Shin has a lot of good assassin techniques but those won’t be enough to stop a true warrior like Doom. Doom can move faster than Shin can see him and so that defeats the advantage of being able to read minds. Doom only needs one really good attack to take Shin out and that is going to happen very early on. Doom wins.
Yuga has a lot of monsters at the ready and he is also a genius but that’s ultimately not enough when you’re physically outmatched to this extent. There just isn’t any way to dodge Andy’s attacks and none of Yuga’s monsters have enough durability to really tank the blows. So Andy can just spam his projectiles and he’ll get the win that way. Andy (Undead) wins.
Raye is a really impressive fighter and it’s rare to see Yugioh characters fighting without their monsters but that’s something Raye can do. That said, she isn’t quite ready to handle Medaka’s incredible techniques. Medaka has numerous abilities at her disposal and levels of speed that would cause Raye to be completely overwhelmed. Medaka Kurokami wins.
Starlia Leese is a very powerful fighter who really got quite the reputation for herself after defending the kingdom for so long. Her automatic attacks would be a lot of trouble for most fighters but it’s nothing that Ulquiorra can’t handle. His speed will be enough to dodge her attacks long enough for him to land the winning counter blow. Ulquiorra wins.
Ragna is a super powerful fighter but even he will be outmatched against Mujin Park. Now here’s a guy who is a master manipulator who also obtained absolutely insane abilities. His sheer power is many leagues above Ragna’s and I don’t see that changing. All of Ragna’s attacks would be unable to get past Mujin’s immensely powerful barriers. They would just be too much for him. Mujin Park wins.
Yuichiro and Daisuke both want vengeance on the enemy forces that have messed up their lives. Neither one is willing to give an inch to these guys and have continued to grow stronger and stronger in their efforts. Ultimately Yuichiro has the edge here as someone who can handle aerial and ground combat to a higher level than Daisuke. He would be trying to play catchup the whole time and would ultimately be unable to close the distance. Yuichiro wins.
Morihito is a strong hand to hand fighter who is buffed by the ogre blood. So he could definitely crush any normal human but that doesn’t apply to the demonic fighter known as Yusuke. A single Spirit Gun would absolutely crush Morihito and the guy isn’t fast or strong enough to stop that attack from landing. It would be a guaranteed 1 hit KO move and that illustrates the gap between these two. Yusuke wins.
Imagine being stuck on a ghost ship? Definitely wouldn’t be a very fun time I can tell you that. Now this one isn’t actually haunted by ghosts but it does have a rather tough captain who is ready to take charge. It’s a relatively low key thriller for the most pat as people are bumped off one by one and the lead has to wonder how to handle this. If he plays it wrong then they are all going to be in big trouble.
The movie starts with Tom getting selected to go to the boat for his tour. He’s excited to do his part and captain Will seems like a reasonable guy. They get along really well but for some reason people on the boat almost seem to fear Will. As the days goes on Tom starts to see some of Will’s faults like how he believes that he literally owns the crew as well as their lives. Nothing is ever Will’s fault and he also cracks under pressure during an operation but later has an excuse ready. The problem is that Tom is a bit slow to piece this all together but when the bodies start piling up..Tom is on the short list to be next.
Why is Tom going to be a potential victim here? Well that’s because he actually calls Will out on this and does so directly which is a risky move. You have to give Tom credit for trying to do this through the legal channels as he also arranges for a court hearing and everything. Unfortunately he doesn’t take into account that everyone would be on the Captain’s side as they have served him for years. Sure they know that he is a tough guy but being some kind of criminal mass murderer? That’s a bit too much of a stretch for them.
While it may be disappointing that they didn’t stick up for him you can understand why. At this point in time they don’t have much reason to think that Will is evil like that. As the film goes on they do start to appear rather intentionally dense though. It’s only at the very end that some people start to be reasonable but by then Tom is already in lethal danger. A theme in the movie is about how humans will always let you down in the end because people look out for themselves. Tom doesn’t believe this while Will is confident in it so that’s the underlying battle here beneath their literal fight.
It makes for a good ideological battle. It’s also tough for Tom because he’s on Will’s territory. Tom has no true allies here (There is a radio operator that he’s friends with at least but doesn’t want to get involved) while Will’s got everyone here. Tom’s door suddenly has its lock broken later on for example and nobody’s in a rush to fix it. They simply aren’t going to fix it is another way to put that. Will also has a gun while Tom does not so that’s another thing to take into consideration.
The most tragic part for Tom here is that at one point he was going to run away. He was just going to dash out of there and head home but he got knocked out during a street brawl and was taken to the ship. The craziest thing is that it was pure coincidence and not some kind of trap by Will. Will was even hoping that Tom would be gone so that was a big shake of bad news for both of them but of course it gave Will a chance to try and take him out. At the end of the day I did like Tom, he was a good main character. While he may have put himself in a lot of danger with how he handled some parts of his plan, he was resourceful. He even came up with an alarm to wake him up if someone entered the room.
Meanwhile Will makes for a solid villain. We even get some scenes of him and his friends which is interesting as the film develops him a bit beyond just being your average psychopath. Of course he is still a psycho but we see how he can act normal in public and why nobody would really suspect him of anything. He covers his tracks really well and only bumps people off once in a while if they get on his nerves. Whether Tom had arrived or not, I do think it was inevitable that Will was going to keep going off the deep end though. It was just a matter of time.
There is also Finn who can’t speak but monologues a whole lot during the film. He seems rather shady the whole time and ends up getting a role near the end. His role was important but at the same time it was rather small so you almost could have cut him out of the film and it wouldn’t have changed a whole lot. It gives you another plot to think about though so in that sense the film went out of its way to have more moving pieces on the board at once.
At the end of the day what makes this film work is the solid writing. It maintains a tense atmosphere the whole time and you always know that danger is on the horizon but it takes its time. You never know when someone will be bumped off or there will just be threats. Tom is used as a go between for some of the more sinister orders as well so the crew really don’t suspect much but ideally if they heard about some of the way Will found them expendable then they would look for a transfer right away. You do not want to stay on that boat!
Overall, The Ghost Ship is a solid movie. I’d recommend checking it out. It may seem like a rather low key title that you haven’t heard of before but it works out rather well. It reminds you to always watch your back and if something seems suspicious then it probably is. I still haven’t been on a boat for any longer period of time than a basic cruise but one day it’d be fun to do a week’s trip there and see what life on the great blue is really like. You know that I’d be checking out the 24/7 pizza bar all the time!
Overall 7/10
The next My Little Pony volume is here now so it’s time for more fun stories. As I suspected last time when Applejack didn’t get a story, she gets one right away here so the balance is really on point. It’s another fun assortment of stories that all flow by very quickly. As always the series succeeds giving you a happy feeling about the whole thing after you finish the story and succeeds in what it has set out to do.
Apple Bloom is one of those ponies who is confident that she isn’t scared of anything but this is put to the test when she is trapped in a web by some kind of jumbo spider. This also happens to Applejack but Bloom is just small enough where she should be able to escape. Unfortunately the only way to do this is to relax and not be so tense so you slide off of the webs. Bloom is too scared and won’t admit that she is scared so Applejack decides to to tell her a story from back in the day. She’ll need to tell the story quickly though.
It’s a good issue and Applejack is good at getting ponies to face their fears. Her honest approach is the right match for this problem. Her story of being scared of the water is also intense and it’s easy to see how that could have happened since her falling into a well was really traumatic. Big Mac got to look good here as he looked out for Applejack just like how she looked out for Apple Bloom. What goes around comes around and it’s just a nice dynamic. Scaring off the spider at the end may have been a bit cheesy but on the whole I was satisfied with how things turned out. The moral was good.
Another story focuses on the next generation as the changeling student really wants to do well on the final exam. Twilight Sparkle wanted to make things easy on her students so she said that they could do whatever they wanted as long as their project showed off what they learned about friendship. Most of the students figured they would do something easy like just talking for a few minutes while showing off a rock or something but she wants to do something more drastic. She’ll use her transformation skills to appear as over 300 characters in the span of 10 minutes to relive the history of Equestria. It’s an ambitious project, too ambitious you might say. It’s just not possible to pull off that many transformations in such a short period of time.
She’s not too nice about this either but fortunately the rest of the students and Twilight Sparkle get her back in line. It’s a fun story but I always prefer for the Mane 6 to be the main characters instead of supporting. It just feels more exciting that way. If you need variety then this is probably the smoothest way to do it though. Of course the occasional story about the villains is definitely another way to do it too.
Then we have a story about Pinkie Pie and her sister Maud. Basically it is time for a huge party and this should be easy since that’s Pinkie Pie’s thing but she is stuck baking a cake for another party. So Maud has to help another pony set up the party in her stead but this is well outside of her comfort zone. Can she really pull this off or is she merely setting herself up for failure? This is a story about doing the right thing even when it’s hard and it’s a solid story.
Maud tries her best right from the start and really does a great job with the preparation. She even has a little sugar to boost up her stats and liveliness which is really going the extra mile here. It’s easy to be proud of her here and what she has accomplished. There aren’t a ton of characters who would have been able to pull this off. At the end of the day Pinkie Pie did her best to help out as well and even out ran the train which was impressive. Maud is good as a change of pace pony as I don’t think she would be able to hold her own stories too often as her humor style may quickly become too one note but stepping in like this it works out pretty well.
Finally we also have the two part adventure with the big race. Rainbow Dash is ready to test her mettle as this is the toughest race in all of Equestria but then some guy shows up who is being really passive aggressive to Big Mac. It turns out that Big Mac used to be an expert racer but he was too good. His old friend got jealous and ran off so Big Mac decided never to race again. As you can probably guess I blame the friend 100% for this. He is the one who wanted Big Mac to race and then got heavily salted once Big Mac was winning? Yeah I should just call him the “Friend” for now since that’s not how a real friend acts.
So the story is divided into the flashback of the original race and the current one as the contestants all get set. There is also a subplot about a group of thieves who are on the run from some dragons and have accidentally put the stolen item in Rainbow Dash’s car. The subplot felt a little random and dare I say unnecessary but I still enjoyed the race. There’s a lot of action to enjoy here and who doesn’t like a good competition right? It’s always great to see Rainbow Dash taking charge and just getting out there. With her speed this should be beyond easy after all but to keep things fair she seems to be holding back. The competition episodes in the show tended to be some of the stronger ones as well so I wasn’t surprised that it was really good in the comic as well.
The art is pretty solid here as you would expect. The colors are nice and vibrant and there is a large cast here but they all stand out. It’s been pretty consistent throughout the series which is always nice to see and it makes reading the comics nice and easy. Mix that in with the good writing and you’ve got a solid foundation for the series. It’s easy to see how it’s lasted 19 volumes.
Overall, This was another good MLP volume. We got a nice assortment of stories here and I wouldn’t say any of them were weak. The racing one was probably the best although I was hoping that Rainbow Dash could pull out the victory. The way I see it she earned it for sticking up for Big Mac and setting the stage. At least she was a good sport about the whole thing though and didn’t let it drag her down. If you’re a fan of the series or just want some wholesome comics then this is a good collection to pick up.
Overall 7/10
Now this is an awful film so prepare yourself. Dracula already set the bar extremely low with all of those installments but somehow Yorga is even worse. The film’s extremely annoying with characters not making the right moves and it goes for being gritty for no reason. They definitely want to show that Yorga is as demented as possible but he’s the Count so we already knew that.
The movie starts with the main characters doing a seance so that Donna can see her mother again but unfortunately the whole thing doesn’t go well. It just gives Count Yorga a chance to mind control Donna a bit. He scurries off but later on Erica and Paul end up driving the guy home which is a big mistake. Now the Count has them in his sites and things get tricky from there. Will the count be taking everyone down or can Dr. Hayes be brought in to stop this?
So where to even start with this one? We’ve got the usual blood sucking everywhere but that is really the least of our worries at this point. Where the film really surpasses its limits here is it decides to also give the Count a sidekick. This guy is basically desperate to have a lady of his own and so he ends up attacking one of Yorga’s mind controlled victims. This is the scene that absolutely should have been cut out of the film. It’s off screen but he basically has his way with her.
It’s purely here for grit and shock value because it has nothing to do with anything. This guy has no business being in the film in general. We’re here for the vampire, not the right hand man who is messing around here. The film was basically doomed to be a 0 from this point although that was rarely in doubt.
Yorga is also shown to be one of the more perverted villains as the guy has fun commanding the victims to mess around with each other while he watches. You wouldn’t see this kind of behavior from Dracula who at least kept some dignity most of the time. This guy also can’t handle himself in a straight fight. Half the time he has the mind controlled zombie vampires go in to fight for him. Near the end Yorga is confronted so he immediately runs off.
Then he has the element of surprise along with his supposedly superior vampire physical abilities and yet he gets rocked. The guy has no defense to the stake but he also doesn’t have the speed to dodge or the strength to mess with the aim? He just looks so weak by the end that it takes away from his tough talk the whole film.
I’ll just give him one thing, I liked his banter with Dr. Hayes. It’s the only good part of the film as they both subtly threaten each other. Hayes hints that he knows Yorga is a vampire while Yorga advises him to leave while he still can. I like these threatening conversations like this. It keeps things interesting and you keep wondering which character will back down first.
That is the only good part of the film though as the rest goes back to the film just being awful again. Why do the heroes decide to attack only once it’s night time? I suppose they still thought there was hope to save some of the captives but they really took forever and should have attacked at the crack of dawn when they had to leave early. That would have definitely been their best play here and it would have taken Yorga by surprise. Once it was night time the deck was stacked against them.
Another issue with the film is that none of the characters are particularly likable. Donna doing that seance didn’t help matters and everyone was rather rude about it the whole time. Just don’t participate in it at that point. Paul and Erica were messing around too much in the van and didn’t keep their guards up.
The only good character here was Hayes and unfortunately things don’t go very well for him there. He definitely should have prepared himself a bit more but at least he did last for most of the film so I’ll give him some props there. It’s not like he had a whole lot of help in the film anyway.
Michael was the only other one to fight and unfortunately he lets his guard down a lot too and was too slow to help in the end. We do get the classic jump scare at the end of the movie though. It may not be the most impressive one but it gets the job done. You’d expect nothing less here.
It’s hard to make a vampire film that’s all that good but you could absolutely do one that’s way better than this. Make the Count someone who needs to drink blood to survive so you keep his cocky attitude and have him take everyone out but he just destroys them instead of keeping them alive to play with. Remove his right hand man and make the main characters a little more likable. Have them be more focused on trying to figure out what the Count’s deal is and cut out the half hearted romances squeezed in for no reason. Then without all of the shock value scenes perhaps this could actually be a decent movie…perhaps.
Overall, Count Yorga is a huge miss. It’ll end up sinking the vampire genre to new lows for you so I’d advise you to just skip this one entirely. There’s no reason to check it out at all so instead watch a Dracula film if you have to but of course I would advise just completely not watching a vampire film as it is. It’s just very rare that they end up being good anyway so why bother right? I doubt anyone will remember Yorga in a few years though. The guy is already over the hill.
Overall 0/10
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