced to join the forces of evil
One day while Mr. Fantastic was experimenting on cosmic radiation, trying to gain a deeper understanding of his power’s origins. When suddenly an accidental explosion sends Mr. Fantastic traveling through dimensions and lands him in Gotham city. Due to the combined effects of the explosion and cosmic radiation, Mr. Fantastic is completely disoriented and can’t remember anything about his past, where he came from or the origins of his powers. Spotting Mr. Fantastic and noticing the similarities to Plastic Man’s super powers, the local villains quickly convince the disoriented super hero that he is indeed one of the villains. With Mr. Fantastic now on their side the villains plan a big heist. During the heist Mr. Fantastic loses control of the situation and unforgivably kills several hostages. Plastic Man arrives on the scene and a epic battle of elasticity begins. Without his superior knowledge and intellect does Mr. Fantastic have a chance to win this battle to the death with Plastic Man?

Plastic Man vs. Mr. Fantastic – Scenario 2 Hypothesis
Since Mr. Fantastic’s super powers only allow him to stretch and reform his mass like elastic, he isn’t by any means invulnerable like Plastic Man is with his powers. Plastic Man truly has no limit to haw large he can get or how far he can stretch or what he can turn into. If he gets blown up into a million pieces he will easily reform into a single piece again. Without his intelligence Mr. Fantastic has no hope of ever defeating Plastic Man.  All that Plastic Man would need to do is slingshot with his arms from the doorway towards Mr. Fantastic and the moment before they collide…Plastic Man turns into a gigantic axe, effectively ending the life of Mr. Fantastic by decapitating his outstretched head.

Video’s and Pictures with Plastic Man and Mr. Fantastic:

Seiken Densetsu 3 (AKA: Secret of Mana 2)

I say Seiken Densetsu 3 is easily  the best SNES game to never be released in the United States.
Way back when I was knee high to a grasshopper. (Back in high school) Everyone in the school was given a school issued mac laptop to aid in our schooling and studies. Being the high school student that I was, I quickly discovered and installed some great cross platform computer games. Among those games there was a free super Nintendo emulator called SNES9x. During my search for some SNES roms I accidentally stumbled onto a game that I had never heard of before. It was called Seiken Densetsu 3. As soon as I started playing I instantly noticed similarities between it and my favorite childhood RPG, Secret of Mana. When my other friends noticed the game they too were intrigued and before I knew it, they were all hooked as well. I got REALLY close but unfortunately none of us actually beat the game completely. I recently re-downloaded the ROM in hopes to finally bring closure to that chapter of my life.

Seiken Densetsu 3 is the real Secret of Mana 2
Unless you lived in Japan around 1995, owned a Super Famicom, or downloaded the “unofficial” SNES rom; you most likely have never played this wonderful sequel to the original Secret of Mana game. If you are an American, like myself, you were probably led to believe that Secret of Evermore was the sequel to Secret of Mana. In truth, Secret of Evermore did have similar menus, game play and art styles as Secret of Mana but the stories were worlds apart. Unlike Secret of Mana, Secret of Evermore is the story of a modern boy and his dog traveling through multiple dimensions and trying to find their way home. Every time you progress to the next dimension all of your weapon’s and dog’s levels are reset. I got so upset I stopped playing after my levels were reset a couple of times. Seiken Densetsu 3 on the other hand takes place in an almost identical fantasy world as the original Secret of Mana. Almost all of the enemies and items are recycled from the original game. The menu’s are almost identical to the previous game but you will notice that there were some minor yet needed graphical updates.

Biggest Diffrences between Seiken Densetsu 3 and Secret of Mana

Secret of Mana:

1. 3 characters that you play all at once

2. 1 storyline

3. There are 8 weapons

4. Completely level each weapon to the max with each character. Each level you get on a weapon unlocks a newer more powerful move with that weapon.

Seiken Densetsu 3:

1. Choose only 3 out of 6 characters to play with at the start of the game. The first character you choose is the “Main Character.”

2. There are three main plots and 6 sub-plots. You get the story of the character you choose first when starting a new game.

3. Each character has his/her own specific weapon type that can not be exchanged for another type.

4. Level your character and choose a combination of light or dark powers to upgrade to new classes and get new skills and abilities.

Seiken Densetsu 3 Class Progression

Play Seiken Densetsu 3 In America NOW!

1. Download a SNES emulator for your computer: SNES9X for Mac or ZSNES for Windows

2. Download the English Translated Seiken Densetsu 3 SNES ROM

Main Characters of Seiken Densetsu 3:

Angela is the princess of the magical Ice Kingdom of Altena. Valda, Angela’s mother and the Queen of Reason, uses her magic to keep the area in constant spring. As the worlds mana begins to fade, so does the Queen’s magic. In an effort to save the kingdom from freezing over when her magic fades, the Queen with her assistant wizard Koren decide to invade the other nations to claim their mana stones to use their magical powers. Before the invasion, Valda and Koren try to unleash the power of their own mana stone of water. Unfortunately in order to do this someone must cast a cursed spell that means certain death to anyone casting it. Valda tries to force Angela to sacrifice herself to unleash the power within the mana stone of water, Angela’s rage causes her hidden magical powers to suddenly burst out uncontrollably, teleporting the girl outside of the castle walls. With nowhere else to turn Angela ventures on a quest to stop her evil queen mother from unlocking the powers of mana.

Duran, an orphaned mercenary swordsman of the Grasslands Kingdom of Forcena who proudly serves his king, the wise Richard. His aunt Stella took care of him and his younger sister Wendy after their mother died from a long term sickness. Their father Loki went missing during a battle with the Dragon Emperor. While Duran is on guard duty at the castle one night, the wizard Koren attacks the castle of Forcena. Koren leaves Duran for dead after the attack. After his recovery Duran vows to become the best swordsman in the world and to take revenge on Koren to avenge the deaths of his people and to recover his lost pride.

Hawk is a member of a guild of noble thieves located in the Sand Fortress of the desert Navarre. Out of nowhere the guild leader, Lord Flamekhan, oddly declares Nevarre to be a Kingdom. Hawk and his friends, Jessica and Eagle, (Lord Flamekhan’s children) are shocked by this. Jessica, Eagle and Hawk decide to confront Lord Flamekhan about the decision. Once they locate Lord Flamekhan, they find him in a meeting with his assistant, the witch Isabella, who turns out to be pulling their leaders strings. Isabella casts a spell on Eagle and makes him attack Hawk. In self defense Hawk is forced to injure Eagle. Unfortunately the fight isn’t quite over and Isabella finishes off Eagle with a spell and frames Hawk for murder. While waiting in prison to be executed, Isabella informs Hawk that she has given his friend Jessica a cursed necklace. If Hawk tells anyone what really happened that day, Jessica will be choked to death by the cursed necklace. Hawk escapes his imprisonment shortly after and his adventure begins.

Lise is Amazon princess of the mountainous Wind Kingdom of Rolante, and captain of its Amazon army. Lise has vowed to take care of her younger brother Elliott, after her mother died while giving birth to him. One day, two former friends of Hawk, Bill and Ben, sneak into the castle of Rolante and trick youthful Elliott into turning off Rolante’s defensive winds and abduct him. With the winds gone, Navarre then attacks Rolante with a cloud of sleep powder and they kill the king. Lise is devastated. She makes her escape and begins her quest to save her brother.

Kevin is the half-beastman prince of Ferolia who, due to a lack of proper schooling, has a difficult time speaking with proper grammer. He is the son of the beastmen king, Gauser, and of a human mother. Gauser has become sick of the treatment of the beast people by human race. He decides to act revenge with the help of the mysterious “Man who devours death”, who happend to conveniently appear to aide the king with his evil dark magic. He decides to demonstrate his powers by creating an illusion, where Kevin’s beloved childhood friend, a wolf-pup orphan named Karl, rises up and attacks him out in the Moonlight Forest. Kevin makes every effort to defend himself but seems to loose the fight,  on the verge of dying, his werewolf abilities awake! Only a brief moment there after, Karl’s life is taken from him. After discovering that his father is sending an invasion force to overthrow the Holy City Wendel. Kevin then overhears the Beast King discuss the success of the Death jesters spell. Kevin confronts the Beast King and is kicked out of the castle. He disowns the Beast King as his father, sets out to locate his mother, while finding some way to revive his friend Karl and swears to take revenge for his best friend’s death.

Carlie is a cute little girl from the Holy City Wendel. She is the granddaughter of the city’s Priest of Light. Carlie  is cared for by a friendly cleric named Heath since she was orphaned by her parents. The cleric Leroy and the elf Shayla, felt an evil influence in the nearby city, Jadd. The Priest of Light sends Heath to investigate. Unfortunately during his investigation, Carlie ovehears this conversation and makes an escape only to find the Deathjester kidnap her caregiver Heath. This is when she decides to take matters into her own hands.

While not as news worthy as the first day, it was a exciting day at Blizzcon with exciting highs and lows.  Most of the day was filled with mundane Q&A panels.  However most of the action goes to the Tournaments with a first World Starcraft 2 Champion:  Min-Soo Jung  from South Korea.  However that was dwarfed in excitement to the long and down to the wire World of Warcraft PvP tournament.  The final two teams aAa and Complexity Red.  While aAa dominated the tournament, including a win against Complexity Red earlier in the day, Complexity Red scored a wining kill with 5 seconds of the match end, where the teams had been evenly matched for the previous 40 minutes of the round.

Some low points of the day was Blizzard COO Paul Sams making announcement for the new MMO during the closing ceremony, only to pull a Bazinga,  unless of course your into World of Jersey: Shorecraft. Then announcing they would be giving away “free beta keys to Diablo 3” to huge cheers, but then adding only to “1000 people” to roaring boos.

There was also the Tenacious D concert that debut two of their new songs, but I instead choose the more engaging WoW 3v3 tournament(that lasted until after 1am EST), so I don’t know how the concert went.

Overall Blizzcon was still thrilling, but didn’t live up to the magic of previous years, but there is always next year.

***Correction After I posted this last night, the last match in the World of Warcraft 3v3 tournament went under review and changed the outcome of the tournament.  In fact it was aAa that won the Grand Tournament.  Find out the details here.

Day 1 of Blizzcon 2010 is officialy over. Surprisingly, very little news came out of Day 1 this year compared to previous years.  It is known that Blizzard is working on a new MMO and the second act of the Starcraft 2 Triliogy, but unfortunately we’ll have to wait another year for any news on them.  Most of the news came from already talked about Diablo 3 and World of Warcraft: Cataclysm.

Blizzcon Diablo 3 News:
The fifth and final class of Diablo 3 was announced as a Demon Hunter,  this character is a ranged class with dual wielding crossbows.  Yes, you read that right – Duel Wielding Crossbows.  The class is similar to the Amazons from Diablo 2.  Also added to Diablo 3 is player-versus-player arenas (so much for luring people out of safety, killing them and taking an ear as in Diablo 2).

Blizzcon World of Warcraft Cataclsm News:
Most of news on the World of Warcraft side was clarification of the new Raid locks, meaning you can only down a raid boss once per week either 10-man or 25-man, but not both.  The loot is going to be the same (2 drops for 10-man, 5 drops for 25 man), but you get extra justice points for doing 25-man versions.  The bosses are no longer linked to your raid id, but to your character, so you can pick up with a different group if you choose.

Blizzcon Starcraft 2 News:
The other big news is in Starcraft 2, a couple of developer mods are going to be added to the game, the big one being Defense of the Ancients.

Want More Blizzcon 2010 News?
If you want more Blizzcon news or watch Day 2, parts will be streamed live for free tomorrow (Oct 23) at http://www.blizzcon.com

And if you’re a huge fan of World of Warcraft, don’t forget that Der Nerdery is starting up it’s own WoW Guild.  Check out the details here.

A long time ago, in a broadcast booth far far away… (1981 to be exact) a science fiction novelist named Brian Daley, a director for National Public Radio(NPR) named John Philip Madden, a sound engineer named Tom Voegeli and a cast including Mark Hamill and Anthony Daniels recreated the magic of the original Star Wars for broadcast around the nation on NPR.

The big question is why would anyone want to listen to a audio only version of the story when the movie was so full of stunning visuals?  Brian Daley, the writer who with full blessing of George Lucas adapted the story adding many lost details.  The story starts many days before Princess Leia’s “diplomatic mission to Alderaan”, but I’m not going to ruin all the details of the beginning, but  it mostly deals with the start of the Rebel Alliance.  Also included in the radio drama are scenes that were deleted in the making of the movie but ended up in George Lucas’ novelization of the move.

Added to the dramatization is the iconic music from John Williams and the amazing sound effects created by Ben Burtt for the original movie.  When you’ve seen the movies as many times as I’ve had, you don’t even need visuals, you can see all the action in your head.

There are some draw backs,  while Bernard Behrens voice could easily be mistaken as Alec Guinness for Obi-Wan Kenobi, but Ann Sachs as Leia and Perry King as Han Solo are quite different.  Actually King gave a different personality and delivery to Solo that was different, but still believable than that of Harrison Ford. (Still hard to tell in the scene with Greedo “who shot first without seeing it”)

Another draw back is that many action scene were much shorter duration then in the movies and dialogue is really drawn out.  So the pacing is quite different  when a quick conversation from the movies turns into a couple minute discussion and iconic scenes are breezed over in a couple words.

In 1983 the cast reunited to make The Empire Strikes Back including the famous John Lithglow to play a very convincing Yoda and Billy Dee Williams reprising his role.  Unfortunately there is not as much story added as the adaptation was taken almost exclusively from the movie.

When it was time to create Return of the Jedi, NPR was in a financial problems, and it was until 1996 that funding was secured.  Despite the long gap in time, most of the same team finished the trilogy, with the exception of Mark Hamill who was busy at the time and was replaced with Joshua Fardon.

It may not be that extended version of Star Wars your hoping to see on the Big Screen, but it one of the greatest radio dramas ever produced.  Just proving that a great story can transcend any medium.  Oh and do not worry if you’ve missed hearing it on the radio:   HighBridge Audio has published all three episodes as Audio Books so you can listen to them when ever you want.  The only catch is they can be expensive to buy.