Favorites in Entertainment

Avatar: the Last Air-bender

The anime-inspired artistic style is cute. It wouldn’t work well with any other style of cartoon considering the creative influences from various Asian and Native Alaskan cultures, not to mention the incorporation of martial arts styles to visually represent the energy bending of the elements. All of these aspects, right down to the color palette, make this possibly my favorite animated series of all time.

Dr. Who

First of all, it’s British. I seem to like British humor. It seems sterotypical to name a type of humor after an entire nation, afterall our interests including our funny bones, can differ from person to person within a country. But British entertainment seems to have a certain wit to it that others don’t. Beyond the humor, I like how the writers create a blend of fantasy and science fiction to create the epic that is the story of the Doctor. Constantly the story emphasizes the importance of a single life and the potential brilliance of humanity amidst the potential for atrocity. Then there is the mystery of the Doctor himself, a character who has every capacity to be the single-most terrifying being in the universe (and to some he is, depending on the point-of-view), who struggles with a debilitating sense of loneliness and an underlying depression, yet he continues to travel through time and space as the champion of mankind. What especially strikes me about this character is that when he is not overcome by his depression he has a child-like wonder about things he finds in the universe – scientific things, but sometimes mundane cultural things that strike him as brilliant. He explores and finds fascinating things wherever he goes. It drags the viewer right into the adventure with him.

Mabinogi

Mabinogi is a mmorpg developed by DevCat under Nexon. Nexon is also known for another mmorpg called MapleStory. I know nothing of MapleStory, but I do like Mabinogi. It is loosely based on Welsh/Celtic stories called the Mabinogion. I don’t know much about the Mabinogion except for when I googled it when I was bored one day. The game, on the other hand, is addictive. It has a Free to Play aspect that allows anyone with the right computer system requirements to create one avatar/character for free. That player can now roam around Erinn (the mythical setting of the rpg) and discover the game. I won’t get into the details, but if you want to look into, go http://mabinogi.nexon.net. It has a Mainstream Quest element that is good marketing on Nexon’s part: because to unlock the quest, you have to pay for a premium service. The game is playable without this Mainstream quest, but not nearly as interesting. The characters have an anime look to them, which to me also sets the game apart. (I really don’t like anime all that much. I only have exposure to it in this game and the Avatar series.) This game is playable by anyone who’s old enough to read and has their parents’ permission to go online, but I do have a word of caution, while the game “bleeps” profanity, l33t speak and other tricks let chatting players get around it and the conversation topics are not sensored. I’m not much of an in-game chatter, so I ignore it mostly and just play the game.

This post is incomplete.