Pac-Man and The Ghostly Adventures Review

Posted on August 25, 2015 by dreager1

It’s been a little over 2 years since I started this show. While the three holiday episodes have not aired yet, the show is essentially over so it’s time for this review to illuminate us all on how well Pac Man did. Was it a good show or did it fall to the immense amounts of crude humor and dicey moments? Well, it’s not the Pac Man show that we wanted, but perhaps it is the one that we deserved!

This show took the Pac Man mythos in a completely new direction. The old Pac Man was responsible, tough, had a strong moral compass, did what had to be done, and he was essentially the ultimate leader. He was a nice guy, but he could fight when pushed and he saved the world on several occasions. The new Pac Man is essentially the opposite in many ways and he’s such an obvious laugh in the face of the original that you can’t help but laugh. Depending on how much you like the original Pac Man, you will either enjoy this interpretation or you will just cringe.

Let’s quickly look at the plot. It’s been ages since the ghosts have been seen and nobody even believes in them anymore. That’s a shame right? Pac Man is also the only member of his species who is still alive. His parents mysteriously disappeared a very long time ago. One day, the ghosts attack once again and Pac Man is charged with protecting the planet from them. He can eat them with ease and Pac Man can even eat some berries to give him super powers so that he can defeat the ghosts by the dozens. His two friends, Cyli and Spiral also help him out in this battle against the evil Betrayus.

The show actually managed to crack 50+ episodes, which is most impressive. I’m pretty sure that the old show never made it that far. It’s too bad though since the old Pac Man show was a lot of fun and I even looked up some of the episodes on Youtube a while back. Each one was only 10 minutes similar to Arthur so they’re very accessible and you’ll see Pac Man as he was meant to be seen. If you’re a true Pac fan, that’s where you’ll want to be.

Back to this show, let’s start off with the technical aspects. The soundtrack is actually quite good and many of the tunes are memorable. You’ll actually remember them as you finish the show and they can actually get quite epic as there is even an opera theme at one moment. That’s definitely a good way to reel in the action fans right? Even the theme song is epic as the narrator says “The Pac is back!” He says it with a very dead voice, but that may be part of the point so I suppose that it can be excused.

As for the animation, Pac Man is unfortunately in CGI. This is a sad trend that has been going on for quite a while, particularly with American shows. Japan has also gotten into it, but not quite as much. It’s just sad because the old Pac Man show looks about as good as this one even though it’s so much older. That being said, the CGI is good as far as CG goes. One thing that you will notice is how Pac Man’s eyes are always half closed. It’s an odd quirk and one that is likely not intended to be there, but the CG just made it so. We do get some neat fight scenes, but they are naturally comedy action scenes that don’t take themselves seriously. If they did…I’m not sure if the animation could keep up. CG has a ton of limits, but still, the show does not look bad at all. It’s still clear and modern.

All right, let’s talk about the characters. Pac Man is essentially your average main character who fights to save the world. The main difference is that unlike other heroes, Pac Man literally cannot control his hunger. If there is food around, he’s going to eat it. This applies to events as well and he even eats all of the food at the President’s party, spoiling the event for everyone. Fans of the Pac won’t like how he can be pretty selfish with this and he’s never apologetic in the slightest. He gets scared by the bully of the school as well. He’s also the kind of guy who will get a crush on someone after seeing her for about a minute and he still can’t stop himself from burping after every bite. Yes, whenever he swallows a ghost, he has to burp afterwards. He does this in literally every episode of the series. I like Pac’s charismatic character to an extent…he means well anyway. I do think that the burping can be a little much though.

Spiral is one of Pac’s best friends and he’s always around to help out. His character basically is that he’s Pac’s friend as it doesn’t really go further than that. He doesn’t really have a gimmick. He seems to be the “cool” character of the group as he always says “bro” at the end of his sentences and fights off the ghosts with his cannon. I’d say that he’s a good character. Likewise, Cyli helps to keep Pac Man in check and she has more of a school presence than the other two. She nearly became class president, but ultimately decided not to do so. Her trendy parents embarrass her at times, but she mostly doesn’t have to worry about that as they only appear once or twice during the whole series.

Pac Man also has a few other supporting characters who help out. His aunt used to be a hardcore army fighter back in the wars and she reminds the heroes of this any chance that she gets. You could say that she’s the hype character of the show. Pac’s aunt is a good character although she doesn’t have all that much personality when you get past the hype. The President is on good terms with Pac Man and they have a very casual relationship similar to how the main character of Pixels could walk into the White House in shorts. The President gives Pac Man various missions ranging from being someone’s friend to saving the town. That being said, the President has a lot of dark secrets like crying as a kid or being allergic to peas, which makes him an easy target for black mail.

We can’t forget Sir Cumference, who can’t always hear very well, but he has a lot of technology at his disposal. He comes to the rescue more than once and he’s certainly one of the most dependable characters in the show. Another major character is Skeebo. He’s the bully who tries to be a relatable character once in a while, but always reverts back to his old ways. He only picks on people who are weaker than him and he loves to give Pac Man a tough time by calling him “Lemon Loser” and a lot of other lemon related names. Pac Man is pretty round so it makes the name calling easy for Skeebo. He was a pretty fun character and typically gave the show its best humor. Skeebo even turned into a superhero once, which was pretty neat! He may be a mean guy, but in the end, the heroes can count on him to help.

As for the villains, Betrayus is naturally the main one. He appears in every episode and is always thwarted by Pac Man. Typically, this happens in a very embarrassing way. Any toughness that he had at the start is quickly taken away as he is forced to team up with Pac Man several times and run away in others. At least he can fight though as Betrayus can shoot blasts of fire. That automatically makes him one of the toughest characters in the series since most of the other ghosts can just stand around and get eaten. The 4 ghosts from the classic Pac Man show are always around of course, but they have no real powers. Blinky’s the classic leader of the ghosts, but surprisingly that is rarely ever stated if at all. He’s just another guy in the gang like Inky. Pinky has the biggest role as she is always going after Pac, who denies her advances by running away. Clyde is the not very smart member of the group who speaks in a very slow and hollow voice to push that point across. He’s probably the best member of the group as he brings in the puns. Buttler and Dr. Buttocks were two recurring characters who worked for Betrayus and as you can tell from their names, they were typically the but of the jokes in the netherworld. Betrayus would have fun beating both of them up in most of the episodes.

Aside from the ghosts, we also have the aliens. They seem to know what happened to Pac’s family and may be holding them hostage although it’s hinted that they escaped. They have a warrior known as the Pacinator, who even gave Pac Man a good fight by forcing him to eat Ice Cream. That guy doesn’t mess around and that episode was the best one in the series. How can you top something that Epic!? The plot had returned and that didn’t happen too often. There were also one shot villains like the Easter Bunny who were typically fun to see.

The main thing that held the series back was how much crude humor it had. Literally every episode had multiple moments of this and it never let up for an instant. Seriously, you could expect slime jokes, burps, farts, and all kinds of gross moments in every single episode. It could definitely get quite excessive and there were some especially dicey episodes like the pimple one on picture day and one episode where Pac Man became a planet. I can’t even begin to describe how sad those episodes could be. If every episode was like that, this show would have gotten a 1 or a 2.

Luckily, there were still a decent amount of good episodes. After a while, you’ll barely even notice Pac’s burps as he eats the ghosts. It’s just too bad that the plot wasn’t around very often as 40+ of the episodes were spent on filler as Pac dealt with the ghosts. That’s not too bad depending on how you look at it, but I’m confident that the show would have been better if the plot had been pushed into the forefront a little more. Random episodes of crude humor can only get you so far after all.

Also, since this is really a complete comedy with some action, none of the characters ever stay serious for long. Even if there is an alien invasion, we’ll quickly get at least 3-5 comic relief scenes to compensate. There’s never a sense of danger or anything, but that’s the point. The problem is that the humor just isn’t good enough to make each joke good. The comic relief ones are simply recycled for the whole series instead of thinking of new ones. The characters are entertaining for the most part and we get some fun shenanigans like the campfire stories or the episode with the transfer student (That was an “emotional” one….) but I can’t forget the bad episodes. The reason why the score is still decent is that it’s typically a fun show despite its flaws.

At the very least, it is always a pretty happy cartoon so it makes for a good watch when you just want to see something light and fun. The episodes will shoot past you very quickly. It’s highly unlikely that the series will continue, but if it does, the next season would likely have a lot of promise and could bring the show up as the plot could mean more action and tension await us….or maybe not. Still, it’s fun to think about!

Overall, The Pac Man show definitely a bit of a miss. I’d say that it only barely broke even and that’s mainly due to the fact that it is a Pac Man show. Since I know the character, it’s hilarious to see how they’ve warped him. It’s like the Ultimate Spider Man show, but much more extreme. To an extent, that’s the only way you can expect to really enjoy the show a lot. If you like seeing your favorite characters look bad, you’re going to be in for some seriously hilarious moments! I aim to play the games based off of this show at some point, but it could be a little while until I pull that off. I really can’t recommend this show unless you either like crude humor or just don’t mind it. If you have to see the show for Pac Man honor, then you can at least be glad to know that there are some fight scenes once in a while. They’re around…just not too frequently! Well, I guess we can wait for the next Pac Man show now!

Overall 5/10

The King of Fighters Ex 2 Howling Blood Stats and Records

Posted on August 24, 2015 by dreager1

There are no real stats for this game. It doesn’t help that just about everything was in Japanese on the main menu.

The King of Fighters Ex 2 Howling Blood Review

Posted on August 24, 2015 by dreager1

This is one of those games that has a story behind it! I actually purchased the game quite a few years ago. The problem was that I had to wait until I purchased the first game. It took a while, but I pulled that off about a year ago….only this game would not work. Since it had been so long since I purchased it at Gamestop, I couldn’t get a refund. That was all right, Game Boy Advance games are some of the greatest of all time. They will eventually start to work and I would be ready! Finally, that day came…and I was ready!

When the game started to work I knew that I had to seize my opportunity. I quickly beat the game with the first team. There’s not really much of a story mode here of course as it’s your standard Arcade Mode. It uses a 3 on 3 system (Not at once of course. It’s 1 on 1 and you move on when your teammates are defeated) and there are 21 fighters, which makes for 7 teams. That being said, just about all of the story modes play out in almost the same way. The first game was infamous in that fashion as I beat it well over a dozen times only to see the exact same cutscenes and identical dialogue from the villains. No matter what the new hero would say, the villain would just go on a tangent. I don’t know if it was that similar here, but definitely close to that.

That being said, it didn’t even matter. See, the game had to have the last laugh. The cartridge was in Japanese for some reason and there’s no way to switch the language setting. It’s safe to say that I was mind blown as I could not actually read any of the dialogue in the “story mode.” The game must have been laughing a little too hard as the next time I put it in, the game had stopped working. I could probably try to revive it once again, but there’s no real reason to do so. I got what I came for as I beat Arcade Mode once. There’s little reason to beat it 6 more times, especially considering that the dialogue is in Japanese.

There’s no real replay value here except for just battling computers or hoping that someone else has a GBA with the game. Beating Arcade Mode with the 7 teams should take you about 3 hours or so. The game’s definitely not a long one so you will be done with it in no time! Since it only goes for a few dollars or so in person and a little more online, I’d say that it’s still worth the purchase. Just make sure that your game has the right language setting or you’re toast!

The graphics and soundtrack are essentially identical to the first game. This is one of those games that you could really believe is just a recoloring of the first title as they are that similar. The sprites are just about the same and likewise with all of the combos. I’d say that the graphics have aged decently well and I’ve always been a good fan of the classic sprites. They really made you feel involved in the game and the fast soundtrack makes the fights more enjoyable. The soundtrack isn’t very memorable, but it gets the job done and you’ll be ready to crush the competition!

As for the gameplay, it’s your standard Street Fighter styled way to fight. You can throw out some quick attacks or just more powerful ones that are easier to dodge. Every character has some special attacks and you can also have an ally jump in to help you out when you’re in a pinch. The gameplay is fun and very easy to get used too. It’s hard to picture myself ever going up against experienced fighters in this one though as I find the controls to be a little hard to grasp. It’s a pure button masher for me so I just press everything and wait until I win. If that doesn’t work, then rinse and repeat the process until it does!

There’s not much more to say about this game. As I mentioned, there’s really nothing to do after Arcade Mode except to maybe enter Vs and have a little fun there. Beyond that….it’s basically Game Over. Still, I definitely won’t be forgetting this game anytime soon thanks to the epic story behind it. The game may have had its laughs, but I still managed to beat the game before it powered down again so I count this as a perfect victory. I haven’t played many King of Fighter games at this point, but I look forward to challenging more in the future. I’m always up for a fighting game after all and sometimes trying out a classic with no real gimmicks like this one is the thing to do when you need to get back into the genre! (Of course, Super Smash Bros literally blows the genre apart on its own)

Overall, King of Fighters Ex 2 Howling Blood is a solid game. If you bought both of the GBA games at the same time then you would probably be a little disappointed as it is essentially the same game in a new wrapper. I don’t even think that they increased the character count all that much and it may have even gotten lower. That being said, I certainly haven’t unlocked anyone so there are probably 1-2 more guys to unlock. If you want to play a fighting game from the old days, then this is definitely the title for you. There can be unlimited replay value if you really like the gameplay so it all rides on that. With this game down, it’ll be time to go back to the Legend of Kay and maybe some MnM’s as well.

Overall 7/10

Ant Man Natural Enemy Review

Posted on August 24, 2015 by dreager1

It’s time to look at another Marvel novel. It’s been quite a while since I read one and naturally this one came out to help hype the movie and vice versa. Ant Man is typically a fun character who can certainly hold his own book, but with Ant Man comes his army of ants and that’s where things typically start to get a little dicey. This book was fun, but the animal violence does do a number on it and this would have probably been even worse if it was in film format.

Scott is just trying to have a good time as he goes on various dates, trying to find a step mom for his daughter. He’s had no luck so far and then the cops let him know that a dangerous criminal has escaped a maximum security jail and may be coming over to destroy him and his family. As such, Scott, his daughter, and his ex wife have been given police protection and this threatens to destroy all of the harmony that Scott has built into his life. He may have to don the costume to fix this mess, but will his daughter be able to forgive him for embarrassing her in front of her friends by having to be with an escort? Only time will tell!

The book is more about the comic continuity than the movies, which is neat since it means that we can have more references like Spider Man being around. Iron Man also has a guest star appearance although he looks pretty bad. He is given one job, to protect Cassie. (Scott’s daughter) Then he allows her to leave and get held at gunpoint by the main villain. That’s definitely not the greatest way to prove that he’s a good hero deep down. Scott trusted him and this is how he was repaid. I definitely thought that it was a bit much as there’s no way Cassie could have escaped. Tony got in a lot of good burns along the way though, but his quick banter was not enough this time.

We may as well launch into what went wrong with the book now. Towards the end of the book, a lot of ants start to commit suicide by the thousands. Across the entire East Coast they start to go extinct thanks to a virus that hit them. This was a plot point that we really did not need. The book could have just made the ants go crazy or something, but dying off like that definitely wasn’t cool.

I also had a bit of an issue with how the book ended as Scott just walks away from the main villain, leaving her to get swarmed by ants and flies. She somehow lived through the experience, but that was a very cruel/downright evil thing to do and I thought that it really wrecked any chance that Scott had of being a likable lead. He was essentially going for the “eye for an eye” mentality, which is something that villains usually do. It just felt really drastic and it made me lose respect for the main character.

Another issue with the ending involves how Scott’s secret identity is out. This isn’t a negative, but I’m just going to call plot hax on the whole deal. No matter how unpopular Ant Man is next to heavyweights like Iron Man and Thor, the whole point of the secret identity was to protect Cassie and his ex wife. That’s because there will always be villains who want revenge and when people know who Scott’s allies are, they will be targeted. Cassie is now in danger from just about every villain. The book plays it off as if nobody cares about the reveal, but it’s actually a rather dicey ending for Scott. This will completely change the status quo assuming he ever gets another book again.

Beyond that, it was a fairly enjoyable read. I blasted through just about the whole book in one sitting. The print was nice and large so the read was very manageable. I’ll take 300 large print pages over 80-100 regular sized ones any day. Large print is just soooo much better than the normal size. I wouldn’t say that this novel was quite as good as the Civil War one or the Fantastic Four adventure, but it was still another good addition to the book format.

Scott was mostly a good main character despite his mean streak at the end. I could do without the constant flirting though as he comes across as very shallow and two dimensional. You are left wondering why and if you should even root for him as he doesn’t seem like a guy who will stay with a commitment for very long. It’s good that he can take a joke though even if the rest of the characters typically can’t. Unfortunately, Cassie was not quite as good as Scott or even close. She started out as a decent character who didn’t care for Scott’s strict rules, but still abided by them. That changed midway through the book as she constantly complained about Scott’s secret identity and gave him a hard time about everything. She went off the handle several times and you cannot sympathize with her revenge plot or her crush on a random guy in school. She comes across as a rather shallow character as well, but a much more annoying one and blaming everything on Scott just isn’t cool.

The villains are ultra generic so there’s no real need to talk about them. I think that the cops looked decently good and they gave it their all the whole time. They even saw through Scott’s fake story in the nick of time! They may not have it all together since they are outsmarted by random prisoners, but they came through when it counted. Although, getting shot and evaded in one scene made one agent look pretty bad and woefully unprepared.

Surprisingly, there is not a whole lot of action here. It’s more of a comedy/slice of life book. Ant Man has a quick bout with some gunmen and against some other insects in the cliamx, but that’s about it. Mostly, it’s about the Scott Lang drama as he tries to be very polite even when everyone takes turns insulting him. He tries to be the bigger man and now he can also be known as the smaller one. (There are a few jokes about that, which he handles well)

Overall, Natural Enemy was a fun book to read. It’s one of those titles that you will breeze through and enjoy while going through it, but on a technical level, it still made enough mistakes to keep it from a high score. The animal violence was just unacceptable and the ending wasn’t that good either. I do like the potential of his identity being public though and it certainly gives him a lot more freedom in day to day life. The only problem is that Cassie and his ex wife will be in permanent danger now. It’s why it was so easy for Iron Man as he didn’t really have any friends except for Pepper. She would be in danger, but nobody else. Ant Man has a lot more to lose at this point. I recommend checking out this book if you happen to see it on the shelf. You’ll have read through the volume before you know it!

Overall 5/10

X-Men The Road to Onslaught Volume 3 Review

Posted on August 23, 2015 by dreager1

The Onslaught event was definitely a big deal in the Marvel Universe and it’s one of the few big events that I have not read yet. It sounds like fun, but for some reason all of the X-Men trade paperbacks from the 80’s to early 2000’s are huge so I’m fine with slowly going through them all. This one was certainly very big, but it was a lot of fun so I really cruised through the stories. There was really just one that was a big miss for me as the rest of the adventures were enjoyable. This was definitely the classic X-Men group and they looked good as you would expect!

Sometimes it’s nice to get the negative out of the way first so let’s talk about why the Angel story was just no good. For starters, the comic was in black and white for effect. Now, I’m a big manga fan so I’m not opposed to that style, but the art has to be clear for it to work and this was the crazy 90’s…it was anything but clear. You essentially miss out on most of what’s happening on screen and while that’s not a bad thing for some aspects of it, this doesn’t do the comic any favors. This story also had some animal violence as birds were attacking the main heroine of the story. Why…why….whyyyyyyyyyy!

The story was also just randomly dark as it was all metaphysical as the lady had actually been involved with some domestic violence issues and her way of coping was by making these illusions. She helped Angel to accept his wings and he helped her move on. The whole story was just iffy and I also felt bad for Psylocke since Angel had been shutting her out, but opened up to a complete stranger. Yeah, that’s Angel for you right? The comic could not end soon enough!

All right, iffy story aside, let’s talk about one of the more enjoyable ones. Wolverine and Angel decided to find a mystic to help heal Psylocke since she was already far beyond the reaches of conventional medicine. Dr. Strange decided to come along as well since fighting mystical battles is really what he does best. He’s not at the height of his strength due to constant circumstances likely occurring in his own series, but he’s still more than a match for the relative lightweights that he has to deal with here. The heroes basically head into another version of hell and have to…negotiate with the master there.

That was a fun story. It was quick, had good fights, and the dialogue was good. It was a popcorn fun X-Men comic that just felt like a good superhero story through and through. The heroes fought the villain and found the cure. No cliffhangers or loose plot lines, but a complete story from start to finish. Dr. Strange also looked good and got the respect that he deserves. Of course, the best story was yet to come.

My favorite story arc was the two part Brood event. I hadn’t expected great things as the Brood can be cool creatures to look at, but at the same time, their brutal style of fighting could have been a little dicey for the comic. Luckily, it was handled well. A pastor and his wife had gotten a lot of publicity within their town as the wife appeared to be able to heal someone with a touch. While the pastor was thrilled about this, he did not know that his wife had actually been contaminated by the brood and was turning everyone else into her minions by “healing” them. The X-Men arrive to deal with the threat, but find out that she is fighting against her destiny. Can the X-Men help to save her or will they be forced to put her down before she loses control?

The X-Men naturally make the right move although Wolverine does want to destroy the lady the entire time they are talking. He’s definitely not feeling generous at the moment, that’s for sure. It’s part of his subplot on how he’s losing his humanity thanks to some experiments that had been occurring, but it’s also in character. The lady tries very hard to keep control and decides that maybe it would be best for her to die so that everyone else can live. That being said, it’s sad for her followers since the brood warriors destroy all of them with ease.

At least they were all Christians so they’ve gone to a better place. I was impressed with how openly the comics talked about God and the Bible and the characters were portrayed well. The Pastor did a lot of praying and his wife’s faith in God is what helped her be the first human to ever resist the Brood. That was really cool and it even has a good ending as the Priest gives a good sermon. God was certainly given his due credit here and this is the kind of adventure that you wouldn’t expect to see nowadays. Certainly the highlight of the collection and the fights with the Brood creatures were pretty epic as well. The X-Men held their own even if it was a losing battle.

Another really good story involved the return of the Onslaught plot. This is the Road to Onslaught right so we need at least relevant comic there. His weakest sentry decided to test the X-Men as he warped their members to the middle of nowhere to conduct his battle experiment. Wolverine and Storm quickly coped as they are used to this kind of test. The rest of the team quickly followed suit and Cyclops reminded them that he has never failed a test like this during his whole tenure as an X-Man. The Sentry fights with them and the fight is certainly a lot of fun as this guy is no lightweight.

The fight takes up most of the issue and each of the X-Men members gets a chance to shine. They’re certainly a powerful team even if they don’t have many heavy weights like the Avengers. A power hitter would have certainly come in handy here. They do manage to make a statement though and the Onslaught Sentry gets a little salty and reminds them that he was the weakest before leaving. That may have been a blow to their confidence, but they won and that’s what counts right?

After that, there was a short issue where Iceman went to Emma Frost’s place to ask her how he can be healed since he had a hole in his chest and wasn’t sure what would happen if he tried to go back to human form. He was definitely a little out of character there as he basically cracked, but part of his ongoing character arc is that he’s being forced to become a serious figure for the younger members and that’s likely not doing him any favors. She basically tells him that it won’t have any effect on his human form and she’s right. Not the greatest of issues, but it wasn’t bad either.

The collection ends with the Wolverine plot continuing as he fully gives way to the beast within him to save someone. The actual events occurred in another comic, but this deals with the aftermath. Stick sends Elecktra to stop Wolverine and likewise, the X-Men are on his trail. Considering that she’s a guest star, Elecktra doesn’t really do anything and only steps in for a very small role. The villain is a guy who commands stone and summons up a lot of minions to defend himself. They’re basically rock versions of various Marvel characters, which was fairly interesting, but the villain wasn’t much of a threat.

It was a decent comic, but not very notable. It’s sad for Wolverine to see how much he had changed with this though. It’s good to see that he retained most of his mind though as he still saved Cyclops when he was in danger. Wolverine was missing his Adamantium for most of the collection, which really hurt his fighting strength. Without it, a lot of the events in these comics would have been much easier for him. He was still a good figure though and the team always needs a devil’s advocate to help them consider all of the options even if you naturally root against just about all of Wolverine’s ideas.

Cyclops and Jean Grey look good as they still lead the team into battle and act like the experienced veterans should. Cyclops is always a confident leader from start to finish and Jean Grey is the reason why they ended up helping the Pastor and his wife against the Brood. Iceman was a good character for the most part even if he did get ultra serious and blew up at Emma without a whole lot of provocation. The Beast has never been very likable for me and this didn’t change that. Likewise, Dark Beast isn’t my kind of villain.

Storm may be the team’s power hitter at the moment and her weather abilities always come in handy. Bishop got a decently large role here, which was cool since I rarely see him in the comics. I can certainly say that I liked his portrayal here as he was the military kind of character who followed orders right away while still having the presence of mind to question some orders. He really helped the team out with his energy absorption abilities. I still prefer Cable as a character, but Bishop is good as well.

Going back to the Beast part, I almost forgot to mention his story arc. He had been trying to find a cure for the Legacy virus for some time now, but he was not getting any closer to solving the riddle. Unfortunately for him, he would not get the chance as Dark Beast arrived and kidnapped him. So, for most of the comics in this collection, it is really Dark Beast who is on the team and not the normal version. The comic is a little sad though as we basically watch Dark Beast go on a killing spree as he murders just about everyone from Beast’s past except for his parents who he couldn’t bring himself to destroy. This was definitely not my favorite character and I’m looking forward to seeing someone stop him. Bishop did arrive at the X-Men’s base to stop a traitor, maybe the traitor was “Beast.”

As you would expect, the art is very bold and large as the 90’s style is famous for this. Still, it works quite well this time and I’d say that it’s some of the clearest 90’s art that I’ve seen. The fight scenes are certainly intense and one thing that I’ve always liked about this style is that everyone looks tough. If you thought that every villain and hero did not have a 6 pack, you were clearly not reading the 90’s comics.

Overall, This was a fun collection. I can safely say that the Onslaught arc had a good amount of build up that occurred before it. As you would expect from the X-Men series, there were certainly a lot of plotlines running around beneath the surface and Rogue got a cameo as well. I’m sure that she’ll be more important to the plot at a later point and politics are not going well for the heroes either so they may have to go below ground at some point. Yes, things are definitely reaching a boiling point and I’m sure that the next volume will be solid as well. With all star comics like the Brood 2 Part Adventure as well as the Onslaught prequel, this is a must read for all X-Men fans. The roster for the team is quite good and Dr Strange even makes a guest star appearance. There’s also a guide to the mansion at the end of the comic, which really goes in depth so if you’ve ever wondered how the team operated or what went on beneath the surface, this will help!

Overall 8/10

America vs. The Justice Society Review

Posted on August 22, 2015 by dreager1

It’s time to look at a very interesting Earth 2 story. I haven’t read almost anything with these guys except for the very old comics from way back in the day. This was an interesting way to find out about a lot of their adventures since then as the danger comes very close to home in this personal arc. I always root for America in films, but can I really root for them over my favorite heroes?

The plot is fairly straight forward. Shortly before dying, Batman gave his diary to an old scientist, who gave it to the newspaper to publish. The diary told a very frightening story about how the Justice Society actually worked for Hitler and the Nazi’s in World War II and have been covering it up ever since. Naturally, the Americans are outraged and decide to take the heroes to an unofficial trial to hear both sides of the story. The Justice Society decides that the best way to clear their name is to start from the beginning and recount their entire history to counter the diary’s lies. The thing is…are they lies? Robin isn’t so sure!

Naturally, this is Earth 2 so you should definitely expect some changes. This world seems to be farther in the future than Earth I so Superman and Wonder Woman are already quite old. Likewise, the Green Lantern and Flash have always been old in this place. The team isn’t exactly young anymore and the Sand Man has had a few strokes recently. They’re not in their prime, but they’re still tough enough to handle a villain or two when they pop up. That being said, old age has also changed them a little. Superman mentions a few times how he will probably abandon Earth so that he can finally retire with some peace and quiet. Wonder Woman wants to go back to the Amazons to take care of Steve Trevor, who’s in a pretty critical position after being injured recently and she does make a few outbursts in the comic.

This stresses the point that these aren’t the happy go lucky heroes that you are used too. Superman is even tempted to burn the diary several times even if it meant destroying something that could have been very important. Luckily, the heroes don’t take the easy route and even get a lawyer to help their case. That’s where the story really gets interesting and I was pleasantly surprised to see just how long the court case lasted. I’ve always been a big fan of seeing the courts so mixing that in with the superheroes was a winning combo.

That being said, it did come at the expense of the action as there are no real fight scenes to speak of in this collection. It’s all about trying to make a solid case and convincing the US that the heroes are for real and weren’t working for Hitler. The very premise is a little hard to swallow as you can’t imagine this ever being true and even the US acknowledges this except for the fact that Batman wrote it. That’s the only reason why anyone actually buys this.

Naturally, everyone reading the story probably figured that he had some kind of reason for doing this. Naturally, he did, but it was only a half reason. In the DCAU, it is acknowledged several times that Bruce Wayne actually believes himself to be Batman with Bruce Wayne as his alter ego. That seems to be the case here except it’s even more extreme as both of their personas now believe themselves to be completely separate. Bruce Wayne had gone crazy and was now completely suspicious of the League while Batman was still sane, but dying of cancer. It led to some interesting developments and Bruce making a lot of mistakes, which forced Batman into the ring. The plan was really convoluted and it’s hard to actually picture it succeeding, but this is Batman so we have to trust his plans.

If you haven’t read many Earth II comics before, then this can also be seen as a very large wrap up of just about everything that has ever happened on this planet. I believe some of the events may have been created for this arc, but I also think that most of them had simply happened and this worked as a nostalgia trip while reminding fans why they liked Earth II so much in the first place. It was definitely a pretty cool DC continuity even if the current Earth II is in shambles. This is really how Earth II should always be portrayed. An alternate Earth with similar heroes so that we can have more inspiring adventures!

Of course, due to the nature of the issues, there’s not really much to discuss. The heroes certainly saved the day very efficiently in all of their past cases and they won in the court setting fair and square. It was neat of the Spectre to offer to destroy this Earth though. A nice reminder of how powerful he is. Unfortunately, Robin did not look so good. He wanted to know Batman as a mentor who always took the right path so he decided to believe the diary. He mostly just spent every issue flinching, crying, and wondering why the heroes were trying to make Batman look so bad. It was their lives or Batman’s legacy and one has to hold more weight than the other.

I will admit that Batman’s version of the story was a lot of fun to read though. It was almost like an abridged version of a show as he showed many true events, but tried to make them look sinister by adding his own commentary. Batman essentially summarized all of the stories into one comic and then the Justice Society would expand upon that for the next 3 issues. It took a while to clear up the shadows that Batman had left, but the Society was certainly ready for the task. Superman and Wonder Woman were not really left in any danger since they weren’t accused of the same crimes (Even Batman couldn’t pull that one off) but they stuck around to support the team. All for one and one for all right?

The art is fairly solid as you can expect from a classic DC arc. The art definitely carries that retro feeling across while also being modern enough where you can picture it having some real action scenes. I definitely would not have minded a game changing villain for the ending to have a quick bout, but with the League members so old, the villain could not have been made to be That powerful. This League is definitely not as strong as the main one. Still, the good art just added another positive to the collection.

Overall, America vs. The Justice Society is a great DC collection. Finally, we get a full length court case where Superman and the rest of the League has to debate against the US. It would have been even better if Batman was here, but I suppose that the plot would have been completely different in that case. Still, the art is good and the writing is exceptional. You’ll be on the edge of your seat during the debate as the Judges continue to give the heroes a lot of time. You will need to be prepared for a lot of reading though as the collection is certainly very text based. Each page will take you about as long to read as 3-4 in the average comic. There is text everywhere as dozens of the team’s adventures finally come to light and we learn why they did not end the wars sooner. I’m going to miss the DC comics as I may not be checking one out in a while, but if you wanted to see a Superman who felt like Superman…this is definitely the comic to check out! It’s an AU future that actually feels fairly realistic and it could work with some mild tweaks in the New 52 someday.

Overall 8/10

Naruto Review

Posted on August 21, 2015 by dreager1

Naruto is one of the first manga titles that I ever read. Not quite the first as I started Dragon Drive, Legendz, Zodiac PI, and others first, but this was still an early read for me. The anime is really what got me into the manga and the movies is what helped get me into the show early on. I actually didn’t read most of part 1 Naruto until way after the first two-three arcs of the Shippuden arc. When I went back to the early days of the manga, it took a while to get used to the art. I certainly remember Naruto fondly and it was definitely an excellent series with a lot of memories attached to it.

Naruto takes place in a world where technology isn’t really present and ninjas still reign. The Village Hidden in the Leaves is Naruto’s home, but the villagers do not trust him because hidden within Naruto is a beast that murdered the Hokage (The leader of the village) and wrecked the whole place a long time ago. Naruto fights to win everyone’s trust and he ultimately wants to become Hokage! It will be a long journey, but Naruto never gives up. It’s simply not his way.

This series was around 70 volumes long, which is fairly huge. As you can expect, this review will be very long as well. I will essentially go through the series arc by arc and talk about the characters as they appear. In a sense, it will be a look back through the years for Naruto. If it proves to be too long to read, feel free to jump to the last paragraph as I wrap everything up.

The first arc of the series had Naruto and friends try to protect a bridge builder from assassins who were sent to end the guy. This was the first big mission for Naruto’s team so it was an intense way to kick things off. Zabuza was the big villain for this adventure and he certainly became popular with the fans. Zabuza was a cold hearted killer when the arc started, but he slowly began to see the error of his ways once Haku was lethally injured. His story was certainly emotional and I did like him by the end. I am still pretty unsure about him keeping up with Kakashi though. It was early on in the series so Kakashi had not yet earned his elite titles, but I would expect a Sharingan user to be much more skilled than this. Zabuza may have only been around for a little while, but he left a strong impression with the fans. Like Zabuza, Haku was an intense adversary. Haku is a good example of what could happen to any character who is raised by a villain. He respects Zabuza and does whatever his mentor wants because of their strong bond. If Haku had been raised by heroes, he would have undoubtedly thrived in such a situation. Haku was certainly ahead of his time as his abilities were also very impressive when he showed up. His skills were second to none.

This is a good time to mention Iruka since he never got much of a role past this part of the series. He was Naruto’s original mentor and much more timid than the ones who followed him. I can’t say that I’m a fan of the guy and his decision to try and stop Naruto in the final arc wasn’t a great one. Konohamaru and his cronies were also around, but there’s not much to say about them except that they were not good characters by any means.

Next up was the classic Chunin Exams. Certainly one of the best Naruto arcs and the hype was very real. An onslaught of new characters were introduced and most of them would be main supporting characters from here on out. Naruto and his pals were deemed worthy of entering this grand tournament and if they won, they could move up from the Genin ranks into Chunin level. The heroes were certainly not going to miss this opportunity! There were 3 main stages to the exams: The Written Exam, The Forest of Death, and The Fighting part. The arc didn’t really get to end because the invasion immediately followed it, but that saga was still a lot of fun.

Most of the characters who were introduced would end up becoming very important for the rest of the series. Kiba was one of the new characters and he was a hot headed genin like Naruto. He would later decide that he even wanted to become Hokage. From all of the Genin, Kiba would likely be in the middle of the pack. His only big role in the series was when he had his big fight with Sakon. After that, he became a permanent member of the supporting cast. He’s not a bad character by any means, but he never really made a name for himself and comes across as petty or too overconfident for his own good.

Shino was one of Kiba’s partners and he was always my least favorite of the new heroes. His insect gimmick gets old immediately and he never really had a big moment in the series. A lot of the characters were really only developed through the anime and that includes Shino. That being said, I just didn’t like his personality anyway. He essentially considers his insects to be expendable. Hinata was the third member of that group and she would actually grow to get a decent sized role in the series. She’s certainly more important than Kiba or Shino, but at the same time, her character is mostly developed through the anime and the sequel movie. Her fight against Neji was certainly very good and she stood up to Pain in one of the latter arcs, which showed off her bravery. I would consider her to be significantly more powerful than Shino and Kiba, but still not strong enough to handle most of the big villains. She’s a decently good character, although admittedly she was a little too timid and shy for me to like her all that much.

For the next group we’ll start off with Rock Lee. He certainly gets a big role in the series, particularly the first part. He is a ninja who cannot use Ninjutsu so he relies on hand to hand combat. It serves him well and he ends up being much faster and stronger than the other Genin at first. Somehow, we’re led to believe that Neji could still beat him in a fight, but I wonder about this. Without his weights and if he needed to use a gate or two, Rock Lee easily looked like the most impressive fighter in the Chunin Exams. I feel like he basically should have won the fight if he had fought anyone other than Gaara. I was fine with how he lost to Gaara as Gaara’s sand abilities were a perfect match for Rock Lee’s talents. Rock Lee’s infatuation with Sakura can be a little annoying at times, but aside from that he is a great character. He never gives up and his dedication certainly paid off.

Neji is another member of the group and between the two of them (Rock Lee, Neji) you can see why their group is known as the strongest. Neji doesn’t have Rock Lee’s speed or power, but his martial art skills are at a very high level and he has an absolute defense where he can generate a chakra bubble that protects him from attacks on all sides. (Almost all sides, there is a slight hole in the barrier, but it is hard to target) His attacks injure you on the inside so if he lands a blow or two, it becomes infinitely harder to defeat him since you will be unable to use chakra. He’s certainly another likable character and easily one of the best Genin members.

Finally, we have Tenten. Unfortunately for her fans, her role is much smaller than that of her teammates. She never really gets a big fight in the whole series as her match against Temari is off screen in the manga. She never really got to contribute to the story, which is unfortunate. I probably still like her more than Hinata and possibly Sakura, although the latter may win as she had more time to shine.

Next up is the weakest team when it comes to attack power as each of the members has his/her own gimmick. Ino is essentially Sakura’s rival and was on her level before part II. After that, she essentially stopped leveling up. I can’t say that she was a good character in the manga as she was essentially filler. Choji was the muscle of the group, but the fun part is that physically, I’d take Sakura, Naruto, or Rock Lee over him. Choji’s also very slow so he can’t hold his own against most of the real fighters. He had a big fight against Jirobo and he helped out when the going got tough, but I never became a fan of his either.

Luckily, Shikamaru is on the team so he saves it from not having any likable characters. He is the brains of the group and his Shadow Possession jutsu is his trademark attack, which can take control of an enemy’s body. The problem is that this won’t work on any really strong opponents and Shikamaru can’t really fight if an opponent is fast or strong. He goes far and gets a much bigger role than most of the other Genin fighters so there is plenty of time to grow to like the character. He may not be very powerful, but he’s likable and the heroes would be in a jam without him.

Now, let’s go on to one of the enemy teams. Kankuro was a puppet style user who worked for the Sand Village. While his hand to hand skills are certainly lacking (As even Shino seemed to have the edge in that form of combat) he is a threat from long range. His puppets are able to poison you and it can be fatal. I never really cared for Kankuro. He’s the gruff villain who eventually starts to act like a nice guy, but his banter was always more impressive than his fighting. Temari was an improvement over Kankuro and she actually got to fight against foes like Sasuke. Her competitive personality is certainly more enjoyable than Kankuro’s. She’s also a long range user who uses wind to fight. Her fight against Tayuya and Shikamaru are likely her big moments in the series. Temari was always more reasonable than Kankuro and while she definitely did start out antagonistic, she wasn’t as downright evil as Kankuro so it was more believable when she turned good.

Finally, we have the main fighter of the group, Gaara! Gaara would go on to become one of The most important fighters in the whole series as he even became the Kazekage. He can manipulate sand to protect him or to go on the offensive. It makes him a very tough fighter to deal with and Gaara doesn’t even need to move unless he feels like it since the sand is almost impossible to get through. He started out as one of the big villains in the series, but Naruto showed him that it was still possible to have friends and to get people to stop treating him like a monster. In the series, Gaara rarely started fights, but assassins were always trying to kill him so he would simply return the favor.

He had a very troubled origin and it was a tough road trying to get people to trust and befriend him again, but Gaara pulled it off. He went from being someone who was feared to being someone who was loved and it was a great character arc. Unfortunately, I do feel like he got a little too emotional at times once he turned good, but it was much more pronounced in the anime and not quite as bad in the manga. He’s still acknowledged as one of the tougher fighters and while he is no longer my favorite character in the series, he still ranks fairly high in the rankings.

After the Chunin Exams were interrupted, the stop Gaara arc showed up as Naruto was tasked with his first S (Maybe A) rank mission. His team set off to stop Gaara, but with Sasuke’s curse mark getting out of control, it would prove to be a very difficult challenge. Orochimaru, a mysterious ninja who defected from the Leaf long ago, also showed up to assassinate the Hokage and throw the Hidden Leaf Village into a frenzy. That certainly shook things up quite a lot! It was a short arc and you could almost just call it part of the Chunin Exams. I greatly enjoyed this arc although the final fight wasn’t nearly as good as the end arc fight in the first two story arcs. The Chunin Exams blew both the Zabuza and the Invasion Arcs out of the water.

Kabuto was around during this period and while he pretended to be just another Genin, it was obvious that he was certainly more than that. He traded blows with foes like Kakashi and we found out that he worked for Orochimaru. I actually liked him because his hand to hand skills were good and he felt like a good rival for Naruto. Little did I know that he would go on to become on of the biggest villains in the series! He actually became one of the masterminds for the final arc. Unfortunately, he became less of a hand to hand fighter for a while and I didn’t like his new design. He fixed that in time for his final fight though and it was definitely an impressive way to go out. He got a chance to look over his life and see what went wrong which was nice.

The Naruto series likes to try and redeem all of the characters. Some naturally stay as enemies, but most of them accept that what they were doing was wrong in the end. While it can be a little cheesy for some and just not make sense for others, it’s always good to see a villain turn over a new leaf and join the side of the heroes. The character should still pay for his/her crimes, but at least now the character can work to make the world a better place. Naruto typically helps to do achieve this personally in most of the villains.

Next up is Orochimaru, who would also become a major player in the series. You could say that he was one of the hype characters of the series and always knew something that the heroes didn’t. He just seemed to be in control for just about the whole series and even once he was gone he still had the answers. I can’t say that I ever liked the character though and my problem with his fight scenes was that they typically didn’t have a lot of hand to hand in them. I also didn’t find his actual power level to be very impressive either even though he did get a lot of hype whenever he fought and managed to take down some fairly tough opponents. He was definitely a major player here though so you can certainly expect to see a lot of him.

The Third Hokage didn’t get to appear for all that much and I don’t mind since I found him to be a bit of a bland character. He was around to uphold the piece and you could certainly not deny that he tried his best to stop the villains, but he was just so old and didn’t feel strong enough to be given the title of Hokage. If he could have fought more or had some cooler moments, then that could have certainly helped his case.

With the invasion over, Itachi and Kisame showed up and we found out about the existence of the Akatsuki. They won’t be back for a while, but it was still a very interesting plot point and both characters were certainly dead. This led into the next arc as Sasuke and Kakashi were severely injured so Naruto decided to travel with the legendary Jiraiya to find a lady named Tsunade who could heal them and also become the next Hokage. That being said, Orochimaru was also looking for her so it would be a race against time!

This arc was not quite as interesting as the others and I would say that it may have been the worst. It did have some good moments of course like the Naruto vs Kabuto fight and Tsunade’s strength made for some great feats. I loved the whole Itachi and Kisame part as well although I probably wouldn’t count it as actually being part of the arc since it felt more like the breather between arcs. Now, let’s talk about some of the new characters.

Itachi was definitely a very cool character and he was supremely impressive right from the start. He took out Sasuke and Kakashi without any effort and you could tell that he would end up being a big threat. That being said, it was hard to expect him to be quite as impressive as he turned out to be. Even by the end of the series, he could outclass just about any fighter and his Sharingan prowess cannot really be matched. He was a lot of fun and the series gave him a lot of development. Like Orochimaru, I’d call him a hype character.

Later on, the series tried to give a lot of reasons to explain why him murdering the Uchiha Clan was necessary and how he wasn’t actually a bad guy. Unfortunately, I don’t think that the author originally intended for this to happen so a lot of it still doesn’t actually make any sense. For one thing, everyone in the Uchiha Clan was murdered including kids and innocent civilians. No matter how Itachi tries to justify that like saying that they were plotting a rebellion, it simply couldn’t be true of everyone. So, no matter how sympathetic the series tries to portray Itachi, he’s still a mass murderer in the end who’s no hero. At least he did help the heroes at multiple points though.

Kisame was a big player as well, but not quite as important as Itachi. He was a sword user and ended up being a rival for Might Guy. He used raw power a lot more than a technical fighter like Itachi and this ended up working out quite well for him. He was certainly not as likable and his origin story didn’t really do anything for me, but he made for a good opponent. While he wasn’t the best Akatsuki member, he was closer to the top than the bottom and appearing so early definitely allowed the hype to build up for his next fight.

Jiraiya was a terrible addition to the team and he certainly didn’t earn the manga any points. While his abilities were fairly advanced, he was the stereotypical master who was irresponsible and only cared about girls in his old age. It’s always sad to see and there was nothing he could do to make himself appear likable after that. Luckily, Tsunade was far superior to him and made for a good character. She would also get quite a big role as the series went on since she was the Hokage for a good portion of time and helped in the final battles against Madara. Her healing abilities make for a great combo with her high attack power since she can afford to take larger risks compared to most fighters.

Tsunade had an assistant by the name of Shizune who helped out a little. I can’t say that she ever really did anything though so it’s hard to have much of an opinion on her. She keeps Tsunade in line, which is good I suppose. The Nine Tailed Fox didn’t get a whole lot of development by this point, but I may as well quickly talk about him. He started out as a monster who seemed to just want to make Naruto’s life as difficult as possible. As the two survived battle after battle, he eventually became a nicer guy and started to learn the values of teamwork. By the end of the series, he became a good character. He’s much cooler than all of the other Tailed Beasts as I didn’t really like any of the other ones. The 8 Tails was all right I suppose and he was certainly far more reasonable than the others, but at the same time, he just wasn’t that cool. The Nine Tailed Fox always had that cool factor about him and he can fight quite well without a host.

Next up was the big arc to end the first part of Naruto. Sasuke decided to leave the Leaf Village in order to get stronger. Orochimaru promised him great power if he followed so Sasuke obliged him. His comrades naturally couldn’t accept this and the move could have also placed the village in danger so Tsunade sent out a team comprised of Shikamaru, Choji, Naruto, Kiba, and Neji to go after him along with some well placed back up. The heroes would have to get past the Sound 4, The Hidden Boss, and Sasuke himself to get through, but they weren’t about to go down without a fight!

To this day, this was probably the best arc in the series. That being said, the anime is mainly why I was such a huge fan of this arc as it was handled perfectly. The final arc is so long that it technically has a whole lot more action and hype moments than this one so I will still have to think about whether this arc deserves to be the best in the manga or not. It’s a tough call and it is over a lot quicker there. The final arc also has more moments where it drags or cuts away to other fights though, but that’s not as much of a problem when in volume format. For now, I guess I’ll say that the final arc was still the best, but this would be an easy second. There were a lot of characters introduced in this arc to let’s get to them!

From the Sound 4, let’s start off with Sakon/Ukon. They share one body and are always eager for a fight. Their Curse Mark form easily has the best design from the team and I also consider them to be deadlier than the other 3. They are certainly as evil as you get and have no problem dragging out a fight. Jirobo was not quite as cool and he got to fight Choji. His whole character is that he’s big and strong so he doesn’t have to use any real strategies. He did manage to trap all of the heroes at one point, which was impressive though, but I like to think that most of the Genin could have taken him down had he been matched with anyone other than Choji.

Tayuya was a technical fighter so she was a perfect match for Shikamaru. I wouldn’t say that she was likable either so she falls into the same rank as Jirobo. She talked tough of course, but there were so many ways to possibly win. Throwing her kunai would have been effective instead of walking over to Shikamaru and getting within range. Her flute techniques are good, but I always feel that fighters like her are doomed since they can’t handle close range pressure. Kidomaru is another long range specialist, but I feel like he’s the bigger threat thanks to his incredible accuracy. If he had been fighting in a different environment then he probably wouldn’t have lasted too long against Neji, but the fight was certainly intense. As you can tell, Sakon was my favorite member of the 4. Kidomaru wasn’t bad though, but he didn’t get a whole lot of character. He was fairly intelligent, which helped to distinguish him from the rest I suppose.

Then, Kimimaro showed up and he was much cooler than the first 4. This guy essentially lived to serve Orochimaru as he thought of the guy as his master. Kimimaro was already dying when he first showed up, but that didn’t stop him from taking on the heroes and nearly coming out on top. He faced off against Naruto, Rock Lee, and Gaara in back to back matches. That’s certainly impressive and another second or two and he would have been able to claim victory. He certainly never gave up and he was easily one of the most impressive villains in the series when you think about each intro. Berserk Naruto has never been so easily defeated and I can’t think of another fight which made him look so helpless.

Time to wrap up some other characters from Part I that I have not mentioned yet. We have Asuna, who was one of the Senseis for the Genin. He was a decent fighter, but didn’t get a whole lot of development. He’s smart and his chakra weapon is unique. Kurenai used illusions to fight. It was just her bad luck that her only fight in the series was against Itachi, someone who can see through any illusion.

There was also Might Guy, whose abilities wouldn’t even be fully shown until the final volumes of the series. He is essentially an adult version of Rock Lee so his raw power and speed are really impressive. He’s a fun character and feels like a Goku or Superman type of fighter since he doesn’t use ninjutsu either. He came to Kakashi’s rescue several times in the series and he never went down without a fight. Even by the end of the series, you could say that he’s probably in the top 10 power wise.

We can’t forget about Kakashi either. He would prove to be a major player throughout the series and many of his plots ended up affecting the whole series like his origin. He was always a good sensei for Naruto and his friends. He even managed to keep up with his training as he could finally use the Sharingan for very long periods of time in Part II and played a critical role in the climax, which was a good endurance feat. Kakashi was certainly a great character and one of the better Naruto leads. He may not have been the strongest character by the end of the series, but he could hold his own.

Sakura was a part of Team 7 and she underwent one of the most dramatic changes between Part I and Part II of the series. In the original story arcs, she couldn’t really fight, which was unfortunate for her fans since it meant that she would rarely get involved in the action scenes. Luckily, she trained under Tsunade for a few years and came back with incredible strength. She could now fight alongside Naruto and Sasuke as she even took down a member of the Akatsuki. It was certainly one of her best moments in the series. Her only real drawback was typically that she was too interested in Sasuke even when he decided to go to the dark side and essentially betray everyone. I think it was just a bit much and lying to Naruto during the snow adventure was also pretty iffy. Overall, I’d say that she was a good heroine and got quite a lot of development. She may have had her flaws, but Sakura was certainly a good character.

Time to talk about the part I versions of Naruto and Sasuke! Sasuke was the cool rival of the series who constantly one upped Naruto and wasn’t afraid to bring this up. He was one of the strongest Genin and his abilities continues to grow at a rapid rate. Unfortunately, this was not enough for him as he felt that he was not growing fast enough and decided that the powers of darkness held greater rewards. He left the village, which began his decent into the shadows. Still, he was easily my favorite character in the series. Despite his aloof and sometimes rude demeanor, he and Naruto definitely had a strong bond and their banter was always a lot of fun. While Naruto would just wander into traps, Sasuke was very smart and always one step ahead of the group. He made the series a whole lot more fun.

Naruto started out as your average Shonen lead. He can be loud and is always talking about something or other. Luckily, this comes along with the classic trait of fearlessness, which is why Naruto was a good character. He doesn’t hesitate when it comes to entering a battle and he always believes that villains can be given a second chance. He was a lot more reckless compared to his Part II counterpart and that was a good thing. When Naruto entered his Berserk Mode, there wasn’t really anyone who could stop him. His rampage was essentially a force of nature and could not be stopped. His dream about being Hokage was a good one and it made it easy to see him develop over the years as he learned what it truly meant to be worthy of the title.

That’s essentially the end of Part I, which was 27 volumes. Time to get into Part II, which took up a large chunk of the series and ended things with a bang. While Part I was fairly down to Earth and lower in scale than the average SJ series (Although about on par with One Piece at the time) Part II upped the stakes and introduced some planetary level threats! Part I will always be classic, but Part II had more action and I have to say that I preferred it. It’s a different story in the anime version, but that’s for another time.

To break up the format a little, let’s quickly talk about the artwork. Naruto’s art started out a little rough for part I and I’d say that it started to get better as Part II started. That may sound like a long time for rough art, but it still looked good. It just wasn’t as polished as the anime and Part II essentially corrected that. You could barely tell that it was the same manga at times, which is always a great sign as it means that the artist is continuing to improve. By the end, Naruto was certainly one of the best looking manga titles out there!

All right, time to start Part II! The first arc saw Naruto return the village after being away for almost 3 years, but he didn’t have a whole lot of time to relax as news came that Gaara, the Kazekage, had been kidnapped by the Akatsuki. Along with Sakura and Kakashi, Naruto’s team headed out to stop the attackers, but would they make it in time? The Akatsuki had finally made their move and Naruto would have a tough time stopping them so Might Guy’s team was also dispatched just in case.

This arc was decently fun. Seeing Itachi and Kisame again was certainly interesting and since the Akatsuki had finally begun to make their move, it felt like the plot was finally starting. Everyone was eager to see where the plot would take us and we also got a glimpse of the other Akatsuki members although it would be almost impossible to identify them at the time.

Deidara, another Akatsuki member made his debut in this round and he would go on to get a rather large fanbase. He was obsessed with art and believed that explosions were the pinnacle of it as they appeared for an instant and then left. His forte is long range combat and he gave Gaara a fairly good fight using his techniques. I’d say that his powers are actually a bad match-up against the sand user, but he could give most of the other opponents a run for their money. He’s a decent Akatsuki member and a likable member.

His partner was Sasori, a puppet master who made Kankuro look like a rookie. He wasn’t quite as likable at all, but I was glad that his true form was more impressive than his Chimera body. It helped him out a little as he was finally able to fight in close quarters combat without relying on his long range puppets. He can control 100 of them at a time, which instantly made him the best puppet master on the block and his fight against Sakura was quite good. With his poisonous attacks, he is a threat to any fighter as one hit is all that he needs.

The next arc had Naruto decide to finally bring back Sasuke once more. An old informant of Sasori had turned up information so the team figured that they would impersonate him and find out as much as they could. Kakashi got injured on the last mission so two new recruits would be coming along to help Naruto and Sakura. One of them was an Anbu Black Op known as Yamato and another was from the Root faction led by Danzo known as Sai. It would be hard to trust either of them, but that didn’t matter to Naruto as long as he got to save Sasuke!

This was certainly one of the shorter arcs, but it was important since we finally got to see the new and supposedly improved Sasuke. His abilities had definitely jumped a lot as he currently outclassed Naruto at the point. More signs to pointing that his choice was the right one if power was all that he desired. Aside from Sasuke appearing, it was a relatively mild arc and certainly not one of my favorites. More action and less Sai/Yamato would have been good.

As you can expect, I didn’t like either character. Sai came way too late and the whole
“being devoid of emotion” gimmick was already taken by Sasuke. Sai doesn’t even have a lot of power to back it up as his skill is in drawing things that come to life. A useful ability if handled right I suppose, but I found him to be far weaker than just about any member of the original Genins. While he got character development as the series went on and learned how to use his emotions, I never liked the guy. He simply wasn’t my kind of character. Likewise, Yamato didn’t work for me either. He liked to use fear to control Naruto and his wood style can be useful for trapping him, but Yamato is far too by the books at times. He may have been an Anbu member once, but he’s a shinobi now so he’s got to keep the act up a little better. He rarely contributes at all as well and I just missed Kakashi whenever Yamato was on screen.

After this arc was one that had a lot more action and was simply more fun. Two new Akatsuki members who went by the names of Hidan and Kakuzu murdered the sensei of Shikamaru and his team. To avenge him they headed out for a rematch, but Kakashi caught them and decided to tag along. Meanwhile, Naruto was still training to achieve a whole new level of power. The question was…would he be able to make it in time to save his comrades from the Akatsuki? As these are Akatsuki members, you can typically expect that Naruto will be needed in the fight.

Hidan was fairly neat. I don’t care for his ritual gimmick, but the banter between him and Kakuzu was always good. I actually ended up liking him more than the partner. Hidan’s immortality was a useful ability even if it had a lot of limitations. Immortality is typically paired up with regeneration because it is essentially useless otherwise as you can hack off a limb and then just tie the opponent down. The heroes realized this at the very end and then utilized this effectively. Still, it was great to see a pure short range fighter who gave us a nice action scene with Kakashi.

Kakuzu was certainly more of a long range fighter although he was also quite adept at hand to hand combat. He was the calm and collected member of the group and it’s tough to destroy him because he has 5 hearts so you have to beat him 5 times. He was certainly giving the heroes a lot of trouble, but he didn’t count on the super powerful main character showing up! This pair beat the Sasori and Deidara combo, but weren’t as cool as the classic Itachi and Kisame.

The next arc focused on Sasuke for a change as he decided to locate Itachi and finish things once and for all. To do that, he would need to build a team so that they could distract Kisame. He found old experiments and comrades of Orochimaru to join his Team Hebi. Then, they finally arrived and had their climactic showdown with Itachi. Naruto would have tried tagging along, but his team was held up by the mysterious masked man who claimed to be the legendary Madara Uchiha. He must have gotten quite the haircut…

I never liked any of Sasuke’s new teammates so I can’t really say that I was thrilled to see them appear. Jugo is pretty similar to Choji, but he can get out of control at times. He’s tough, but a nice guy deep down who is always ready to help his friends. He has super strength and a slight amount of speed as well. He’s not much of a threat to most fighters, but he’s not weak either. Karin is the healer of the group who has an obsession with Sasuke. The Uchiha typically just ignores her, but the plot wasn’t very great and she never transitioned into being a good character. She was really just around to allow Sasuke to fight multiple battles with a plot reason that allowed him to keep on fighting well past his limits. Finally, we had Suigetsu. He was a decent fighter with a sword and easily the best member of the group, but I wouldn’t say that I was a huge fan of his either. He was just a bit generic and we already had a nice amount of hot head fighters who could put up a decent fight. In many ways, Suigetsu was similar to Kiba.

In essence, Sasuke’s team was basically just necessary filler to allow him to fight Itachi one on one. The thing is, Itachi would have permitted the battle even without the other fighters so I don’t think that it would have been a problem. Naturally, it was just awesome to see Sasuke get such a big role so the arc was still quite good and the big battle with Itachi was also very epic. This was the confrontation that we had waited years for and it finally got to occur!

Killer Bee also made his debut here as he fought Sasuke. He was a surprisingly difficult opponent to defeat and his bond with the Tailed Beast put him in a different league of power than when compared to Naruto. Unfortunately, I didn’t like his whole rapping gimmick. That was definitely not cool and his character certainly didn’t do wonders for me. He would have some cool moments once in a while, but mostly he was a miss for me. Either way, his role was decently large, but he mostly disappeared for the final fights.

Next up was the Pain arc, which grew to be quite popular. After Jiraiya was murdered by Pain, Naruto left to train some more so that he could defeat the leader of the Akatsuki. While he was gone, Pain used the opportunity to strike at the Hidden Leaf Village along with his assistant, Konan. Pain was 6 bodies to use in the invasion and the Leaf Village was essentially crushed. They put up a rather embarrassing effort against the villain, mainly due to the fact that Rock Lee, Neji, and Might Guy were away from the village. Rock Lee could have likely been strong enough to take down 1-2 bodies and along with Might Guy, they could have certainly defeated Pain. Alas, that would have been too easy right? When Naruto stepped in, it was certainly an epic moment!

This was certainly one of the best arcs in the series and there were quite a few casualties and fatalities. If not for the final part of the arc that essentially reset everything, I think more fans would look at it as the definitive Naruto arc. Either way, it was very good and you were on the edge of your seat in each chapter to see who would be able to live through this and who would fall before Pain!

Pain definitely got a lot of hype leading up to the arc. After all, he was the leader of the Akatsuki! He certainly met on the hype as he easily started to demolish all of his opponents. His main body was naturally my favorite as he had a cool personality and went up against Naruto in a fair 1 on 1 fight. His other bodies were also fairly neat. He had a plot twist as we learned more about his real body and his origin. It wasn’t bad and he was certainly a decently likable character. It was a tough road to be sure and Naruto showed him that there is still a chance for peace…at least for a little while before new fights inevitably continue to appear. From all of the Akatsuki members, Pain is certainly in the top three and few villains can match him in personality or power.

Konan was a loyal friend who stood by Pain’s side through thick and thin. Her paper abilities are quite good and while her physical abilities aren’t quite as impressive as many of the other fighters by this point, her long range paper abilities ensure that her opponents have to keep their distance. She was a nice character and while her role wasn’t too large by the end, she had some key moments.

After that, the 5 Kages decided to have a meeting and Sasuke realized that this was his chance to finally destroy Danzo, the new Hokage, and avenge Itachi. He quickly headed for the meeting and Naruto also began to head there to try and stop the leaders from officially deciding to destroy Sasuke. This was essentially a very short arc, but a lot happened here. We finally got to meet the 5 Kage and Naruto had his epic rematch with Sasuke. It was short as this was mostly to set up the true rematches that would be held soon. Sasuke vs the Raikage was also one of my favorite battles in the series so this arc definitely had a lot of good memories.

The Raikage was great and he was instantly one of my favorite characters in the series. He didn’t wait for things to play out, but launched himself into the action whenever it became necessary. His fight against Sasuke was great as I mentioned earlier and his lightning abilities were very impressive. Having such a good mix of speed and power is very rare to see and mixed in with his determined personality, he was certainly my kind of character!

I couldn’t really say the same about the Tsuchikage. His back pain joke started to get old after the first few times he used it and he was far too old to really be much of a threat at this point. He was still a decent character in the end as he made the right calls and trusted in Gaara’s ability to lead though. I also liked his particle techniques as they looked really cool and reminded me of Kekkaishi.

Danzo was the only Kage who was openly evil so he was certainly a big contrast from the others. He’s definitely pretty unlikable and the reason why the Uchiha Clan was ultimately destroyed. His fight against Sasuke was certainly neat, but as a character he was definitely not likable. He was a very old guy who could fight with his eye jutsu, but didn’t have a whole lot going for him when it came to close quarters combat. Definitely the opposite of what I look for in my kind of character.

As for the Mizukage, I can’t say that I was really a fan of hers eithr. Her gimmick of not hearing what the other person if saying can certainly get old fast. Why to the Kage need gimmicks? The Raikage didn’t need one and he turned out to be the very best! Her poison abilities are decently good, but she’s probably the weakest of the Kage and a good speed blitz would take her out of the runnings right away.

Next up was…The War! This would be the big arc that would last for the rest of the series. Trust me, it went on for quite some time and I believe that it was nearly 20 volumes in the manga. We got plot twist after plot twist and there was certainly a lot of action. Kabuto and the Masked Man’s alliance finally came into being as they revived an army of essentially every villain who ever died to fight the 5 Villages who had united with the Samurai. This was an excuse to basically bring every past villain back to fight the heroes at their current levels of power. That was fun as I’ve always thought that the final arc should have a plot similar to this. Naturally, this also means that a lot of the fights are off screen or extremely rushed, but it’s still nice to have the battles to think about.

Slowly, most of the weaker villains were dispatched so only the final ones remained like Kabuto, Masked Man, and Madara. Naruto and Sasuke really had to power up to their limits to defeat these foes and a secret boss also showed up at the last second to challenge them. It’s incredible that the characters could fight for so long as their Chakra Reserves were almost limitless by this point. Finally, we had reached the end of the Naruto series. There was a quick epilogue at the end, which will launch Part III, the Boruto saga. Hopefully it can last for quite a while, although I don’t totally care for how everyone looks like their past selves, but as kids again. It’s a little intriguing, but this problem doesn’t really plague the three main characters so that’s cool.

When Madara was finally summoned, everyone was thrilled. We had waited for this character for over a decade and he did not disappoint! He ended up being the best villain of the show and his large array of jutsu were really cool to look at. This was a guy who certainly lived up to the large amount of hype that had surrounded him and his “eager to fight” personality was a pleasant surprise! I was thrilled when he started getting power up after power up and it’s safe to say that Naruto and Sasuke didn’t have a chance against him one on one. In fact, I’d say that he’s probably the best character in the series. It’s no wonder why he made the cut for the recent Jump game for PS3/PS4.

Kaguya was the secret boss who showed up at the end of the series and she was pretty cool. Her dimensional warping ability was definitely something to be feared. It would have been neat if she could have had more lines, but ah well, at least she put up a good fight. It was good to end the series on a cosmic level like that so you could really see how far the series has come!

The Masked Man played a huge role in the Naruto series and fans had fun trying to guess who he was. There were some iffy moments and possible plot holes after it was revealed who he as, but nevertheless, it was as almost every fan predicted. The hair was always the big clue that he couldn’t be who he said he was and I was also hoping that he wasn’t since Madara Uchiha has always been serious and wouldn’t put up such a facade. The true identity of the Masked Man was a bit of a let down though because his character arc really took a shot there.

I liked him a lot as the goofy Tobi and I also enjoyed him as the really serious “Madara” but in his true form he just wasn’t as cool anymore. He did get some really cool fight scenes though and I liked him during the fights, but his sob story and conversation with Naruto did not do him any wonders. In a sense, he became a completely different character during that moment and one who wasn’t bad, but one who wasn’t very likable either. Madara ended up being the true villain of the final arc!

Minato was definitely a cool father for Naruto and he had a really cool fight against the Masked Man. That was one of the few flashback arcs that actually ended up being pretty cool and I definitely gained a lot of respect for him there. The Leaf Village looked really bad as expected, but that’s all right. They’re essentially bullies who need to be led by likable characters like Minato. Kushina was also neat and helped Naruto inheiret a lot of his likable qualities like being so determined. It’s too bad that we couldn’t see her fight more, but her role shall still be remembered.

The 1st Hokage also got a lot of development in the Madara part of the arc since they used to hang out as kids. Eventually, they were forced to fight and the 1st claimed victory. Honestly, I feel like the 1st Hokage was a little full of himself the whole time and despite the hype, I think I would probably say that Minato was the better fighter. The 1st’s statue technique was cool though and his battle against Madara was fun to watch although not as impressive as Madara’s fight against Might Guy.

Part II Sasuke was certainly very different from part I. He completely went over to the Dark Side to stop Itachi, but then found that nothing could satisfy him. He kept making new goals over and over as he learned the hard way that the dark side will never be able to leave you truly content. He definitely had one of the ultimate character arcs of redemption and getting a second chance. While it was a little on the cheesy side how he switched over in the end, it was definitely a good thing. It helped Sasuke to end out as a good character and to realize that no matter how his past was, he always has a chance to change his future. He’s still one of the strongest fighters of all time and I loved his tag team match with Naruto. Next time he fights, we can look forward to him being a hero who will protect the Leaf! That’s the Sasuke that I remember. He was cool as a hero and cool as a villain, but Sasuke is certainly at his best when he stays on the hero side.

Naruto in Part II is less reckless than he was in Part I and doesn’t charge into battle quite as often. Nevertheless, Naruto’s still a very good character who gets the job done. Aside from one or two little events, he never uses the sexy jutsu anymore and has become a figure that the rest of the heroes can respect. He went from being a kid that nobody could take seriously to finally becoming Hokage. Seeing him finally achieve his dream was great and it ended a legendary character arc. Unlike some of the other goals which may never happen (Ash Ketchum becoming a Pokemon Master or Luffy becoming the Pirate King) Naruto actually went ahead and completed his personal challenge. Things can only look up for Naruto now and him being Hokage gives the Leaf Village a pinnacle of hope and a figure to aspire too.

Naturally, there are dozens and dozens of other characters who could be mentioned as the series is chock full of them, but I essentially named all of the really important ones. There are numerous villains invented for the final arc and a lot of supporting characters like people at the various villages and their subordinates who I skipped as well. There are dozens of things that you could really write about for days and days, but for a series as long as this one, it’s probably time to read it yourself. Also, this review is now over 9000 words and while 10000 would be pretty epic, I’d say that it’s about time to wrap things up.

Naruto definitely deserves to be known as one of the greatest manga titles of all time. Megaman NT Warrior is my current favorite, but where does Naruto rank? It’s tough to say as other, shorter titles like DBZ, Kenshin, Yugioh Duelist, and others give it a really good fight. I’m tempted to say that along with the powerful nostalgia value behind it, I may put Naruto in 5th place for now behind Yugioh, Bleach, and DBZ. It’s tough to say for sure though as the series are so long that it’s really tough to think straight. I already reviewed the sequel series, Naruto Gaiden, so we’ll have to wait and see what the author has up his sleeve next. I’m hoping that he’ll personally write a new installment although another author doing it is fine I suppose.

Overall, Naruto will certainly be a title that I’ll always refer people too when asked. It certainly has a lot of nostalgic value for me and I’ll always remember my younger days as it was one of the first manga titles that I read. It was also fun because the anime got me into the manga so I basically continued from there, which meant that I started out with volume 28 and after being nearly caught up, I went back and fast blasted through Part I. That’s probably why this is one of the few cases where the anime completely holds more weight for me with character development and everything. It’s a similar case with Sailor Moon. If you somehow have not started this series yet, then I definitely recommend it! It is full of action, character development, interesting stories, solid writing, and essentially has every good feature that you could ask of a series! You won’t regret starting it and you’re sure to be in for quite a ride! One thing about starting late like this is that you won’t have to wait between volumes. You can just blast through the whole series at top speed! One day, I’ll likely re read the whole thing as almost all of the volumes are already at home in the manga collection excluding roughly 20-25 volumes. That’ll be a fun re read! I don’t see another review ever being quite as long as this one, but One Piece shall certainly have a huge one as well once it finishes so that could potentially pass this. That being said, we’re quite a whiles away from that happening!

Overall 9/10

Pokemon XY The Strongest Mega Evolution Act III Review

Posted on August 18, 2015 by dreager1

All right, the third act of the Mega Evolution special has arrived! It’s been a fun little series and a good way to show off the Mega Evolutions since the main anime hasn’t done a whole lot with that so far. It’s too bad that the special is only about 20 or so minutes, but it gives us some action, which is really what counts I suppose.

Alain is still working with Steven as they try to uncover the mystery behind the large evolution stone. Alain’s boss wants to use the energy to let humanity experience a time of peace. That sounds a little suspicious eh? Well, Alain seems to think that it’s all right and he just wants to become the strongest Pokemon Trainer of all time! Meanwhile, Steven is also interested in finding out about the stone, but Groudon and Kyogre suddenly emerge and the situation escalates. Can the heroes stop these Pokemon from destroying the stone?

As this is a fairly short special, we jump to the fighting very quickly. That’s good as the first few minutes before the fight scenes weren’t incredibly awesome. They weren’t so much dull as you were just wondering where the Act was going with this. We are on a time table after all and expect a good fight since the specials don’t have the luxary of being 800+ episodes. Watching the heroes engage in small talk and walk around semi aimlessly just felt like wasted time that could have been used for more action. Luckily, the two Kaiju Pokemon arrive and then things get really intense. The special takes a lot of cues from the Godzilla films.

Groudon walks through the ocean in a similar fashion to Godzilla and uses Ghidorah’s sound effects and even seems to borrow some from Mothra, but maybe it’s just Mecha King Ghidorah. Kyogre actually used Godzilla’s roar, which was incredibly awesome to see! Then we got to the meat of the special as the two Pokemon fought each other in their Primal forms. I liked the special’s explanation of the forms as they both regained their original abilities from when they first walked the Earth. That’s pretty reasonable to me.

The battle between Groudon and Kyogre did not disappoint! Naturally I was on Groudon’s team as he has always been one of my favorite Pokemon. It was certainly a hype moment as he just grabbed Kyogre and slung him away with a back throw. That was awesome and Groudon definitely had the edge in this fight as he hit Kyogre with wave after wave of attacks. Kyogre landed many blows as well, but they just didn’t seem to have much of an impact compared to Groudon’s. Then, Rayquaza jumped into the fray and I had a feeling that the other two Pokemon were basically doomed.

In a fair fight, I like to think that Groudon could actually put up a decent fight. The problem is that Rayquaza can fly and Groudon can’t. That immediately puts Groudon at a sizable disadvantage since he will have a very tough time trying to dodge any of Rayquaza’s attacks. What helps to balance this a little is that I never found Rayquaza’s raw attack or defense power to be that impressive although this special would certainly disagree. His giant energy blast looked spectacular and made for a great end to an impressive fight. No cop outs or anything of that nature, but an actual end to the fight.

It almost goes without saying that the animation is pretty stunning here. You really feel like this is a battle between immensely powerful Pokemon and the big jump in the animation helps to distinguish it from a normal Pokemon fight. Groudon’s eruption technique from the ground along with the laser blasts especially look great. Everything is crisp and feels modern. You can tell that the company gave this special a good budget.

Unfortunately, the soundtrack is very uninspiring and there are no good themes to be found here. That’s a real shame as having a good soundtrack can make everything feel so much better as you’re watching the fights unfold. It’s safe to say that a dynamite soundtrack would have added an extra star to the rating or just made this one a stronger 8. It’s actually the dub’s fault in this case, which is too bad. The dub will need to work on improving the music as that has been a recurring problem for Pokemon for some time now.

I haven’t talked about Alain all that much, but that’s mainly because he’s a bit of a nonfactor here. He still wants to be the best, but his Charizard gets absolutely wrecked by Groudon in the fight. It’s decently realistic I suppose, but with the dragon’s speed, he should not be getting hit by any of Groudon’s attacks. Speedblitzing in this match should not be hard so he could have definitely been more impressive. At least Alain beat a random guy at the very end of the special, which will help him reclaim some dignity.

Unfortunately, you get the distinct impression that Alain is simply being used as his boss seems completely evil right from the get go. If you’ve played the games then you’re probably ready for what happens next as well. I’m hoping that Alain makes the hero call and doesn’t hesitate to unleash his powers when the stakes get high. As a character he’s all right, but while his dream gives him a lot of promise, Alain has not done anything with it yet. His bold moment when trying to save Charizard also falls flat because he gets knocked out and misses the whole climax.

Mairin is still travelling with Alain. She means well and is a nice character, but she can’t fight, which hurts her chances of really being useful in the adventure. You could essentially call her a filler character as she definitely doesn’t add to the story. I suppose that she is slowly trying to make Alain a nicer person, but that’s a very small part of the story. Steven’s probably cooler than Alain and Mairin combined although he also seems quite naive. I loved him in the Pokemon Ruby game and I’m glad that he’s still portrayed as a very tough fighter here, but he should have suspected something when Alain started to talk to himself. Letting the crystal get snagged was also unfortunate. Luckily, he is trying to correct this by personally escorting Mairin to Alain so he can get revenge and some answers. I’m rooting for Steven here!

Overall, This was a good third part to the special series. I’ll admit that I’m more interested in the fights than the actual plot as it’s been underwhelming, but with part IV supposedly being the final one, I’m expecting an epic climax full of betrayal and tension! The final fights are sure to be really epic and I hope that Alain and Steven look really good as I want at least one of them to end on a really high note. It’ll likely be a while before that one arrives in the US, but I shall be ready with a review. If the next special improves with the soundtrack, we could be looking at an elite title! I highly recommend this special if you’re a Pokemon fan or just a person who wants to see some epic action scenes! It’s short so it’s not like you will have to set aside too much time to check it out.

Overall 8/10

The Black Cat Review

Posted on August 18, 2015 by dreager1

Have you ever seen a film that was very different from what you expected? That happened to me with this film as I just expected a completely different plot and the whole film was as radically different as any I’ve ever seen. Luckily, this was in a good way! As much as a horror film about a Black Cat knocking everyone would have been entertaining, a classic “Who Did It” murder mystery is infinitely better. Aside from one mistake, the film does quite well, but it is unfortunately a big mistake!

An old lady is near death so her family members quickly head to her mansion so that they can pick up their inheritance. If they don’t like what they receive, they are prepared to attack her if necessary. Luckily, they all receive a decent amount of money so they are pleased, but the lady announces that this only comes to pass once her maid is dead as the cats need to be taken care of. One of the family members doesn’t like this and quickly stabs her. With the old lady out of the way, the main characters must figure out who did it as the body count will only rise from here!

One difference in this film compared to the average murder mystery is that the body count isn’t actually that high. The suspense is mostly grabbed by near deaths and the ominous feeling that someone is always watching you. Also, it isn’t played completely serious as it is part comedy. Similar to another murder mystery film that I saw a while back, whose title escapes me. The light tone with the classic mystery make for a winning formula in terms of how interesting the film is.

As this film came out in the very early 1940’s, you can expect that the writing is quite good as well. That makes all the difference in any mystery title and I can almost certainly guarantee that a modern version would not be nearly as good in this area. Whether it be the subtle threats or the not to subtle ones, you just don’t see dialogue like this nowadays. The film is a little on the short side, but there’s still enough time to flesh out the characters and not have a rushed ending.

The film does a good job of making everyone look a little suspicious. There’s the main character who really reminded me of Bill Murray from Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day. Seriously, the guy looks almost identical to him complete with the voice and a similar role. He was definitely one of the best parts of the film and I’d say that he earned the role of best character. As he’s the main character, most of what we see is from his side of the story, but you can never discount the lead as they sometimes don’t tell you everything. I was rooting for him to close the deal though!

The main character’s friend is here to break things to make them more valuable in the future. He’s extremely scatter brained to the point where he can never follow a sentence and it takes him hours to realize what people knew in seconds. He was a fun character as he constantly trolled the rest of the cast and found the secret passages before anyone else. He was in danger many times, but the good part about being oblivious is that fear won’t slow you down! Naturally, he’s suspicious because you have to wonder if it is all truly an act.

Next up, we have the family of three. There’s the step son who threatens his step father several times not to break his mother’s heart as he knows that the guy is cheating with someone else. Considering the threats and how much the money would help him, it’s obvious why this guy is a suspect. Likewise, if the father is willing to cheat on his elderly wife, we don’t know what he is capable of! He definitely wants the money from the will as he constantly yells about it. Maybe he wants it for sinister purposes!

His elderly wife is always in the background and prefers to let everyone else to the talking. She keeps up the pretense of liking the old lady even though everyone else constantly insults her and just waits for her inheritance. Is it possible that she actually cares or is she just playing along to throw away suspicion from herself? There’s the main heroine who believes that no murders took place and that her family are still decent people deep down who wouldn’t cross this line. She tries to distract the main character from this train of thought several times. Is it possible that she is right or does she just want us to think that?

Rounding up the list of suspects are out final members. We have the maid who threatened that the heroes would leave the house one way or the other. Wow, that’s pretty ominous right? A bit obvious, but perhaps that’s the point to lower our guard! There’s also the grounds servant, Eduwardo. He is always listening and watching from outside and he has free reign over the place. He would certainly have the time to commit the acts and the motive as well since he received almost nothing from the will in the end. Finally, we have the old lady. Maybe she cheated death somehow by using a fake poison right?

So, we definitely have a lot of suspects. I’m glad to say that the film doesn’t cheat with the final verdict. The culprit does have a good motive and was one of the suspects so that was good. Cop outs are the one thing that you don’t want in a mystery film! The opening of the film reminded me of a Twilight Zone episode. The mask party one where the relatives all wanted the old man to die and ultimately had their true faces exposed to everyone. The opening was definitely similar and I wouldn’t be surprised if one borrowed from the other.

This film would have been an easy 7, but there was one big mistake, which really hurt it. Unfortunately, one of the cats is poisoned and died. That was a really low blow and it definitely hurt the film. At least the cat wasn’t injured as that would have been even worse, but the death still ensured that I wouldn’t be giving this film any higher than a 5. It’s just hard to recommend a film with animal violence like this at times. For a show that has over 200 episodes or a long series like that, it’s much easier, but a single film….it’s just not happening. This was the one big mistake that the film made, but boy was it a big one!

The romance angle was surprisingly nonexistent for the most part. Of course, we have the main character and heroine who are polite to each other, but it never goes anywhere which is nice and realistic. There’s also the cheating subplot, but it also doesn’t really go anywhere. I’d say that this is a good thing as those plots weren’t needed to make the film be enjoyable anyway. As it stands, most of the character personalities were enjoyable, which really helped the film.

Overall, The Black Cat was much better than I anticipated. The score was lower due to the animal violence, but otherwise it was essentially the ideal mystery. It’s short, but there are no cop outs and the writing as done quite well. The film was pretty funny without going over the top in the comedy aspect. It wasn’t much of a problem back in the day though as the humor was almost always great or you would just miss the joke, but we never saw the kind of jokes that you see in something like Pixels. The horror aspects were also handled well as you would see an ominous hand reach out to take someone down or someone’s frightened expression as they realized that they were doomed. From the classics, this one easily takes down Frankenstein and Dracula without a doubt! In pure entertainment value, this would probably beat all of the other Universal classics.

Overall 5/10

Slayers Evolution R Review

Posted on August 18, 2015 by dreager1

It’s been a little while, but it’s time to review the final season of Slayers! I actually saw this one some time ago, but it ended up getting buried in the backlog of reviews. I’m trying to set everything free from that backlog so at last, Slayers is here! I’d say that the franchise ended on a high note. Evolution R was more fun than Revolution although I’d probably still say that Next is still the best season. The short episode count does this season no favors as well.

Lina and her friends are still seeking the Hellmaster’s jar to free the people of Pokota’s kingdom. It’s a tough journey though and the heroes don’t even know where to look. Luckily, they run across a lady named Nama who believes that she knows where it is. The heroes find out the hard way that the journey won’t be so easy. Zuuma is still on the loose and wishes to destroy Lina, but even worse is the fact that the heroes will need to revive Rezo in order to save Pokota’s people. Is this a good tradeoff as Rezo was a fairly intimidating villain?

Considering that the season is only 13 episodes, the show definitely felt no pressure to speed things up. The first 4 episodes are basically stand alone fillers as the heroes experience a lot of tough situations with Nama. A fish claims that Gourry is her husband and there’s an episode where Nama and Amelia get to bond as they fight dragons. Luckily, these stand alones were actually pretty good for the most part and I would say that they were a significant improvement over the fillers in Revolution. Of course, Slayers is one of those series that always get to its height when the plot starts and this season was no exception.

The three episodes that followed wrapped up the Zuuma arc. He ordered the heroes to protect Radock as he would come for the guy and destroy the heroes on the way. They comply, which leads to an ultimate confrontation with him as well as two monsters who randomly jumped in. Honestly, that was easily the most random part of the whole arc. I suppose that Zuuma has connections, which is how he was able to summon them.

Those three episodes were a lot of fun. I actually enjoyed the Radock plot as his son gave the heroes a hard time and Radock was always very stern and strict. There is a twist about him that I can’t say I was too pleased with, but in theory it’s a good twist. One thing that I liked about this mini arc was that Zelgadis and Amelia actually got to fight for the first time in a long while since the monsters targeted them. They were lucky that Lina was around the first time and lucky that Xellos showed up the second time. The fights just showed everyone how Zel and Amelia are completely outmatched by the modern villains. They got some good hits in and are still good fighters, but the problem is that monsters are typically better than humans. Add in the fact that these monsters were pretty tough and that’s the game for the heroes.

Still, even though they lost, they did put up a good fight and I can’t put enough emphasis on how glad I was that they got to fight. I feel like the side characters should at least fight once in a while to remind us of why they’re even here. With the Zuuma plot out of the way, the heroes could finally focus on bringing back Rezo, that is…if they want to bring him back! With 5 episodes to go, that’s a decent amount of time.

We get some happy episodes for a little while and then the heroes finally revive Rezo, who had pretended to lose his mind. It was interesting as it feels like he was pretending, but maybe he was actually in an artificial “drunk” state due to being in the jar for so long. That’s one way of looking at it anyway. Zelgadis also almost betrayed the group as he tried to destroy the jar, but couldn’t bring himself to do it and Pokota tried the opposite thing. Once the heroes settled down and thought about this, they still brought Rezo back.

Well, he kept his end of the bargain at least. The parties started up and I wondered if the second last episode would actually end on such a mild note, but then the twist ending occurred as Lina appeared and confronted Rezo on the roof. The reason why he had been making some odd decisions was that he was still merged with Shabranigdo. This has given him a significant boost to his power. Xellos arrives to stop this as that level of power could even threaten the monsters, but he is completely and utterly crushed. Rezo then admits that he can’t handle the power and tells the heroes to deal with him before blowing up. The big battle is here, can Lina handle Shabranigdo once more?

The cool part about the final battle is that the show pulled out all of the stops. Sylphiel returned for a quick cameo as she made a barrier to stop one of Shabranigdo’s hits. Like always, she started out strong, but ended weak as she started overreacting and basically being a non factor. Even the famous Inspector appeared to talk tough for a little while. Shabranigdo looked supremely impressive and I’m always reminded of why he’s such a great character. He talks about dreams a lot here as he stomps those of the heroes. There are really no bosses who can stand up to him as he makes strong fighters like Xellos and Lina look like children. Seriously, Xellos can’t deal any damage to the guy and Lina’s attack only works if he gives her about 10 minutes of time to charge up. In a one on one fight, that’s not happening.

All of Lina’s allies joined up in the attack for one of the most brutal moments of the series. They’re all taken down and one of the heroes had her fist literally crushed by Shabranigdo’s immense power. You always feel bad for Lina’s allies as they get beaten up pretty badly in every climax. This one was no different and it’s how the show tells you that the stakes just got real. Typically, it’s all fun and games even while in the middle of an intense fight scene, but the comedy angle is always dropped for the big battle.

As for the characters, there’s not much more to say about them than what has been said for previous seasons. Lina is still a good lead and easily one of the best female anime leads of all time. At this point, I’m going to say that she is the best lead and none even come close, at least I can’t think of any at the moment. It was great to see her finally use the Giga Slave once more as that attack is really great. She even gets a new design out of it although it doesn’t act as a power up in this case. (Which is surprising)

Gourry’s still a good sidekick even if he can be a little naive. Actually believing that he was the father of a fish was a little dramatic for him, but I am glad that Gourry gave the task his all. If you’re going to do something…do it right! It’s unfortunate that he didn’t have the Sword of Light for most of the series though since it meant that he couldn’t really participate in most of the action scenes. I suppose that he will get another chance in the future, but at least he did get to fight in the final battle and he was also around for Zuuma.

Amelia was a solid character as always. Her role was fairly minimal, but she keeps the group chipper with her optimism. I also do think that she’s still a little stronger than Zelgadis although it’s probably close. Zel continues to be used mainly for comic relief in the series. He finally cracks in this one and tells Rezo to make him human again, but the guy gives him the classic….”I can’t!” Since Zelgadis seems to believe him, that may have finally ended that plot. The fact that Zelgadis still thinks of Rezo as his teacher is a bit annoying though and I’m seriously not a Zelgadis fan.

Pokota is still a pretty bad character and I’d go as far as to say that he’s a terrible one. The show would be better if he was simply not here at all. As it stands, he’ll disappear for a while at times and his lack of lines in other episodes will make you forget about him. He just wasn’t needed in this season and I wish that the show could have made him more likable. At least the Inspector briefly appeared to help us forget about Pokota.

Nama was a fun new supporting character. The show makes it obvious what her secret identity it, but it was still a fun injoke for the fans. We finally got a crossover between the show and the movies. There’s even a battle between Lina and Nama to parody the films and it’s a great homage. Nama always was a fun character to have around and I wonder how her dynamic with the other members would have been had she not lost her memory. It’s something that the series should explore as it would be quite enjoyable to see. Nama didn’t get to help too much before she was taken away, but her abilities are still on par with Lina’s from the olden days so she could have been a very valuable asset to the team.

Zuuma is still a cool villain although he went a little lower in the ranks for me after the twist. I don’t think Zuuma even needed a twist, but he’s still a cool assasin. He was doing quite well against the heroes, but then Xellos appeared and that was basically game over for him. As good as Zuuma is, he doesn’t have nearly enough firepower or speed to deal with a monster on that calibur. Xellos also has high speed regeneration in case he ever was hit in that battle. Zuuma will likely never appear again, but he definitely had a good run.

As for Xellos, he was good in this season. It’s still a little iffy how the heroes get along with him, since Xellos is constantly betraying them, but that’s their choice I suppose. I was glad to see Xellos get some action scenes here since that meant he wouldn’t be all hype and no action. His fight against Zuuma was short, but showed how powerful he was and I liked his battle against Rezo. We rarely see fights between beings on their level of power in Slayers so it’s always a treat. I feel like Xellos is awkwardly in the middle of the power levels. Either he completely wrecks his opponent like with Zuuma and Lina or he gets completely destroyed like with Gaav or Shabranigdo. There is never a middle ground with him although the closest would be Valgaav. It’s always fun to see him lose, but he was actually a good character in this season so that’s good.

As for Rezo, this show should definitely prove without a shadow of a doubt that he is still evil. He did some good works along the way, but we find out how he experimented on people and basically did not care about their lives. He was doing it all just to get his sight back. He sacrificed a whole lot of people just so that he could gain his eyesight back for a minute or two before deciding to die once again as Shabranigdo awakened. All of that…just for a few minutes of eyesight. He certainly only cares about himself, but Rezo certainly makes for a powerful villain. I don’t care for him as a character, but he’ll always have that nostalgia feel to him. I already talked about how awesome Shabranigdo is so I don’t really need to go into that again.

Evolution R was really just one big nostalgia trip. We got to see old faces like Sylphiel, Rezo, and Shabranigdo again. That was really neat and it makes you want to watch the first season again to relive the good ole days. Even having the Giga Slave back was a nice homage to the good ole days. If this is how the animated Slayers franchise ends for now, I’d say that ending with nostalgia is always a good way to go about things.

As always, one of the reasons why Slayers is so fun is its balance between action and comedy. There can be a lot of serious moments and then a lot of light ones. Sometimes the show will do both at the same time. It keeps the show from taking things too seriously while still treating us to a lot of good fights and interesting plots. This formula is what has really made Slayers what it is. Luckily, the chest jokes were also pretty minimal here and the show was extremely light on fanservice if there was any at all. I can’t remember a single hot springs moment, although I suppose there may have been one in there somewhere. Either way, it was very light overall like I said.

As expected, the animation is really good for this season. The energy effects are spectacular and that really helps for the fight scenes. After seeing this, the older Slayers seasons will probably seem extremely dated by comparison, but I like that 90’s style so it’ll still be cool. That being said, the modern style is so sleek and streamlined that it is very nice to look at and makes all of the characters look even more impressive since their attacks have basically leveled up.

The soundtrack is also good. At this point, I’m very used to the themes and feel that they work well. I liked the ominous track for the rooftop confrontation and the battle themes work well too. It’s not exactly a 5 star soundtrack, but I’d probably give it a 7. It’s good and sometimes, that’s good enough when all of the other areas of the show are on point.

Overall, Slayers Evolution R was a success and it was quite an enjoyable show. In some ways, it may have even been better than Next. It was shorter, but I can’t say that it really had any miss episodes. Pretty much all of them were great, or at least good. The filler could get to you sometimes when it was too many of them in a row, but once the action started up, the show never really looked back. If a good climax can save a movie, the solid second half for Slayers is what always tips the scales. I definitely recommend this if you’re looking for a good fantasy anime and even if you haven’t seen the older seasons before, the nostalgia factor should help you get into this show. I’m going to miss Slayers. Hopefully it gets a new film or show someday!

Overall 7/10

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