The Reflection Review

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Stan Lee made a few works over in Japan that I’ve already checked out. Hero Man was pretty fun. It was a good show/manga with a fairly basic premise but one that just worked out well. Then we had Ultimo which had a great premise, but questionable execution which caused it to stumble across the finish line. Finally we’ve got the Reflection and unfortunately this is closer to Ultimo than Hero Man. The terrible animation keeps this from being a true contender even though the story itself isn’t that bad. It’s not a show you’ll likely ever re-watch but it’s reasonably interesting.

The show starts off by introducing us to the Reflection event. One day a mysterious cloud showed up and rained the world in bolts of energy. These bolts destroyed some people and it gave others super powers. The vast majority of people experienced no real change. The ones who have changed are known as the Reflected. The ones who were blasted with purple energy turned into villains and the green rays turned the others into heroes. Society still doesn’t know how to deal with them so they’re treated like mutants in X-Men. The government wants no part of them and Reflected are at risk of being destroyed just trying to live in every day life. So when some of them go missing nobody seems to care.

This takes us over to Eleanor. She is looking into these vanishings and is approached by a guy named X-On who asks her to look into Wraith. She finds out that Wraith is related to a villain organization with some kind of mysterious plot. She doesn’t know what it is, but is quickly dragged into the battle. Wraith wants her as well as all of the other Reflected and is going around attacking political figures. Eleanor bands together with X-On to stop them and gradually the group grows but their partnership is a very weak one. Will they actually be able to work together or is this partnership doomed to fail?

Reflection’s plot is rather vague. Most of the series is the heroes trying to stop the villains, but not really knowing much about why they’re doing this. Stopping the kidnappings is reason enough so the heroes don’t really need to know much more than that. It’s easy to see that they’re not particularly invested though. Their fights tend to end in stalemates with the villains getting away. Even by the final episode we still don’t really know anything and everyone is at large so nothing really gets accomplished. Needless to say this show ends on a big cliffhanger which will likely never get resolved. It’s hard to know what the show was going for so it ends up being an odd experience, but not necessarily a bad one.

The show’s only real problem is the fact that the animation is terrible. It’s probably the worst animation I’ve seen aside from FLCL and Pop Team Epic. You could also make a strong argument that while those two were also using experimental animation styles they were higher quality than Reflections. Reflection looks like the 1960 Marvel motion comic shows based on Thor, Avengers, Iron Man, and the other originals. You have to take the time into account so back in the 60s that wasn’t bad. Post 2000s? That’s downright horrible. It’s really hard to get as invested in the show as you could have with proper animation. I’m convinced that it cost the title at least a star.

Reflection is only 12 episodes but it still made the questionable choice of having episode 2 basically be a repeat of 1. We go through the same events from a different point of view with recycled animation. I know this isn’t the first show to do it, but it’s a terrible move. The opening episodes are where you try to get in viewers. Using recycled footage like this is only good for eliminating viewers and no show would actually aim to do that. You can see how the show got off to a rocky start. At least the soundtrack is decent. It’s incredibly limited so you’ll be hearing the same tunes a lot but at least they aren’t bad.

Okay, I think we’ve got the negatives out of the way. Lets look at the positives. I-Guy is a fun character who gets a surprising amount of character development. He starts out as a bit of an annoying celebrity who values his background noises more than actually stopping the villains. This results in a lot of innocents getting murdered on numerous occasions. Eventually this leads to people close to him getting bumped off so he finally takes being a hero seriously and aims to wipe everyone out. He’s a compelling character and by the end I was more interested in his plot than X-On’s. I also liked the armor design.

Reflection also has a solid atmosphere. It’s similar to Dead Fantasy or early RWBY. Due to the nature of the animation and how gray-scale everything is, you can never tell when something serious is going to happen. I-Guy’s allies being murdered or the villains destroying the old lady are very unexpected. In a more traditional anime it’s often obvious when someone’s about to die and there’s a big deal made about it. In a show like this it just happens out of nowhere and you aren’t given as much time to process it before going to the next event. While some shows may go too far in the shock value, Reflection uses this sparingly which makes it that much more effective.

The various characters also have solid designs aside from I-Guy. A good amount of detail was put into the villains and heroes. Lets talk about some of the other heroes first. X-On is the main hero who shows up in every episode and he wants to get Wraith for personal reasons. We don’t end up learning what those are. He has some kind of mysterious origin which is the biggest deux ex machina I’ve ever seen. Seriously, I’ve seen people use that term a lot in anime, but this has to take the cake because there is nothing leading up to the twist. It also happens to be the only way that the heroes can possibly stop the villain’s plan. X-On isn’t one of the best characters though because he’s pretty mean to Eleanor for absolutely no reason. His tactics just make it easier for the villains to make a move. His copy ability is also super handy yet he uses it in all of the wrong situations. It should have made beating the enemies quite easy in a lot of episodes.

Eleanor is the heroine who gets dragged into all of this. She can teleport, but her ability has a short range and she isn’t exactly a fighter. She means well and does her best to help the others who are in trouble. Unfortunately she cracks by the end of the show and makes a terrible decision. At the end of the day she is the one who pulls the trigger on making a really terrible call. It’s at the very end so I wouldn’t say it’s a character destroying moment though. At least it made her more interesting. It just came at a heavy cost.

Lisa has the ability to turn into a giant mech which is pretty handy. The robot may be clunky but it is very durable which is handy. She’s a little impatient at times and just wants to jump into action. I’m not the biggest fan of her character. From the heroes she is one of the less interesting ones. The worst would have to be Michael though. His ability is that he can see other Reflected so he takes them all to an underground shelter. Most of them seem to like this but it ends up just gathering everyone together to get bumped off. Too bad most of them can’t fight right? His partner is Vy, who used to be his wife until she was turned into a giant monster. She’s a lot better than Michael as she can fight and actually does well against the villains. Usually he chickens out and tells her to stop early though which is unfortunate.

From the villains we had a lot of members but most of them didn’t have much character. Wraith doesn’t actually do anything until the last 2 episodes. He has a cool design and his powers are definitely crazy. The guy likes using a lot of mind games but at the end of the day his big plan is basically to merge with darkness and give up on life. It’s not the best way to go out and as a leader it basically means he failed. His plan doesn’t make any sense to me and just seems pretty terrible to be honest.

We had a thunder villain named Volt who really didn’t have much character. He appears a lot but doesn’t do much. Same can be said for the guy who can turn into a dog. Flaming Fury’s character seems to be that she is merciless even as far as the villains go. Her fire abilities are fun at least. Then you’ve got Stan Lee who you expect to be the big villain the whole time but it turns out that he is just another underling working for Wraith. His telepathy is good but it seems like he may not be able to fight.

The two biggest villains were Steel and Dead Wing. Steel is the squad leader while the villains are on a mission. She can manipulate steel and is a formidable foe. Towards the end of the series she starts to have doubts on her mission, but it seems late for that since she is one of the main villains who was murdering a bunch of people. It’s possible that she is related to Eleanor or something based on how she acts at the end. From the villains I’d say that she was my favorite though. I like a good character arc and she probably would have had a good one.

Finally we have Dead Wing who seems to particularly like messing with I-Guy. In this case I don’t think there is a connection though and he just enjoys murdering everyone. His fights with I-Guy get pretty boring after a while but I suppose you have to like his confidence. No matter how many times he gets beaten he gets right back up. It works out well for him too since in the final fight he was easily dominating I-Guy. That’s why you should always fire your lasers when you’re in a robot suit instead of falling to your knees immediately.

Now there is one more problem I had with the show. That’s the fact that the heroes and villains keep fighting each other over and over with no actual progress being made. I-Guy fights Dead Wing 4-5 times throughout the series which is way too often. There’s not much point having a colorful villain cast when it’s always going to be the same pairings. It would help if the fights weren’t always stalemates but almost every time the fight ends with one character just walking away. That gets old very quickly. Same with X-On vs Flaming Fury or Steel. A lot of the time it feels like these fights are just to buy time. It’s less of a problem in most shows because at least you have fun animation but we’ve already gone over the fact that this won’t be happening here. This show easily has some of the most boring battles I’ve ever seen.

Reflection also seemed to forget about some of its characters at times. I suppose in fairness the show must have planned this out, but throughout the show there is a group of girls who are on their way to America. It takes them forever to make it though and they fight until the very last episode of the show. You’re waiting since episode 1 or 2 and the payoff is terrible. Literally they lose their first fight so what was the point of the hype? I expected them to at least win, but even 4 against 1 they ended up getting completely wrecked. I don’t think the writers were big fans of these characters.

Overall, The Reflection is a show that is interesting for its plot and atmosphere. You should be engaged on your first run through. It’s playing itself up as a mystery and that’s what it is. That’s the best way to go into the show. The animation will prevent you from ever coming back to the show on a second run. It does succeed in looking a lot like a comic book, the problem is that it looks like one of those comics that I probably wouldn’t check out of the library. There’s just not a whole lot for you to come back and experience. If it ever got a second season I would certainly be there though. One of Reflection’s greatest strengths is the fact that it didn’t make any big mistakes. While that may not sound as enticing as other positives, it’s still an important one to have. If you want to see Stan Lee’s take on creating a whole new set of heroes and villains then this is a fun one to check out. Get ready to watch the characters make some questionable decisions though. The only one who can save them all is I-Guy.

Overall 6/10

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off Review

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It’s time to look at a fairly iconic film from back in the day. Just about everyone’s heard of Bueller’s Day Off from back in the day. How could you not? It was basically a game changer at the time with breaking the fourth wall and those parts have aged pretty well. It’s a fun film where the characters go all out in how crazy they can get although Ferris and Rooney are carrying this film from start to finish.

The film starts off with Ferris deciding to stay home from school this time. It’s a beautiful day out so he really doesn’t want to have to miss it. He fakes being sick and then once his parents leave he is ready to have fun. He calls up his best friend Cameron and also gets his girlfriend Sloane to leave school early. The 3 of them then decide to do everything they’d want to do in a day including going to a parade, a fancy restaurant, a pool, etc. They have quite a lot of time to really do whatever they want to do over the course of the day. The only thing that could possibly get in their way is Ferris’ old enemy…Mr. Rooney.

Mr. Rooney is definitely the best character in the film. He’s the only character who is actually able to see what’s going on right from the start. The others are just being manipulated and tricked, but not Mr. Rooney. The tough part is just that he’s pretty much outnumbered right from the start. Even when he gets hard proof through the computer it gets deleted because Ferris is apparently a top hacker on top of being a genius and everyone’s hero. Rooney has a lot of confidence though and goes all in when he’s sure that he’s got Ferris beat. He endures quite a lot of punishment from the cast by the end of the film. At one point he even gets kicked into an unconscious state. That being said, this part wasn’t his best plan. Even if he did bump into Ferris at his house…what would that prove? The whole point is that Ferris was supposed to be at home sick.

Rooney does end up giving us one of the most tense ending scenes I’ve seen in a while. He’s forced to choose between getting on a bus with some kids of trying to make it home in his beaten condition. The problem is that once he enters the bus it’s actually his group of students which makes things even worse. His rep is really never going to be the same after that but since the school would be gossiping anyway I wouldn’t take it too hard if I was him. It just means he’s really got to get Ferris now, but it’ll be tough since even the police force is on his side.

As I mentioned, Ferris is the other character who looks great throughout. He has plans for just about everything and things always do seem to go his way. Whatever Ferris tries ends up working and a good reason for that is that Ferris took the time to get to know everyone. Everyone already likes Ferris as a person so that makes it easier for him to get away with things. If he already had a bad rep then things would be a little more difficult. One of the more emotional moments is when a drug dealer explains how Ferris is a good guy to talk to and has a lot of advice on various things. It shows that Ferris is going around really doing his best to help everyone he comes across. Now that’a selfless character.

Meanwhile you’ve got his sister Jeanie doing her best to bust Ferris. She is jealous of the fact that things always go well for him and wants to get him in big trouble. It makes her appear as pretty petty the whole time. It really shouldn’t matter to her and she should just attend school. She even actively goes out of her way to hurt people trying to help Ferris like when she threw away all of the donations for him. That was definitely a very mean thing to do. Her character is just too far gone to redeem by the end and her quick affair with the drug guy didn’t help matters.

She wasn’t my least favorite character though. That would have to be Cameron. Cameron is Ferris’ best friend and he actually was sick at the beginning of the movie. He spends a lot of time complaining about this and telling Ferris he should have stayed home. It’s a little late for that once you’re actually outside so that just makes him a bit more annoying. He panics quite a lot and then when he has his big moment at the end all he really does is mess up the car and put everyone else in even bigger trouble. Even if Cameron’s trying to prove a point, wrecking a car that is worth so much money is just a bad idea. It really doesn’t help anything and he’s just annoying throughout. Ferris probably would have had more fun if it was just him and Sloane.

Sloane’s a reasonable character although despite appearing throughout the movie it’s hard to really gauge what her personality is. She seems to enjoy just tagging along with Ferris’ adventures but otherwise probably wouldn’t be quite as wild as him. It seems like this isn’t exactly a new occurrence as she plays along with his scheme pretty casually and doesn’t tend to panic much. That’s how it should be, you gotta just take things in stride so Sloane did good.

The film’s at its best with Ferris messing with the adults and just having a lot of fun. He’s certainly done a good job of getting his room all tricked out so that he can run this scam. The only thing is that when you think about it, he’s got so many things set up that he must have done it more than once. His parents act like it’s the first time and usually he just cuts out school the normal way. If Ferris did plan all of this out for one shot then he really did put in a ton of effort. You may feel bad for the parents here because they do their best to be really supportive of Ferris throughout.

Overall, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is a fun film. The idea of taking a sick day off on a beautiful day makes sense. Typically I would always take one sick day per semester too for kicks although I didn’t have to pretend to be sick since you are allowed an unexcused absence. Part of what really makes the film work is the big rivalry between Ferris and Rooney. You need that kind of dynamic for the film to work and both of them fulfill their roles perfectly. Cameron and Jeanie’s roles could have been axed though and it wouldn’t have really changed much. At times the film can be a bit exaggerated with how badly Rooney is beat up, but this does go hand in hand with the tone the film is going for. It’s an extreme comedy so some slapstick like that is to be expected. If you haven’t watched this film yet and are in the mood for a good comedy then I’d recommend checking it out.

Overall 6/10

Mythical Beast Investigator Review

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It’s time to look at a fairly short manga that I hadn’t heard of before. The Mythical Beast Investigator is a tough role in this series as you have to know a lot about monsters and constantly put yourself in harm’s way. There are some interesting parts of the premise but the series doesn’t last long enough to fully explore them. There is also one story that really ends up bringing the whole adventure down which was unfortunate. You can’t win them all though and at least this is a pretty unique story. It reminds me a bit of Monster Hunter if I had to pick the next closest thing.

The series is 2 volumes long and it’s an anthology. That’s always a risky format of course and I’m afraid that this series was unable to break the curse. Still, there are some solid stories in here. The first one felt like it was the longest story. Ferry ends up wandering to a village that is having a bit of a Wyvern issue. It’s odd because Wyverns do not typically attack humans, but the townspeople are saying that this is the case. Their story doesn’t add up, but Ferry has a job to do regardless. She aims to stop the threat but hopefully without using any violence. She doesn’t have to worry too much about being hurt because she has two bodyguards. First is Trow who’s a little bat thing that can’t really fight. He means well though. The other is the dark king Kushuna who is immensely powerful and basically can’t be stopped. With those two by her side Ferry is pretty fearless which makes sense.

It’s a solid story although some parts of it are pretty dark and don’t make a whole lot of sense. So the dragon always used to hang out with this one girl from the village. One day the village sold her out to another group as they figured maybe the dragon would do something. Unfortunately the dragon was waiting for them to do something so nobody made a move. Now the dragon has decided to murder the villagers to avenge his old friend. It’s great that the dragon is avenging his friend, but he should have helped her from the start. The girl was his friend so he should have made every effort to help her out. That would have made sense to me at least. You can’t just wait for someone else to help out. It’s really not the way that it’s done. The ending is pretty happy though and ends up making this a solid story. It was also the first moment where I realized that Kushuna was the best character.

He is primarily responsible for ensuring that we had a happy ending. He took matters into his own hands. Later on we learn a bit more about his origin story which has some similarities to the dragon’s plight so he was really trying to help. Throughout the series Kushuna is very quick to defend Ferry and threaten all those who would dare to hurt her. He’s vowed to follow her orders and help out whenever possible, but he does say that he can’t obey any order that would put her in danger. As a result whenever she tells him to stand down he won’t if a monster is present. The guy has a lot of style and charisma going for him. Being the strongest monster in the series doesn’t hurt either.

I feel a little bad for Trow because in comparison that guy really doesn’t get to do much. He simply isn’t as interesting as Kushuna and if you cut him out of the story nothing would change. The next story was a lot shorter. The towns folk were worried because one of the eggs that their chicken lay appeared to be a monster egg. It would be one of the most dangerous creatures in existence so Ferry shows up and takes the egg away. The twist is that the egg wasn’t actually dangerous, but fortunately since Ferry took it she was able to ensure that nobody hurt the monster. It was a fun little story.

Next up involved a mermaid who was upset that the men kept leaving. She had a good friendship with one guy in particular and she would always give him lots of gifts. The town would gossip about their friendship a lot though and so the guy came less and the mermaid got bitter. It’s a bit of an odd story and it’s going for more of a romance angle which doesn’t really work all that well. None of the guys would ever be able to stay for good and eventually they would get old while the mermaid is immortal. It’s a bit of an emotional tale, but it wasn’t as engaging as the last few. Next up would be the worst story though so I wouldn’t have minded if the mermaid one had been extended.

Ferry heads to a town where a large water horse had murdered a little girl. The girl’s father has vowed revenge and so he tells Ferry not to interfere since he wants to be the one to end things. Ferry and Kushuna still help out though since the Water Horse is immensely powerful and an old man is just not going to cut it in a fight against such a creature. Unfortunately the man also owned a dog who wanted to avenge the girl as well. It’s a pretty brutal fight and since both creatures are animals it’s not a fun one. In the end the animals both die and you’re left wondering why this story had to be included. You’re happy for the dog that he got to help avenge his owner but it’s a very mean spirited ending where nobody really got to win. In the end everyone lost everything and Ferry really did nothing to help out.

Next up was a quick story about a cat who went to visit an old man. He got startled and injured the cat a bit, but deep down he liked animals so he tried to make things right. Little did he know that the cat sued him so a bunch of them showed up to have a court session. Ferris showed up as well and told the man that he was pronounced innocent. I like to think that she helped plead his case, but it’s hard to tell. She may have just been there to have some laughs. It’s a nice enough story and I’m glad it worked out for the old man since it was an accident and he did his best to make up for it. The cats were right that you should never pick a cat up by its tail though. Same goes for any creature.

After that we got the origin story of Kushuna. It was a little bit on the convoluted side with the time skips and the fact that Ferry looks exactly like his old owner. Why do they have to have the same exact design? I think the manga was going for a reincarnation angle but at least if the clothes were different that would have helped. Essentially she convinces him that sitting alone on a throne all day is pretty boring so they should hang out. He agrees to accompany her and then does the same for the next version of her. It shows why they have such a strong bond since he has her to thank for his freedom from the castle. This was the longest story and goes all the way to the end of the series. It’s a solid way to end off since we had been waiting for his origin since the start. Kushuna’s eloquent way of speaking and protective nature made him a compelling character right away. If only Ferry was as good.

Ferry is more of a blank slate kind of character. She doesn’t have much of a personality and things just don’t seem to interest her all that much. It’s hard to even say how heroic she is. Ferry seems to be a very by the books kind of person who follows the law even if it’s not the right thing to do. I just don’t trust her much and she doesn’t do enough in the series to really change my impression of her. If not for Kushuna constantly stepping in she would have died pretty early on too. Being oblivious may be a charming character trait to some, but it’s not a very practical one when you’re dealing with dangerous monsters.

The artwork is pretty solid though. Even if Ferry looks way too much like her past self, the panels are clear and you can keep up with the action scenes pretty well. You get a nice sense of danger at times. The backgrounds have a good amount of detail and in general are more diverse than you would expect in most titles. A lot of effort was put into this part. While not all of the stories were my favorites, the writing is also good enough. All of the characters sound like they could be real people which is good.


Overall, Mythical Beast Investigator ends as soon as it begins. There really isn’t a lot of time to get enveloped into the world which works as a double edged blade. In general I always prefer for a series to go on as long as possible. Whether it’s good or bad, at least it gives time for some good moments to happen. Just look at Fairy Tail. I may not like the series, but at least it gave us a lot of good action scenes over the years. Maybe this title will continue some day. If you want to see some short stories about monsters then you may like this series. Otherwise I’d recommend reading Dragon Drive instead. It does a whole lot more to fully immerse you in the world of dragons and has a more engaging character cast. A lack of characters does end up hurting this one.

Overall 4/10

Blind Date Review

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It’s time to take a look at a rom-com from a while back. It definitely gets quite crazy and is at its best when the film is being as nuts as possible. The very premise does hurt a bit though as Walter is not a character you can really sympathize with from the start and Nadia also looks pretty bad in not going with her instincts. All in all, everyone comes out of this film pretty messy, but it is an entertaining movie with a fun guard dog.

The movie starts off with Walter getting ready to head to a party, but he doesn’t have a date. He’s desperate enough to ask his brother Ted for help despite being burned on many occasions. Ted sets him up with a character named Nadia. The only warning Walter needs to abide by is that she really can’t handle having any alcohol. Walter realizes that he has a very prestigious party to go to with Nadia. His job is on the line here to land this big investor and he would never want to do anything to ruin that. So…with a heavy heart and a clear mind Walter buys Nadia the biggest bottle of alcohol he can find and pressures her into drinking it. She does and proceeds to go nuts on his party. Maybe this wasn’t exactly his best idea?

Walter’s one of the biggest fools I’ve seen in a while and no matter how much he blows up at Nadia later on you have to pin 100% of the blame on him. None of this would be happening if he had just not given her the drink. I’m going to give Nadia some grief for this later on as well, but Walter’s got to know better. This was a serious party with people he knew and not respecting Nadia’s wishes to avoid the drink is pretty bad as well. He also tries to take revenge on Nadia by messing up her party but he’s not even drunk so he has no excuse. It’s just petty revenge at that point and makes him look terrible. At the end of the day a blind date is always going to be risky because you don’t know the person. The whole concept of a blind date is a little suspect if you ask me.

As for Nadia, if she knows that she can’t have alcohol then she should really just put her foot down. As someone who doesn’t drink alcohol myself, people naturally offer me to have some quite frequently. There’s always a lot of pressure to drink, but as long as you’re comfortable in the fact that this isn’t who you are, it should be easy to turn it aside. I’m not going to say that peer pressure is underrated because a lot of people have trouble with it, but one surefire way to block it out is to fully accept yourself. That’s something Nadia hasn’t quite done yet. She has the drink and then goes crazy. Now, we know that when you’re drunk you still wouldn’t do anything that you at least didn’t think about while sober. Nadia doesn’t do anything super out of character and if anything she does help some people out. It just comes at the expense of dignity and Walter’s job.

While it’s played off as a bad thing, she did help one lady get a bunch of money by suing her husband so that part worked out. Unfortunately the film does try to still give us the romance plot between Walter and Nadia which really doesn’t make any sense here. The two can’t stand each other from start to finish so it’s a little hard to buy into the ending. Nadia is also way too quick to give a deal to David that she will marry him if he helps out Walter. That’s just not a deal that you can make. She should have tried just about anything else, but basically selling yourself away forever is not the thing to do. Particularly not to someone that bad.

David’s the worst character in the film. He’s a super violent ex of Nadia’s and it’s easy to see why the two aren’t together when the film starts up. He’s constantly trying to murder Walter and gets pretty crazy about it. The film makes it a point to say what a bad guy he is. The fact that his Dad is a judge just makes for a lucky break for him since he gets away with a whole lot more than he would otherwise. The court scene is fun as always though. I always like a court room setting whether it is played seriously or for laughs. In this film’s case it was definitely the latter but it worked well. I liked the judge, the guy made for a charismatic character. He may allow family to get in the way of justice, but at least we can assume that he is able to handle most cases in a fair manner.

The climax involves a long espionage sequence as Walter tries to break in the building, but must get past the guard dog. One mistake that most owners make in this film is that they always tell the dog to quiet down when he’s trying to alert them to danger. Isn’t the whole point of having a guard dog hoping that he will bark if a stranger is near? I mean…this isn’t exactly rocket science people. If the dog is barking and he never does that then something is wrong. All of the characters act like he’s never barked before so that should warrant a full examination of the grounds. This is a comedy, but I bring it up because it happens in serious films too. It’s always a shame for the dog who is just trying to do his best.

At times the film goes pretty far with its slapstick humor to the point where the characters will likely never regain their reputation. How do you bounce back from all of this? The most tragic part of the film is when Walter gets his car stolen by a gang of thieves and even gets held at knife point. He was a few inches from death which has definitely got to be traumatic. The scene is pretty crazy because these guys even kidnap the entire house somehow. I figured it was a movie set at first but surprisingly the film didn’t seem to go that way.

Overall, Blind Date is a fun film. The romance is very weak and just seems to be there to fulfill the cliches. The film is at its best when the characters are ruining each other’s lives or the climax at the end which is a lot of fun. It may go on for a little too long, but I liked seeing the guard dog chase everyone around. It’s always nice to see everyone trying to sneak around in such a large mansion. While this film won’t quite have enough replay value or high points for me to make it a high recommendation, it’s still a solid comedy film if you haven’t checked it out yet.

Overall 6/10

Why Robyn is the most underwhelming RWBY character

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It’s time to look at a recent RWBY character who made her debut in Volume 7. Robyn Hill got a lot of attention right when she was first confirmed to be appearing and then when in the theme song the brief shots we had of her involved a fight with Tyrian. Clearly she was going to be the next big powerhouse in the series and ideally she could take over where Adam left off. We needed a new third party to spice things up. Heroes and Villains make for a good dynamic but what really helps to make both sides more exciting is to have someone who’s looking after their own interests. Robyn is certainly more of a hero than a villain, but she is quite willing to go against the heroes if it means she will be helping her people. Unfortunately the volume really didn’t do much with her and she ended up not coming close to meeting expectations. Lets look at some of the reasons as to why this was the case.

Fighting Ability

One of the big reasons for this is her lack of fighting ability. Robyn may have looked to be fighting evenly against Tyrian in the theme song, but that wasn’t the case in the episode. She had to team up with Clover and Qrow with both of them doing most of the work. Robyn’s crossbow did not look impressive as it deals minimal damage and the arrows are too slow so Tyrian can react to them all. She does get a good hit thanks to using Tyrian’s overconfidence against him, but in a straight fight it is clear that she is nowhere near Clover or Tyrian. To an extent she doesn’t have to be as strong as them but I would have liked for her to have been in the same ballpark. Instead she is relegated to the sidelines. It’s quite telling that in the second last episode she gets taken down in a quick hit and when she wakes up she is taken down in the plane crash once again while everyone else remained conscious. Robyn was constantly being outshined and you can’t have an effective third party is you’re this weak.

Ironwood exists

The biggest missed opportunity for Robyn is actually Ironwood’s continued existence. He ended up becoming the interesting third party of volume 7 as he slowly went down a dark path. This really made Robyn feel redundant because it’s rare to have 4 different factions running around. The only title I can think of that did this is Index with the Sorcerers, Aleister’s unit, Touma/Misaka’s group, The Level 0, and then Accelerator. You also have Anti Skill and Judgment running around if you count smaller groups. So what ended up happening here is that Robyn’s aligning more with the heroes. By volume 8 there’s a chance she will be a full hero as they all unite to stop Ironwood and possibly contend with Salem. Robyn could make for a fun hero, but I’d rather have her as more of an extremist like Adam. Her position is so close to his.

Adam Set the bar too high

Adam’s the greatest RWBY character so perhaps it was unfair to Robyn from the jump to even be compared to him. The odds of her being able to fill in his shoes were never that high from the start. It’s hard not to draw the same conclusions though. Adam wanted to help the faunus because there was such heavy discrimination against them and so he began the revolution. Thanks to Adam’s efforts the faunus now have a much better living situation even if he was taken down before true equality could be reached. Robyn is trying to help the people of Mantle as Atlas has turned their backs on them. Mantle is forced to live in pretty terrible conditions while the people of Atlas still enjoy a very wealthy lifestyle. Ironwood says that this is just temporary but Robyn is through waiting and so she has assembled her “Happy Huntresses” who raid Atlas supplies and try to help people. She certainly doesn’t mind attacking innocents if it’ll get the job done as she would have assaulted Clover’s squad if not for Penny intervening.

One difference from Adam is that she also tries to do this through the official channels. You may wonder how she is able to be known as a wanted vigilante while also running for a chair position. I’d attribute this to her social status. If Ironwood were to arrest her in public it would be a really bad look for him and tensions are already quite high in Atlas. There’s also the knowledge that if she doesn’t win legally then she’ll do whatever she can off the books. Robyn is certainly a lot more heroic than Adam, but she needed to have more of an active role. It all goes back to her lack of power. If she were stronger then she would have had more influence.

Robyn’s semblance is incredibly useful but she never takes advantage of it.

Robyn can detect if someone is telling the truth or not. That’s quite valuable in a story like this where everyone is constantly lying. It makes you wonder why there was any tension after Tyrian’s attack and framing of Penny. That whole framing job doesn’t work for a variety of reasons, but the biggest one is the fact that Robyn could use her ability to find out what really happened. Just ask Penny if she was responsible or not. Since Penny’s aura is enough to work as a conduit to the Maidens and recognized as a real person, the same logic would apply to her semblance. She can also question all of the other people in Ironwood’s faction and get the same response. It should diffuse tensions and it would have helped a lot with the plane situation and Clover although I think she made the right move there. Clover was the one being completely short sighted and crazy.

How can Robyn make a comeback in Volume 8?

Robyn’s character isn’t past the point of no return. Being underwhelming is completely different from being a bad character so there are still a lot of things she can do to rise back up. First off, she needs to get some more say in Volume 8. A big way to do this would be to snatch one of the relics. If she manages to use the schism between Cinder and Salem to snatch back a relic that would be huge. Particularly if she can take it for herself. Perhaps she can take Ironwood’s relic instead. Robyn just needs to grab someone or something and use that as leverage to help Mantle out. Thing is, there are not going to be a lot of opportunities for this in Volume 8 since Salem’s attack threatens the safety of everyone including her people.

A new weapon could also accomplish the same thing. Robyn already has a lot of confidence and some pretty good lines. The problem is that she is good at hitting people once they’re down, but isn’t winning any straight fights. A solid win against a big character would do her a lot of good. Perhaps taking down Blake or Neo would be a good start. Ironwood established a lot of credibility for himself by taking down Watts in Volume 7. Robyn needs to take down a similar figure in Volume 8 and that’ll be the way to really get her on the map.

A final way Robyn could do this would be to broker a deal with Salem to protect Mantle. She realizes that there is no way to save them until she joins Salem. Traitors are rarely popular with the main characters, but saving Mantle is really her only concern at this point. If she were to pull this off and save the day then it would make her a character to take note of. Right now Robyn has no real presence and that’s what she has to work on changing. These are some reasons why her character just felt wasted in Volume 7 and some ways for her to get better. The bottom line is that we need a reason to respect Robyn as a threat to the heroes or for the villains to respect her as a powerful ally. At the end of the day this means that she needs some kind of win and she’ll either need better fighting abilities or a really good plan to pull this off.

Robyn has already been saying all of the right things. She is quick to stand up for Mantle whether she is in a meeting with the executives or just talking to team RWBY. She doesn’t trust anyone a whole lot which is a good thing and I’ve already talked about her confidence. It’s a lot harder to change your personality than your skills so that’s a very promising sign. We just need her to go rogue and since most of her supporters are either murdered or injured at this point it should make it a lot easier for her to make a move without having to worry about anyone else being in trouble.

Tsukasa (Dr Stone) vs Jaden

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Tsukasa is a very strong Dr. Stone character. He is quite possibly the strongest character physically in the series, but that’s not going to be enough to stop someone like Jaden. Jaden has a full army of monsters and spells aiding him in the right. That’s not even counting the fact that he can use card effects in the real world. Tsukasa will quickly be overwhelmed and there really isn’t much that he can do to defend himself. Jaden wins.

Come Blow Your Horn Review

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It’s time to look at a comedy film from a long time ago. It’s one of those films where you may start to suspect how the second half will play out. It’s a fun enough film, but one that hobbles over the finish line instead of sprinting across. The film tries a little too hard to smash you with the moral of the film whereas keeping it subtle would have still done the trick. There’s a good time to be had here but I wouldn’t put it as my first choice.

The film starts off by introducing us to Buddy and Alan. They are brothers who are 18 years apart and have completely different personalities. Alan moves out to his own place and loves slacking off at work. He tends to work one day a week and spends the rest of the time being a bum as his father would put it. Meanwhile Buddy has been living life on the straight and narrow. He shows up to work day in and day out to make sure that the company is able to do well. Unfortunately this life proves to be too stifling for him and so he moves in with Alan. This causes a lot of family drama. Buddy must now decide if he really wants to live his life like Alan or go back home and be a responsible adult. He’ll have to choose carefully.

There’s definitely a pretty big contrast between the two. It’s easy to see why Buddy would look up to Alan because Alan seems to get away with just about everything. He blows off work constantly yet he manages to live in a 5 star hotel type apartment. The guy is constantly throwing money left and right. Then you’ve got Buddy who does the right thing and comes to work but barely has a dime for himself. That doesn’t exactly sound fair right? I think if Alan had been fired from the start then maybe that could have changed things a bit. The film does explain why Alan has so much money at the end involving a deal he made with someone, but the father could have at least taken his job away earlier.

Alan’s definitely not a heroic character, but he’s a fun lead. He’s a lot more entertaining than Buddy and also does a better job with the lifestyle. It may be fairly crooked but at least he had to take the initial risks himself. Alan used his charisma to succeed. Buddy had to rely on Alan’s goodwill to make it and that’s why I have less sympathy for him. Buddy ended up being one of my least favorite characters. He was okay at the start even if he did whine a lot. The problems started to come up once the power went to his head. Buddy’s one of the most ungrateful characters I’ve ever seen. Just copying Alan is one thing. Alan wouldn’t have a problem with that and it makes sense.

Where Buddy goes wrong is when he starts intentionally taking things from Alan. He steals the guy’s barber, makes a mess of the apartment, sabotages his phone calls, etc. Buddy goes way too far way too quickly. There’s no reason for him to turn into a total villain over this. By the end of the film it’s fairly open ended as you get to choose if you think he’ll succeed in Alan’s place or not. Personally, I don’t think he will be able to do it. He just doesn’t have Alan’s charms and with no more coaching at the ready Buddy will be digging himself a pretty big hole by the end.

The best characters were the parents. Whenever the father would show up you knew that sparks would fly. He would constantly be calling the characters bums and flying into a fit of rage whenever he showed up. A lot of the times it was fairly justified as Alan was costing him thousands of dollars, but then the follow up question would be “Why not fire him?” and there’s no real answer to that. After a point he can only blame himself for this because he lets Alan get away with absolutely everything. That’s no way for a business to succeed. While the father was one of the most entertaining characters, what holds him back here is how he also takes it out on his wife. It makes sense for him to constantly be upset as the two sons, but she really didn’t do anything. That’s why she ends up edging him out.

The Mom can also be super dramatic, but it’s not typically aimed at anyone else. She just throws a lot of pity parties for herself as she tries to solve every problem. She does her best in answering the phones even when there is no pen around. She even recalls all of the messages although she isn’t exactly thrilled about being used as an answering service. Her ability to keep on talking nonstop is definitely a lot of fun and so the film had quite the colorful cast.

One character that was too exaggerated was Peggy though. She’s oblivious to everything to the point where she believes all of Alan and Buddy’s lies without even detecting the slightest hint of Deception. It’s played for laughs but the plot goes on way too long and too far for it to be funny. Peggy clearly will do anything to get ahead in the field and so hopefully she does know what’s going on and just uses it as an excuse for her actions, but either way this plot should have been removed and the film would have been better for it.

Romance is the film’s Achilles heel. It’s not terrible or anything, but it doesn’t really add anything to the film. Connie does her best to get Alan to turn away from his constant affairs but you almost feel like she should give up on him. He’s clearly not trust worthy and has been playing the field for a very long time. Of course I’ll take the glass half full approach and assume that he is sincere, but it’s really trusting of her to still be going ahead with this.

Overall, Come Blow Your Horn is a film with strong writing that is held back by some questionable characters. The humor is pretty good and the song we got was solid. One sub plot that was satisfying was when one lady’s husband from Texas shows up and intimidates Alan quite a bit while also knocking him into an elevator. The best part of this film is the opening act as we meet Alan and get introduced to all of the family drama. At times the subplot with the parents can be more entertaining than the main one. A lot of things happen in this film and it does a good job of pacing the story in a way where there is never a dull moment. Not all of the humor has aged well but if you want to see a story about living free with no responsibilities then this is the film for you. It’s a dangerous road that offers a lot of thrills but there’s always a fall at the end.

Overall 5/10

Gareth (Megaman) vs Kyojuro Rengoku

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Gareth is a pretty powerful Megaman X enemy. I wouldn’t say he’s top tier or anything like that, but he’s got a balanced moveset. It won’t really do a whole lot of good against someone like Kyojuro though. Kyojuro has incredible amounts of super speed and strength at his disposal. His breathing techniques will also ensure that he is always one step ahead of Gareth. In a battle of blades Kyojuro simply won’t lose. Kyojuro Rengoku wins.

Pokemon Volcanion and the Mechanical Marvel Review

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It’s time to take a look at one of the latest Pokemon movie manga. This one brings back memories as it had the real Ash and not the reboot version we’ve gotten for the last few films. It’s nice to have the veteran that I’m so used to. This isn’t the most exciting story out there, but it’s pretty solid and I dare say that the pacing is better than in the movie. It’s a solid title with some good action scenes and you’ll get to learn more about the new Pokemon.

So the story starts with Ash bumping into a Pokemon named Volcanion. This guy is pretty upset because his pal was kidnapped by a villain and his thugs. They plan to use the metal Pokemon Magearna in their plans. Magearna is a Pokemon that was created by humans much in the same way as Mewtwo and this makes her highly valued among the villains. Volcanion wants to save her, but he spends the majority of the manga getting beaten black and blue by the various Mega Pokemon. Fortunately Ash is here to help. Can Volcanion get over his distrust of humans long enough to join forced with Ash and save the day?

Volcanion can be a bit annoying with how much he doesn’t like humans but I’ll cut him some slack since most humans are pretty dicey. At least Ash is good, but he has no way of knowing that. My real problem is just how weak he is. Ash has to save his bacon many times in this adventure so when the guy still keeps on talking tough it’s impossible to take him seriously. He’s losing to the random villains of the movie and their Pokemon. That’s unacceptable, especially for a Pokemon who is supposed to be super powerful. Volcanion didn’t really leave a good impression on me.

He still looked better than Magearna though. My issue with her is that she has no character. She sort of just stands around as everything happens. I think part of the point is that she doesn’t have full emotions yet or has a hard time expressing them, but I needed her to show a little more agency in the meanwhile. Even just a quick scene where she fights back against the villains when they show up to capture her would have gone a long way. Mewtwo definitely doesn’t let himself get trapped like that.

Meanwhile Ash looked great though. While being stuck to Volcanion is a big inconvenience Ash takes it in stride and gets right into the action. Nobody’s going to stop him from saving the day and Pikachu also gets some good hits on the Mega Pokemon. If not for Volcanion being unable to keep up Ash probably would have taken them all down. This is really Ash at his peak and its one of his best portrayals in a long time. It’s always good to see him getting his props.

Meanwhile the art is pretty solid. At times Ash looks a little out of character and is a bit inconsistent with how he’s drawn, but that’s about it. The most egregious example of this is definitely the back cover of the manga. Where the artist really shines is when the action scenes come in though. The Mega Pokemon all look quite fierce and the attacks are also pretty impressive as well. The scenes are easy to read so they aren’t convoluted but still have a good amount of scale to them. You can tell that the Pokemon here really know how to fight.

I guess there isn’t a whole lot to this title beyond what I’ve said, but that’s part of its charm. It’s not a grand tale or one of the more ambitious Pokemon movies turned into a manga. Effectively it’s just a fun little Pokemon story with Ash showing more Pokemon why hunmans are decently good at times. I doubt we’ll ever see Volcanion or Magearna again, but if we do that would certainly be pretty cool. I also thought the villain was a step up over some of the other villains. Not saying he’s super memorable or anything, but at least he actually had a good army of Pokemon.

Overall, Volcanion and Magearna are probably the weakest points of this manga but as far as legendary Pokemon go I’ve certainly seen worse. Volcanion took a while to come around, but by the end he sees why everyone loves Ash. Ash always manages to get the job done and that’s really the key takeaway here. Pikachu is fun as always the artwork is good so it all flows together pretty well. Whether you’ve seen the movie or not I would recommend checking out the manga. It’s a good way to spend 20 minutes or so and it’s one of the last times you will get to see the main Ash in the manga so it has that going for it as well.

Overall 7/10

Yugioh Double Pack Review

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It’s time to look at a Yugioh game that has been on the backburner for an extremely long amount of time. I remember playing this game for ages a super long time ago. I wish it kept track of the play time because it must have been at least 20 hours. Neither one of these games are short and they are both quite challenging. Reshef of Destruction in particular is extremely difficult and it’s a game with an almost impossible final boss. This is definitely one of the best Yugioh games I’ve ever played though and the duo probably has the best plot.

First up is The Sacred Cards. This game basically has the Battle City plot from Yugioh. A big tournament is underway which Kaiba is using to get the 3 Egyptian God Cards as well as to prove that he’s better than Yugi. The main character of the game enters the tournament as well and slowly but surely he begins to wreck every single character in the series. One fun thing about games where they make up an original character is that he is always unbelievably broken. Seriously, there is nobody who can even begin to challenge him which is pretty crazy. Can the main character stop Marik and his plans?

In the Reshef of Destruction game we get a completely original story which takes place after The Sacred Cards. It’s pretty cool that the games have a continuity. Well, the lead has saved the day but a mysterious villain known as Reshef is quickly approaching and threatens to plunge the world into darkness. Pegasus seems to be involved in this somehow and even Kaiba/Yugi are unable to stop him. It looks like they’ll have to call in the real champ to solve this issue, but can even Terry take this guy down? Seeing as how I was unable to beat the final boss I suppose the answer to that will have to be no this time. I’ll go more into that final boss in a second, but needless to say he is completely broken.

Both games have effectively the same gameplay and style which is why I figured I would go over both plots first. The gameplay is about as smooth as I’ve ever seen Yugioh. To date my favorite game in terms of gameplay is World Championship 2004 or 06 while my favorite aesthetic is Tag Force. This one isn’t quite able to top both of those, but it is able to keep up. One nice enhancement is that the game quickly auto scans the field after every turn instead of giving you prompts so it only gives you the option to use a spell card when it’s applicable. The turns go by very quickly as well. Using the back button to look at the details is a little odd so that takes some getting used to, but it’s fine.

One difference in this game compared to others is that you have to get strong enough to use various cards. Your duelist level and deck capacity goes up as you win duels. So for example you may need 250 deck space to use someone like the Summoned Skull and your Duelist level would need to be at least 50. I suppose this is to prevent you from going to the shop and assembling an intense deck but I don’t really care for this mechanic. Maybe I should specify that it is the execution which is a little dodgy. The concept could have worked but by the end game your level only goes up by one per duel and same for the capacity. It would take forever at that rate to ever get anywhere near where you would need to be to get some good cards. It’s pretty sad to have so many cards sitting in the trunk just waiting for their turn at bat. I had some great cards in Reshef which I never got to use because they were so high leveled. Keep in mind that I got to level 200+ but that still wasn’t enough.

The Sacred Cards was a difficult game but not an unfair one. With enough strategies and planning you could really end up having your way with the villains. That was more up my speed and I can tell you that it worked out quite nicely. I built a fire deck with a health amount of trap cards and I was set. As for Reshef, from early on you can tell it’l be tricky. For starters, your health points don’t regenerate between duels. This means that in some sections of the game you will have to beat up to 4 duelists in a row without gaining life points. This means you have to destroy them and even with a great deck it’s hard to show that much dominance. It took me ages to get to that point.

There’s also a new mechanic added into the game which are the type advantages. Effectively how it works is they surpass attack points. If you’ve got a fire monster with 4000 attack points and I have a water one with 200, my water type will bypass damage calculation and just destroy yours automatically. I’m guessing the game did this to counter how powerful some of the monsters are, but I don’t think it was a good idea. At the end of the day all it really did was widen the gap because the computers would really take advantage of this. I think now’s a good time to talk about the final boss and why he is easily the toughest boss I have ever faced. First off, this guy has 10,000 lift points. Next up, he has the Change of Heart spell which he will always save to snipe one of your strongest monsters. It’s hard to have any counter play to this and he can usually win the match here since it comes at such a dangerous point in the duel.

He’s also got a second version of this where he absorbs your monster and adds it to his own. Then he’s got two copies of Swords of Revealing Light which prevent all of your monsters from attacking for 3 turns. Good luck surviving this long because he can still attack during this period which can go up to 6 turns. He’s also got the wave trap which erases all of your spells and traps as well as a card that wipes out your hand. Basically no card you have anywhere is safe which adds another layer of stress. So good luck trying to beat this guy when odds are that you won’t have a high enough duelist level to use most of those abilities. They’re all just too broken and the fact that he has all of them at once is crazy.

Nevertheless, after about 50-60 rounds with him I won…or did I? After you wipe out his 10,000 life points he instantly revives. This time he has 20,000 life points. He’s got all of the cards he had before except there is one big change. He now has the God Cards in his deck. If he summons one then it’s basically game over for you. God Cards have more attack power than anything in your deck and they can’t be affected by spells or trap cards. How does a villain have this in his deck when you should possess the only copies of those cards? The whole thing is crazy and your life points don’t recover as I mentioned earlier so you’re fighting a guy at 2X power while you may be at half strength. I only made it up to this guy 2-3 times total and I got blasted away each time. Outside of codes and such he seems almost impossible to defeat nowadays. You’d need an incredible deck to put him down.

The graphics are fun enough. It’s got a nice chibi style that flows well with the story. The illustrations we get are nice and there are a good amount of backgrounds to enjoy. I do think a solid amount of effort was put into these two games and they’ve aged really well. The soundtrack is a little more on the forgettable side though. Despite the shows having excellent soundtracks I feel like the games have always been quite a few steps behind. Only Tag Force had an awesome soundtrack all the way through.

You don’t need to worry about length. As I mentioned both of the games are pretty long. You’ll be playing for a very long while as you increase your level and improve your deck. Your deck has to be incredibly powerful to even stand a chance against the villains at the end of the game. For replay value there are a bunch of post game duelists to contend with and naturally you can expect those guys to be crazy strong as well. If you are able to take them down then you will have really proven your Yugioh skills beyond a doubt.

Overall, Yugioh Double Pack is really a steal. It’s bringing two RPGs inside one cartridge for a very small price. It’s just hard to beat that, especially when both games are top tier even if the final boss for Reshef is a little too powerful. I’m sure it will feel great when you do eventually defeat him, but that’ll probably take a very long time. He’s not the kind of enemy you can just show up and defeat without a plan.

Overall 8/10