Introductions are hard

So here we are our first comic. I had to resize it because it was huge, hopefully that doesn’t detract from the quality.

And what a better target to pick on than K-ON! After all, K-ON! is pretty much the latest poster child for everything that’s wrong with anime, right? Cute characters with irritating one-dimensional personalities, a general sense of pointlessness about the plot, and nonexistent character growth. Basically, compare Hidamari Sketch to K-ON! and you’re looking at a world of difference in terms of quality and I’d argue that both aim towards the same general target audience.

Enter Sora no Woto with its similar general artistic style and its seemingly nonsensical foundation of a plot and you have a product that would be easy to write off. Unless you actually watched the first episode, that is.

The mythology of the world that they introduce to us creates that sense of expectation that something big is about to happen. Maybe this is experience kicking in, but when you have a sleepy, isolated outpost that has a local legend about 5 women who use their powers to rein in a great evil and when the principal cast is composed of 5 girls, it’s hard not to draw a few conclusions about the show’s direction. Because of this foreshadowing, Sora no Woto seemingly has a sense of purpose to it and this alone makes it a good reason to at least dive into the show and see where the director takes us.

Furthermore, the characters also show flashes of promise as well. Kanata could easily be written off as a Yui Hirasawa clone, except her thoughts and feelings seem more genuine somehow. There’s nothing superficial about her motivations to join this bugle squad and the way she approaches her tasks have an earnestness to it that is positively charming.

That’s not to say that I endorse this show wholly. There are still other characters that need to be introduced and I do feel the need to attune myself to this show’s rhythm (1 episode is hardly a good basis for making that call whether to keep up with it or not), but so far, Sora no Woto’s start has me cautiously optimistic. And that’s only a good thing.

Also, believe it or not, I’ve been anticipating this episode in particular. Why? I’ll explain 2 paragraphs below.

IN THE DARK REACHES OF SPACE!

After the events of Halo 3 (wherein (*ahem* Spoiler alert!(?)) the Master Chief and Cortana end up lost in deep space in a half-destroyed warship), Cortana finds herself with nothing better to do than to contemplate her virtual navel (and perhaps the Master Chief’s cryogenetically-frozen navel, as well). She claims that upon her creation, it took her 2 hours to absorb the data pertaining to all of human history, knowledge, and understanding. Well, thanks for being such a cocky cunt, Cortana. Maybe you should take up being a schoolteacher… Actually holy shit that should totally happen. A.I. teachers? No, not that! Cortana in a teacher’s–

I mean … Anyway, so this is when the flashbacks begin. Oh boy, the flashback of all flashbacks. The flashback that retells the entire Halo timeline, from 100,000 BC to 2553 AD. Not that this is a bad thing, as this episode can be compared to The Animatrix’s The Second Renaissance, and everybody knows that was the best short of the Animatrix anthology. But then again, most people watching these should already know the history, so you would think they make up for it in pretty cinematics and finally showing us a glimpse of what really happened back then, of Forerunner civilization, right? Right, so I won’t bother with a synopsis as there isn’t much to say. As I mentioned before, I’ll make it up to you with what everyone loves: Pretty pictures!

Cortana proves she was behind it all by showing us her All-Seeing Eye...

100,000 years ago, the Forerunners ruled the galaxy.
Until a bunch of extragalactic space zombies knocked on their door and, ahem, flooded their worlds and colonies.

The Flood, to those who don’t know, is an Eldritch abomination that feeds on intelligent life, sucks their brains and bones dry, and uses them as space marine zombies from then on to kick your ass. They put a new meaning to, “stop hitting yourself!” Except in a species sense. Or something.

"They waited too long to see the threat," says Cortana as millions of Flood organisms descend upon Forerunner worlds and overrun them. And yes, every dot is one, and every frame has like, even more coming down. Seriously, how in the hell did these guys rule the galaxy and have god-like technology, when they couldn't stop what amounts as a bunch of space poo coming down meteor-like on your planet? Oh, no wait... I see the problem now.

ZE GOGGLES! THEY DO NOTHINGZ!

So the highly-intelligent Forerunners fought a millennial war against the Flood. But they had royally fucked up the beginning, so like pretty much every RTS in existence (including Halo Wars! *gets chased by PCfag mob*), once you screw up the beginning, chances are you’re fighting a losing battle.

"I can only guess this, fill the gaps." That's OK, Cortana, the cinematic does the job for ya!

Not shown: Energy swords FIRING THEIR LAZERZ HOREE SHIIET

So um, yeah. They fought, and they fought, but the Forerunners were no match for… The Flood’s tentacles.

It's okay to fantasize there's a hot, starved chick underneath all that sleek armor... You freak.

Rule 34 in the making

Who animated these, again?

Right, the story. So as you may or may not know, the Forerunners were screwed, so they decided to nuke all life in the galaxy with the Halo array they built. Yes, you got it. They said, “well, we tried, guys. Time to nuke everything because we fucked up.” At least Cortana lampshades the irony, and brings up a valid point, for anyone going “WTF?” by now.

Vore not included. Tentacles but no vore? Son, I am disappoint.

So they show the Halo rings over the homeworlds of several Covenant species, and the gateway to the Ark on Earth. At this point in time I am uncertain if this doesn’t contradict other established canon of where the other rings are, but what the hell. So they fetch up the DNA of some evolving species, like us humans, and several Covenant species. So, yay, we’re all clones, apparently. Unfortunately, said species would worship the very beacon of their salvation to a fanatic level, live off their technology and use it to bring holy war and genocide throughout the galaxy. Neglectful precursors: More common than you may think.

TL;DR: Lost in deep space, a crazy A.I. woman rambles to herself because she has nothing better to do, because her cyborg super-soldier space marine boyfriend’s junk is going to be frozen solid for a long, long time. (Not like she can touch it, anyway, the holographic bitch.) Also, space zombies tentacle-raping a highly advanced humanoid species to death. Goddamn you, Japan.

Conclusion: As usual, not much to say here about the episode itself. It wasn’t really as good as the Second Renaissance, for starters — That one actually gave more answers than questions. This one gave more questions then answers.

Sure, we know what the Forerunner may have looked like (and I say may seeing how unreliable the other Japanese studios were in appearances), and that is like Clone (clones from clones?) troopers from the Star Wars Clone Wars cartoon. The one where General Grievous is a badass, not the one he’s as wimpy as George Lucas makes him out to be to compensate for his lack of a–GIGANTIC TAGER!

But as I said, it doesn’t answer some things, namely why the hell the Forerunner were unable to save themselves, when it is shown they survived not only the Halo blast long enough to repopulate every damn planet with primitive, suspiciously bipedal monkeys, lizards and what-have-you, but you would think they’d put their own survival before that of the funny primitive creatures they saved. And why is humanity special compared to the other species they saved? Besides building the gateway to the Ark on Earth, there’s not much difference. Hell, they got Halo rings over their homeworlds, which led to their worship (great going, highly-advanced god-like species! Oh…wait.)

Meanwhile, WE get an ancient colossal megastructure buried for a hundred-thousand years beneath the continent thoroughly explored most by archaeologists, and that’s that.

But enough rambling; to put it simply, it was decent, but I’d expect better. And seeing part 1 of Origins covered the most riddling aspect of the Halo timeline, I’d say part 2 will dick around just as much, maybe even more so. Or maybe they’ll asspull the Emperor of Japan being descended from the Forerunners and having migrated from the planet Venus, where Japanese Covenant live in Japanese castles and worship Buddha before he even existed. Who knows?

With that in mind, I would like to announce that the staff is FINALLY getting back to work and will be posting articles once more! So no more logging on to the VN Blog and seeing nothing new, as I assure you that productivity will definitely see an increase.

I would also like to take this chance to note that there have been some staffing changes, as Blade Kiro is longer with the Visionary Nexus team. We are sad to see him go, but understand and respect his choice to depart. As such, Demi has been, in a unanimous vote, promoted to Administrator on both the forums and the blog. We all are very excited to see his work, as he is a skilled artist, a competent writer, and a great YouYube contributor with various Let’s Plays.

So in short, we’re back, we’re different, and we’re better than ever!

Couldn't help it. THIS NEEDED A LULZY IMAGE K? ~Syke

Avalon Code (Read: Under appreciated game)

The game allows you from the start to choose to be male, if you’re a guy, or a female, if you’re a guy who wants to be a girl. (Side-note to Xéro: I chose male B<) This only reflects the optional dating side-quests; the rest of the plot carries on the same. The plot boils down to “the end of the world is coming,” but subverts its usual “scrappy-peasant takes us arms to save the world” in favor of “scrappy-peasant-decides-what-should-survive-in-the-next-world.”

You acquire the titular Avalon Code (a.k.a the Book of Prophecy) along with an annoying fire spirit named Rempo who instructs you about how to use the book just as an Imperial soldier (yeah can’t dodge all the clichés sadly) turns into a minotaur and attacks you. Afterwards you go on a quest to hit people with books and save fairies!

Sadly, not present

The graphics are surprisingly well done. The 3D models look like high-end PS1 graphics, which on a DS is high quality. The characters are all nicely designed, with elaborate outfits, the only real nitpick I have is it’s established your character is poor but he dresses more extravagantly than most of the nobles that belittle your status. While everything is nice and colorful, it is also “brown’d” to give it an old story book feel, which works given the setup.

The only thing that tops this is the minigame in WarioWare: Touched where you have to stop an egg on a gear.

Screw the graphics though; game play is what is important! Thankfully the game plays even better than the graphics. It controls much like a Zelda game (ironically, not any of the DS Zeldas). Top-down perspective, movement with the D-Pad, items with the face buttons, the basic stuff that works and makes killing monsters and solving puzzles fun and easy. However it wouldn’t be a DS game without some touch screening, and that’s where the Avalon Code itself comes in. The Book never proves a nuisance as brining it up pauses gameplay, allowing you to edit your weapons, items, and monsters on the fly in the heat of battle.

The book is always open on the bottom screen showing information you’ve collected. You obtain your items and weapons by hitting things with your book. It’s hand-waved that for some magic reason no one notices when you leap in the air and bash them over the head. For the various objects you get a picture, name, and a grid containing icons known as “codes” (more on those later). You can also tap under the picture to get info on said object.

Now let’s move on to the codes, the part of the game that is the most intuitive. Every thing barring the maps, you and the spirits have a grid to place codes. You can get many codes from NPCs based on their personalities but disappointingly they aren’t affected by the addition or subtraction of codes (except some cases where certain combinations allow you to remove negative codes that are bound to them, like your childhood friend’s terminal illness). Monsters and weapons are affected the most inversely. Monsters’ stats depend on their codes. If you think a monster is too tough, take off its good codes slap them on your weapon, give them a disease, and wreck it!

Weapons and items are handled uniquely here. You never actually have a real one but a magical copy of whatever you scanned. This also allows you to dual-wield the same weapon. Furthermore you’ll never run out of items, however to balance this and summon food and items you need to use MP. Throughout the game you will find tablets to Code Scan that allows you to morph your items and weapons through various code combinations. On a humorous note, Codes bestow titles on what they are affecting, so you’ll often find yourself carrying around Dog-Loving Cookies.

A cat is fine, too

Another amusing mechanic added in is the Judgment Link, which is fancy-speak for juggling your enemies into space. It’s initiated by pushing the “A” button which will knock the enemy skyward, you can then keep the target up by hitting it with your weapon. If you use the same weapon you send the foe aloft higher and higher, or you can switch to your other weapon making it easier for you to keep the combo going. This is also used in Judgment Battles where you play a game like 4 square, where the ball will leave the atmosphere.

So, in summary, Avalon Code is a gem that shouldn’t have got past the radar. It’s beautiful with a game mechanic that makes it truly unique and intuitive. It’s riddled with clichés and the music is only memorable in some areas, but it’s still charming. Now if you don’t mind My Cat-Loving Fire Gladius and I need to swat around some Sickly Goblins!

… Pun intended.

After some 300-styled slow-motion dashing, Frederic blasts through a sealed door and the trio blitzkrieg across the ship, gunning down hordes and hordes of Covies. During this, there’s several clips from the first-person view, showing the familiar HUD found in the video games. I thought it was nice, if a bit tacky. They didn’t try to depict the realistic movement of arms aiming firearms around, for instance, and the crosshairs always remained stuck in the center of the screen. Guess they didn’t really care for extra details there.

Eventually, the unnamed Elite Major and his guard intercept the Spartans. Frederic blocks an energy sword with his Spartan laser (lolwut? Shouldn’t it cut through it?) and then knives the fucker in the eye (which I’ll admit, was badass). Then he holds off the Major and his remaining lackey so John and Kelly can go on ahead.

Desperate as the Spartans come closer to their objective, the Commander/Shipmaster/Fleet Admiral/Thel(?) accesses the bridge controls and starts detaching parts of his flagship and letting the hull pieces fly off to space in an attempt to impede the Spartans’ advance. As for the poor bastards still occupying those sectors, the Commander claims that he’s “letting them die with honor.”

After frolicking their way through Dead Space (*rimshot*), Kelly grabs Chief and tosses him through the vacuum so he goes ahead to “go get her.”

The Package turns out to be Dr. Catherine Elizabeth Halsey, founder of the Spartan-II project, in cryogenic stasis. Worth it? I s’pose. She’s important, and stuff. If it wasn’t for an unnamed female at the beginning of part 1, I would’ve wagered that Halsey or Cortana was the titular package. Speaking of Cortana, the design team lets us know they know Cortana’s based on Halsey, which allows them to get lazy and recycle nostalgic Cortana lines from Halo 1 & 2… except in a British accent. They hurry up and scoot, but their escape is blocked.

The Major shows up (Frederic’s nowhere to be found). Chief unloads a full magazine on him, only for the Major to casually block it with his sword. He’s like “lol wtf was that n00b fgt” and throws a sword hilt to Chief a la Meta-Knight from the Kirby games. In fact, that’s his new name: Meta-Knight. In fact, he proves he’s god-tier.

Unnamed Elite Major MetaGame-Knight made “the Master Chief” John-117, iconic protagonist/unbeaten one-man army of the Halo trilogy, his bitch. In 15 seconds flat. Before delivering the deathblow, however, alarms sound off; the fleet’s left the “magnetic interference” distortion field it was in, so the Covenant are abandoning the system. The section they’re in is promptly scuttled by the Commander, which mocks Meta-Knight claiming all he would make a good Arbiter (+prequel irony). Meta-Knight is beamed up to the working remnants of the flagship, nastily cursing the Commander a thousand hells or something fierce. Makes me wonder why the Commander saved the guy; he’d already sacrificed thousands of poor bastards under his command. Why not some prick he hates?

Knowing they’re seconds away from being blown up to the other side of the galaxy (hopefully, somewhere friendly with sunny beaches and without dogmatic aliens), Chief and Halsey hijack an escape pod and GTFO the scuttled flagship as it blows to bits. They’re chased by even more poor bastards that were ditched by Commander Jackass. They don’t have to for long, though, as Frederic and Kelly come to the rescue along with the UNSC stealth ship they deployed from.

What the fuck, Frederic? How did you make it out? Did you run away like a pussy from Meta-Knight, or something? Seeing he totally owned Master motherfucking Chief in 15 seconds flat, I wouldn’t doubt it.

In the end, they are united in the ship, where Halsey congratulates them. But because they lost two Spartans, the Chief gives off some forced speech about how he wasn’t “strong enough” and that he “needs to get stronger.” You know the one. Remember who makes these?

TL;DR: Spartans plow thrugh clusterfuck, get package (Spoilers HOLY SHIT IT’S DR. HALSEY), ironic events surrounding future Arbiter Thel, Spartans and Halsey ride into the sunset … go home?

Conclusion: Nothing much to say here. There’s little to poke fun of. Not a very thrilling conclusion, either. Surprisingly, though, the short is 14:08 long, total. So I guess I was off by 4 minutes in that aspect.

Something struck me, and it’s related to the Arbiter. If you couldn’t tell from the summary, he used to be a major dick. At this point, I’m starting to think they’re putting in a bit of prequel irony to ensure us that yes, Thel is a jackass and his conversion to Arbiter was deserved…

This, after two games of making us sympathetize for him getting ostracized by the fanatical religious empire he swore to serve for the destruction of Installation 04 (the first Halo) and his entire armada. So first, they make us sympathetize him in the games (where it’s implied he wasn’t incompetent, and that he wasn’t to blame) and now he’s portrayed as an overzealous asshole. I haven’t read the novels, I’ll admit, so I’m not sure if this is news, but he’s never portrayed that way in the games, so it came as a bit of a surprise. I’d call his case (as well as the other characters) “character derailment”, but I would just be assuming there.

Alternatively, I might have been misinformed and it turns out the Major is the future Arbiter, not the Commander. If that’s the case, it explains why he kicked John’s ass so easily, and it might explain his personality and the sympathy we’re supposed to have for him (which makes the above paragraph invalid). The irony loses its sting, though, as it was the Commander which jested about the Major being Arbiter one day. 

As of this point, I’m not sure anymore and, frankly, I don’t give a damn. The events are still ironic, no matter which one’s Thel.

If I’d read the novels, I could probably form a better opinion, but I haven’t. Something tells me they messed with the characters a bit too much, though, and I’d be able to pick that apart rather easily. Though not as easily as how the anime companies seem to like picking apart decades of progress from the U.S. civil rights movement. No wait, mainstream rap music already did that first… Never mind.

Contrary to popular belief, coquito is, in fact, not made of coquis or the legendary coqui water.

Inside jokes aside, worry not. I have ceased drinking the stuff to watch this 5-minute action-fest known as “The Package” (Part 1). Spoilers: MASTER CHIEF, SPARTANS FROM THE NOVELS, ARBITER FROM HALO 2-3! HYPE!

The Covenant has captured a “high-priority package”, and a Spartan squad only has 10 minutes to retrieve it. They include John-117 (better known as the “Master Chief”) and his fellow Spartans, Kelly-087, Frederic-104, Solomon-069, and Arthur-079. The Spartans hail from the novels, excluding the latter two; they’re redshirts debut characters. If they run out of time, the UNSC will simply annihilate the entire fleet alongside the package and the Spartan strike team. When the titular package is revealed, it better be something really worth it or I’ll facepalm at the opportunity to take out, you know, an entire fleet of evil genocidal aliens.

A “stellar field” something I didn’t quite catch is keeping the Covenant fleet from simply doing a Slipspace jump and high-tailing it to another system. Handwavium aside, the Spartans deploy in what are essentially space fighter jet motorcycles and an epic Star Wars-styled space battle ensues.

The first scan reading reveals the package is in the ship. Solomon goes for it and asks Kelly to back him up. The Chief knows “something’s off” when the first reading, out of a whole fleet of ships, turned out positive. Knowing it’s too good to be true, he goes in after the pair to save them. John manages to save Kelly because she’s in the hangar bay; Solomon, however, isn’t so fortunate and perishes when an antimatter bomb blows up in his face, taking the entire cruiser with him.

I just know you guys are at the edge of your freakin’ seats now (This is intense!!!), but I’m pausing the plot now for humor something I noticed.

Remember that whole business with “Chad” (whose name turned out to be “Checkman”) back when this whole thing started? Yeah, meet this week’s redshirt:

This guy.

I’m starting to notice a trend here, and to my surprise when I went to fetch this link, so has TVTropes. In Solomon’s defense, though, the Covenant sacrificed an entire battlecruiser, several kilometers wide, with or without its crew just to eliminate him. Granted, it was a trap to lure every present Spartan-II to their destruction, seeing they’re widely feared by the Covenant (they’re so notorious, the Covenant calls them “Demons”). So, in super-soldier space marine-ology, this is the equivalent of dying from a firecracker. Unfortunate implications indeed.
By the way, his last words were, “It’s a trap!” Make of that what you will.

Resuming the plot (lol), the Covenant Fleet Admiral, revealed to be Thel ‘Vadamee (The Arbiter from Halo 2 & 3), plays his role of the villain by laughing evilly and rubbing his hands together and such, while some unnamed Elite aide insists to not underestimate the Spartans. Thel chastises him for being the sole survivor of his battallion and not dying with honor.

The Spartans realize the Covenant are wary to their objective when they get multiple readings from every ship in the fleet. Because of this, good ol’ Chief somehow comes to the conclusion the package is at the Covenant flagship. Yes, really. So they go there, lose debuting stand-in Arthur in the process, and bomb the shit outta Thel’s flagship’s hangar bay (including pulling an unmanned kamikaze attack with their space motorcycles. Remember who animates these?)

Meanwhile, Thel’s aide starts getting edgy and decides to leave the bridge to go meet the Spartans head-on when they do board the flagship. Thel scoffs at this notion, claiming he is merely overestimating them.

John, Kelly, and Frederic land in the bay, and after the smoke clears, they are inside a bubble shield, waiting for it to dissipate, so they can get a move on through thousands of enemy combatants. As the tension rises from waiting for the bubble to go down, Kelly says they only have 3 minutes left. Interestingly, the short if only 5:16 long. 

The Master Chief simply utters, “Go!”, the bubble shield disappears, and they head out to kick some ass.

A big, fat, “To be continued” pops up on screen. I totally didn’t see that coming, not at all.

TL;DR: Master Chief and other Spartan-IIs have a space battle against a Covenant fleet.

Conclusion: At only 5 minutes and 16 seconds, this week’s short is an improvement. Although the shortest episode so far, it has what everyone wants (and indeed expects) from a sci-fi blockbuster like Halo — Action. Unlike the other entries insofar, this one keeps completely faithful to Halo canon by not having ancient alien Japanese ruins (which, since then, I’ve read also included statues of Buddha) and Elites in samurai armor. The fact it has actual memorable characters from the games and novels is another sweet treat for fans. That and the fact Elite mandibles were actually properly animated unlike in the abomination known as Duel.

This CGI explosion fest should prove entertaining the whole way, but did it really need to be divided into two parts? It has little plot, and it’s only 5 minutes long.
Five. Freakin’. Minutes. Seriously. What. The. Fuck.
Even if you had the whole package, it would, presumably, be approximately 10 minutes long. The Babysitter was about 18 minutes long, whereas Duel was about 12. It makes no sense. Honestly, they probably decided to divide it into two parts because I’d bet my money it’ll be the best of the 9 shorts. It wasn’t excellent, but this is honestly the best I see these short films getting. Well, unless one of them averts the whole “black dude dies first” thing. Then that one will have me sold.

I thought the Arbiter armor was metallic gray? Seems like that ain’t real gold, and that everything about this short is cheap.

In any case,  this short apparently takes place during the early days of the Covenant Empire, when the Sangheili-San ‘Shyuum (Elite-Prophet) alliance was formed. Yet, there’s Hunters and Grunts featured. I’m not sure, but I’m certain those weren’t subjugated by the Covenant until much later. Say, centuries later. Well, technicalities aside.

An oversized moon reflects upon a still pond. Somewhere, an astronomer is crying, when he shouldn’t. As Unskippable any genre-savvy fellow would inform you, everybody knows the moon is bigger in Japan… Land of the Mooninites.

The current Arbiter, Fal, after ignoring warnings of a trap by “the Boatman”, has a swordfight with half a dozen fellow Elites. There are flashbacks in the midst of said fight, which conveniently reduces the fight scene budget by half and moves the scene to a daydreaming Fal sitting with his wife, Han. And I’ll tell you right this instant that she looks like what Cleopatra would’ve looked like were she in the movie Antz. Seeing himself in inevitable danger, he suggests she leave to save herself. Naturally, she refuses stubbornly.

After training with some of his troops on his suspiciously-looking samurai robes (hakama and everything, just to remind you this 3D clusterfuck was animated by an anime company) a servant pleads to Fal not to go against the Prophets. He counters that the Sanghelli/Elites were great before the Covenant, and that their honor has been subverted by a thirst for power. One of Fal’s fellow Elites, Haka, takes this opportunity to attempt to usurp Fal’s leadership and become head of the clan. In cooperation with the Prophets, of course. Also, he wears a full set of samurai armor. Groovy.

The aforementioned flashbacks are related to Fal’s service to the Prophets, and his rebellion against the Covenant. He declares the Great Journey, the central theme of Covenant religion, a lie. For this, the Prophets declare the once-honorable rank/title of Arbiter to be “a mark of shame”, which pretty nicely explains the origins of the Arbiter mythos. While he fights a Covenant army by himself, the servant from before betrays Fal for Haka, by leading the latter to Han. While Fal brutalizes said army, his wife is likewise brutalized (offscreen) by the servant and Haka’s troop. After much reluctance, the servant kills her, and the Arbiter returns home to that horrific sight. With this, he sets off to accept Haka’s challenge.

After a short exchange, there is an even shorter duel which probably lasted less than 5 seconds. Yes, the titular duel for which this story was named for was short and anti-climatic as all hell. It got so cheap in the end that I thought my stream froze because the overuse of several still shots were that poorly done. There’s no need to explain the duel; it’s the classic “we’ll decide this in one blow” you see practically everywhere. But I’ll do it anyway, for one reason in particular.

After said poorly done still shot, Fal gushes a massive, so-ridiculously-looking-it’s-hilarious fountain of purple alien blood grape juice. Seconds later, the camera shifts angle so we see Fal’s sword, too, has dealt a fatal blow to Haka. As the cliché continues to unveil, they both fall and die. Insert sad music and credits. Yup, that’s all.

TL;DR: Cliché samurai short story IN SPACE! With aliens.

Conclusion: This short presents us with the origins of the Arbiter mythos and finally solves the mystery of whether Egyptian ant alien chicks are hot or…wait, that’s not it.

In the heyday of the Covenant Empire, the Arbiter was a heretic who underwent a suicide mission to redeem himself in the ultimate sacrifice for the Great Journey. As one can see, it was originally a rank of prestige, until an early Arbiter was branded a heretic, and so his armor has since been symbolically donned by subsequent Arbiters to save the Covenant from great crisis. In that aspect, it’s a great origin story (God knows I can be a bit of a sucker for that trope), but the lack of plot and memorable characters, as well as its poorly-written story weigh it down significantly to nothing remarkable. It seems to me that, sadly, this trend will follow in each of the Halo Legends episodes as they come.

Whether you like the three two average fight scenes or not, this is nothing but a cliché storm reminiscent of samurai fiction, including an Orient-inspired soundtrack to go along with it. Don’t bother; it’s a waste of 15 minutes of time better spent elsewhere, like matchmaking in Halo to have a teabag party with a bunch of 12-year-olds (and what is this?), which is, ultimately, what this is all about.

In some mess hall IN SPACE, some nobody tries to eavesdrop on a squad of Orbital Drop Shock Troopers (ODSTs), a.k.a. “Helljumpers.” (This is important because he’s part of the ending aesop thing.) We’re introduced to said squad of 4 ODSTs: O’Brian, Cortez, Dutch (the same from Halo 3: ODST, apparently), and… some black dude. I didn’t catch his name. Let’s just call him Chad. Not like it matters anyway.

… What? Don’t look at my pixelated text like that. IT MAKES SENSE IN CONTEXT, TRUST ME. READ ON AND FIND OUT.

Now, before we continue with the plot, let’s pause to consider the main character: O’Brian.

Our would-be badass who "never misses". If only he wasn't more incompetent than a conscript straight outta boot camp...

As you can see, he looks like the typical shounen protagonist and, if my anime dub viewer intuition hasn’t failed me, sounds just like a mix of Johnny Yong Bosch and Yuri Lowenthal. He instantly comes off as the loudmouth badass type (and looks cool while at it). And he’s a sniper. Come on, what could possibly go wrong? Nothing. That is, till shit hits the fan. For the oncoming mission, he’s been neglected to back-up and replaced with a Spartan, so this makes him butthurt the whole episode towards the (obviously) magnanimous Spartan. Thus, from here on out, I shall rate O’Brian with what I’ll call my ‘approval meter’ where I give cheer to badassery and a jeer otherwise. To be fair, he had a nice first impression and became my favorite from the get-go. +7

Back at the plot, the squad is briefed on their mission: Assassinate a Prophet (leader dudes) on a planet which is a logistical hub for Covenant forces. Said Prophet governs the sector and this would provide “months of tactical advantage” to the UNSC. Since this is essentially what someone with basic knowledge of military science would call a spec ops mission, it’ll be carried out with “minimum risk to the UNSC.” Subsequently, the mission starts 5 minutes after briefing. Badass. Oh, and the Spartan becomes their commanding officer for the operation, even though “he” doesn’t speak till the end and by all means Cortez still fulfills the leadership role. Good job there, storywriters.

Once they penetrate the atmosphere, the meteor shower they’re riding on just so happens to pick out Chad from the 5 drop-pods, so he dies. Guess what, kids? Our boy Chad just so happens to be what we call an “African-American” nowadays. That’s right, the black dude dies first. Because of meteors. He didn’t even do anything. Had like, 3 lines. Dies. Screams. Goes boom. So umm…yeah.

Leaving it at that, they nearly lose O’Brian too when his drop-pod crashlands in a pond, but a bit of plot immunity and plot-induced causality save him from a watery grave when the Spartan just goes over and manhandles O’Brian’s drop-pod to dry, safe land. Then O’Brian bitches about how the Spartan was “rough.” -1

I don’t know if the grass is greener on the other side, seeing this is an alien planet, but at least metaphorically it is, because our boys land near their target. They set out and on the way there, stumble to Forerunner ruins that are eeriely conveniently alike to… Japanese architecture. And here I was expecting actual Forerunner ruins. But no, the Japanese just have to push their ethnocentric bullshit on us whenever they can, don’t they? What’s next? Forerunner language is Moonspeak? Well, look at the bright side: At least this confirms the Japanese really are Mooninites. *rimshot*

Anywho, there’s Covenant patrols afoot, and our heroes effortlessly eliminate a couple Grunts… except O’Brian, who gets them spotted. Way to go. I’m pretty sure snipers and spec ops are supposed to be stealthier than fucking ninjas. -2. Oh, and he hesitates on shooting a Grunt, the fucking Goombas of the Halo games. -2

In any case, the Spartan jumps a Brute Chieftain which ambushes O’Whiner, saving him again, and shows that furry some kung fu fighting and knocks it down a waterfall. Meanwhile, all O’Brian can do is helplessly hang on (-1) so he’s helped up by the Spartan and, you guessed it, bitches to his savior yet again. -1. Why must this character archetype exist, particularly in anime? -2

They leave the Mooninite Japanese Forerunner ruins and get to the spot they’re gonna cap that Prophet from. The Spartan takes up the famous (and bad-fucking-ass) SRS99C-S2 AMB Sniper Rifle and is about to take the shot, but the Brute from before ambushes them and–wait for it–Spartan person saves our loser protagonist WHO’S JUST STANDING THERE a third and final time. -1

Unfortunately, we’re all atheists in the future, so the third time wasn’t the charm for this Spartan as the blow is fatal. Oh right, the Spartan is Samus a chick. No, seriously, she’s fucking blonde and everything. It’s like Master Chief and Samus… Ohgodbadfanfictonwhy Get it guys? “Babysitter”? Double standard? Japanese exploitation of females? Hur hur. Anyway, she urges Mr.Backup to take the shot, which he does (it was beautiful by the way. No, not Samus, the shot. +3) which elevates the approval meter on O’Brian to a grand total of…0.

After Cal-141 (Spartan chick) dies, we’re back at the mess hall, where the same guy from before (you know, first sentence if you’re still paying attention) finally tries striking up conversation only to get apples thrown at him by the enraged ODSTs for dissing the dead Spartan who fought and led them died bravely in battle.

Well, you know what they say: One bad apple…
*dons shades*
…spoils the barrel.
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAH

TL;DR: Badass is really a douchebag, douchebag gets replaced by big guy, big guy saves douchebag, douchebag bitches, rinse and repeat, big guy is really a hot girl, hot girl dies, douchebag becomes badass for 2 seconds, douchebag gets aesop. And ancient alien ruins are Japanese.

Conclusion: This was one of those rather trite “I hate you inhuman bastards who are saving us normal people from imminent death and destruction just because you’re different but now I’ve seen the light through your undeserved death”…things. Pretty sure the trope name exists. Nothing new, but who’s expecting some Shakespearean masterpiece? Personally, I didn’t find it bad, nor did I find it excellent. At just 18 minutes, it was just short–much too short, even–but that’s not unexpected. After all, these are technically OVAs, and those aim for quality over quantity much of the time as opposed to the QUALITY(!!!) more commonly found in long-running anime series. Visual-wise, it didn’t fail to impress, even though my connection quality is crap and I was watching a stream at probably half its quality. My new HDTV widescreen probably helps, but what the hey.

Regardless, unless you’re acquainted with the Halo universe, I don’t see the typical weeaboo watching this, much less passing it for entertainment. Just like The Animatrix, these shorts are strictly for fans who wish to delve deeper into the universe of one of the most popular sci-fi settings of the new millennium, though perhaps sci-fi fans in general might want to consider giving them a look-see. As for me, I’ll be watching them every Saturday and (probably) will bring a synopsis weekly as they come up. I’m no fanboy, but I know the military sci-fi fan in me is squealing in delight, however short each “episode” might be.