Anticipation

It's August, and that means we're a lot nearer to the release of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, the long-awaited, much-drooled over CG movie that will hopefully fulfill the dreams of countless fans and wipe away the smudge that was the Spirits Within movie. Recently, several new trailers were supposedly premiered at some of Square-Enix's events promoting their upcoming games and products.

Aside from FFVII AC, there's a lot more adventure in Midgar to be had with Dirge of Cerebus, the shooter/action-adventure starring mysterious Vincent Valentine. The latest news on Dirge's front is that there will be many cameos and appearances from other characters in the FFVII world, such as Barret, Cid and Yuffie the ninja. Also appearing is Caet Sith, the mascot-type character who was originally controlled in FFVII by Shinra exec Reeve. Just what Sith's role in DC is remains a mystery, deepened even more so by Reeve's apparent death (or at least, being gunned down) in the latest trailer.
Also figuring prominently is FFVII Crisis Core, which will feature anime cut scenes including some never-before-seen visualizations of some of FFVII's most dramatic scenes- such as the first meeting of arch-villain Sephiroth and his alien mother Jenovah, and the battle between Seph and Zack, Cloud Strife's mentor.

Advent Children has already been confirmed for a September 8 theatrical release in Japan, and even now I can imagine the screams and gasps of countless otaku at seeing this fantasy epic come to life finally in complete form on the BIG screen. I hope that anime shops here will have the Advent Children DVD as soon as they can... if only AC would be shown here in Manila in theaters as well. Fat chance of that happening, but DAMN that would be cool. No, that would be AWESOME.

One more month to go...