Category Archives: Reviews

Repeat Performance Review

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Repeat Performance involves time travel which is always hype. That said, throughout the film you are questioning the point of even trying to have a do-over. You’ll see what I mean when I talk about the plot but it feels like the main heroine absolutely ruined her second chance since she didn’t get to do anything with it. If she could have one more do-over I bet she would take it. This time she could really change things.

The movie starts off with Sheila destroying her husband and heading downstairs to try and explain to her friends how dreadful the situation is. She wishes that she could do this over again. Fortunately she has the right day as the year turns into the next one as New Year’s wraps up. This allows her to wrap back one full year. This time she can have things play out differently so she doesn’t shoot her husband in the end. Will she be able to defy “Destiny” or is this going to be game over for her?

We learn more about why she shot the husband as this goes on. See, her husband is a guy named Barney who is an alcoholic and he seems determined to cheat on Sheila with someone. Enter Paula. She’s a rich neighbor/writer who seduces Barney in every timeline. Although it’s less her seducing him and more like he fell for her instantly. Sheila shot him in the old timeline after this happened so she figures she will keep them from meeting this time around. That proves difficult though and even going to another state doesn’t stop Barney. What else can she do?

Well if you ask me the first step would have been to have parted ways with the guy. Barney is introduced as a terrible character right from the jump. It’s not like he’s a good character who slowly got corrupted. He is drinking himself drunk immediately as the film starts. He doesn’t seem to love Sheila at all and loses his temper with her several times. There is absolutely no reason to stay with him, particularly when they go to another state and all he can talk about is beer and girls. He makes no attempt to hang out with Sheila or try to enjoy himself. So throughout the movie he is doing his best to cheat on her and we have to root for Sheila to win him over?

That’s a bit backwards if you ask me. Sheila should have used the year to just get away from him. Now we don’t know exactly how things played out in the original timeline but we can assume that he was the same kind of guy. So it’s not like he was ever likable and so Sheila needed to cut him out of her life. It can be annoying seeing her try to please him the whole time while he just couldn’t care less about her. He’s just an awful character.

Sheila also looks bad in not planning things out well for the end of the day though. Considering her knowledge of the future, she should have been anywhere but in her room at midnight. When you know how things will play out, it’s absolutely awful for you to put yourself in the same exact situation. The film uses this as an excuse to say that it’s all destiny and there’s no escape but I don’t buy into that. In any universe where time travel is possible, I take that to mean that you can change the future. The two elements go hand in hand after all.

Sheila has a few good friends at least. John does his best to take Sheila’s side and try to keep Barney out of it. He doesn’t like Barney and with good reason but unfortunately there is only so much he can do. Unless Sheila turns Barney away, he will always be the last person she sees and the first one that Sheila talks too. You can’t really stop his influence entirely on your own. Likewise, William’s another good friend who has Sheila’s back. He really does his best to protect her when needed and he has the best final scene in the film. The guy really did well and is an example of a character who used his knowledge of the timelines well. That’s the kind of guy you want to have in your corner.

So the premise of the film is interesting and I liked the script. The characters all have a distinguished way of speaking as you would expect in the old days. Most of the characters are interesting and I was glad that Sheila at least has some friends that she can count on. The main issue here comes down to the fact that the romance is toxic from the start though. You can’t root for Sheila to succeed because under no circumstances do you want the two of them to be together again. Barney just isn’t a good fit for her or for anyone really as he just rebounds and goes after any girl he can. The guy’s not trust worthy at all and has a bad attitude from the start.

Overall, this plot ends up hurting the whole film because it is the entire purpose of the journey. It’s hard to root for a main character when their goal’s no good and that’s exactly the case here. If only Barney could have at least been a decent guy who just slowly got worse and worse each time. At least then you could see why Sheila was fighting for him so hard. In the end I also didn’t agree with the film on how time could not be changes. Make no mistake, if you can travel through time then it can all be changes because nothing can stop you from putting things on a new path. It really comes down to the character making big mistakes if everything ends up playing out in the same way. For example I still can’t defend Sheila going back to her room when she knew what was about to happen. I’d like to see a sequel of this where she gets one more chance to change things. It would just be fun to see her take a more drastic approach to all of this as she ditched Barney. If you want to check out an old school romance, you could do a lot better than this film.

Overall 4/10

Eye of the Tiger Review

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This review is of the edited TV-14 version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

Eye of the Tiger is definitely one of those films that gives revenge titles a bad name. I mean, it’s probably not a genre you want to see a whole lot of anyway as it’s difficult to succeed in so many attempts would fail but this one just never stood a chance. It puts the main character in a rough environment where everyone is evil or mean and so by the time Buck gets his revenge, there isn’t a lot left to fight for. That’s usually the downfall with revenge films, at least this one has a good soundtrack though even if the timing is often pretty bad.

The movie starts with Buck finally getting out of jail. He made some friends in there but it’s time to head home. Unfortunately his small town is even worse off than usual. The place is run by a corrupt sheriff who is in league with gangs that go around assaulting everyone and forcing people to live in a life of fear. Nobody has ever risen up to do anything about this and they all just look the other way. Well, Buck isn’t going to do that and he foils one of the gang’s attacks. They retaliate and murder Buck’s wife while also putting his daughter in the hospital. Buck aims to take them all down now but to do so he will need a lot of weapons. Additionally he will also have to go up against the cops who are in the pocket of the gang.

In this movie it’s nearly everyone teaming up against Buck. The only person on Buck’s side is his old friend J.B. and even then that guy usually just warns Buck not to fight against the villains since he thinks the lead will lose. Buck doesn’t like backing down though so he plans to fight either way. He has some good equipment and plans like when he stretches a wire across the street to take one villain down. The problem is that he has to beat a lot of them and quickly or they just run to the police to have Buck arrested. As the film goes on Buck starts carrying his gun at all times which is a good idea. At least with that he always has a fighting chance.

Buck definitely should have left with the family as soon as he got back though. I don’t think your life can ever be all that easy if the cops have it out for you. We know that the Sheriff is willing to go quite far to mess with Buck right from the start given that he was put into jail on account of that guy. So just leave the place and start roots somewhere else. That’s absolutely the best thing to do and the only way to get out of this cycle. By the time Buck decides to go it’s unfortunately too late. So the rest of the film will be bitter sweet at best since his wife isn’t around anymore.

I’ll still give Buck props as a main character because he stands up to the gang and does what’s right. It would have been easy to have just walked away or ignored what they were doing but he didn’t do any of that. So definitely some credit there. He also does well in the fights even through to the end when he takes on the leader of the gang. Buck doesn’t go down easy and never loses a true 1 on 1 fight in the movie. The guy just keeps going forward and landing hits until he can’t anymore.

As mentioned, Buck’s friend J.B. takes a long while to actually step in and help though. It’s understandable why he doesn’t want to get mixed up in any of this but it does mean that I’m probably not going to be rooting for him a whole lot. If Buck had some help sooner the film could have potentially been over a lot quicker. The rest of the police officers all look terrible as they work for the corrupt sheriff. The whole town is complicit to an extent as they all look the other way and allow him to stay in control. It’s no wonder that the village is under such tough times. There’s nobody there who is willing to fight back against the villains.

One area that holds the film back big time is how gritty the whole thing is. It’s got Mad Max vibes from the start with the gang going around and attacking people. If they were just murdering people then that’d be one thing but of course they’re all going after the women and piling on the crimes. It’s always a bad way to build up tension in these films, having the villains just be murderers is good enough to show why they need to be stopped. No reason to go any further than that. The extra details are what puts the film in the red right away and it’s hard to get out from there.

Then as I mentioned the music timing is always very off. It is nice to hear the Eye of the Tiger song since that one’s always filled with energy. This film has some good heroic themes as well. The issue is that they will play right after a tragic scene or during one. It’s like the film’s trying to say this is a happy moment even while the heroes are still taking hits. The timing was never quite right and it’s hard to get into the music and experience the hype/fun that’s going on because you know that the moment just isn’t happy yet. The only time the song works is the very last time it plays because that’s after the big battle and so it makes sense to celebrate. The other attempts fell flat.

Overall, Eye of the Tiger is a film I would avoid. It’s a classic revenge film through and through where Buck is put through the wringer so you can get some satisfaction when he inevitably caches the villains. The reason why this genre is tough is because it’s easy to make things go too far in how much the villains are winning so it’s just hollow even when the lead gets his revenge. I don’t think the wife needed to die here and additionally the gang could have just been about getting rich and murdering people. It would be a lot less dark and would help the film as a whole. In the end, you should definitely watch Taken instead if you want a better revenge film.

Overall 2/10

Cactus Flower Review

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Cactus Flower is one of those movies where the main character really creates all of the trouble for himself. He’s not in the wrong place at the wrong time or anything like that. It’s his lies that turn a molehill into a mountain so it’s hard to feel bad for him at any point in the film. I don’t think the romance works very well and while some scenes are funny, others are not. There are more misses than things that work well in this film so ultimately I have to give it the thumbs down.

The movie starts with a girl named Toni deciding to commit suicide but she is rescued by Igor who decides to have a little fling with her in the process. Toni doesn’t seem to mind all that much and explains that she has decided to remove herself from the picture in the cheating affair she had with Julian. Julian receives her suicide note though and dashes over to see her. He convinces her that his wife doesn’t mind the affair and has even given her consent for a divorce. Toni finds this hard to believe and wants to meet this wife. Here’s the issue…Julian doesn’t have a wife. He decides he will have to get his dental assistant Stephanie to play the part but she isn’t thrilled about doing so. Is all of this really worth it to keep the relationship with Toni? Toni’s neighbor Igor is also suspicious of what’s going on and decides to step in.

This film starts to play out like a soap opera after a while with how complicated the circles are. Julian’s reason for lying to Toni about having a wife in the first place makes him look pretty bad too. Basically he told her that so that he wouldn’t have to marry her and they could just have the friends with benefits routine. Toni didn’t mind at first but clearly this got to her later on as you can tell from the opening scene. At this point Julian should have confessed but a big part of Toni’s character is that she doesn’t like liars so Julian chickens out yet again. The guy never really gets good at the whole honesty thing even through to the end. So you definitely don’t want to wind up with that guy.

So Toni likes Julian, Igor likes Toni, Stephanie likes Julian, and Julian likes Toni. Throw in a few supporting characters who will go out with any girl and you’ve got a regular circus going on here. Everyone’s certainly desperate for romance here except for Stephanie who tries to stay strong but 5 seconds into the movie and you probably know how this will play out. The romance angle is just very weak here and there is no relationship that you are rooting for.

Lets turn our attention to Stephanie for a second here who probably has the toughest ordeals in the movie. She has performed really well as an assistant for many years and has never failed in any tasks. It’s really a credit to her skills and she has a good home life. Well, one day Julian makes this crazy request for her to pretend to be his wife and she should have stuck to her guns and said no. By joining in she is basically lying herself and these things tend to come back to haunt her. Having to go on a fake date with Julian’s awful friend was another shot to her reputation and dignity. By the end of the film Stephanie basically cracks as she decides to have a wild night hanging out with a dicey crowd. Julian drove her to this so you don’t want to see them together in the end.

While Julian isn’t honest, you don’t like Toni either because she is having a relationship with the guy while she thinks he is married. No way you can get behind that. Even if Toni starts to feel guilty later on, it’s just too late. Her demands get more and more unreasonable though like after she meets Stephanie then she wants to meet the new boyfriend and things like that. All the while she seems like someone who will cheat on Julian without a second thought. Julian is correct to be suspicious of the next door neighbor Igor, that’s for sure. Toni is just way too annoying to be likable.

Then you have Igor who isn’t great either. I give him some more points than the others since he did save Toni’s life and tries to be a decent guy but his romance plot isn’t great either. He tries to look out for Toni but doesn’t exactly confess at any point and if anything makes her jealous by hanging out with Stephanie. He does get some of the best lines in the film though so by default I would consider him to be the best character here. It’s really not saying much but I like the confidence he has in his writing. He wants to write plays that are dignified and don’t rely on fanservice. It’s a good goal and hopefully he can achieve it.

There are some side characters but they’re all pretty bad like Julian’s friend who wants to have an affair with everyone and the one guy who’s always going after Stephanie even though he is married. I suppose you see some real characters while working at the Dentist. I’ve just seen way better romantic comedies in my day. You can survive while having a bad romance if the comedy is really good, but I wouldn’t say it is exceptional or anything like that. It has some fun moments but what comedy doesn’t? Most of the jokes don’t land very well and that hurts. Any scene of Stephanie having to survive her dates and try not to run out is more tragic than funny. She went too far in trying to help Julian and just should have let him sink instead.

Julian just kept getting worse and worse as the film went on. There’s one point where he starts to lecture Stephanie on how she isn’t feminine and how she is limiting her world view while they are driving back. This is after she has put her reputation on the line to help him out and she has been a great worker for many years. The entire speech just made absolutely no sense. Not only was Julian incorrect in each of his assumptions but it just made him look like a grade 1 jerk. Talk about having no gratitude for what she had done for him. Julian forgot it all in an instant.

Overall, Cactus Flower is a weak comedy. It’s hard to find any character to root for here and the style of comedy just ended up missing a lot. The romance is rather poor and while the dialogue can be good, it wasn’t enough to save the movie in this case. It does go by fast though, I can tell you that. The movie doesn’t drag on and a whole lot happens before the movie ends. So I can at least say that the pacing is good which is a small silver lining at least. Perhaps a remake could handle the film better as the plot of a close friend pretending to be the wife or girlfriend can work at times. You just have to have a really good setup and likable characters. This one forgot those key steps.

Overall 4/10

Ni No Kuni Wrath of the White Witch Remastered Review

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I was never all that familiar with the Ni No Kuni title. I had heard of it since Level 5 games always get a good amount of publicity but I can’t say I knew anything about the plot. Well, it was definitely a very satisfying RPG and a rather long one as it took me a full 30 hours. After playing it I can definitely say that this is a winner and a really solid title. It’s also unique enough where you can’t call it quite like any others. I would certainly like to see more games in this series.

The story introduces us to a kid named Oliver who decides to go out one night to try out his friend’s car. Unfortunately he ends up crashing and while Oliver’s mother is able to save him, she dies in the process. Now Oliver is broken inside as he blames himself for this happening. One day his stuffed animal Drippy becomes sentient and lets Oliver know that there is still a way to save his mother. See, there’s a parallel world where everyone has a double. If Oliver can save his mother’s double then he will also be able to save her. Oliver agrees to do this and stop the evil wizard Shadar. Along the way he meets several allies and friends who will help him out. If Oliver can spread joy to many, he can begin to save lives and souls wherever he goes.

I will say that from the start this does seem a bit suspect though. So as we play through the game you see that if one person is sad then their double in the other world is sad as well. Emotions and everything transfer. If you die in one world then you die in the other. Wait a minute……lets focus on that last part. So if Oliver’s mother died in the real world then she would have died in the other world too so there’s nobody left to save right? Oh nooooooooooo. I mean it’s impossible not to be thinking about that immediately. The question is just if Drippy is intentionally misleading Oliver or if there’s some reason why this would be an exception. Naturally you’ll have to wait until the end to see what is really going on here but I remember thinking about this right from the start. If both souls are linked throughout then that’s bad news for Oliver’s chances.

The gameplay is classic turn based although you are able to move while attacking. In that sense it’s the most similar to .Hack which also had turn based combat but you could move around to gather energy, items, and try to make the other player miss. It’s a good way to add some energy to the usual turn based combat although I tend to enjoy it either way. You can fight as Oliver or you can play as one of up to 3 creatures you control. You can switch in and out at any time though which is really good for strategy. Let me tell you now that you will want to be switching in and out a whole lot here. You can’t stick with any monster for too long anyway since there is a time limit. So I would usually go to my monster for the fighting and would switch back to Oliver when it was time to heal.

You can also capture monsters later on to add them to your team like in Pokemon. For about 80-90% of the game I didn’t use Oliver almost at all aside from healing but then towards the end you learn 2 spells that are extremely powerful. At that point I stopped using the monsters and would play as Oliver exclusively. Trust me when I say that the spells are that good. Use your two allies to draw enemy fire while you charge them up though as the spells take a while to work. Your allies will probably lose a lot though as they have a hard time blocking. You can tell them to go on defense mode by pressing square but they’ll ignore you half the time since they’re already in the middle of a spell.

Don’t worry about them so much but make sure you end up blocking the attack. It reduces the damage by around 90% and also causes the enemy to drop some health/mp bubbles and sometimes even a full recovery that gives you a final smash. You don’t want to miss out on that. There is a lot of strategic elements to keep in mind here but you’ll have all of the mechanics down before long. The game is rather difficult either way though so don’t expect to just breeze on by it. I had to grind out a lot of EXP throughout the game and even then the bosses were challenging. On the final boss I lost on the final phase when the health was in the red the first time which stung. You just have to keep going at the enemies though and get your guys into the mid 50s for level. If you go higher then even better but I wouldn’t really try if your guys are too low. Just hang back and train for a bit longer.

The graphics are really solid here. We have full anime cutscenes, cgi rendered cutscenes, and then classic text boxes with voice acting. The game is very well polished and it’s clear that a lot of budget went into this one. The world looks really good even when you’re not in a cutscene. I definitely had no issues with how the visuals looked at all. This is a winning title. The soundtrack is also good even if it’s not super memorable. It does the job of getting you through the game. I do have a bit of an obscure issue with the sound mixing though. There are 3 styles of cutscenes as I mentioned and each one has a different volume level. The problem with that is that it’s hard to have the volume set up since some cutscenes will be too low one way or too loud the other. It’s a rare issue that has only popped up in a handful of games but it’s worth mentioning. It’s not something that should really hurt your experience at all though, especially considering that all of the cutscenes are subbed.

After completing the game there is a good amount of post game content to challenge. More islands, enemies, missions, quests, etc. Additionally you also have the PS4 trophies to grab and those seem to be reasonably challenging. I expect you will certainly have to take a while to conquer those. Considering that the base game with no sub quests is 30 hours, this game will give you a lot of bang for your buck.

As with most RPGs, the story is also really good. The benefit of a story being long is that you really get to hang out with the characters for a while and get to like them all. Naturally as always I wouldn’t mind if Oliver was older but he does well by the end. His team did well in protecting the universe. It was fun to see everyone with british accents as well since you don’t see that so often. The main heroine Esther is good and always has solid banter with Swaine. Droopy has a lot of confidence and his manner of speaking always makes his sentences memorable.

For the villains, we had Shadar of course who is a tough threat. All of his dialogue is rather intense and the guy is not lacking in confidence. The battles with him are suitably tricky. The White Witch takes a while to actually take the stage but the wait is well worth it. I also liked her design. The game gives out a lot of plot twists before things are over and they all help to really change the experience. Each twist is a rather big deal and none of them felt pointless. While I would have handled the ending a bit differently, you’ll have a satisfying ride from start to finish.

Overall, Ni No Kuni is definitely a great game and I would recommend checking it out. It’s a difficult RPG that will require more grinding than in others but by the same token, the extra level of detail means that this could be the reverse for you. If you really master the mechanics and type advantages then perhaps you could beat this at a much lower level than I. Of course I’d like to see you try though as I would argue I did really well with the mechanics. It does mean that there are countless ways to approach each boss though so feel free to experiment. Always buy the latest equipment and you will be in a good spot here.

Overall 8/10

The Hunters Guild: Red Hood Review

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Red Hood was a really big deal when it first came out. People got really hyped after the first chapter but then the hype slowly started to disappear. By the time it was cancelled at 18 chapters, a lot of people were disappointed but it seemed to have already fallen off the top. Well, I’ve finally checked it out and the manga had some fun ideas but is really held back by the art. Manga’s such a visual medium where if the art is bad I think it will be extremely difficult to succeed. Effectively the manga is starting itself off at a disadvantage. It’s not a bad title by the end but I can certainly see why it was cancelled. It goes without saying that this review will have complete spoilers so if you have not read the chapters yet, you will want to do so before checking this review out.

The manga starts off by explaining that the hunters have exterminated all dragons off the face of the Earth. Now they aim to destroy all of the werewolves next. We then cut to the main character Velou who is a kid that just wants to protect his village. Unfortunately Werewolves are quite powerful, can shapeshift, and even regenerate. There’s no way Velou can win on his own so the village spends all of their money to call in a hunter to help. Her name is Grimm and while she appears to be a small child herself, she has never failed a mission before.

This intro mission lasts for almost half the series with around 7 so it’s a bit longer than you would expect. Usually in something like this you have 1 or 2 chapters for the intro and then you keep it moving. This slower pacing is different but not necessarily bad. We get to see what a big threat the wolves are to the average person and there’s a lot of lore thrown right at you this way. You get to really learn about the world and that’s never a bad thing.

You also get some Promised Neverland vibes here. Velou looks just like Emma from that series even down to the hairstyle and with Wolves lurking around every corner, the series is going for a bit of a horror theme. You can’t trust anyone and despair is right around the corner. It could also just be that the art gives this effect as the drawings never look complete and everything’s so convoluted. Regardless we even meet some of the big villains from the Red List and at the end of the intro Velou decides to become a hunter. The exam lasts the rest of the series with the exception of the final 3 chapters where we hit the climax. So as you can see, the series didn’t have a whole lot of time to do much here.

Lets break this down into sections though as I’m jumping around a lot here. For starters, I’m not a big fan of Velou being such a little kid. To me that rarely ends up working because for a series like this you need the main character to be able to fight. While Grimm could have looked better (More on that later) she can at least fight and has 100 different tools. The other fighters we see can all fight as well, Velou is the only exception. The series is going for a World Trigger vibe where Velou has to get used to being the strategist but I don’t think that works very often. It can be hard to root for a main character who can’t actively fight himself and has to hide behind his friends. Velou does have a gun but tends to miss his shots at point blank.

Velou means well and has a lot of the usual hero dialogue but there’s nothing that really draws you to the character. I don’t see a lot that would end up making him very interesting and so this doesn’t help his case in the long run. As for Grimm, she’s the real character that got a lot of attention at first. Her story is that she is cursed to be trapped in the body of a child and can only go back to her adult form for 3 hours a day. Sort of like an All Might situation there. Thing is, while she gets a ton of hype, she doesn’t look great. She lets her guard down against villains multiple times and is completely helpless against the Red List. Grimm doesn’t even get a true final fight at the end.

In this case, it would have been better for her to have just not fought yet. It would be like Kakashi meeting his match immediately in Naruto. This is more like Rukia losing in episode 1 of Bleach which was still sketchy when it happened. Grimm has a lot of confidence in herself though and loves to fight so you can probably guess that I enjoyed her character quite a bit. I just think she should have looked stronger.

I’ll give the series credit for being aware of this though. This is actually turned into a bit of a sub plot as a character realizes that Grimm isn’t looking so good. It turns out that there is some reality warping in effect so that is a very reasonable in-universe explanation as to what’s going on here. Trust me, I’ll definitely talk about the reality warping coming up since that’s a big factor here.

One character we meet during the exams later on is a guy called “Bonkers”. Bonkers is you classic strong guy with a bad attitude who doesn’t even care about entering the exams. He has a tragic backstory and has just given up. Fortunately Velou is able to talk him out of it so he can learn how to be a team player. This is so successful that Bonkers is the one giving a speech in the next chapter. I could see him being a decent character as time goes on but for now there isn’t a whole lot that is interesting about him.

There are tons of trainees introduced in the long exam arc but most of them won’t leave a big impression on you just yet. There just isn’t time to really learn about them. You have Tylty who doesn’t trust people anymore and wants to win the exam on his terms. You have an older scientist who wants to prove that his inventions will be useful in combat. Then there’s a girl who believes in being very practical so she will betray you or stay on the team depending on which option makes more sense. She’s not going to choose an option just because it’s the right thing to do. It seems like most of these characters were meant to become main characters eventually so it’s a shame that the series ended before they could return.

Then you have Debonair who is one of the more experienced hunters. She’s actually teamed up with Grimm on the field back in the day so she knows her stuff. She was cursed to always have a high body temperature so she uses that in her attacks. It’s a creative way to take control of her curse so I’ll give her credit there. She was definitely one of the more enjoyable characters here. She adds a lot of energy to the series and always just jumps into action. She doesn’t hesitate to attack anyone whether they are friend or foe.

Then we have some villains in here like Cinderella. She is one of the highest ranking villains of the Red List and I’m very interested in how she turned evil in this continuity. Of course as the series goes on we see that her faction may be the good ones. I’ll break down the two sides later on. Cinderella is a lot of fun though and would have been a solid reoccurring villain if this series had kept on going. She has a partner in Lycaon, the king of the beasts. This guy is huge and immensely powerful so even though these two villains appeared almost immediately, I wonder if they were planned to be end game type bosses.

Aside from a few minions, the only other big villain we met was the mysterious mayor. It was a pretty big twist to have this guy end up being with the villains. I’ll talk about his goals in a second but it’s a very interesting direction to place this guy in. He looks good. His last second character 180 I can ignore since it was the last chapter and that’s likely the only reason this happened. Otherwise I doubt that would have happened at all.

Before getting into that I’ll quickly talk about the 3 arcs. So the pre arc where we were introduced to the main characters is the weakest one. It’s hard to get all that engaged in reading about this village filled with expendable characters when the 3 wolves attack. It also lasts pretty long even though Grimm should have just ended all of the werewolves in an instant. Of course she was testing Velou but she also did promise to save everyone. A bunch of people really could have died every minute that she was messing around instead of helping out. The only really solid part of the arc was the ending when Cinderella showed up to style on everyone. It was also an interesting way to get Velou to join the her since he only relented since there was no longer a village to save. It was the fact that Grimm failed the mission which ended up making him join. Not the greatest reason to get in on the action.

For the exam arc, well it’s a cool concept for a test but it is just too soon. So you’ve got a bunch of random characters who have to put aside their difference to win the test. If the main character could fight that would work better but since he can’t, it just doesn’t work as well. The whole exam also makes no sense because there’s no way a bunch of random cadets could hope to beat the top 2 hunters. Even if they are holding back so they don’t murder the kids, I don’t buy for a second that the heroes were able to outsmart them every time. It ended up being a complete loss for the hunters as they couldn’t capture a single cadet. That’s going beyond lucky to just being unreasonable.

Then we enter the final 3 chapters with reality warping and such. It’s hard to get super engaged here either since it’s all happening so fast. We get a super gun that can destroy everything and an onslaught of twists. The plot twists are interesting and put the series on what would have been a very interesting path but we don’t get to explore it. Throw in the cheesy ending and that doesn’t help matters a whole lot. At least we did get some action though.

So, what is going on here? It turns out that the entire world has been destroyed many times. See, humans and werewolves have been locked in war with each other for millions of years. The issue is that the werewolves cannot be destroyed because any human can turn into one randomly, without warning or reason. So the only way to destroy the werewolves is to destroy the human population. Apparently the hunters have tried this before and destroyed all the humans but then everything got reset each time. See, there is a powerful high above being working on this…The Readers. Yes, in this series the reader is a concept.

So the characters are all locked in a twisted fate of never being able to escape. Then you have the Red Hood who is in charge of writing in the master book, events of what is to come. Whatever is written ultimately ends up happening and so he writes good and bad events to occur. Villages getting burned down? The guy wrote all of that. So destiny has complete control over everyone because their results were already written in.

This is where the Red Line comes in. Their group is made up of other powerful fighters who don’t want to be trapped by Destiny. So their goal is to take down the hunter alliance and seize control of the book. That way they can stop anyone from writing in it and people can make their own choices. Based on that intel, I would argue the Red List are the good guys right? Yes, but then you remember the first chapters and how they’re going around burning down villages and eating people. So…they lost all credibility in an instant.

This is clearly a series where both sides are going to be evil. Well, this is where the Mayor steps in as a third faction. He pretends to be a part of the Red List but has his own goals. He wants to destroy the book entirely and end reality. I should mention as part of the Red Hunter’s duties, they write in the book to appeal to the readers. Well, the Mayor believes that writing to appease a bunch of violent gods isn’t a good thing to do. Humans are not puppets and so he plans to end all of reality. To that end he created Velou, who isn’t truly real. Velou is an anti destiny, sentient bomb. Just by existing he causes the characters to break away from their script and regain free will.

If the Mayor can get Velou near the book for a long enough period of time, then the book will blow up and the Mayor will have gotten his wish. In the meantime the Mayor stole two pages of the book so he can fill them with anything to change destiny. It’s a very overpowered ability that’s for sure. The series ends with him turning good as he’s blown up and the heroes are all finally freed from destiny to do their own thing. As the series was cancelled, the readers are gone so nobody can dictate how their series will go. It’s very meta that’s for sure.

Some interesting concepts there but I think it would put the series in a hole rather quickly. Once you get this meta and are breaking the fourth wall all the time, it’s hard to tell more stories. Once the characters know that they are characters and that everything’s a manga, it just seems like it would be hard to actually tell any stories. There were some hinting about proper scripts and characters acting in line early on in the series so I think this was originally meant to play some kind of role and it wasn’t just because the series was cancelled. I’m guessing the twists wouldn’t have happened so quickly otherwise though.

Personally I think the series was cancelled in large part because the art’s just not that good. It’s very cluttered and it can be hard to tell that is happening half the time. There’s one scene where a hero kisses a villain just to annoy her but you don’t even realize that happened for a few panels because the art’s so bad. It seemed more like a hug initially. Forget about the fights, it becomes 10 times harder to follow along once that happens. It doesn’t help that each of the werewolves are huge. Even experienced artists can have a hard time with big opponents, much less a new series artist. Should have stuck to street fights even though those don’t look great here either.

The series could have been saved if the art was better. I also would have pushed back the exam and shortened the intro. Have the characters go straight into another mission first and learn about the world. Maybe the test could happen as part of arc 3 or arc 4. That would also give Velou some time to get better as it’s hard to see him being ready to be a hunter this early on. I’d also say it’s probably best to get rid of the meta aspect of the series since I don’t think it works in a serious context. That said, if it’s the main point of the series then I won’t ask to remove it since that would change the core story. Velou being an anti destiny bomb was interesting at least. If he had been a main character who could fight I also think that would have been an upgrade.

I won’t say the series is bad though. It’s certainly not something I would be very interested in reading again but it does avoid fanservice (Due in part to the art being so bad so even all of the exaggerated designs and costumes don’t register) well and there’s no real wince worthy moments here. In an anime version we’d have to see how the Werewolves are drawn. Having them as opponents would have been very dangerous for the series as a whole unless it was stylized. At 18 chapters the series is just gone in the blink of an eye so I’d say you might as well check it out. It’s a decent adventure but one that was more positive for potential than what it actually did on the screen.

The writing was good and there were some good tactical elements in here. Since the series was definitely going for the strategic kind of main character, I think it would have pulled this off well enough. The plans in the manga were good although I call major hax on the cops and robbers plan. There’s just no way that would work against the hunters so hopefully the future plans would be better. It’s an entertaining read, there are just enough issues where it’s hard to see this ever surpassing a 7 at best. There isn’t a true hook that would have ever kept this going for very long.

Overall, Red Hood could have been the next big thing if it played its cards right. A Shonen Jump action story about fairy tales and folklore could have really been something. We get quite a few references to Little Red Riding Hood of course and with Cinderella as a villain, I’m sure the series had a lot of ideas. Of course the tragic part of being cancelled is that you will never get to see those moments. It’s considerably better than some of the cancelled manga that I’ve read but that does seem a bit like a back handed complement when you think about it. We’ll see which cancelled manga is next but in the meantime I would definitely recommend checking this out. At least you can see what all the hype was about.

Overall 6/10

Ad Astra Review

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Ad Astra is a fairly low key space adventure. You’re not going to have a lot of explosions or anything like that but you do get to see space which is always fun. I do think the movie would have benefit a lot from some actual aliens and explosions though. Maybe have the humans turn into space apes or something. Still, it’s a fun film and it should keep your interest the whole time.

The movie starts by introducing us to Roy. He is one of the top astronauts and one thing that really makes him stand out is how he has no real emotions. Rather, he is so good at suppressing them that this comes naturally to him. He is the son of the legendary Clifford, an astronaut who was doing great work on the Lima Project but unfortunately died in space. The Lima Project was all about finding any aliens in space. Well, the government lets Roy know that Clifford may actually be alive. Unfortunately, it appears that as a byproduct of the Lima Project, mysterious power surges are rocketing across the cosmos and causing all kinds of dangers. Roy was almost destroyed by one of them. The government needs Roy to make contact with Clifford so they can ask him what’s wrong and fix this. Is that really all they plan to do though?

As always in these films, you have to take what the government tells you with a grain of salt. If they say they just want to talk…you have to assume there’s more to that than meets the eye. Of course with Roy not showing his emotions much, he’s not really going to talk about any of this. It’s not until we’re deep into the film that he gets to show off his emotions more like when the government tries to take him off the case. Roy’s a very capable soldier and proves his worth in several fights like when bandits nearly end his mission from the start.

Roy also seems to dislike the fact that space has become a really big retail mall. When you go onto the Moon the first thing you see are a bunch of food stores and things for sale. He mentions that his father wouldn’t have enjoyed this either. It’s clear that everything has been turned into a place for shopping and Roy figures humans will continue to wreck every planet they come to. It’s a jaded opinion but one that’s probably correct at this point. So yeah I liked Roy as a main character. He had to make a lot of tough choices but I would say he always made the right ones. He didn’t back down and aimed to complete his mission from start to finish.

He’s a good contrast to some of the other characters who are doing the whole “Just following orders” routine. Some of them really don’t think for themselves and just obey all commands even if they don’t make sense. There are 3 agents in particular who look really bad here as they are ready to instantly try and murder Roy. Fortunately for the lead he ended up being more powerful than they were and stopped them. It was a needless loss of life though and only serves to weaken their chances at completing the mission.

As for Roy’s father Clifford, he gets a decent sized role by the end. We get a few plot twists on the Lima Project and the extent to which he wants to complete it. Needless to say, this mission is really Clifford’s life. Now he hasn’t done a great job with some parts of it though like putting the whole universe at risk. Clearly there are some bugs with the project that need to be resolved. He’s not really addressing the issues though and by the end you could say he feels like a total villain. Same with the government here but at least their overall objective will protect everyone. Clifford seems willing to sacrifice the known for the unknown which isn’t good. Even if he were to find his objective, there would be nobody left to celebrate this.

The writing here is solid. The film can move a little slowly at times and it’s certainly not meant to be a thriller but you will be engaged. In some ways it feels like a very old school sci-fi adventure where it isn’t relying on action or explosions to get by. It’s just telling a story about space. Of course I’ll always take a more action packed adventure but when executed well this can certainly work and Ad Astra will end up being a good example of that. The dialogue is good throughout and most importantly, you won’t be bored. Even while plot developments are slowly tossed over to you, the characters are able to hold the scenes up well. At worst the emotional scenes just won’t land so much but they’re typically quick and then you get back to the adventure.

Due to the nature of the film there isn’t a whole lot to discuss though. The story is very straight forward with Roy needing to find the source of these power surges and stop it, even if it’s Clifford at the helm. Most of the film is about the journey there and realizing that space has quickly become the new Earth. If anything it’s probably even more lawless judging by how easily the pirates were able to show up and cause trouble. I wonder where the pirates live though, it must not have been easy to create another base on the Moon. Perhaps it started as a revolt and they overtook one of the sites. Either way you’d expect the government would be able to take them out then. The film’s not about that but I would have been interested to learn more about that.

Overall, Ad Astra is a solid Sci-Fi film. It’s not a game changer or anything like that but it’s just an all around quality movie. I could recommend it to anyone who likes Sci-Fi since it’s so accessible. One of the benefits of not being super deep or having a lot of foreign concepts is you could even watch this as your first sci-fi film and immediately understand everything. It’s basic and not in a bad way. I’d be up for a sequel that goes more all in on the action but they’ve shown that they could do a low key movie once so I’m sure they could do it again.

Overall 7/10

Crash: Mind over Mutant Review

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At long last it’s time to play the next big Crash game. It keeps the monster hacking from the last title but changes the mechanics of how it works a bit. The gameplay is solid but the game is held back by some questionable design choices like the fact that you can’t actually fast travel between lands. So effectively you have a giant hub world but have to actually walk back and forth between each level. I’m still wondering why they would do that but we’ll go into it in a moment. For now I’ll just say this is certainly the weakest Crash game but still a decent game overall.

The game starts with Cortex coming up with his latest scheme to take over the world. He has these VR goggles that will put you into an environment that is so realistic and top tier that you can’t help but get sucked in. Even Crash’s best friend Crunch and his sister Coco were not able to resist. Crash and Aku must now try to stop Cortex before it’s too late but what can these two do without some kind of backup? It’ll be tough but either way they will aim to give this their very best shot. After all if they can’t win…who can!?

So the gameplay is your average 3D Crash style for the platforming elements. You can run, jump, spin, and even dig in this game. You have to typically get to the end of a level or beat up enemies to proceed. There are quite a few sections for combat here but the battles are never too hard. It’s the kind of game where if you die, you appear close to where you died, so you never have to backtrack a whole lot. I definitely enjoyed that at least. Nothing’s worse than having to redo a large section. For the monster jacking, you can store up to 2 monsters at a time and switch through them at will. The downside to having two monsters is that you can’t play as Crash which makes some of the platforming impossible. So typically you will want to stick to one monster which is the perfect setup. Particularly if you pick the Hedgehog as one of them since he’s so fast.

When you’re going through all of the back tracking, it’s very helpful to have someone like this at the ready. When you defeat an enemy you are given the option to take control of it or keep on going. Don’t worry about not taking the right one, any area that needs a specific ability will warp an enemy to you in those instances. So it’s a fun enough gimmick although it feels like we’ve gone far away from the original Crash structure. It’s fun getting to fire off energy blasts and slow down time so the monster abilities are always fun. The slowing down time aspect is quite powerful so they make sure you don’t get to control those monsters until the end of the game.

So lets talk about the backtracking since this mechanic did not work. Basically the island is so huge that it connects to around 6 areas. I want to say in real time if you had to travel the whole island it would probably take you around an hour or so. Fortunately you never have to do that in one time but say you beat the desert world, you’ll be told to go back home. From there you have to head to the school then home, then back to the desert, etc. Most games would have a teleporter or something which would be incredibly useful here. Unfortunately this was not included for a gag. At the very end of the game one of the villains mocks Crash for running around the whole game and quickly whips up some teleporters.

Yes, you gain the ability to fast travel to any point at the final level in the game. By this point it’s so late that it doesn’t actually help out a lot. I suppose if there are some good post game content to play through then it would be nice but this should have been around for the base game. Trust me when I say this would have been incredibly useful to have had a lot sooner. It’s just tedious to run back and forth as well as being very time consuming. You’ll spend more time running around than actually playing the game which is really an issue here. The decision just doesn’t make sense to me.

There’s also a level up system built into the game which doesn’t seem to have much of a point. You get a little stronger and unlock new moves but I never noticed the difference and it takes a while to get level ups. So by the time you are stronger you’ll have beaten the game. I forget at what level I completed Crash but I think it was around 5-7. The game is easy enough where it won’t make a difference and so the whole mechanic may as well not even be here. As they say, if a mechanic doesn’t actually affect anything then you may as well have not had it in the first place.

Well, the graphics are good. During gameplay it all looks solid at least. The levels are colorful and everything is on point. My only issue is with the cutscenes that are going for a more experimental look this time around. Sometimes the cutscenes look like drawings where everything is as low budget as possible. Others use designs like something out of Jacob Two Two. The designs are always changing from cutscene to cutscene, Crash even looks like a Super Saiyan warrior at one point. Now that was definitely something that was a different experience. I’m not really into the experimental techniques myself so personally I think the best thing to do would have been to go with more traditional artwork. It would have just looked better.

At least you can say it does match the crazy plot though. The whole game is rather bonkers with how everyone falls for these goggles. A lot of the dialogue is so self aware it almost threatens to break the 4th wall. The characters aren’t very smart here and even the villains get humiliated by Cortex. The evil mask is certainly on the backfoot here. The scene where he is literally being milked by a machine while Cortex gloats and laughs is rather intense for the guy’s fans. Cortex is really the only villain who keeps his hype here. Perhaps this will even solidify him as the ultimate Crash villain for most. At this point, none of the others seem like they can keep up with him.

Overall, Mind over Mutants is a step down from the other Crash games but I would still call it a good game. Beyond the lack of fast travel, the rest of the gameplay is good and that’s the important thing. The soundtrack may not be too memorable but it works well enough. While the graphics aren’t very good, the story still has a good amount of funny moments and a lot happening at all times. I may not like Crash as a main character but Cortex has enough good lines for the both of them. If you need to complete your Crash experience then this is a good entry to check out. Otherwise you’re not really missing a whole lot though.

Overall 6/10

The Shop Around the Corner Review

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The Shop Around the Corner is a pretty fun title for a movie. It does give you a classic rom-com feeling although you could also see this working for a horror title. It’s a fun little story although it is one of those times where the romance seems is hard to buy into because of how mean the main heroine is though. If she’s this mean to just anyone…well the main guy better watch out.

The film starts off by introducing us to Alfred who is the best salesman in the store. This store sells just about everything from music boxes to suitcases. Alfred has been exchanging letters with a lady and is starting to get serious about her but they are anonymous pen pals so they don’t even know what each other looks like. In comes the main heroine Klara who really wants a job. She and Alfred do not get along right from the start but she ends up getting the job. Fast forward many months and things have not improved between them. Each of them are getting ready to meet their pen pal but Alfred is distracted by the fact that the boss: Hugo has been turning on him as of late. Is Alfred’s job security in trouble?

Alfred seems like a nice guy right from the start. While the 6 month feud between him and Klara is mainly off screen, it seems like she’s always the one who starts it. A lot of her remarks towards him seemed rather uncalled for the whole time. She insults his intelligence, his character, and is always just taking any shot she can get. Even when he is being nice or at least trying to be, she just tears him down more and more. So it was hard to find her likable throughout the movie. Klara is someone who is only nice to some people and that’s not a good thing. When you’re conditionally nice, that just means you’re probably someone to be avoided.

As for Alfred, well he is a good main character. He’s put up with a whole lot on the job but kept on going. He’s the most dependable employee in the whole place. Alfred also does really enjoy the letters he gets and responding to them. In a way his life was going perfectly well until Klara stops by and the boss starts acting rather aggressively towards him. Alfred’s life is thrown upside down but at no point does he take it out on any of the other characters. He just does his best to stay professional and really does all the right things. By the end you’ll certainly be rooting for him.

I did not like the boss Hugo. So, Hugo finds out that someone is having an affair with his wife and so he jumps to conclusions on who it is before waiting for his private investigator to let him know who it was. Not like the PI was a lot of help though as the guy just narrowed the options down to an employee which was most likely anyway. Hugo goes in hard on burning the bridge with Alfred. Alfred’s a nice guy and still stays courteous but I don’t think many would overlook how Hugo treated them.

Pirovitch is Alfred’s best friend and he’s a loyal sidekick to have at the ready. Whenever Alfred needed help with anything, Pirovitch would help out. The guy also took things in stride and had a very laidback approach to everything. Whatever you needed to be done, Pirovitch would do it. Then you have Vadas, one of the more dicey characters. He is quick to agree with the boss on anything to curry favor. He’s not trustworthy or honest in the slightest as he can only think about moving up. There’s always someone like that and so you need to keep on high alert around him.

Finally you have Pepi and this guy was really entertaining. Pepi started out as an errand boy and gradually moves up the chain. The voice he uses for the phone calls is great as he trolls Hugo’s wife and he also really knows how to command the troops once he moves up. Pepi has a lot of confidence in himself and this really ends up paying off for him. I like his confidence and his will to win. Through rain or sun, you could always count on Pepi to get the job done. You can also tell that he is going to be a very strict boss. There’s no doubt about that.

The writing is solid here with a lot of good banter between the characters. You’re always glad when Alfred defends himself so that it isn’t just a one way smackdown as Klara destroys him. Fortunately Alfred rarely takes the comments to heart and just lets them bounce away. I’m rarely surprised to see good writing in these old films because if anything I’ve come to expect it. This one doesn’t disappoint in that area and the whole film flies by pretty fast. Really the only weakness as I’ve mentioned is the romance which doesn’t really work.

The concept itself is sound. The idea of two characters liking each other as pen pals but not liking each other in the real world is a fun dynamic. It’s almost like a Clark Kent and Lois angle where she likes Superman but in most continuities doesn’t like Clark like that and will even insult him at times. I think the problem here is that they just made Klara too extreme. To balance this out, they should have also had Alfred taking more shots. Maybe tone down the actual shots so it’s more like fun colleague banter as opposed to extreme dislike. that’s really the only aspect where touching it up a bit would have been really good.

Overall, it’s not enough to really hurt the movie or anything like that though. Either way I had a good time with this one. When you have good writing and a very strong main character, you’re likely going to succeed either way. I like the story’s premise and the execution was on point. The movie never drags on at any point and the side characters are also very memorable. I wouldn’t have minded Pepi getting to appear more but ultimately he served his role well. It’s a very charismatic store and you can see why they have so many sales each year with such a talented team. I’ll even give Hugo some credit there since he tries to lure in customers as well. His main issue is that he’s already too well known so his tricks don’t seem to work very often at this point.

Overall 7/10

It’s a Dog’s Life Review

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Right from the title of the film I had a bad feeling about this one. The tricky thing about having an animal be the focus of anything is that it increases the risk of some animal violence being around. Let me tell you, that definitely gets awful risky and this film was not able to avoid the issue. As a result I would definitely say it’s a bad film that you should avoid. Most of the characters are rather mean spirited and the tough road that the dog had to travel was simply too challenging.

The movie starts with Wildfire explaining his life. He lives in the Bowery, a tough part of town. He owns the back alleys at least and chases out dogs who try to eat there. It’s just tough keeping up this lifestyle though and there are certainly no frills or benefits here. His life’s goal is to find and destroy his father for leaving his mother when she was still pregnant. Unfortunately for him, Wildfire’s mother will never even talk about the guy. One day his mother disappears so Wildfire is forced to start his journey early. He will end up being involved in dog fights and fashion shows, but will he ever get closer to finding his father? Will he even be able to locate him since he doesn’t really know what the guy looks like? The only thing he does know is the father’s title: Champion Regent Royal. That will have to be enough.

As soon as I mentioned dog fighting I’m sure your eyebrows twitched for a second there. Well, rightfully so as this is the weakest part of the film. So Wildfire figures that his father may have been a fighter based on the title so he doesn’t mind being in the circuit. In fact, he enters into the store to make sure that happens. Unfortunately it’s not a very pleasant sport and we see him get bruised up after each fight. Even when he wins you can’t feel good because you know that means that he beat up another dog. Eventually he is defeated and barely escapes with his life but the whole thing is definitely on the violent side.

Of course the injuries are just makeup and such but it looks quite realistic. This is the kind of film where you’d rather they just made them robotic dogs or something like that so you wouldn’t really worry about the injuries. His owner Patch is also an abusive guy. Both to humans and animals so you don’t like the idea of Wildfire working for him. All of Patch’s scenes are just hard to watch and his toxic romance really didn’t need to be on the screen for any period of time. The sooner that guy was gone the better.

The movie was really going for some rather serious themes here but it didn’t need them. This could have been a nice little Air Bud kind of story and that would have been really good. Of course with Wildfire wanting to take down his father from the start, it’s safe to say that this was never really in the cards. One way or another this was going to be a rather serious film with lots of danger around every corner.

Things start to get a little brighter for Wildfire when he meets a nice old man named Jeremiah. The guy works for the rich Wyndham who enters professional dog shows. The guy doesn’t see any potential in Wildfire but his daughter Dorothy disagrees and bargains that if Wildfire can win a show then Wyndham can’t throw both him and Jeremiah out. Wyndham agrees to the terms and Wildfire finally gets to see the glimmer of what it’s like to live the life of royalty. Certainly it’s far different from how it was in the Bowery.

You never have to wonder about what Wildfire is thinking of something either since the guy is constantly talking. It’s all as thought bubbles I should say but he never quiets down. Wildfire is always thinking about something and has a lot to say. There is pretty much never a moment’s silence in the film. The dialogue is okay though so that’s not too bad. Wildfire’s not a bad lead either. I wouldn’t call him super interesting or anything like that but he gets the job done as the lead.

As for the human characters, well Patch is obviously no good. Aside from him you have Jeremiah who is nice enough. He’s probably the first person who has Wildfire’s back which is important. He’s also loyal enough where he was willing to lose his job to stay with the dog. That’s definitely how a good character would act. Wyndham isn’t nearly as reasonable at first, particularly as he is the one firing Jeremiah. The guy slowly starts to come around but it was an extremely rocky start. To so easily get rid of someone that has faithfully worked for you for so many years? I can’t say I liked Wyndham after that because it was just far too drastic.

Dorothy was nice enough. She doesn’t have a huge role but is the one who preps Wildfire for the matches. Without her he definitely wouldn’t have stood much of a chance so she deserves a lot of credit there. If the whole film had been about the talent shows this would have been a winner. The second half of the film is more like what you would expect in a light hearted adventure. There is a moment of danger when Patch kidnaps Wildfire. I would have certainly cut that out since we didn’t need to bring this awful character back. It was nice to see him get punched out though as opposed to Wyndham falling for the usual blackmail scheme. Instead he just took the guy down a few pegs and showed that he could fight. Now that was a really solid moment.

Overall, It’s a Dog’s Life just really suffers from not being a very fun movie. When bad things are happening to Wildfire, there’s just no way to enjoy the scenes. You can’t enjoy any of the scenes with Patch in it either aside from him getting beaten up so that adds up to a considerable part of the movie. As a dog, Wildfire’s dialogue isn’t quite up to par with the classic writing of this era either. Mix all that together and this is a film you’ll really want to skip. There aren’t any big hooks to draw you into the story and there are much better dog films out there. Since this one loses as its main sub genre, that means it was doomed from the jump.

Overall 3/10

One Piece: Episode A Review

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It’s no surprise that a title like One Piece would keep on getting more spinoffs. Ace is a really big character among the fanbase so it’s quite fitting that this mini series would be about him. He always was a fun character. I wouldn’t put him as one of my favorites or anything but his skills were good and the guy was always ready to jump into a fight. I can certainly admire that kind of dedication. The 4 chapters go by quickly but it’s a fun read and the battles are certainly intense.

The series picks up with a guy named Deuce who wants to write some amazing stories. Unfortunately he is stranded on an island and doesn’t really know what he should write about now. Well, one day Ace crash lands on the island and Deuce agrees to help him build a ship to get out of there. Deuce never imagined that he would be a pirate someday but hanging out with Ace has been fun. Ace is leading them down a dangerous path though as he says that his goal is to defeat one of the 4 Emperors, Whitebeard. This sounds like an impossible goal but Deuce figures that if anyone can do it…it would be Ace.

Naturally the bulk of the first chapter is the two characters meeting each other and Deuce slowly coming around. So that there is a little danger we do have a giant bird that appears which causes a bit of a misunderstanding at first. It’s quickly defeated which wraps up the first story. It introduces the setting and how things will be but at this point Boichi isn’t really trying to hide the Dr. Stone influences here. Deuce looks like he’s straight out of Dr. Stone and this chapter has a lot of building and crafting scenes as the characters build the boat. It’s an interesting look at how he might have tackled One Piece.

Then we get to chapter 2 where they finally get close to Whitebeard but first have to contend with Jinbei. Jinbei gets a really striking splash page. The realistic artstyle that this series uses certainly makes for some memorable shots. While I wouldn’t say that it beats One Piece’s standard art, it’s definitely fun to see the changes to how everyone looks. The fight between Jinbei and Ace is also a blast. It’s over quickly but both fighters get to show what they can do. Ultimately Ace comes out on top here I would say as he’s in better shape after the 5 days. I call foul on their actually fighting for 5 days though. I find that incredibly hard to believe. Whitebeard showing up at the end to get in a good fight was a nice way to end things off. Ace finally got to experience what a loss was and we get a classic look at the nice sky which turns into Gold D. Roger. It’s a nice little detail in the background.

Chapter 3 is the most action packed chapter as Ace keeps trying to take Whitebeard down over and over again but simply isn’t strong enough to do so. By this point he is slowly coming around to respecting Whitebeard although of course he can’t quite admit it. Whitebeard was always his goal to surpass after all so working under him just doesn’t feel right at the time. Still, he does recognize that they aren’t in the same league. Ace’s strongest attacks don’t even singe Whitebeard and the emperor has yet to use his devil fruit. It’s a fun chapter that balances comedy with the despair Ace feels at losing. Thing is, he starts to take it in stride too and this all becomes one big training session for him. It’s nice to see how understanding the crew is even if they would destroy Ace on the spot if he were to somehow destroy Whitebeard.

Finally we get to chapter 4 where Ace joins up with the crew and we get some flashforward scenes to the most influential Ace moments. We even get a few panels of Yamato showing up at the end which was neat. It shows how popular she has gotten to where she would even be squeezed into this adventure. This ends the adventure off on a nice note. You know that things ultimately don’t end well for Ace but at least he got to have a lot of fun in the meantime and really made a name for himself. His journey was brief but it was a good one.

One thing I definitely enjoyed here is how they retroactively added Haki to a lot of the scenes. Ace uses it to fight with Jinbei and also gets to experience it when fighting some of the challengers to Whitebeard. We see Ace learn how to mix it in with his logia abilities and it shows why he was a solid first commander. Now we see that every Yonko’s next in command had Haki so it wouldn’t have made sense if Whitebeard’s didn’t. I do think it’s hard to make everything connect since Haki wasn’t thought of for a while in the series but ultimately it’s a smooth addition here and does help show off Ace’s solid abilities.

The artwork also makes the most of his fire powers. The fire really stands out and we get some great spectacles. At one point Ace uses an attack where he creates a bunch of fire dragons and uses them to attack Whitebeard with. As someone who has mastery over fire, it’s nice to see Ace really getting creative here. There’s a whole lot you can do with fire after all even if the fire fist is his signature move. As a logia type there are few who can stop him. It’s why I wouldn’t mind a time travel arc where the heroes go back to save Ace. It would really tie things over well as Luffy finally saves him and they get a big teamup.

There’s not a whole lot more to discuss since the 4 chapters are over in an instant but you won’t be disappointed with this adventure. Ace really gets to show his stuff and it’s also fun to see Whitebeard again. We don’t get to see him fight very often and he really gets his proper respect here. No attack can really phase him and Whitebeard’s attacks are off the charts. It’s an intense story and this is also a title you can easily read even if you have not read One Piece. It’s still easy to see what’s going on since the story starts from the beginning and you understand Ace’s goals.

Overall, Episode A is a really solid mini series. With how the title is, it makes me wonder if they’ve already got Boichi ready to do some other stories. Like Episode S for Sabo, Episode Z for Zoro, etc. There are a whole lot of characters who could have fun little stories to themselves. Well, I guess we’ll see how that goes when it happens. In the meantime you should start by checking this story out anyway. There’s a good amount of action and adventure here with quality writing. You’ll be having a good time from start to finish as the story just carries you along for the ride. Each chapter is close to 50 pages but it won’t feel that long with all the big art pages and battles going on. The art is super clear which always makes reading the story that much easier.

Overall 7/10