Midnight Special Review

Posted on by
1


I remember seeing the trailer to this in theaters and not being too impressed. The concept of a kid with super powers can be done well and has been in the past. Just look at Superman. Unfortunately, this film doesn’t go all that far with the concept. If you were hoping for a thriller with the heroes trying to escape the aliens and ducking the government….well that’s not going to happen. It’s mostly just the main characters trying to get from point A to point B and not much besides that. It ended up being a bit of a boring thriller, which is never a good thing.

The film starts out with a news report that a boy has been kidnapped. We then see the main character Roy and his son Alton. The government is after Alton because he has super vision and it seems like he can intercept radio broadcasts. This is a security risk and something big is happening in 5 days (around that much time anyway) so they have to catch him ASAP. This won’t be easy though since Roy has a gun and he’s travelling with another guy named Lucas. The government may be after him, but what can they do? Not much it seems as the government looks incredibly bad the whole time. Let’s hope that the big event doesn’t spell their doom!

So what is the main problem with this film? Well, I’d say that it is the film being rather boring which is the problem. It really drags on and on and on as the characters just sit around and talk. Even as the government starts to learn about the kid, it’s not as interesting and sensational as you would hope. This is due in part to the fact that the kid’s abilities aren’t all that impressive. He can shoot blue lights out of his eyes, which is all right I suppose, but his other abilities wouldn’t even seem that odd. If he hadn’t been tapping into the government frequencies, they likely would not have even known about it.

It’s also tough for me to stay engaged in a film where a kid is one of the main characters. I dunno, they just can’t act well enough or in this kid’s case, Alton doesn’t really act like a kid should. It’s partially due to the twist of course, but he tries to sound wise beyond his years at some points. It doesn’t work since he is a normal kid at other times. He needs to pick one side and then just stick to it for a while. I didn’t care for the two adults either though. Roy panics and yells a lot. I actually figured that the other guy was the Dad for a while before they mentioned that it was Roy. I dunno, I just never got that vibe from him so it was pretty surprising. I guess Roy had no reason to be happy so it makes sense that he was downcast the whole time, but he just wasn’t likable.

As for Leon, he seemed a lot more reasonable the whole time. The fights between him and Roy did get real old real fast though as they seemed to always fight about the same exact things. It also doesn’t help that he destroyed an innocent cop who was just trying to do his job. When you consider what the actual goal was, then it’s even worse. The journey didn’t seem to matter all that much by the end as nothing was really accomplished as a result of the journey. The only difference is that we don’t have a cop anymore and the government chase is over.

One of the few supporting characters is a guy named Paul. He’s from the NSA and is doing some snooping into this case. Unfortunately, he’s in over his head with this and as he seems to be puzzled about why he is even here, Paul decides to just help Alton out. This leads to a large amount of plot hax as the kid and him slip past a few dozen armed guards at a heavily protected government installation. How did they escape? The film couldn’t be bothered to explain so we’re led to believe that shutting the lights off was enough to scare the guards and get them to scatter as Alton and Paul escape. Great….I’m not buying it though. At least the government wasn’t completely evil this time. They were fairly reasonable with how they handled the kid. Getting two random cult gunners to come and secure him though? A little iffy, but maybe they did it of their own volition. We don’t know for sure.

Since the film was a bit of a snorefest, there was one thing that could have easily saved the movie. A cool alien attack at the end. Imagine the hype if aliens had suddenly rained down on the cities and started firing at everyone. Not only would it have immediately forced the film to switch genres, but the whole situation would have gotten 20x more exciting in a single instant. That would have definitely been a blast if you ask me. After all, this film’s premise heavily implies aliens from the Get Go. A classic “He’s warning us that they’re coming!” would have been a nice thing for the film to build around instead of just focusing on the journey.

Overall, Midnight Special is easily one of the most boring films that I have ever seen, but it technically doesn’t do a whole lot of things wrong. It’s boring, but not inappropriate and I’ll always take the former. I suppose that’s enough to keep from giving it a negative score this time around. I still wouldn’t really recommend it as you’re better off watching the recent Star Trek Beyond film, but if you want to see a alien esque film without the aliens/action…then this could be your cup of tea. Just prepare for a very long car ride with lots of plot hax moments sprinkled in for good measure.

Overall 5/10

Suicide Squad Review

Posted on by
13


Suicide Squad got a lot of hype early on since it was going to be a “superhero” film about super villains. If the concept behind this wasn’t terrible enough then the actual product makes sure to finish the job. I would actually go as far as to say that this is the worst superhero film of all time. This is only counting titles that I have seen of course as Batman The Killing Joke and other extreme titles like Deadpool could possibly still lose to this one. As it stands, Suicide Squad did an admirable job of lowering the bar considering that titles like Catwoman, Flashpoint Paradox, (While not on the same level of terrible, Flashpoint destroyed an entire dvd line so there’s that) and Justice League Gods and Monsters. There’s really not much to like about this film, but a whole lot to despise. In all fairness, I had a hunch that I was not going to like this film from the start and my hunches are rarely wrong. The tagline of them being the worst heroes was already a sign of things to come. It had some of the worst posters that I have ever seen for an action film and the trailer was pretty bad. I really didn’t think that the film could turn things around.

Like Batman V Superman, this film may also be getting an R rated extended cut as some point. As with the former, I’m sure that it’ll be even worse. It hasn’t been confirmed, but good ole Reddit scooped up a rumor of the scenes that were cut and if even half of those are true, this film really could have gotten a 0. Whoever did the editing for this film definitely deserves some props. That being said, he should have cut out another good chunk of the film to really make it watchable.

The plot involves a corrupt business woman named Amanda Waller. As she is a murderer who is protected by the government, she decides that it would be a good idea to get more murderers into the streets. They can go on suicide missions and possibly get some other people along the way. She manages to capture Harley Quinn, Captain Boomerang, Deadshot, and some other guys with a little help from Batman. After putting a bomb in their necks, she sends them off on their first mission to stop a supernatural threat which has been murdering people for 3 days. (A little late eh?) Can these humans hope to win?

Let’s back up one more time. The Suicide Squad idea was presented after someone asked a hypothetical question about what the government could have done if Superman had burst into the White House and attacked. Amanda brings up the Suicide Squad, but there should have been a lot of laughter in the room with several members running out the door. These guys would have trouble with Batman…they wouldn’t last a second against Superman. This has to be the worst idea ever presented when you think about the fact that there is 0% chance of success. Ah well, I guess it’s good that the government is humoring Waller before she stabs them all in the back.

The main problem with the film is the general gritty vibe that it goes for. This translates into every other aspect of the film. First and foremost is the terrible writing. The characters use the s word more than some abridged episode on Youtube and those titles don’t shy away from language. There’s a curse word in just about every sentence and it just never, ever ends. Every single joke has to use a curse word as well and you’ll wish that there was a censor. The amount of beeps would drive everyone crazy, but it would be worth it to save the writing. Harley Quinn’s very first scene is her pulling a “New 52 Starfire” as she lets the guards know that she is a free woman, but on her terms to put it nicely. Harley Quinn’s a terrible character like the others, but more on that later. Unlike Batman V Superman, which had some of the greatest dialogue in a CBM, this one had no good lines and all of the moments that could have been cool were destroyed by the language.

Next up is the terrible soundtrack. It is easily the worst soundtrack of all time. The songs naturally have a lot of cursing in them as well with the quick f-word drop to remind us that every PG-13 film has to use it at least once now. Hopefully the Marvel Cinematic Universe keeps it out of their movies. Even if the beats were occasionally cool, the lyrics threw you out of every moment and the film would have been better off without any songs. Silent films did work fairly well back in the day after all. If a film’s got nothing nice to say, then it should keep everything to itself.

For a film with this intense name, there isn’t actually a lot of cool action in Suicide Squad. There’s only one real fight scene at the very end of the film as the team takes on a mystical god. The problem is the fact that the writers should have never put a team of humans to take on such a powerful fighter. The villain could have destroyed all of them in an instant, but plot hax took control at this point and steered the villains to safety. The way that the Squad deals with the threat by the end is terrible and makes no actual sense. The writers had put themselves in a hole and couldn’t get out. For the rest of the film, you only get to see the Squad beating up police guards, army men, of CGI rock creatures that can’t fight back. Not the most thrilling fight scene if you ask me.

Also, once again….I just can’t root for these villains as the main characters. They don’t care for justice and they work for a mass murderer who always takes out innocent civilians. You really want the CGI rock creatures to defeat them and put an end to the whole debacle. It’s quite telling that the film jumps into the climax very quickly, but then spends an extremely long time getting out. This is complete with beer breaks and the like. The pacing was admirable, but the film clearly didn’t know what it wanted to do from there. It also couldn’t handle the suspense as well as a film like Resident Evil because the characters in the Evil series were much more likable even if they were throwaways. At the very least, you could root for Alice. Here…even the GI Joe character was fairly bad the whole time. It’s also a comic book film where the Squad have equipment/actual powers so it’s hard to get up to the same intensity. Maybe if the rock creatures had actually been Xenomorphs or if there was a good soundtrack, but there wasn’t. The film tried to play itself out as a zombie outbreak kind of title, but never went all the way because of its identity crisis.

All right, let’s take a quick break from bashing the film. The special effects were fairly good even if they were out of place. The two supernatural villains had fairly good designs. One of them went for the classic “Gods of Egypt” look which was cool. He actually looked like a cooler version of Apocalypse than what we got in the new X-Men film. His abilities were great as well and he was a great antagonist. It’s a shame that he had to be put in a film consisting of D listers. The other villain looked like something out of the Grudge and she tried to throw the horror aspect into the story. Once again though, this element disappears as swiftly as it arrives and she turned out to be too powerful. She could have eliminated the Squad many times and her plan really should have succeeded, but we do need those sequels….

The visuals look like what I’m expecting from the Ghost Busters film or even Dr. Strange to an extent. The film really goes all out trying to make the villain very eccentric and ritual-esque. She does a lot of odd dances even has basic hypnosis. It felt like something from the 90’s. It worked fairly well, but again..you should never pair a god against random humans. So, at least the visuals were a positive and the villains worked pretty well. Too bad we couldn’t save them for the Justice League film as that title is desperately looking for a villain. Even the Wonder Woman film would have been glad to have them.

Back to the negatives. Lets look at it from a character by character basis. Captain Boomerang is terrible as he’s just another drunk murderer who tricks other people into dying and has a nice laugh about it. There’s nothing to like with this guy. Deadshot is the most “heroic” of the bunch, but he’s not a hero by any definition and only helps people according to his own sense of twisted morals. It is quite telling that his number one wish for happiness is to murder Batman. He may try to be sympathetic, but he’s as ruthless as they come and no amount of jokes can help gloss over the fact that he is a mass murderer.

Harley Quinn may be the character who is supposed to stand out in the film, but she is portrayed in a very negative light. For starters, she is mainly used as fanservice with her costume basically just being a pair of undergarments for the entire film. A great deal of her lines are suggestive and her relationship with the Joker is very twisted. He tortures her when they first meet and there’s nothing shown to suggest that things have changed in the slightest. She’s basically his possession and that’s certainly not a proper relationship. As long as she stays with him, her life certainly isn’t going to get any better and I’ll be rooting against them since this is not the kind of relationship that should be portrayed in a positive light for any span of time. Her actual character needs a lot of work too though as made obvious during the really random CPR scene as part of her flashback. That scene was just brutal.

This is the worst portrayal of the Joker as well. He’s portrayed as your average mobster who isn’t very confident and is very obsessed with Harley Quinn. There is no moment where you feel like he is an evil genius and he doesn’t seem to care about Batman at all. There is no hero/villain dynamic there as the Joker is just a nobody who runs away from Batman and keep crashing his car. It’s also a huge plot hole to have the Joker around at all. Let’s face it, since Batman is a mass murderer in this series, there is no way that the Joker would still be alive. If Batman couldn’t find him, then it just further proves that the Batman of this film universe isn’t very smart. Even once Joker resurfaces and starts attacking installations all around, Batman never shows up. I’m still banking on the theory that the Joker is Robin, but it doesn’t really help this plot hole as Batman would likely still finish him off anyway. This Joker tries to be over the top crazy and slightly effeminate, but it just ends up leaving a broken character who makes the Lex Luthor in Batman V Superman look good.

Killer Croc was all right. He didn’t really have any character and was just around to bite people. He barely even qualifies as a character, but automatically that does mean that he beats most of the cast. Katana is around as well and she’s another character who really enjoys murdering others. She basically lives off hype though as she doesn’t really get a chance to do anything on screen. When she finally does fight, Katana looks incredibly weak and anticlimactic. She lost in a sword fight to add insult to injury. It’s going to be very hard to take her seriously after this.

Rick Flag is the “good guy” of the group. He was in the army and knows how to end a fight. He has crossed the line in the service, but still has a moral compass. Unfortunately, he is a complete yes man and starts to get black mailed very quickly. He has to resort to asking the people that he taunted for help and the whole thing is a very sad experience for him. After opening up to the other villains the film tried to make him a likable character, but it didn’t really work. The fact that Waller predicted that he would fall in love for a hostage that she sent him to find shows what a shallow/superficial guy he was from the start. I think I’ll probably prefer Steve Trevor from the Wonder Woman film.

Almost forgot about Diablo. He’s portrayed as the nice character who doesn’t want to be a villain anymore. The film gives us a very dark, gritty, and tragic past to forcefully push this message at us. Of course, he finally embraces his powers at the end along with a quick curse word as he runs at the villain. Another possibly good moment wrecked. At least the team has someone who can fight thanks to his true form, but the past was too tragic for me and I’ll find it very hard for this character to be even remotely likable.

Waller is another fan favorite character, but I don’t really care for her. I like the tough sounding government guys and I don’t even mind when they’re evil sometimes like in the latest Bourne film. Perhaps I wouldn’t mind her if she had been portrayed as totally evil because she is. Waller is a mass murderer who should be locked up like the others. My problem is that nobody seems to care as even Batman gives her a pass. I mean…are you kidding me? Batman giving her a pass is ludicrous and makes him look terrible as a hero. I know he crosses a lot of lines and probably doesn’t mind villains as much in this version, but locking her up has to be a top priority. The problem is that she can black mail him as well so there probably won’t be anything happening on that corner. Waller was great in the Justice League show because she actually cared a little more about her country. She still used underhanded methods to succeed and committed many villainous acts, but killing a group of men just because they knew too much? I believe that would be out of character for her and it was just too much when that happened here. The film went too far trying to make her appear as a hype character.

I remember there being a lot of articles about how significant Batman’s role was going to be here and how he was going to be super scary and the main antagonist. That never happened so either the scenes were removed or it was more fake hype to build up the film. It’s too bad as that could have helped the film a lot since Batman’s scenes were the best in the film. “I don’t want to do this in front of your daughter” was a great fake line from Batman as he very clearly chose this time to attack since it would put Deadshot in a bad position. He knew that the villain couldn’t go out and risk hitting his daughter. Luckily, this Batman has very few scruples about using underhanded tactics and that’s how he was able to conclude the fight. The line just adds more salt to the wound since there’s nothing Deadshot can do about the situation. Batman is ruthless and since he is also eager to cross the line, he makes for a compelling villain. I wish that the films played Batman straight, but as it is, the other characters make him look like a perfect individual by comparison. I don’t know where the film would be without him.

It goes without saying that you should stick around past the credits. The scene is the best one in the film after all even if it makes someone not look too smart yet again since another individual has found out about his identity. I’m always up for some classic tough talk from both sides. It can be annoying when it’s one sided so the trade here is good. The film could have done a little more with this, but as it was, I was pretty satisfied. The tributes to the rest of the DCCU were fun and one character looked a lot better than how he was in Batman V Superman so that’s a good start. I think the cinematic universe from DC should go strongly from here. I am a little worried for Wonder Woman since there doesn’t seem to be much of a villain yet and her fighting ordinary soldiers is going to get old even quicker than this film’s fights, but I have hope that there will be big fight scenes. Surely DC wouldn’t let such an easy opportunity for more Man of Steel esque (Slower I suppose, but still hype) battles slip by would they? I have similar concerns for Justice League, but mainly because Superman isn’t there yet and the idea of having a Justice League film without its leader/main member would be an incredibly terrible idea.

Another negative is the fact that this film makes no real sense when placed into the DC expanded universe. This doesn’t affect the score, but it’s a problem that starts to appear a lot in expanded universes. If this supernatural monster has been destroying a city and its inhabitants for 3 days…where are Batman and Wonder Woman? They definitely should have been on the scene. Even Marvel’s gotten rather dicey with that as the President gets captured and nobody arrives to help. This is almost as bad since it’s an entire city and its been attacked for 3 whole days. At least you can make the argument that Batman and Wonder Woman are not heroes so maybe they didn’t care. It’s possible that they just saw it on the news and chuckled. Of course, that would go against Batman’s character development as he wants to help the world thanks to Superman. It’s feasible that Wonder Woman would not care though. She did stay out of the Man of Steel fight after all so maybe she would rather leave the humans to their own devices at this point. Hopefully the writers plan for this a little better in their upcoming films.

Now, how could this film have been saved? First of all, the excessive language has to go and the soundtrack’s got to disappear. Next, some of the grit has to go. Do we need to have shots of Harley Quinn being zapped and shocked by the Joker as well as the jail? No. We can also get rid of Diablo’s origin story which is gritty to be gritty. After we get rid of all this and give Harley Quinn an actual costume, we have to tone Waller down so she’s not completely insane and evil. Make her an antagonist, but a reasonable one. Batman needs to appear a lot more and there should be more DC cameos. Preferably with very loud and obvious rock music as we see the hero logos and the Squad learns about the Justice League. Throw in some more action scenes and give the main villain a better debut than to be cradled in a very awkward scene that was quite sad. Mix all of that together and we’ve got ourselves a decent film.

I could go on, but let’s start to wrap up with one last improvement. The film should have chosen a genre and stuck to it. It tried to throw in elements from Ghostbusters, (CGI supernatural threats) The Avengers, (All of the one liners and puns…just the terribly written versions) and Resident Evil. (A few lone survivors up against zombies) It just did not work at all though. You can’t be dark and gritty and expect to pull off something like the Avengers. Likewise, you can’t have a super down to Earth Resident Evil adventure when there are super powerful beings trying to destroy the whole world. The film needed to pick one angle and stick with it.

Overall, I’m glad that Rotten Tomatoes is taking so many shots at the film. I tend to disagree with the site quite often, but for once I’m on their side. This film was just hard to watch at times. If the film wanted all of the Suicide Squad members to be unlikable then they succeeded, but at a large price. It’s a shame since the Batman scenes were nice. I do like how the cinematography is so different from Marvel’s. The scenes look like they’re out of a TV show episode instead of a movie. It’d hard to describe, but the Batman vs Deadshot scene totally encapsulates this as opposed to the average Marvel fight scene. It’s less glamorous and stylized, but works quite well. Oddly enough, the hand to hand scenes are far better here than in the latest Bourne film, where you would expect it to be better. The fight scenes were the one part of this film that were not gritty. Unfortunately, the terrible soundtrack, characters, and writing keep this film way down on the totem pole. I don’t expect that I’ll ever see it again and I highly advise you to stay away. You’re better off watching Man of Steel again.

Overall 1/10

Yugi vs Melkor

Posted on by
8


yugi
Melkor_by_formenost
Suggested by IKnowledge Looks like it is time for Yugi to return and he’s up against another LOTR character. Melkor is definitely supposed to be very powerful and he has a lot of hype backing him up, but Yugi has an array of monsters and feats on his side. I really don’t see Melkor lasting very long against Slifer The Sky Dragon and one good energy blast would finish this fight. Melkor may be cosmic, but Yugi has the heart of the cards! Yugi wins.

Yugi vs Sauron (LOTR)

Posted on by
9


5-lotr-sauron-2-300x169
character_thumb_310x175_yugi
Suggested by IKnowledge Yugi is a very skilled duelist. While he may have started out in TYami Yugi’s shadow, he eventually mastered the art of dueling as well. He has access to the three Egyptian God Cards and a lot of other monsters are at his disposal as well. Considering that Sauron had trouble with a single warrior, I don’t believe he could stand up to Yugi’s onslaught. That’s not even taking the spell and trap cards into consideration. Sauron is certainly not fast enough to dodge either so he has no choice but to lose! Yugi wins.

Puella Magi Oriko Magica Review

Posted on by
Reply


Well, it’s time to take a look at a short Madoka Magica What If story. Since Homura went back and forth in time to save Madoka so often, it makes sense that sometimes things would turn out very differently. This manga plays out like that as this universe has a new magical girl who can see the future and she decides to do something about it. Unfortunately, while the plot/concept are fairly good, the manga really fumbles the ball with the poor dialogue and really bad art. What should have been a home run knockout instead turns into a manga that just barely breaks even.

The plot involves three new characters who were made up for the series. Yuma is a girl whose parents were destroyed by a witch. Kyoko was able to vanquish it, but not in time to stop Yuma from being an orphan. As a result, Yuma tags along with Kyoko for a while and eventually becomes a magical girl with healing abilities. She makes for a good support fighter to have on the battlefield. Unfortunately, Kyoko then hears that someone is going around destroying magical girls so she sets off to stop this.

Meanwhile, Mami is actually the one who gets in on the action as she does a lot of sleuthing so Oriko deems her as a threat and sends Kirika to dispose of her. This will be a tough fight for Mami, but luckily Homura is also around and Kyoko manages to enter the fray as well. Can the classic Magical Girls defeat this pair of evil fighters or are they doomed in this timeline!?

Everything about this manga is a little off. Let’s go back to the art first since that’s probably the biggest issue here. It’s incredibly hard to see what’s happening during the fights. The art is all over the place and the character proportions don’t have any consistency. The facial expressions are downright crazy like one that I attached to the bottom. Homura’s face just makes no sense considering that she just blocked Kirika and is poised to win the fight. This is an issue that affects all of the characters throughout this two volume series. It’s so chaotic that it’s actually a lot clearer to read the series online since it is just one page at a time on a white canvass so everything is a lot easier to read through. Of course, this should never be necessary for a manga and still doesn’t make the actual quality any better. This is certainly a contender for worst artwork in a manga.

The pacing is also very odd. The first volume focuses almost completely on Kyoko and Yuma as they bond and fight witches together. It’s even mentioned by Kyoko that there are no other magical girls around since they’ve all been destroyed by the Magical Girl hunter. Then we cut away to Madoka’s town where there are Magical Girls everywhere. Mami just shows up out of nowhere and instantly becomes the main character for the second volume. Timeline-wise, this basically gets us to the start of the TV series except that Kyoko and Mami already know each other and Homura is a lot meaner than usual. In this timeline, Homura decided to be Madoka’s friend right from the get go and threatens anyone who even gets near them.

The tragic backstory for Yuma was also pretty unnecessary. She had bad parents which traumatized her as a kid so now she feels like everyone is going to abandon her. Yuma does a good job of coping with her powers and becoming a dependable ally at least. She ends up giving the heroes the pep talk that they needed to continue the fight. That being said, only having healing abilities is definitely a pretty big liability in a fight and I can’t say that I’m a huge fan of her design. Nonetheless, she’s not a bad filler character I suppose.

On the other hand, Kirika is a fairly underwhelming villain who isn’t really likable. She really wants to please Oriko and doesn’t really care to think about anything else. She forgets all other details because they apparently take up too much space in her mind. As a result, she’s the perfect killing machine for Oriko to use. Her abilities aren’t bad as she can slow down an opponent and has a lot of magical knives to use against her opponents. She nearly defeated Mami so that’s definitely a pretty impressive feat. It’s not enough to make her a good character though.

We’ve also got Oriko, who is the main villain here, but she’s no better either. She saw the future and immediately pulled a Bruce Wayne from Batman V Superman, but takes it to the next extreme. “Everyone has to die!!” is basically her view as all magical girls are far too dangerous since they can turn into Witches. I’m assuming that after she destroyed them all, she would end up destroying herself and Kirika as well. She’s very unhinged as the manga shows. Her power is basically precog and she has some exploding energy balls as well. She’s certainly not that great in a fight. I also don’t get why she encouraged Yuma to jump into the fray as that just adds another target for her to destroy, but maybe she just has fun this way.

As for the real characters, Madoka and Sayaka don’t really get to do anything in this version. Neither one of them has powers after all as Homura has gone to great lengths to ensure that they never get them. At least Madoka realizes that Homura isn’t helping the other heroes out and is only protecting Madoka so the heroine calls her out on it. This doesn’t work all that well though and then Madoka just walks into the battlefield to help out. This wasn’t her greatest plan, but she was a solid character as always. It’s certainly in character for her to try and help out.

Kyoko gets a rather large role as you would expect. She looks pretty good. Unfortunately, Kyoko never really gets to test her mettle against the villains, but I’d say that she would have held her own quite well. It’s definitely hinted that Mami and Homura are stronger, but being the third best isn’t all that bad. Getting depressed for a few pages after learning about the Witch revelation felt rather out of character though. It was pretty forced in there. While Kyoko isn’t good at being a nice person, at least she tried with Yuma.

I didn’t care for Mami in the TV show because she cracked under pressure and tried to murder the whole cast, but she did a good job here. As always, she also got depressed towards the end, but at least she was just willing to let her friends die and didn’t actively expedite the process. I know that strength shouldn’t really affect how much you like a character, but it really did help her case a lot when she was able to defeat Kirika. If she had lost that fight, I definitely would have been a little upset. As it stands, she did a good job of using strategy to claim victory and proved to be the second best character in the manga. The franchise really loves to hype her up as one of the strongest fighters, but I’d definitely say that Homura deserves the number 1 spot.

Naturally, Homura was my favorite character in the manga. She got a lot of hype from the villains since she already knows the truth about the Witches and has seen the end of the world multiple times. To Homura, this predicament is nothing new as she’s been through a lot over the years. Homura’s time stop ability is still super useful as well and I dare say that she probably would have been able to beat both villains on her own. I was hoping for more of a direct win without any help, but the end result was fine. This version of Homura definitely doesn’t mess around as she goes for the kill shot the instant that she sees the two villains and even tries to trick them by pretending to negotiate. Homura was really handled well although she was a little too drastic when Mami just tried to talk to her. Seriously, Homura spends about 90% of her time threatening or trying to destroy someone in this manga.

Unfortunately, the ending is quite bad. It’s not horrendous in part due to the fact that Homura is here so the ending has no real stakes. Had the series been longer or Homura was not in the equation, then I think the ending would have hurt the manga more. As it stands, it just doesn’t make much sense and I don’t like how it allowed Oriko to get one last laugh. There’s no way that this plan should have worked to even the slightest degree. Even Kyubei wasn’t too thrilled with how things played out and usually he’s grinning from ear to ear.

On the bright side, since this manga is only two volumes long it has to move at a very rapid pace. Volume 2 in particular feels like an abridged series as all of the characters just quickly meet up and get ready to rumble. It’s a lot better than the first volume if you ask me and if the series had kept going on for a while maybe it could have redeemed itself. Of course, the pacing may have been slower so the whole thing could have backfired instead.


Overall, This manga spinoff wasn’t very good. There have been several titles that have come out for Madoka Magica and this one technically has one of the cooler sounding plots. Hopefully the others are better at the actual execution of it. Some of the other manga out there definitely sound promising and it wouldn’t be hard to top this one. The art is just so bad for this manga and the writing was sub par as well. Throw in the aspects that are Yuma’s random tragic past and the only thing that really keeps this manga together are the characters from the TV show. They’re still a lot of fun to follow and the action scenes were fun/hype even if they were hard to read at times. If you’re a big Madoka fan then I recommend this title since it’s great to see the cast in anything since the show was so short. It makes titles like this a lot easier to swallow since you’ll jump at anything. It’s why I want a big Madoka fighting game to help fill in this void. Ah well, just don’t go in expecting anything too good or you’ll be gravely disappointed. Keep your expectations tempered and you will have some fun with this manga.

Overall 5/10

Jason Bourne Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time to look at the latest entry in the Bourne franchise. The series has had pretty cool titles up til now so it was a little disappointing to see that this one just used the main character’s name. It makes sense for the marketing I suppose, but it’ll also make it a little harder to look for things from this movie through Google Search in a few years since the character will keep on popping up. Jason Bourne is a fun film and a nice installment in the series although I dare say that the third film was better and probably the second as well. I’m inclined to say that this one beats the fourth film though and I can barely remember the first one at this point. It’s a nice way to start wrapping up the summer and probably is the final good film of this season.

Jason Bourne has been living under the radar. He enters fights to make a decent living and is content to stay off the grid. Unfortunately, that is no longer an option when one of his old friends requests a meet and the government quickly finds out about this. One thing leads to another and now Bourne must find out the extra details of his past which were kept from him all these years. The organization behind the Bourne initiative better watch out because Bourne isn’t leaving without some new knowledge. Meanwhile, they see this as their best chance to take him out of the equation once and for all!

I was definitely looking forward to this title because of how good the trailer was. It’s no exaggeration to say that it is the best non superhero trailer of 2016. (Wide release theater films only) Jack Reacher gives it a little competition, but Bourne could not be topped. The music was perfect and the plot seemed like it would be a lot of fun. Unfortunately, things do feel just a little random at times and I partially blame this on the film not being long enough or simply having too many plots. Typically, I wanted to see more of Bourne. The social media subplot just didn’t really go anywhere.

Of course, it is a positive for the film that it goes by so quickly as well. The pacing never really died down except for when it tried to show off the side characters a little too much. The soundtrack was pretty solid although not as good as the trailer theme. It’s the intense chase scene type music that you would expect although the sound effects typically drown it out so I’m already starting to forget it all. I liked the special effects that were used whenever the government was shown. As many people pointed out during the trailer, they probably shouldn’t have a big folder called “BlackOps” as it makes ta hacker’s job a lot easier, but I suppose they were really proud of their security. It ultimately was pretty good, but most of the staff didn’t know how to handle it which defeats the purpose. The fun visuals are one of the main reasons why I love to see the government play a big role in a film.

The other reason is for all of the tough talk. Dewey is one of the big villains and also one of the best characters in the film. He may even be The best. Dewey does a good job of sabotaging everyone and proving that nothing is beneath him as he does whatever it takes to stay ahead. It’s easy to see how he got promoted to such a high organization and he gets most of the best lines. There’s always some kind of plan going on inside of his head and in the end, he proves that he can take on even the best of agents in a one on one fight.

Naturally, Jason Bourne is a good character as well. He’s still super intelligent and knows how to stay away from the government. He’s tends to say something pretty intense and epic whenever he talks. It’s made pretty clear that Bourne can’t be found unless it’s part of his plan. He knows the system way too well to fall for any of the tricks and traps that are set for him. The intro scene is definitely not great for him as he really lost his way, but now that he has a purpose, he should stick around as the Bourne that we all remember. When it’s clutch time, Bourne will pull through in the end. He’s a much better James Bond than 007 ever was and is still one of the better agents out there.

Nicky is the girl from the trailer and her role is rather small. Her heart’s in the right place, but she doesn’t really seem like she’s ready for this level of strategic thinking. She doesn’t really seem to take the government seriously and just walks from trap to trap constantly. It’s good that she helped to get Bourne back into the game, but I would have liked for her to have done a little better. Taking out a few soldiers and coming up with a plan would have been cool. Meanwhile, we’ve got Heather as the other heroine. She works for Dewey, but has aspirations of her own. She certainly is very tech savvy and does a good job of making sure to be present whenever Bourne strikes. I’d say that Heather is rather charismatic. It’s always tough working for someone who’s both powerful and evil, but Heather does a decent job of it. While she was fairly likable, it’ll be a little hard to take her seriously as long as she has to take orders from her higher ups. Of course, she’ll have a whole film and possibly more to develop herself as a true threat…or hero by the end.

There’s also an assassin who wants revenge on Bourne. As a result of Bourne leaking everything that the organization did to the web, he was captured and held for several years. There’s nothing to like about this guy though and the film doesn’t even try to make you feel sympathetic for him. He’s a villain plain and simple and you’re still going to be rooting for Bourne to take him down. I also felt that he did a little too good in the end as he took down many cops and road blocks before Bourne finally cornered him. Films always make roadblocks look incredibly inept so I like to think that in real life they are a little better.

I mean, you see a guy approaching in an armored van. Knowing this, you set up a blockade which consists of two little police cars, which the guy runs over. The cops always looked shocked at this outcome, but this is what will always happen. There’s no reason for the guy not to run into the cars. At least half heartedly shoot at the tires! Instead, the casualties were very high as the guy rammed into dozens of cars and really took the house down. It was pretty cool visually, but I can’t help but feel bad for the civilians. (And all of the poor cops who got in the way)

Unfortunately, the fight scenes weren’t very good in this film. The final fight in particular was poorly handled as it just tried to be super violent and gritty to remind us that Bourne is a tough guy who can fight under pain. I’m sure that all of us already knew that. This film was definitely a little more violent than it needed to be, but at least nothing else was quite as bad as that final fight. Locking someone up in the bathtub was also unnecessary though as it was just there to be gritty as well. This aspect of the film certainly hurts it the most.

The ending is pretty conclusive and there doesn’t really need to be any more sequels, but they could certainly expand on the situation some more if they want. Bourne didn’t get to read the complete file so there is certainly more to see there and the whole plot twist with his father just came out of left field as well. I think the film tried a little too hard to turn the situation into one big conspiracy, but that’s not a bad thing either. It’s certainly reasonable to think that the government planned for all of this. Also, it was fun to hear the classic Bourne theme from the older films play again. It’s been ages since I got to hear that on.

The best part of this film was easily the first big action scene in the film. It’s the one from the trailers where the town is burning and the heroes are trying to stay away from the cops. THat was definitely handled really well and I could have definitely been content for that scene to have kept going on and on and on. It just had the most Bourne like feel to it and even the fights in this scene were far better than what we got at the ending.

Finally, there is also a subplot about a social media product. This was probably the plot that was the most forced as it’s basically just a social commentary on what is going on behind the scenes. The government is naturally trying to use the guy’s product in the shadows so the people don’t realize it. The guy decides that people deserve their privacy and decides to fight back. People who are already conspiratorial about how the government is always watching will definitely enjoy this, but it just felt like this plot had no business being here. It’s nice that the guy is trying to protect our privacy I guess, but I actually agree with Dewey here. It certainly makes it a lot tougher for the government to do their job and in this digital age, there is always someone watching. No data is truly private. The second you turn on the computer, you become a data point that someone is using. It’s just how the times have rolled on.

Overall, Jason Bourne plays out like your average action film. None of the plot twists are too unexpected and you can follow the plot well enough from your experience with other films. That being said, the film does handle itself relatively well and just because it’s a little predictable doesn’t make it a bad flick. I’m sure it beats most of the other rival action films that are out at the moment although Jack Reacher could give it a nice fight. This film has started a new era for the Bourne series so I look forward to seeing where it goes from here. I recommend this film and one important thing that it has over other films is that the main cast is rather solid. Just about everyone is likable and that’s always a good thing.

Overall 7/10

Archimonde vs Captain America

Posted on by
2




Suggested by Random Archimonde is another Warcraft character who finally gets to test his mettle against another fighter. Captain America will be no easy mark though as he has attained the Power Cosmic in the past and is already a good hand to hand fighter as well. Archimonde’s sheer size will help to make this more of an even fight, but he will quickly find out that this advantage is simply not enough. Captain America can easily dodge all of Archimonde’s attacks while countering with his own. It’s a battle strategy that Archimonde cannot hope to get around. Captain America wins.

Kil’jaeden vs Link

Posted on by
2




Suggested by Random Kil’jaeden has made his debut onto the blog with this fight! He is a powerful villain from the Warcraft franchise who can alter his size for combat. This is a good skill to have, but it’s hardly enough to frighten Link. Link’s taken on dozens of would be conquerors and foes who threatened the entire planet. Link has stopped every last one of them with his bombs and Light Arrows. Kil’jaeden will be no different as he’ll have a tough time landing any meaningful blows through Link’s shield and a few good light arrows will have taken him out. Link wins.

On the state of the movie: Why Madoka Magica Rebellion’s ending was brilliant

Posted on by
4

TiramiSubs_MadokaMovie3
It’s time to look at an underrated movie. Madoka Magica Rebellion’s ending was a very controversial one that had so many hidden meanings and subtext within each action that the fan base has written many theories on it. They were all pretty fascinating and it’s great to see everyone add more and more depth to the film. The reason they can do that is because the ending was so good and it was very unique. This editorial will naturally have heavy spoilers for Madoka, but also for the movies Bridge to Terabithia, The Amazing Spider Man 2, Batman V Superman, Don’t be Afraid of the Dark, Pay it Forward and several others so prepare yourself!

Rebellion takes place after the original Madoka Magica show. The title character of the series ultimately decided to ascend to a higher realm and became a concept of life itself. She became a living embodiment of hope who erased the cruel fate of magical girls that forced them to turn into a witch once they ran out of energy and despaired. Unfortunately, quite a few of the magical girls had already died and now Homura was the only one left to deal with the hordes of enemies that had been left. Witches were gone, but they were replaced with a form of demon.

The average franchise would have left things like this. Homura would gradually accept the reality that Madoka is really gone and help to protect the world until she ultimately died someday. Once she died, she would be able to be with Madoka to an extent since she will be past this realm, but maybe not. Now that Madoka is a force of nature, her fate is eternal and she will never get to have any rest as she constantly absorbs the evil nature of Witches so that they never exist. The world may be a Utopia, but there is still one person who didn’t get a happy ending…Madoka. In Rebellion, Homura decides that this isn’t acceptable.

So, Homura created a prison within her own head thanks in great part to Kyubei and didn’t even realize it. After escaping from this, Homura was finally granted an audience with Madoka. The whole episode had such large ramifications that even a cosmic entity was summoned. That’s pretty impressive eh? Now Homura has the ultimate choice, take Madoka’s hand and join her in the eternal beyond or drag her back down to reality and shift the fabric of the universe once more. Obviously, Homura has to choose the former option right? It is a metaphorical necessity as it is the only way Homura can truly move on. She must accept her friend’s death and then go back to living normally. Bridge to Terabithia believed in this message wholeheartedly and had the viewers say goodbye to the main heroine by the end as she plummeted to an unfortunate (Film wrecking) fate.

That’s the popular way to deal with this kind of film. It’s a great way to end the film on a sad note and remind the audience that they shouldn’t have bothered to go see it at all. It’s like offering someone a nice bag of chocolate chip cookies for after dinner, but then dumping the bag into a box of salt first. You may need to eat the cookie anyway because it’s the nice thing to do, but it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Other films like The Amazing Spider-Man 2 have done this as well with the main heroine dying towards the end and the hero having to get past this. It always happens a little too fast though, but when should the hero get over it? Obviously, you have to move on at some point…or do you? Homura was in a unique position to actually get a second chance and decided that she wouldn’t simply wait around and accept the fact that Madoka could never rest. That’s why, bringing her back down to reality was in fact…the right move!

Have you seen the light yet?

Think of it this way, how can you not save someone when you have a chance to do so? Think of any classic superhero film where the hero decides to risk everything just to save one person. It’s true that you may be endangering hundreds of people just to save a single individual, but is it not still worth it since 1 life is worth just as much as 100? Madoka didn’t have a happy ending so even if everyone else was pretty happy, it just couldn’t fly. Just to add salt to the wound, Homura’s Utopia also seems to be a little better than Madoka’s. Now, this could be temporary as Witches should theoretically return without Madoka’s new concept, but what if Homura found a way around that? It’s unclear how since Homura shouldn’t have as much power as Madokami. Most likely, Homura’s chance is going to have a lot of bad side effects, which will get dangerous.

Of course, there is no sequel yet so maybe not. We are free to theorize at leisure now and I think I have a reasonable solution. Madoka still has her Kami powers as seen in the end where she starts to regain her memory. Since she still exists as a concept, the witches are still kept at bay. The only difference is that she’s still allowed to have a school life as well in the mean time. Then, Homura has really done it, she’s made a perfect world. Then why isn’t everyone happy about that? Well, there is one big problem which keeps you from seeing this as a good thing.

Homura is really doing this against everyone’s will. She got rid of Madoka’s memories so that everything will play out once more although Homura herself will have a different role this time. Controlling others is never a good thing no matter what the reasoning (excuses) are. You can never spin that into being the right thing so Homura definitely went off the deep end here. She started out with good intentions, but throwing in unlimited power to the mix clearly unhinged Homura and started her down a dark path. The original action of dragging Madoka back to the Earth even though she clearly didn’t want that? I can actually buy into this.

One common misconception is that you always have to follow someone’s wishes even if they clearly aren’t good ones. Just look at Attack on Titan where Levi and friends told Eren not to help his comrades so they can be eaten. They wanted Eren to run away so the Female Titan could eat them first while the hero escapes. Eren listened for a while before finally going into action, but it was way too late by then. Dragon Ball Z is another good example. In one scene, Vegeta is getting pummeled by Cell and Trunks decides not to help because Vegeta’s pride would be injured if he had to get saved. Well, better that his pride gets hurt than his life gets lost eh? I mean, it worked out, but what if Cell had destroyed Vegeta? I guess they could write “He died with his priiiiiide!” on the tombstone.

Nah, sometimes you have to go against someone’s wishes in order to save them. It’s like restricting cigarettes and beer from a teenager or making sure that a kid doesn’t get to play with sharp objects while he/she is too young. Even once the individual becomes an adult who can make his/her own decisions, you may have to help keep that person on the straight and narrow. That’s why we have laws and regulations. Madoka’s a nice kid and it’s cool to see her want to help everyone out, but heroes like that don’t typically think about how to protect themselves. That’s why you need a friend who’s got your back. In this case, Homura was the only one in a position to do anything about this. Madoka definitely didn’t want to come back to Earth since it could put her friends in danger, but how can they really enjoy this perfect world if they know that she didn’t get to partake in it?

Going to any and all lengths to help a friend is what really defines their bond. A big trend in many movies is to have the hero abandon the friend in a Flee or Fight moment and it’s praised as the right call. Even Dragon Ball Super recently had a moment like that where someone stayed behind to get massacred so that the hero could run. Luckily, he chose not too, but he was too scared to actually help so that’s nearly as bad. There are numerous examples of this, but I’m struggling to recall any at the moment. It’s the curse of the writer! I’m sure that many of you can think of times like this though, where a friend is alone against terrible odds and tells the main character to go off to stop the main villain anyway. This dooms the friend in the process, but at least the world is saved so it’s all worth it. Well, I’m here to tell you that this is the wrong call. Prioritizing the friend’s safety over the world’s definitely comes first. If you can’t manage to save your friend, then does the rest of the world really matter? Most characters come to grips with the opposite reality and justify their move by saying that the Earth was saved and that the friend would have wanted it that way. Sure, the friend is typically a noble character who is okay with dying, but as a friend to that person, you have to save him/her. At the very least, Homura made sure to keep this priority in mind.

So, that’s my spiel on why Rebellion’s ending is actually pretty fantastic. It broke the usual norms of the average film and decided not to be content with having Homura pat herself on the back for getting over Madoka’s death and going back to her day to day life. Way too many films do this and having a major/likable character die towards the end of a film is not a good way to end things. It may work for Oscar bait and it may make people appreciate the character more in retrospect, but it also runs the risk of damaging the entire film. The Forest, Don’t Be Afraid of The Dark, Bridge to Terabithia, Pay it Forward, and many other films decided to end with one of the main characters dying and they handled it horribly. Dooming those films to really low scores when they could have been semi decent. Don’t even get me started on Marely and Me or the Old Yeller. If these films had ended with the character living in the end, it could have made a big difference. At the very least, Bridge and Marley would have had positive scores in the end. I can’t really vouch as much for the others. Can a hero’s death towards the end of a film be handled well? Of course, but it takes skilled writers.

Batman V Superman is a great example of this. Superman died (for around 30 minutes) and it didn’t destroy the movie. Part of this is due to the fact that Superman knew the risks and the death wasn’t pure shock value. It wasn’t there to be super sad and emotional, but just to remind us that Batman’s the money factor in the DC universe, not Superman. In the comics, Batman semi recently went to great lengths to try and bring Damien, one of his new sidekicks, back to life once he died. In a universe where people are constantly bringing people back to life and there are many individuals who can do so, I would expect nothing less. If you have a really good friend and don’t try to bring him/her back to life in the comics universe, then I’m definitely going to doubt that bond.

Homura decided to change things even if it put the rest of the world in a dicier spot. Granted, she also turned evil by the end and completely cracked so now it’s going to have to be Madoka’s turn to try and save her once more. This circle should theoretically continue to repeat over and over until both of them are dead. An ending can make or break a film and this has always been the case. It’s a crucial element to any title and it’s important to get it right. What defines a good ending? That may be a topic for another day as there are many variables. One thing’s for sure, Rebellion gets my seal of approval and will go down as one of the better endings in a film. It was unexpected, it was hype, and it shattered the tropes!

Sorcerous Stabber Orphen 2: Revenge Review

Posted on by
Reply

yande.re 58628 sample aizawa_masahiro cleao_everlasting dortin esperanza licorice majic_lin majutsushi_orphen megane orphen volkan
It’s been a while, but it’s finally time to look at the sequel to the first Orphen show. Interestingly enough, this show took a dramatically different approach compared to the first one. While the first season was very dark, somber, and dramatic the entire time, this one shifts gears into a full on comedy. You can see what the writers were going for here though. In the first show, there wasn’t a whole lot of time to see the cast just hang out and have fun since there were always a lot of things at stake. With the world completely safe once more, it’s the perfect time to pit the cast in all kinds of wonky situations. For the most part, this works well, but some parts of the show really just make no sense. Plot points are brought up and then completely forgotten. It makes for an odd blend, but at the end of the day the show is fairly good. The first season definitely takes the win here as I did miss “hardcore” Orphen from the search for Azalie, but this title has a lot of great moments as well.

Orphen has been having a lot of strange dreams lately. He’s trapped in a cave and bad things always seem to happen. He’s chased by giants, laughed at by the unknown, or even attacked by monsters. The one constant is that whenever he wakes up, he finds the main heroine Cleao in his room to the dismay of both of them. The shenanigans continue for a while until a new character, Licorice shows up. She wants Orphen to come with her to the royal knighthood of honor chaps so that they can properly award him. Orphen refuses so she decides to follow him until he relents. The upside for Orphen is that she is backed financially by the group so now he can use her money and live a decent life instead of scraping for pennies.

Meanwhile, a Red Haired girl continues to follow them and plays the piano during the night. Her plot twist is really obvious and I guessed it as soon as she appeared, but for those who are not too familiar with the trope, it may take a little longer than that. There are also a lot of monsters which keep showing up and try to destroy Orphen from time to time. There seems to be a mastermind behind them, but who can it be? One thing’s for sure, Orphen and the others are not going to be getting a lot of rest this time!

As mentioned earlier, the show doesn’t really know where it’s going at times. Let’s take the first plot, where the two heroes keep waking up in the wrong room. This is never resolved. There is no actual reason for the characters to be sleep walking and if the show intended for this to be a pure comical subplot, then it was not handled well. During the entire show, you’re waiting for the revelation of what is causing this, but it wasn’t to be. We can’t forget Orphen’s dreams either. He gets them constantly and some of them are even used purely for comic relief and have no purpose. One of them does come true by the end, but what about the rest? Has Orphen’s imagination just started to run away with him in his old age? I dunno, it just felt pointless once again.

Finally, Orphen’s new magical symbols are also odd. As opposed to the first show where he could just send off a spell at will, we now get a visual of an odd looking circuit board. We can definitely assume that Orphen is drawing energy from this tech to use his magic. I had a theory going on for a while that this Orphen was a clone and that was going to be the big twist. That would have really been something and I think it could have been handled very epicly. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t to be I guess. It was purely an animation change that the show did for kicks. Gotta save the budget whenever possible right? There is certainly a decent amount of stock footage in this season.

That being said, the animation is reasonably good here. It hasn’t changed all that much from the first season, but it didn’t really need too. As it stands, everything looks to be on point. The fight scenes are always exciting and all of the character designs make sense. It’ll remind you of the classic 90’s days for sure. The soundtrack is pretty uninspiring, but we have 1 or 2 very catchy themes. The theme songs look pretty good animation-wise. I’d say that the first theme song of the original series is probably the best. As for the music of these intros, I’ll update this review with something on those once I listen to them again within the next day or two.

As mentioned earlier, most of the show is rather lighthearted and fairly aimless. While this may not sound good to the action readers in the room, it was rather nice to see the group just hang out and engage in witty banter. There are some shows where you never really get to see the heroes have fun like in DBZ so this is a welcome change. Let’s face it, Vegeta and Goku bickering could make for a lot of good episodes. This cast isn’t quite as dynamic, but they can do a good job so long as the two trolls and Orphen are the main focus. My favorite episode of this season actually wasn’t an action episode, but a comedy one instead.
Image
In this episode, Orphen gets cloned so that there are 4-5 other Orphens chasing him. Orphen even compliments this concept since the only one who can defeat him must be another him right? I can actually follow this train of logic. The fight scenes in this episode are a lot of fun and the dialogue is also rather strong. This episode simply could not be surpassed no matter how much plot they crammed into the final episodes. Some of those titles did put up a good fight, but none could match the brilliance of this event. If you thought that clone episodes couldn’t really be all that good, you’ll want to watch this one to reassess that statement.

The characters haven’t changed all that much since the first season as you’d expect. Orphen’s still the tough main character who is always ready to throw out some insults. He’s still a tough mage as well, but is portrayed as being a lot lower on the totem pole than usual. He is actually on the losing side of just about every serious fight in the series. He loses to all three of the main villains in one on one fights and ultimately only proves to be dependable against comic relief characters. I don’t think his fans will be too pleased at that part. I really thought that the writers didn’t give Orphen enough credit in this season. Maybe that will change if we ever get a season 3. He’s still a great lead though and I’d definitely say that he is the best character in the series.

I still have to give Volkan the runner up spot. He’s actually a really great comic relief character and puts most others to shame. He’s very consistent and never has a moment where you’re supposed to feel bad for him or respect his abilities. He plays the role of the comic relief guy right up until the end and that’s how it should be. He never loses his nerve and we’ll always see him try to make Orphen’s life more difficult. It would simply be odd if he ever switched from this tactic. I still don’t care for Dortin though. He doesn’t pull off the road nearly as well. His voice actor does a good job of giving him a very old/raspy voice, but that’s the only real positive for him. He really needs to get behind Volkan and help him out more against Orphen.

Majic is not nearly as terrible as he was in the first show, but there’s still little reason to root for him in this one. He’s still letting Orphen cheat his father out of a small fortune via the tuition when Majic isn’t actually learning anything. We had a whole episode about this and the moral was basically that Orphen is a terrible teacher, but Majic may as well continue to pay him out anyway. Not the greatest ending for Majic fans. He’ll have to really improve for me to like him more as a character.

As for Cleao, she’s still a good main heroine. It’s definitely fortunate for her that she has a super powerful dog in the form of Lucky. Even Orphen’s afraid of that little guy. She may not be able to fight all that much on her own and it can get old to see her quit the group so often, but at least she can be reasonable and her arguments with Orphen are always entertaining. Unlike Majic, she’s actually a very good supporting character who helps to push the show along. There are other characters from the first season who show up like Orphen’s child hood friend and the new leader of the spell castors, Azalie. Unfortunately, they don’t do a whole lot here and their roles aren’t great. You’d think that Azalie would get a lot of hype since she is one of the strongest mages in the world, but her quick cameos are just there to remind the fans that she exists. She doesn’t really get to do anything in the grand scheme of things. As for the child hood friend, his hobby of transforming into a superhero identity is still around, but beyond that he mostly spends his appearances getting beaten up or beating up on weaker monsters. There’s no real middle here and he can’t hold a candle to the stronger fighters. Neither can Orphen though so I suppose we couldn’t expect much more out of him.

Licorice is one of the newer characters and she gets a large role. Unfortunately, she is a pretty bad character. She wasn’t too bad at first as I didn’t mind her gimmick of always mentioning the Royal Knighthood. It could be catchy and she wasn’t bad. However, she started to get a lot worse once she started uncovering the truth behind her past. Suddenly, she would start getting very snippy with everyone and had a tendency of running off into the rain. She tried destroying herself 3 times or more and tended to get in the way of the heroes at all times. She lost any dignity she had by this point and ultimately the show would have been better off without her.

Erukarena is the final boss of the show and is an example of how you make a good final boss. She is a high above being who just so happens to look like a little girl. Don’t let her appearance fool you though, her powers are immense. She has super speed and a wide variety of spells to the point where she is able to take on McGregor and Orphen teaming up. They really don’t fare very well against her at all. She may look innocent, but takes great joy in making life tougher for everyone else. She may not have many goals or aspirations, but at least she makes sure that the heroes feel her sting. The design really worked well this time.

McGregor was the big villain for most of the series. (When he appeared anyway) He got to show off his skills quite a lot as he took Orphen down rather easily. He moves pretty fast for an old man. The show tries to make him a sympathetic character by the end as we find out a few plot twists about his past. It’s all pretty intriguing and while most of his decisions were good, it doesn’t really excuse the fact that he went off the deep end. Whatever the intentions may be, it doesn’t change the fact that McGregor was a complete villain by the end of all this. He was someone who needed to be taken down for the count. At least he made for a good villain though.

As far as the villains go, the final one is Flamesoul. Surprisingly, the show presented him as a greater magician than Orphen. The court room scene with Flamesoul interrogating Orphen was handled pretty well. He’s not the greatest of villains as he can be rather dramatic at times. He doesn’t know that Orphen was actually framed for murdering his mother so he seeks revenge throughout the series. He is definitely lucky to have an array of monsters to back him up, but he actually does a very good job. He came so close to completely getting his revenge here. I definitely liked him a little more than I thought I would by the end, but he does lose to the first two.

Finally, we have Esperanza. I would have liked her character more if she had stuck to playing the piano in the background. Instead, she gets a lot of development and is unsure of what she should do. Protecting Licorice is her main goal, but she also wants to take Orphen down which would be bad for Licorice emotionally. It’s definitely a tricky call either way as it will be tough for the two of them to get along. I also have to say that the kiss between her and Orphen felt very random and out of nowhere. That scene definitely had no real purpose if you think about it. Esperanza may have been mysterious, but unfortunately she was not a good character. I also happened to be playing Sword Art Online Lost Song at the same time as I watched this and that game had the very same twist as this title involving a mysterious red haired girl. It made the resolution to this plot that much more obvious.

Holding back this show from getting a complete 7 is that it did have a little more fanservice than it should have by the end. It’s nothing too drastic, but the little scenes here and there do add up. Most of the comedy episodes weren’t bad, but they were also pretty devoid of action, which widened the gap between this season and the first one. It was very close to matching the score, but in the end it just couldn’t pull it off. I’m sure that a season 3 would likely get the job done though.
OrphenRevenge5
Overall, Revenge is a fitting title for this season as several characters have this motive over the course of the show. It’s not as fitting though when you find out that this season is mostly a comedy. The action scenes do look really good when they show up of course, but it does take quite a while for them to really get going. Once you’re in the climax, you get a glimpse of how epic the show could have been had it stuck to this genre. We do have the first season for that though. If you like the characters then you will still enjoy the show regardless as the comedy is handled rather well. Had some plot points actually ended or been removed entirely, the show would have been even better. As it stands, I’d certainly recommend this show. The franchise may appear to be about 95% dead, but there’s always a chance that we will get a movie or another show someday. Never stop hoping for that sequel!

Overall 6/10