Character design of Final Fantasy
Although each installment of the Final Fantasy series is generally set in a different fictional world with separate storylines, there are several commonalities when it comes to character design, as certain design themes repeat themselves, as well as specific character names and classes. Within the main series, Yoshitaka Amano was the character designer for Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy II, Final Fantasy III, Final Fantasy IV, Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy VI, Tetsuya Nomura was the character designer for Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIII, Yoshitaka Amano created and did the concept art for the characters while Toshiyuki Itahana was the final character designer for Final Fantasy IX, and Akihiko Yoshida was the character designer for Final Fantasy XII.
Visual character design
The series has often featured male characters with slightly effeminate characteristics, as well as female characters with slightly tomboyish, but still feminine, characteristics. This trend has generally increased as the series evolved. These characters are usually teenagers, which some critics have interpreted as an effort on the part of the designers to ensure the players identify with them. At the same time, some female characters have been increasingly designed to wear very revealing outfits. Square Enix has stated that a more rugged looking hero had been considered for Final Fantasy XII but had ultimately been scrapped in favor of Vaan, another effeminate protagonist. The developers cited scenaristic reasons and target demographic considerations to explain their choice. For Final Fantasy XIII, Square Enix settled on a female main character, described as a "female version of Cloud from FFVII." This aspect of Final Fantasy can also be seen in Sora, the protagonist of Kingdom Hearts, a crossover series featuring Final Fantasy and Disney characters.
F.A.M.E. (album)
F.A.M.E. is the fourth studio album by American recording artist Chris Brown. It was first released on March 18, 2011, by Jive Records. The album serves as the follow-up to his third album Graffiti (2009). The album also marks as his last album with Jive Records. On this album, Brown worked with several record producers and songwriters; including Kevin McCall, Jean-Baptiste, Brian Kennedy, DJ Frank E, The Underdogs and The Messengers, among others. The album features guest appearances, from Wiz Khalifa, Game, Timbaland and Big Sean, among others.
Musically, F.A.M.E. combines the musical genres of R&B, pop, hip hop and Europop. Upon its release, the album received mixed reviews from most music critics, who were ambivalent towards its songwriting and material. The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, with first-week sales of 270,000, Brown's first number-one album in the United States. It was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), for selling more than 500,000 copies. The album garnered three Grammy Award nominations at the 54th annual ceremony, eventually winning Best R&B Album. F.A.M.E. also won the Album of the Year at the 2011 Soul Train Music Awards.
Box office bomb
In the motion picture industry, a "box office bomb" or "box office flop" is a film that is viewed as highly unsuccessful or unprofitable during its theatrical run, sometimes preceding hype regarding its cost, production, or marketing efforts. Generally, any film for which the production and marketing costs exceed the combined revenue recovered after release is considered to have "bombed".
Gauging the financial success of a film is difficult, and because there is no reliable definition, what makes a "box-office bomb" can be very subjective. Not all films that fail to earn back their estimated costs during their theatrical runs are "bombs," and the label is generally applied to films that miss earnings projections by a wide margin, particularly when they are very expensive to produce, and sometimes in conjunction with middling or poor reviews (though critical reception has an imperfect connection to box office performance).
Causes of a film's failure
Negative word of mouth
Beginning in the 1980s, cinemas started to drop movies that suffered a poor opening weekend. This made the performance of a film on its opening weekend much more crucial to its perception. With the growth of the Internet during the 1990s, chat rooms and websites enabled negative word of mouth to spread rapidly.
S.O.S.A. (Save Our Streets AZ)
S.O.S.A. is an Compilation album made to promote AZ's then-upcoming album 9 Lives. It features 10 tracks, and has songs that are not found on AZ's other albums along with songs that ended up making it on the 9 Lives album. It was distributed in the streets, as AZ was a free agent at the time and was in the process of finding a new label after Noo Trybe Records let him go.
Track listing
Samples
Problems
Let Us Toast
As If (album)
As If is the sixth studio album by American dance-punk group !!!, released on October 16, 2015 on Warp Records.
Singles
Three official singles have been released from As If: "All U Writers", a 5 1/2 minute (5 minutes on the album) long song featuring vocals from Teresa Eggers, released 28 April 2015. "Freedom '15", a groovy leviathan of a disco track, released 30 July 2015, and features vocals from Yolanda Harris Dancy and Taletha Manor. A lyric video for "Freedom '15" was uploaded 20 August 2015. The third single from the album, "Bam City", was released 30 September 2015, with an accompanying music video. "Ooo", a grooving love song, was released with an accompanying music video on November 16, 2015.
Promotional singles
One promotional single has been released from the As If: "Sick Ass Moon", an "R&B-tinted house track", released with "Freedom '15" on 30 July 2015.
Critical Reception
In a positive review for Exclaim!, Daniel Sylvester called the album "one of the most enjoyable, if schizophrenic, dance albums of the year."
Funk (Glee)
"Funk" is the twenty-first episode of the American television series Glee. The episode was written by series creator Ian Brennan and directed by Elodie Keene. It premiered on the Fox network on June 1, 2010 and was watched by 9 million viewers. In "Funk", New Directions is intimidated by rival glee club Vocal Adrenaline. Jesse St. James (Jonathan Groff) defects back to Vocal Adrenaline, and New Directions explores funk music, knowing it is their rival club's weakness. The episode features cover versions of six songs, all of which were released as singles, available for download, and two of which are included on the soundtrack album Glee: The Music, Volume 3 Showstoppers.
The episode received mixed reviews from critics. Lisa Respers France of CNN and Blair Baldwin of Zap2it both received the episode positively. Todd VanDerWerff of The A.V. Club, Entertainment Weekly's Tim Stack and James Poniewozic of Time highlighted continuity issues with the show, while VanDerWerff and Henrik Batallones of BuddyTV deemed "Funk" a set-up episode for the season finale. Bobby Hankinson of the Houston Chronicle gave a more positive review, but still found "Funk" lacking compared to previous episodes, a sentiment shared by Aly Semigran of MTV.
Funk (album)
Funk is an album released in 2002 by Korean pop rock band Bulldog Mansion. It is most notable for featuring the song "Happy Birthday to Me," which was used in the SamBakZa Flash cartoon "There she is!! Step 2 -- Cake Dance".
