Monthly Archives: November 2022

One Piece Film: Red Review

Posted on by
Reply


“The hierarchy of the One Piece franchise is about to change” Well this film definitely pulled it off. Eventually every great franchise has its definitive movie. That one installment that you feel will never be surpassed. Some do this multiple times like Dragon Ball Z (Original Broly movie, Resurrection F, Dragon Ball Super: Broly) but most will at least do it once. Justice League Crisis on Two Earths, Bleach: Hell Verse, Avengers Infinity War, Spider-Man 3, the original Mortal Kombat, Transformers G1 the movie, etc. Well this has finally happened with One Piece as it’s hard to see this one going down. Film: Red delivers on every front from action to music and it gets a massive bump in the theatrical experience. It’s a film that you have to see as soon as possible and it’s relatively new audience friendly so you can jump in and have a blast.

The movie starts out with a bunch of people yelling for help and they’re sad because the world is going to the pits and nobody is there to help them. The world is in the great pirate era after all so villains are everywhere and the government is so completely corrupt that you can’t really count on them to help you out either. Well, one girl has a dream…a dream of world peace! Her name is Uta and this is her story. In the present she has invited all of her fans to an island so that they can see her sing in person. Throughout her career she has only sung virtually through the cameras so this is a big deal. Just about everyone has come to watch her songs and 70% of the entire planet will either be watching her on TV or on the island. She almost literally has the world at her grasp and now she can try to achieve her dream. Is the dream really possible though?

Luffy is glad to see her because they used to be childhood friends until she mysteriously vanished one day. There’s a lot of questions about where she went and why she vanished but there isn’t much time to ask her at the concert. Things take a turn though when she announces that the concert will never end and she’s not letting anyone off the island. Is it even possible to have a never ending concert and how will this bring about world peace? All Luffy knows is that he needs to stop Uta but it won’t be easy as she has grown tremendously powerful over to the years to the point where there are few on this planet who can challenge her. He will have to go full force because if he can’t defeat her then he will never become King of the Pirates!

Right off the bat I can say that the movie absolutely delivers on the big songs here. One of the things the movie was getting a lot of hype for was how many songs it was going to have. Instead of calling it part musical I’d call the film part concert. Even as the battles are going you will usually have some kind of song going. It really helps to pump up the scene. One of the villainous songs sounds like something out of Lost Song and then you’ve got a ton of really peppy songs like in Sword Art Online. Hearing these in the full Imax settings was excellent. My ears were still ringing long after the film had ended and I was back home. I don’t think I’ve heard a movie with such loud decibels before but it’s perfect for a concert film.

You really felt like you were in one and that’s why the theater experience is a good boost to the film so I recommend seeing it in that setting at least once. The songs will hold up even after that though and I look forward to finding them online to listen to. Meanwhile the animation is also the best that it’s been in the series. It’s not surprising as One Piece’s animation grew quite noticeably better during Wano. And if that’s how good the show looks you can only imagine how good the movie would appear. They didn’t hold anything back here and every scene really shines. The colors are bright and there is a ton of movement in the fights.

Everyone looks powerful here and it also helps to really show just how powerful Uta is with her being able to block so many hits. In general I also liked the way her powers worked. Yes it seems incredibly broken but why shouldn’t there be a Devil Fruit that is this good? Eventually someone needs to have the best fruit out there and why not have hers be the best one? Because I think it’s fair to say that no other fruit can compare. It does have its own weaknesses of course but in most scenarios you figure that she will be able to defeat her opponents without a problem. The power levels in the film were all handled really well so I don’t have any issues on that front. I did find it a little funny that some randoms would actually challenge Luffy though. He’s one of the emperors now, would they actually try to challenge Kaido or Shanks? I feel like Luffy doesn’t get a lot of respect right now, maybe he just looks too young?

People who start their One Piece experience with this film may find Luffy to appear a bit on the weaker side but he is holding back for almost the whole film so he doesn’t really get to cut loose. That’s probably one difference compared to the previous films which is that Luffy doesn’t get a lot of action. It helps the movie avoid the usual power level concerns though. Keep in mind that Luffy is already Top 10 in the verse by this film so if he was having trouble with anyone then that would be hard to really make sense of. This way that isn’t really messed with.

Luffy also looks great in general here. He handles things very maturely and also does his best to respect Uta’s wishes even if they disagree on things. When she starts talking about how she doesn’t like pirates and how he should stop being one, he just walks away instead of trying to talk her out of it. He’s just not planning on having an argument and is ready to walk away. Perhaps confronting her would be best but they’re both super determined characters so he probably realized that it wouldn’t amount to anything. He also just doesn’t want to fight her since they’re still friends.

Luffy will fight his friends if he has to like when he took Usopp down but for the most part ever since then he tries to handle things peacefully like when Sanji would try and attack him. So it’s a solid character moment here and Luffy ended up fighting when the time was right. His best film appearance is likely still in Stampede but overall he has looked great in quite a few of the movie and this one would be near the top as well.

Uta also looks great here and is an excellent film original character. Film original characters usually have had a negative rep over the years although recently it hasn’t been much of an issue. That’s because they tend to be rather annoying and hold the cast back but that isn’t the case here as Uta is close to being the main character and a lot of the film is about her dream. We get flashbacks scattered throughout the movie on her childhood and what led her down this path. It’s all really emotional stuff and her plan is actually a very interesting one.

Make no mistake, she is a villain here and has gone off the deep end, but I do appreciate films where the villain is following their own sense of justice. It’s much easier to follow a villain who is at least trying to do the right thing and has strong ideals than one who is just evil for no good reason. (There’s a place for those villains too of course) Uta can handle herself in a fight and also really thought things through here. She had a strong plan that was nearly unbreakable so you really can’t ask for much more than that. It’s fair to say that she was the greatest threat to the planet in terms of sheer numbers and I’m not sure any future One Piece villain will top that.

At the end of the day Uta was by herself for many years aside from the old guy at the kingdom and she never lost hope. She just kept fighting until she got to her own answer on how to achieve world peace. It wasn’t the right answer perhaps but at least it was one. Now the film got a lot of hype for Shanks showing up but of course you shouldn’t expect him to do a lot here. It’s a fairly small role for him but it’s still nice to see the guy. He does leave an impact in his few scenes and you can tell that he is powerful. I have my doubts on if he could really take on Luffy right now but either way he is in the upper ranks.

I did disagree with Shanks’ decision to leave Uta though. You can watch the film to see how that all plays out but at the end of the day I think he needed to trust Uta to choose her own future a bit more. He may have thought himself to be doing something noble but I did not agree with it. It was not the right thing to do imo. It’s also nice to see his crew even if they don’t look as impressive as the Strawhats. Personally I think Luffy’s crew is easily the most powerful in the series by this point.

They get their own subplot on finding out a way to try and stop Uta but for the most part they aren’t as big a focus. You get to see them get some action and all though so everyone uses their special abilities. Zoro continues to prove why he is Luffy’s strongest fighter during this as several characters even react when he does his ultimate attack. Even Yasopp was impressed and that guy has seen Shanks fight up close and personal. Zoro was also the first one to react when Luffy’s crew was attacked and I appreciate that. You have to defend them right away. I give Bartolomeo similar credit because he was the first one to step in and try to help Luffy when he was nearly captured while a lot of other characters just froze.

There are a lot of guest stars here so be on the lookout for them. Some like Katakuri should have gotten a bit more to do if you ask me though. You almost wondered what the point of Katakuri was here since he didn’t end up adding much to the fight. It was still nice to see him though. Oven and Brulee were some of the more random ones initially but it did help to make the film feel a bit more ambitious. Having the canon characters show up to fight will do that to a movie.

The film does ultimately resort to a giant CGI monster as the final boss though so that still seems to be a curse in the anime movie industry. Why can’t we end with a humanoid battle? So many of them love the giant monster at the end and it’s just not as exciting. The movie’s top notch animation makes the most of it but having Uta as the final boss herself would have been a lot of fun. I’d say that would have absolutely been the best way to go here.

This movie has a ton of replay value either way. The pacing is really fast, I remember being surprised when the film goes to the present and we see that Luffy and the gang are already at the concert. No time is spent on them travelling there or an opening montage to set up. They’re just ready right from the jump and we get into the singing. It probably happens within the opening 10 minutes and things just keep escalating from there. The film doesn’t take many breaks either. We get some lore and flashbacks but always very briefly until we jump to the next big scene. The film is just really high energy and that fits in with the series always being a colorful adventure.

Fans of the government/navy who have lasted this long will probably be fine but if you’re someone who was on the fence about if they were good guys or not will want to step back here. They look so evil that it’s almost funny. They basically figure at one point that they should sacrifice millions of people to take one character down and you can probably guess who. At that point it’s not even cracking a few eggs to make an omelet. You’re destroying the whole farm for one. They just have no justification at this point and seem to just be trying to murder people for no reason. Kizaru was ready to destroy people without a second thought and the pirates have to stop them. Yeah the government definitely appear to be the true enemies here which is why anyone working for them feels complicit after a while. Just look at how they serve the Celestial Dragons who are still as evil and petty as they come.

Overall, One Piece Film: Red is excellent and one of the top anime films. I’m confident that it will be remembered as a big game changer for a long time to come. The writing is just excellent and set up a really great rivalry/friendship with Uta and Luffy from the jump. They have a better dynamic than most of the Strawhats to be honest. I can see why she was an instant fan favorite in the franchise. They should really drop Brook off the crew and replace him with someone cool like Uta. I wasn’t a fan of the way the film ended which is the only sour spot there but it’s not a horrible ending or anything like that. (After all, that would have kept this from being the best One Piece film) It’s just not how I would have done things, I would have gone with a slightly different ending because all you need to change is one thing. The scene after the credits is pretty fun though as one character gets re-energized. If you haven’t seen the film yet then it’s definitely time to change that.

Overall 9/10

My Little Pony Friendship is Magic Volume 18 Review

Posted on by
2


Do you know what time it is? It’s My Little Pony time! It’s been a while since I read the last volume but this is the kind of series that is easy to just dive into and have fun. The stories here are standalones as we are in between the big arcs so that helps as well. Some stories may be stronger than others but at the end of the day it’s a fairly balanced mix and you will have a good time here. It’s easy to see why the series has so many fans because it’s just enjoyable to read through. So lets dive into the stories.

The best one in the collection has Pinkie Pie decide to test her friends’ teamwork skills. Basically she has constructed a really large tower and the heroes have to cosplay as action heroes and try to climb it. They all try to climb the tower individually at first but it’s not working out so well so they may have to actually team up for once. Can they put their pride aside in order to do this? Well that may make things sound dramatic as they often team up so it’s technically not a big deal. I do think they were hoping they could win without help though, I just got that idea at least from how they tried on their own first.

It’s solid because I always like seeing the Mane 6 have to try and overcome some challenges. This one may have been created by Pinkie Pie but the challenges were very real so it wasn’t like this was a walk in the park. Most impressive of Pinkie Pie I must say even if she was being a little petty at the end. I think the heroes deserved a real prize for their hard fought win. Ah well, they had fun and that’s what counts I suppose.

Then we have a story with Mayor Mare. It’s time to throw her a surprise party but unfortunately it isn’t easy to catch her unaware. So the heroes have Apple Bloom try to pull this off which almost gets tragic as Bloom says that she looks up to Mayor Mare and everything to distract her all day. The Mayor was really happy about this so she’d be absolutely crushed that it was all an act. Fortunately the comic doesn’t go down the tragic angle and things end well with the nice party.

It would have been a little upsetting if things had gone badly for Mayor Mare so I’m glad that it all worked out. The story’s more on the low key side as the subplot is Twilight Sparkle trying to get a good act to go on stage but they all keep getting shot down. Her stage partner was really a harsh critic but fortunately Sunlight Shimmer was here to help. She was always one of the best characters so it was nice to see her even if the appearance was completely random and out of the blue. Sometimes that’s the best way to be a guest star though right?

In what may have been the weakest story of the bunch we follow the Wonderbolts as they’re getting ready for another big sky show. Unfortunately one of their members gets injured and won’t be able to perform. There’s one filly who really wants to be a member but is an Earthpony who can’t fly. That’s a bit of a non starter for an aerial group of ponies but you can admire the heart and passion of this I suppose. We get a story about how their used to be an Earthpony who pulled this off with a flying machine like a super old fashioned airplane. It’s nice and heartwarming so I’m glad the Earthpony got to be in the show a bit but ultimately I just don’t think that’ll work.

It’s one of those sad cases where the dream is just about unachievable. Sure you can include the pony in a show or two to make his day but it sort of take away from the point of the group. Nobody is going there to watch a pony operate a vehicle, they want cool flying stunts and that won’t be possible if you can’t already fly naturally. I’d say that was the real crux of the issue.

Then we have a story where one pony needs a dog sitter but none of the Mane 6 want to help. It’s rare to see them all trying to get out of the way instead of helping out but this dog is a really big Cerberus so he won’t be the easiest to handle. Rarity had no excuse even compared to the others so she gets the job and initially it is quite hard for her. Ultimately she is able to push through though and after some encouragement from her younger sister learns about patience and dealing with bigger animals.

It’s a solid story with a good message at the end. I do think Rarity could have handled the whole situation better right from the jump though. The dog wasn’t even mean or anything. Sometimes in these kinds of stories you’d have the dog being a real handful the whole time but I didn’t really get that vibe from him. He wanted to play a lot sure, but then just play with him. Who doesn’t want to play fetch with a huge dog! At least now Rarity will be ready for the future.

Twilight gets her own story next as it’s time to put on her detective hat. I remember Rarity being the real detective of the group to be honest but Twilight has apparently solved tons of cases of her own so this is right up her alley. See there’s a big turtle competition coming up soon but one of them has vanished. Now the whole town has lost the will to fight and the only one who seems happy about this is the owner who always comes in 2nd place. Hmmm, this is a little suspicious isn’t it?

You can probably tell where this is going from the jump but it’s still a solid story. I do think that the kidnapper gets off extremely easy though. I would have liked some kind of penalty here. Of course you shouldn’t go to jail for something like that in Ponyville but some community service never hurt anybody. If they threw that in there I think it would have helped the ending. Still, I like a good mystery so this was a fun adventure all around.

So those were the stories. They all feel like they could have been real episodes although you’d probably need to merge two stories each time since they go by fairly quick. You could pad them out but that is always tricky. The writing is good enough where they could pull it off though. The artwork here is solid and always looks like the TV show as well. It makes for easy reading as you’ll just barrel through these volumes. The generation may be ending as the new one comes in but at least through the comics there are still tons of adventures that I haven’t read yet.

Overall, If you like the My Little Pony series then you will definitely like this comic. It’s a solid collection of stories about the group and so what more could you ask for right? Each pony gets something to do here although I guess Applejack would be the one with the smallest role as she didn’t star in any of them. I’m sure that’ll change in the next volume since this one had 5 issues and not 6 so she still has a lot of time. I’m getting closer to volume 20 now!

Overall 7/10

Aiko Tachibana vs Dora The Explorer

Posted on by
Reply



Aiko is a character who may not be the strongest but she always tries hard and refuses to give up. Her unique body does come with regeneration which is always handy though. Dora may be a good explorer but I wouldn’t trust her to save the day this time. Her abilities just aren’t a match for Aiko’s here and that will be her downfall. Dora would need more than her trusty knife to win this match. Aiko Tachibana wins.

Tangled Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s been a little while since I saw the Tangled movie. It was a pretty solid film and it actually had some real danger with characters getting stabbed and everything. The manga does a good job of readapting the events and so you do get the movie experience here. You won’t get to fully experience the songs of course but if for any reason you can’t find the movie, this will fill you in on the details pretty well.

The story starts by explaining how there was a magical flower that could be used to cure any illness and so this was given to the queen once she had grown ill. As a result her baby Rapunzel inherited this ability through her hair and so she was kidnapped by Gothel who had been using the flower for many years to stay immortal. Gothel would just cut Rapunzel’s hair and be done with it but the power goes away when that happens so her best plan is to trick Rapunzel for the rest of her life into working for Gothel so Gothel can keep using the power to stay young. This plan works out for many years but Gothel was a little too possessive in keeping Rapunzel in the tower.

So one day Rapunzel decides to leave and her opportunity comes when a thief named Flynn barges in with a crown he stole. Rapunzel hides the crown and says that he won’t get it back until he takes her sight seeing around the kingdom and specifically, she wants to see the mysterious lights that go up once a year on her birthday. (Gothel messed up by not giving her a different birthday) Flynn agrees since he wants his crown but as their adventure goes on he learns valuable lessons about friendship and what it means to value someone over normal jewels and riches.

It’s a fairly straight forward story and you can pretty much guess how it plays out but the execution is on point which is the important thing. This is a very low key story but one that will keep you interested. The characters are good and we do still have some danger here as like in the movie Flynn does get stabbed at one point. Gothel makes for a very solid antagonist here. Sure, she may not be the smartest in some ways as she creates a lot of problems for herself but she did keep the ruse up for many years so she gets some props there. She can also fight and isn’t above getting her hands dirty. In some ways that may be the most impressive part of her character.

As for Rapunzel, she is a solid main character. She took matters into her own hands in beating up Flynn and had a nice plan for escaping. While her hiding skills may not be the best, she is able to keep on winning until she gets things right. She’s a very determined character and that’s a good trait to have in any main character. Rapunzel also sticks up for herself when she knows that things aren’t right. When you add that all up I dare say that she is more likable than a lot of the more classic Disney princesses.

Flynn is less heroic than most of the main guys in these Disney adventures but that does mean he gets to learn more lessons. He goes from being someone who will easily betray his friends to someone that Rapunzel can count on. I do think he looks rather unimpressive in the fights though as Gothel easily takes him out and he loses a lot of fights here. He will have the rare moment where he looks tough like when he fought the villains off with his frying pan but that’s about it. Usually it’s still game over for him but he gets some decent banter with Rapunzel.

The art here is okay at best. It’s pretty much what you would expect from a movie tie-in. It’s not going to get the high quality art of a classic ongoing but it does its best to look like the movie so that’s a decent start. Think of this like a Shojo one shot for an artist that’s just starting out. I will say that the paneling is good though and it’s easy to read through the volume. It feels really short by the time you are all the way through it and that’s always a good sign.

One of these days what they should really do is grab one of the movies but instead of ending where the movie ends, just keep on going. Have the series surprisingly become an ongoing where the adventures continue. Now that would be extra interesting and there are a lot of ways that this story could have kept on going naturally. They certainly won’t run out of threats to the Kingdom and having Rapunzel return could make a lot of thieves think about an easy pay day once her powers return. (Because you know that they would!) It could easily be a fun action adventure story.

Overall, Tangled is a very safe manga I would say and that plays to its strengths. It’s very low key and you won’t think about it all that much but at the same time it’s still easily able to achieve a high score because there’s nothing bad about it. It’s just a fun adventure that you read through in no time and have no regrets over. The core story is a solid premise that always works well with good writing. I would recommend reading this manga if you haven’t seen the movie. If you’ve seen the movie then I don’t think there is a whole lot of point to reading the manga but hey if you want to relive the adventure then this is a good way to get a different spin on it. It’s effectively the same but reading will always feel a bit different than watching something.

Overall 7/10

Starlia Leese vs Cait Sith

Posted on by
Reply



Starlia Leese is a great fighter who can really use her silver bolts in a variety of ways. Defense, Attack, you name it and she’s got it. Cait Sith has his suit and a good amount of ability of his own but he wouldn’t be able to stop her wide range of attacks. She can effectively spam with a ton of different energy bolts all at once. Cait’s defenses would not hold up past the first few strikes if that many. Starlia Leese wins.

Crimson vs Trunks

Posted on by
Reply



Crimson is a master strategist who can employ enough strategies to hold his own against master fighters. That said, Trunks is used to having to save the world against incredibly powerful existential threats to life itself. He has enough raw power to take Crimson down here and has enough speed to dodge Crimson’s larger scale moves. There’s not much you can do when your opponent is that much faster and stronger. Trunks wins.

Iori Katanagi vs Tsuna

Posted on by
Reply



Iori Katanagi is someone who has great abilities but doesn’t really want them for the most part. In a way Tsuna was reluctant to really get into the mafia business for a while too until he finally took it in stride and went all out. At his full strength Tsuna is just out of Iori’s league though and there’s no way he would be defeated here. Tsuna’s sheer speed and impressive raw strength would be a match for any summoned spirit. Tsuna wins.

Byleth vs Sonic

Posted on by
Reply



Byleth has impressive abilities and can fight at just about any range but Sonic takes this one with ease. He’s just way too fast for Byleth so she just won’t be able to land any decisive hits. Sonic has a lot of raw power of his own too so a few good shots will end the match. There just isn’t much that Byleth can do at that point. Sonic wins.

Ranking all of the RWBY Episode 5s

Posted on by
Reply

We’re getting closer and closer to the midway point of the seasons now! By this point you expect that some good action is probably happening or if not that things are getting close to that point. Will that be enough to shake things up or are we looking at something similar to the episode 4s? Well now it’s time to find out so lets dive in and see how it all shakes up.

9. Volume 4

I liked the synergy with volumes 4 and 5 as they both deal with the Blake plot and naturally continue into each other. This time Blake finally arrives on the island but her father seems to be doing business with the White Fang which is a red flag. Of course they claim that the White Fang is actually not evil and Adam just has a splinter group but of course that’s not very convincing. The episode ending confirms that everyone is working for Adam although we already knew that. Without any real big subplot to add to this the episode naturally doesn’t rank as highly as it could.

8. Volume 5

Volume 5 mainly focuses on Blake and Sun as they try to recruit more Faunus to their cause. It isn’t easy though and it’s easy to see why as joining in would be dangerous and throw you into a fight that you fee isn’t your problem. They would have to leave the safe island to go out and fight to protect someone else which isn’t the most appealing prospect for the masses. Adam also gives his orders here and unfortunately I don’t think that was handled well. He’s panicking on a pre recorded video he sent to his underlings so why not do a reshoot since he lost control here? Unfortunately this would be the beginning of the end for Adam and I definitely was not ready for it. Seeing Adam was cool to further the plot but otherwise this was a very low key episode and the conversation with Blake and Sun wasn’t the most engaging. I can’t say I’ve ever experienced Blake’s tendency to use a word to represent each person. As for the subplot with Oscar, I thought he was a bit unreasonable in yelling at Ruby and panicking. She’s got enough on her mind as it is so he needs to calm down.

7. Volume 7

In Volume 7 we’re focused on trying to get the parts over to Amity Arena so that the world can be told about Salem. It’s a bit ironic that in episode 5 of the very next volume the heroes would succeed only Ironwood has been thrown out of the equation now. This was Robin’s first big appearance and it’s a solid debut. This would ultimately lead to more of a disappointing conclusion for her character but regardless this is how you make an entrance. If Penny wasn’t there then I think Robin would have actually tried to fight. Sure, her team would have gotten absolutely rocked but that fight would have been nice to see.

You can also sympathize with her because from her eyes this does look like more government corruption. Why would Mantle resources be going somewhere else when her district absolutely needs it for survival? Not the best look for Atlas but things are often looking rather shady on their end. Definitely more of a calm episode all things considered though. We do get to see Team neon for the first time in a while though and having them fight Jaune and pals was cool. At this point they wouldn’t stand a chance against the main team so putting them up against these guys was a good play. It’s a fun training battle and we don’t often get to see the heroes training a bunch here so all of those scenes in Atlas were fun. The ending is also a solid stinger as Salem gets ever closer to the heroes.

6. Ice Queendom

Ice Queendom comes back with another big episode as we get to see Weiss square off with Blake this time around. Ruby’s first mission didn’t go great so she brought Blake and Yang this time around but Yang was stuck on decoy duty for a while so it’s more about Ruby and Blake running around. I do like that Yang is a bit more no nonsense about the whole thing and doesn’t mind taking shots at Weiss here. That’s just her personality and it’s good to see her stay bold, it’s the Yang we’re used to after all. While the fight isn’t quite as good as the last one, the episode has a good mix of action and plot main for another solid episode in the saga. The dream world is certainly difficult to conquer.

5. Volume 2

In Volume 2 we get to see a lot of good Pyrrha action which was good to see. Surprisingly Team Cardin is actually rather strong as they give her a good fight. Yes she beats them 4-1 so it’s a bit relative I suppose but their attacks looked good and they had a lot of teamwork. At the end of the day it’s good that Cardin isn’t a bully anymore because clearly he could still defeat Jaune if he wanted too. Meanwhile we also got to see Mercury fight a bit even if he only got serious for a second as part of the master plan. It was a good setup episode and throwing in some big fight scenes really helped to make the episode stand out. It was a really solid adventure for volume 2 and it’s always great to see how gracefully Pyrrha fights. It’s no wonder that she is considered to be s top prodigy.

4. Volume 8

Volume 8 brings us our next big Maiden fight which is always exciting. The heroes finally have Amity Arena up and are ready to give their big speech but Cinder shows up with Neo and Emerald to put a bit of a damper on that. I have to say that I’m still a little skeptical of the grim reaper being able to not only hold off Neo but actually overpower her here. In her prime maybe, but now that she is an old lady? Yeah I don’t see that happening. I suppose it’s nice for her fans but it stretches disbelief just a little too much. It’s my only real issue with the episode though. Volume 8 continues to keep things operating on a high level and the plot is also very interesting. So while the fight is a nice bonus, the non action parts also hold up really well. Definitely another great episode to the collection. (How did Watts actually manage to steal that phone without being noticed though?)

3. Volume 1

This episode finally brought in the famous Nevermore fight. To date it would not be a stretch to say that it’s probably the most well known fight in the series. It was the first time that the team all worked together and was really when the show started to show off what it could do in the action department. Yes the trailers had great action but the show itself hadn’t had too many action scenes yet. The fights hold up really well and we also got to see how all of the characters interacted here. This would ultimately be the launching point for the characters to become better and better. If the competition wasn’t so steep this could have even made a strong case for the top spot here. The song that plays during the fight is also absolutely top notch.

2. Volume 6

Volume 6 gave us the big Neo return here so you can bet that the episode is rather high up. I’d been waiting for this for an extremely long time and the episode did not disappoint. Seeing Neo hold her own against Cinder until the maiden abilities were activated was perfect. I always felt that in pure ability Neo had to be one of the best and her illusions are just hard to beat. They may be different from Emerald’s ability but are close enough to cause a lot of damage.

This led to the introduction of a new song that was great as well. In the other plot we had Ruby and friends go inside the abandoned village and the whole thing plays out a bit like a horror film. It’s all ominous with the snow everywhere and people dying mysteriously. The characters even seem to be getting weaker to its effects. While I think it’s a little less convincing with a bunch of professional fighters like Team RWBY to get nervous, it was a good way to build stakes. This time there’s not an enemy to fight (yet) but still a lot of danger in the air.

1. Volume 3

Volume 3 continues the tournament strong as Yang and Weiss team up against Neon. It’s rare to get tag team battle so I was excited to see this one. The choreography is absolutely on point as you would expect and the soundtrack for the fight is really good. It’s an excellent usage of the tournament since you get to see some new characters and abilities while building off of Yang and Weiss’s dynamic. They don’t really do many combos here but they were picked because they are the strongest. So seeing them have to struggle here and try to make a comeback is very effective. It shows just how strong people on the outside can be.

The most impressive thing for me was when Flynt ended up surviving the explosion that took out Weiss. Yang having to go through a 2 vs 1 was really intense and that built up a lot of drama. I was really impressed with the fight and it’s definitely one of the big ones to remember. Meanwhile we also got to see Penny’s team stomp the competition which should come as no surprise. She really is quite powerful. Not sure how strong her teammate is as we don’t see much of her but I can’t say my first impression as a character was great. She seems a bit rude for no reason.

Well that’s a wrap on all of the episode 5s. We had a solid amount of combat episodes here and some good setup ones as well. We’re now seal enough into the series where you certainly expect a lot of action to be settling in or if not, that the plot is well underway and a lot is going on. This will only become more and more apparent as every volume has an intense climax. I’m definitely ready to see how they all stack up!

A.I.C.O. -Incarnation Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time for another Sci-Fi show. There are quite a lot of these anime running around and this one really goes into the technical elements. Get ready for a lot of discussions on the burst, alien life forms, and cloning which can be pretty intense but at times it also means that the pacing can be a bit slow. This is a good title but another one where it takes the show a very long time to really get good. I don’t think it fully found its footing until near the end and the ending wasn’t ideal so while there is some replay value here, it won’t be near the top of the list.

So a while back there was an incident known as The Burst! A lot of people died in it and now some organisms known as Matter rule the area. They’re effectively mindless and touching it will result in your death unless you destroy the contaminated limb quickly. Now you need professionals just to get near it if you want to study the area or something like that. Our main character is a girl named Aiko and her family was seemingly murdered by matter but one day a guy named Yuya appears and says that this isn’t the case. They are still alive and Aiko needs to save them.

This guy is a bit shady though as he’s on the run from a mysterious military group and wants her to follow him without question. Aiko does want to save her family though so even though it means leaving her friends and old life behind, she follows him. Yuya and some other shady guys have enlisted a group of professionals who will guide them through the affected areas of the burst. At its center is presumably where Aiko’s mother and younger brother are. Once they save them then the day is saved….or is it? What does Yuya want out of this? Aiko figures she has no choice but to trust him….but this could be a mistake.

Now I would call that the basic plot but a lot of other things start to occur as the series goes on. I’ll go more into it in a minute but we have to answer the tough questions like if a clone is truly alive and what it means to sacrifice one. Do you sacrifice a town to save a kid who might be trapped within the Burst? Then you’ve got the government groups all fighting each other and a whole lot of chaos as outside governments want to weigh in on the conversation. I think the show could have tackled all of this in more interesting ways because there is a lot of cool stuff to discuss here but for the most part it is satisfied being more of a low key show that talks about it but mainly just from the main characters’ view. Extending this with another 10-12 episodes and bringing in more outside forces could have worked.

As far as the animation goes…it’s decent. I wouldn’t say it looks very good or anything like that but it’s not bad. It’s more that there aren’t a lot of good fight scenes because typically they’re just fighting the matter which is effectively mindless and can’t fight back beyond lunging at everyone so the fights aren’t super exciting. There are some episodes where you have the characters blasting the matter for the whole episode and yet you’re not excited because it isn’t a real opponent. Fortunately at the very end of the show we do get a real villain but it is very near to the end by that point.

As for the soundtrack, it’s not on the memorable side. The tunes within the episodes just don’t stand out and I wasn’t a big fan of the opening. It’s got to be one of the least exciting ones that I’ve heard in a while. The show is just not impressive on a technical sense so that means the actual story needs to hook you which it does not. This is starting to sound rather negative so I should say that what keeps this from being a bad show is that it does execute on some of the potential. While it does tend to drag out some elements and not take others to their full use, at least it is trying to tackle a bunch of Sci-Fi themes. Throw in an explosive climax (Even if the ending is underwhelming) and you’re really all set to at least get things interesting for the end. To it’s not the most engaging show out there and loses in most head to heads, however if you are looking for a decent Sci-Fi title to bring up then I would eventually mention this one. It’s still good enough where I could recommend it.

Now as for the characters, first up we have Aiko as the lead. I do think she’s a bit too trusting with the whole Yuya situation. She wants to save her family and that’s great but you still have to keep your guard up at all times or else you’re just going to walk into a trap. As the show goes on the mission appears to be riskier and riskier all the time. By the end Aiko learns a lot and makes a lot of good decisions. I do think she handled things maturely and did try to help out as best she could. Her being a bit naïve is her only bad trait, beyond that I liked her well enough as the main heroine.

She would actually contribute by firing the cannons and would disobey any order that told her to stand down. So Aiko did have some toughness to her and that was really important because if she was a passive main heroine then it would have been that much easier for the villains to take her down. As it played out this way, she was at least able to make decisions of her own and stayed in control of her destiny. Aiko definitely surpassed expectations here.

Unfortunately I could not say the same about Yuya. This guy starts off reasonably well as he’s very mysterious but you figure he’s got a good plan at the ready. You have to decide if you trust him the way that Aiko does or if this is all some kind of big mistake. Ultimately I did not agree with his plan at all and that is what ended up hurting him here. He is willing to make a whole lot of sacrifices and while the other characters get him to be more reasonable by the end, it doesn’t change what he was willing to do. You can’t trust him and he grew worse as the series went on.

One area where the show struggles is with the supporting cast though. Outside of Aiko and Yuya, the divers don’t really stand out. There are quite a few of them and you have the gruff leader, the hyper newcomer, etc but there isn’t much to them beyond that. One of these guys is Kazuki and he ends up liking Aiko from the start. It’s not a good idea to fall for the person you are escorting since this is supposed to be a mission where you stay neutral and everything. He definitely fails on that end.

I do give him credit for always having Aiko’s back though. He’s probably the only character in the series who doesn’t waver or get tempted to abandon her at any point. Yeah that’s because he likes her but isn’t that still a pretty good complement to his dedication regardless? When she falls into the cafe and asks for help he immediately tries to get her out of there while everyone else was still hesitating. That counts for something.

Unfortunately it’s not like he’s super strong or anything so ultimately he can’t stand in the way of the government but he tries his best. You figure that he’s doomed from the start too so you feel bad for him there. Maho and Daisuke are the two leaders of the diver operation so they have a lot of experience but they don’t tend to contribute a whole lot. As you watch the show you’ll see that they technically talk with the crew and make decisions but ultimately don’t change things up.

At least someone like Kaede may make her share of mistakes as she dives into the fights but she’s memorable because she gets a whole character arc about maybe being too impulsive. Her partner Haruka always takes the blame when this happens but it causes Kaede to really think about how she has been handling this situation. At the end of the day she doesn’t want to create more trouble and so she gets a bit more cautious as the show goes on. Haruka doesn’t really get an arc like this in comparison but at least this makes it easier on her as well.

Yoshihiko has his hands full with Kazuki but does as well as can be expected. He’s the more calm member of the duo so he usually has to end up being more of a boring character there but his advice isn’t wrong and in terms of pure skill he is probably better than Kazuki. Together these divers are good enough to blast away at the blobs and we’re told that they are the best in the business so even with their character flaws they make it work. Fighting in teams of 2 helps out with that I suppose.

Outside of the whole main plot with the heroes trying to save Aiko’s family we’ve also got a whole government conspiracy plotline going on as well. This isn’t quite as interesting as it could have been but I always appreciate seeing their take on things. The main character here is Akiko and her ongoing banter/feud with Susumu. They used to work together but now he’s on the rebel side with Yuyu while she works for the government. This leads to a lot of disagreements and subtle threats between the two. It’s always very subtle of course but you can’t help but think that Akiko actually would take Susumu down if she could.

I think what would help this plot a bit would be to have the characters actually talk things out a bit more. Typically how the conversation goes is she would ask him for details and after he gives the intel she hangs up on him. She’s very openly using him the whole time until the end where she decides to help but because of that there is no ideological battle or anything like that. I think that’s a missed opportunity because there is a whole lot you could do with that otherwise. She was a decent character though while Susumu is mainly forgettable.

The real standout character here is Kyosuke as the main villain. Basically he wants to save his daughter who is in a coma after the burst. He thinks that the answer to saving her lies within Aiko and that goes against Yuyu’s plan here so they are naturally at odds. It’s always a good idea to have the villain get a decent motive though and having him want to save his sister was an effective way to do that. He seems like a reasonable guy for the most part but as the show goes on he starts to go more and more off the deep end.

We even see how he used to function normally with how he had some friends and other doctors who had his back. Eventually they just weren’t able to do this anymore but it was nice to see because it makes sense that he would have some allied by this point. The premise makes it unlikely for everyone to have a happy ending but you are hoping that she will be able to pull through at least. Then thanks to Kyosuke we do have some more action by the end.

The climax still isn’t super exciting but at least it’s a bit different. Instead of all the blobs being mindless, now you have some being controlled by him and some by the daughter. Then you have Aiko controlling others as well so it all gets really crazy. The show’s ending is not very satisfying though which was another missed opportunity. So what I’m saying here is that the concept of the show was better than the execution. Giving us more monsters and such would have been great or give us more government meetings about what to do with the burst. This was a huge event that the show barely even bothers talking about except to nuke it all. I want to know more about the origins and how the other countries are taking this. It’s touched on but just barely.

Okay now I’m going to quickly talk about some of the more in depth parts of the show so skip the next 3 paragraphs if you haven’t seen it yet. Head out now because we’re starting fast:

So the big twist here is that Yuyu is trying to save the real Aiko who was captured by the monsters a while back and is used sort of like a core. He intends to sacrifice the cloned Aiko to bring the real one back to life. This touches on the classic theme of if a clone is truly alive or not. (The right answer is that the clone is alive so destroying it would be awful) As we’ve been with the clone Aiko the whole show we feel like she is alive and you would hope that he could see that but he doesn’t. Even up to the end he intends to destroy her until Kazuki knocks some sense into him. Of course by that point Aiko convinces herself to die for the original. It’s an interesting dynamic where both the clone and original would rather sacrifice themselves to save the original.

Clone Aiko looks a little bad at first though because she is fine with someone being sacrificed for a while but when the twist is that she will be the one sacrificed then she isn’t happy about the plan. I know she eventually comes around but it wasn’t the best look since it seemed to imply that she would be fine with someone else dying. It’s a good twist about the two Aikos though and the show has a good amount of foreshadowing for it. It’s easily one of the most interesting parts of the show and you know it must have been tough to be stuck within the Burst for so long without any way out. Likewise for the daughter who was in a coma but still conscious within the void all this time.

The show could be a little dark when you think about all of this but it’s not going for that angle. Now why did I not like the ending? Well, they save both Aikos which is great and what I was hoping for but they decide the family isn’t ready to know this and so one of them can never see the family again after the final goodbye. Cmon that doesn’t make sense to me, we’ve just survived a big sci-fi apocalypse. They can handle seeing two Aikos and the ending just feels unfair/forced. I didn’t buy that excuse and it just made the show forego what should have been a really happy ending.

If I could change one thing to improve the show rather dramatically it’s that I would cut out one episode of the heroes running through the mindless monsters and add it to the beginning. Have Aiko decide not to trust Yuyu at first and gradually she realizes that she wants to take a risk and goes off with him. That would help the pacing because part of what hurt the show is that the pacing died around the middle. You had multiple episodes of blasting away at the mindless ooze and it’s just not exciting. There’s action but how dangerous can these creatures really be? (Surprisingly they do pretty good at times)

After all in some ways the slice of life parts were better than the apocalyptic adventure which should never happen. I liked Aiko’s best friend even if she never appeared after the opening episode. The scenes of the characters talking and planning were better than when they were running through the endless labyrinth of monster zones. There’s even a blue gel creature that randomly shows up and at least you could wonder what it’s deal was. Meanwhile fighting the sludge monsters didn’t do anything for me.

Overall, A.I.C.O. Incarnation is a good show. While I had a laundry list of issues and weak points for the show, it shows just how strong the ideas and premise was. I saw a lot of potential that was left on the table and that’s what really made the show underwhelming for me. It didn’t look great on a technical level but could have still thrived without it. Unfortunately the writing and plot direction could not compensate enough for this. If you want to watch a Sci-Fi show though then this is a good one to check out because it’s short and it does touch on all those themes I mentioned. At least you can ponder them even if the show has no time for this.

Overall 6/10