Two things you need to know are that I am normally pretty patient of dubs and that I am not a fan of Hetalia: Access Powers (don't hate the series, just not that into it).

My friend who is a fan gave me a link to the dub done by Funimation and he was outraged, and I can understand why. The dub is truly and entirely awful. It's 4Kids bad. And I don't say that lightly.

Hetalia: Axis Powers, for those unfamiliar with the series, is a parody of world customs, politics and traditions by anthropomorphizing countries into people. The series is somewhat controversial since there is quite a bit of implied boyxboy relationships, and stuff that people might otherwise consider offensive. When Funimation got the rights to the series some people were upset over the idea that the company was going to dub it. Funimation promised its fans that they would do a good job in translating and releasing it, with promises of awesome boxed sets to please the somewhat rabid fanbase, and that the characters would have authentic accents.

Yeah. Right.

The accents are not just awful, they are so badly done they are downright offensive. China sounds like a caricature white actor from a 1950s comedy, Germany sounds English, and Poland's accent was so bad I had tears of rage in my eyes (My mom's Polish so I am very familiar with how a Polish accent sounds like!) Even America's accent was screwy, why he had a Cali accent I will never understand. Typically, the Western world's view of an American is some cowboy type, even in Hetalia, so the more appropriate accent would have been a Texas one. Then again the voices are so badly acted that may have been what he was going for.

This dub now has me in living fear of the Black Butler dub.

If you are a fan of Hetalia, I strongly recommend you write POLITE RATIONAL emails and letters to Funimation to let them know how horrible a job they did. Since the series isn't entirely dubbed yet there may be hope for a redo.

Don't get me wrong. I love the first generation of Pokemon, Pokemon Blue was the very first game I actually played and liked. It made me a gamer. However, with Black/White only a couple months away from coming out in Japan, the inevitable whining comes out.

"Red/Blue were the best!"

"I don't recognize any of the pokemon past the first 150!"

"You don't need to play any other games than the first gen"

However, when you get past the nostalgia, I have a whole list of reasons why Pokemon Red, Blue and Yellow were *not* as great as you think they were.

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I'm now over 10 hours and 100 puzzles into the game. I think I figured what the big mystery of the tower is, which is kind of disappointing, but I still haven't figured out the villain, though I have my suspicions. The Gizmo is actually really helpful at finding clues, though the Inn room puzzle is really hard to figure out.

After logging almost 200 hours on Pokemon, and still not catching the Legedary Birds, I decided to play a new game. Originally, I was going to buy The World Ends With You, but a glitch on Amazon was only showing the really expensive copies, so after recommendation of a friend, I decided to get Professor Layton and the Curious Village.

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I've been promising for a while that I would do a full explanation why I hate Gen III of pokemon, specifically Ruby and Sapphire, since I hint at it so much. So I'll start at the beginning.

I got into Pokemon when I was 11 years old. It was the franchise that turned me into a gamer. I was obsessed. I watched the show religiously, I always asked for Pokemon cards, pokemon toys. Hell, I even have Pikachu slippers and Pokemon sheets. I had all 3 versions of the game (this is what happens when you are a single child and gameboys aren't allowed at school, and none of your other friends are into it). When Gold and Silver came out, I was thrilled, the games were amazing. The features were expanded, the new pokemon were awesome and there was so much to do. And when Crystal came out I literally waited in front of the doors of Best Buy so I could get it before anyone else could. Crystal is still my favorite pokemon game. The story was expanded, the battle tower was awesome and the animation in the battles were just what I thought the franchise needed.

So when I learned a new set of games would be released for the gameboy advance, I of course got ready for the new generation. I begged for GBA from my grandmother for half a year, and when the games came out I was willing to go out in the middle of a blizzard to try to get the games.

I finally got Ruby and Sapphire and immediately started playing it. And from the get go I knew something was wrong.

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