Warcraft Review

Posted on January 25, 2017 by dreager1

I always like to see a video game adapted into a film…but not like this! It seems like bad luck that films keep trying to adapt games that either shouldn’t be adapted or ones that should be adapted…in 20 years. I get that World of Warcraft is a very popular video game, but I’ve never cared much for it and I don’t think it ever had a whole lot of movie potential. People will inevitably compare it to Lord of the Rings and it’ll fall short since everyone already has the nostalgia goggles on. Then we’ve got Assassin’s Creed….this isn’t the kind of representation of video games that I wanted. Where’s Mega Man, Mario, Metroid, Legend of Zelda, Gravity Rush, or the really cool looking video games like that? The films keep on choosing the most realistic ones possible as I guess they feel this is the safe route, but it’s backfiring horribly. Wait…they already tried making a Super Mario Bros film? Nah….you must be mistaken, I’m sure I’d remember Princess Peach making her way to the big screen or that iconic Bowser design if the film had happened. Must have just been a mistake.

Anyway, Warcraft deals with two worlds coming together to avoid calamity. On one side, we have the world of the Trolls. Their world has grown desolate and soon it will be completely unlivable. To combat this, they have decided to invade the human world and eradicate all of the mortals. On the human side, they see that the Trolls are attacking and decide to slay them all. There can be no peace here, only war and destruction. Which side will emerge victorious here?

This film has a lot of problems, but action isn’t one of them. There’s a lot of action throughout as you’ll see people punching and tackling each other. A lot of guys are stabbed and it definitely feels like a war. I don’t care much for war fight scenes and prefer the classic 1 on 1’s. This doesn’t help to change my opinion of that, but considering that War is in the title, I knew what to expect from the get go. The CGI and overall special effects for the film aren’t bad. In the rare scenes where we actually get to see energy attacks and video game techniques, they hold up quite well. We get mythical monsters and fantasy backdrops that also fit in seamlessly.

The rest of the film is where Warcraft stumbles a bit. Lets talk about the characters. Gul’dan is the main villain of the film. He’s the corrupt leader of the Orcs (Trolls) and ensures that there is no peace. After all, you can’t make peace with a nation that’s trying to destroy you right? He rules with fear and is the only Orc to actually have special powers. He can drain your life force by making contact with an opponent and has a good array of energy blasts as well. This makes up for not being the strongest Orc on the battlefield. It’s really impossible for any character to beat him without plot hax and that’s a bit of an issue. The only way the film gets around this is by having the other Orcs pressure Gul’dan into retreating for honor reasons. He never loses and I guess this sets things up for the sequel. He was a pretty imposing villain and I suppose that I didn’t mind him being the big bad. I wish he would just get on with it though and I don’t see why he should even care about the Orcs liking him or not. His whole gimmick is that he rules by fear so if they start rebelling, can’t he just slay them all?

Lothar is the main hero on the human side. His character arc is pretty tragic as he decides to trust Garona and is then betrayed at the very end. He’s a pretty strong warrior and is headstrong. Lothar acts like a main character should for the most part. He can be a little generic and maybe not all that reasonable at other times, but he can handle himself in a fight and the humans wouldn’t have much of a chance without him. Llane is the more reasonable character, but at the same time he goes for the more conventional ideas. He decides on a full scale war against the Orcs and this doesn’t go well at all. He then makes a rather selfless decision to have Garona murder him so she can get out of there alive, but it’s also basically suicide since he’s asking to be murdered. You always got to fight until the bitter end even if the odds are stacked against you. The ending did not help him.

I actually place more of the blame on Garona though. Accepting this option shows that she put more value on her life than on Llane’s. Essentially, she was willing to continue existing at the expense of someone else. Lothar took this as a betrayal since he didn’t know the context, but it may as well have been one even with it. She was tasked with protecting Llane and she failed. Durotan is the main protagonist of the Orcs, but he is forced to work for Gul’dan the whole time. It’s a pretty tough film for Durotan since he doesn’t get the clan any closer to peace and is ultimately murdered in front of everyone. He put up a good fight, but was clearly outmatched thanks to the magic amplifications that Gul’dan had and it felt like his journey was rather pointless. He made some nice speeches, but since he had no control over the clan, it didn’t help much. He did inadvertently save the humans by getting the Orcs to doubt their leader though.

As this is Warcraft, there were other sub plots as well. One of the human’s strongest magicians was actually a traitor and ended up joining the villains. It was either his overconfidence that led the evil magic to slowly corrupting him or he was just a bad seed the entire time. Regardless, it was a huge blow to the humans since they need all of the magicians that they can get. They have another apprentice guy who wants to help out now, but that’s just a consolation. Honestly though, the humans should be doomed in this war. They now only have 1 guy with powers on their side while the Orcs have a few. That being said, the ending shows that there are many other factions of humans who will be helping now. Where were they the whole time? Who knows, I guess it just wasn’t their fight. Ironically the human mage sub plot was probably the most out of place, but also the most interesting part of the film.

The part of the film that will end up leaving a sour taste in your mouth is really the ending. Seeing Garona just accept the life and be accepted back to her people was a rather mean spirited way to end things. Now nobody gets along and tensions are even higher. It also feels like absolutely nothing was accomplished in this film. You should think of it as a promo to encourage you to play the game, but that doesn’t work so well as a large feature film. Especially if you were never interested to play the game in the first place. As the writing is also lackluster, it never really had a chance of getting you interested in playing the game.

There is also some iffy animal violence moments here. It sadly comes with the territory of war films as people ride horses and even birds into battle. It’s not a huge occurrence here, but enough so where it warrants a mention. It’s not as if things could have gotten much worse for the film though right? It was already rather boring and convoluted without a good ending so adding the animal violence is like the cherry on top.

Overall, Warcraft is a very generic fantasy war film. It’s just the same old Humans vs Orc battles that we’ve seen in LOTR and the Hobbit already. This film doesn’t really add anything to that. There’s not much reason to watch this film and since an ending is super important, having a bad one hurts the film all the more. I doubt this film will be getting a sequel anyway so it’s not as if the cliffhangers will be resolved anytime soon. If you’re a big fan of the games then you’re basically obligated to watch this one. If not, then I’d recommend just sticking away from it.

Overall 3/10

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) Review

Posted on January 23, 2017 by dreager1

It took a long while to get to this review, but I’ve finally made it. TMNT was one of the only big 90’s action shows that I had never watched from start to finish. Well, that finally changed and it certainly lives up to the reputation that the 90’s have created. I can see why no other TMNT show can top this one since it would be extremely difficult. This show handled all of the characters and lore perfectly. With solid action scenes, animation, and a great soundtrack, there is a lot to like here and not much to dislike. It can attract any and all action fans.

The show follows 4 Turtle warriors who become humanoid hybrids once they are exposed to a mysterious ooze. They are trained by a rat named Splinter who teaches them how to master hand to hand combat. They live in the shadows since the general public isn’t quite ready to handle them yet. They work to oppose the various gangs that are around like the Purple Dragons and the Foot Clan. The Turtles also obtain several allies over the years and make a lot of enemies as well. With 5+ seasons and a bunch of episodes along the way, you can bet that numerous obstacles stand in the way of world peace.

Let’s talk about the cast. Leonardo is the leader of the group as always and commands the team well. He trains the hardest and takes everything more seriously than his brothers. He is always calm and collected when dealing with the villains. With all of this in mind, surely he is the strongest right? I’d say that he definitely is. Raphael has always been known as the tough turtle, but in this show, he lags behind the others. Leonardo puts up a great fight against the Elite foot ninjas and just has way better showings in general when compared to the others. Leonardo temporarily became very hot headed like Raphael when his power was not enough to save everyone. It was actually a pretty fun phase and one episode in particular showed how changed he was. When two random guys with wings started a brawl in the city, both Raphael and Leonardo wanted to take them both out instead of talking it through. Leonardo became a better Raphael than Raphael. While Raphael was my favorite as a kid, Leonardo is definitely the best turtle this time, at least in this show.

Raphael is still the second best though. He talks a real good game and while he may not be as skilled as Leonardo or Michelangelo, he is still a strong fighter It would have been cool to have seen him get more one on one fights like what Leonardo got so we could get a better picture of just how strong he really is. There’s not much reason to dislike Raph and the guy makes a lot of good points on how the heroes shouldn’t be hiding all the time. It may have gone the X-men route if they had shown themselves to the world since I’m sure that the humans would try to attack them, but it would be good to get out of the sewer more.

Michelangelo is the comical character of the group and proves that natural talent can go a long way in this group. The other turtles train constantly while Mikey sits back and watches comic books, yet he ends up being a better fighter than Raph and Don. One would think that this is just a fluke, but he outshines them consistently. Mikey’s definitely a likable guy and this is probably one of the only TMNT products that can do him justice. It is very easy to badly write this kind of character since the constant jokes can easily get annoying to see. Luckily the writing is on point. The running gag of Raphael hitting Mikey is also voice acted well on Mikey’s part as he always manages to sound shocked no matter how often it happens. You almost feel bad for Mikey since it isn’t always his fault, but the Turtles are always eager to get into a fight.

Finally we have Donatello. He was always my least favorite member of the group since I always have preferred the fighters. He is written well like the others though and the team definitely does need his expertise on many occasions. Also it is not as if he can’t fight either. He is roughly at the same level as the other Turtles, he just prefers the gadgets angle to being in the fray. His staff is definitely a better weapon than the nun-chucks if you ask me, but it does lose to the twin sai and the sword. His weaponized truck was definitely Donnie’s best idea. Having that thing around was always super handy.

April and Casey are main supporting characters. Their romance could be a little dragged out and unnecessary, but I guess it was handled better than most. Casey makes for a good rival to Raphael, even if he is left in the dust by the end of the series. His beef with the Purple Dragons helped the threat to really hit home. His personality makes Casey a good rival to have around, but a power boost would have helped as well. April is like Lois Lane. She doesn’t have quite as much spunk, but isn’t afraid to get in on the action. She never got to really fight though which is too bad since she does know some mild hand to hand skills. Having a cool crime fighting outfit like in the CGI film would have been cool. She certainly helped the turtles out a lot by giving them a place to stay and providing pizza. The gang would have been sunk without her.

Time to talk about Bishop. It’s a bold move talking about him before most of the characters, but he was a highlight in the show and easily the best character. I can’t say that I had been expecting him to be so awesome so it was a very pleasant surprise. As you may know, I love seeing the government play a role in any action show where they have to deal with supernatural foes or meta humans. I also like it when they look good and Bishop certainly served the country well. He was actually overpowering the turtles when they fought despite being outnumbered 4-1. I dare say that he is the strongest character with no super powers in the show. He may barely count since he may have a super soldier serum or something like that, but I don’t think it was ever stated officially. Capturing Splinter, Karai, and besting the Turtles is really all the evidence you need. Not to take away from his hand to hand skills though, Bishop was just an exceptional character and it’s hard to do him complete justice on that regard. You really have to see the episodes to really appreciate how awesome he is.

Another character who was a surprise hit was none other than Baxter Stockman. I figured that he would be your average mad scientist. He would talk a good game, but would not be able to back it up in the slightest. Stockman may not have turned out to be some kind of intense hand to hand fighter, but he was a lot more confident than I could have expected. He keeps on talking back to Shredder and showing no respect even after getting his arms and legs ripped off. Even losing his whole body aside from his brain didn’t deter him. It’s pretty crazy that none of this caused him to lose his bark. In the end Shredder could not break him so that was pretty good bragging rights for Stockman.

Hun was essentially Stockman’s main rival so they were polar opposites. Hun was very strong, but not particularly smart. He wasn’t nearly as fun as Stockman though and could never hold his own episode in the same way. He made up for it by having some good fights though. He started out at a level where he could take on multiple turtles at once, but by the end they can all handle him rather easily. Another big villain was Karai. She was a little more noble than the Shredder. She was still a villain of course, but she preferred to take the turtles on in fair hand to hand battles. She was definitely quite skilled and proved to be stronger than the turtles one on one except for Leonardo. He would always have the slight edge over her although it was close.

We can’t go on in the review without talking about the Splinter right? As the sensei to the four turtles, he was definitely a force to be reckoned with. I’d say that Leonardo definitely surpassed him by the end, but Splinter never got too weak. He could hold his own and his age never really got to him. His cane could even be used as a weapon even if it was nowhere near as good as a sword. I still disagree with most of his fist decisions about not going to the human world though. It never made much sense and it still doesn’t. If they are going to be heroes, then they will have to confront the villains at some point won’t they? They gradually begin to make their own decisions though and this is especially the case when Splinter is written out of the show for dozens of episodes at a time. I can’t say that I really missed him to be honest.

Another major character in the mythos is the Shredder. He plays a major role in the series like you’d expect. The show took a big gamble as it decided to make Shredder an alien. The show pulled it off quite well so I had no qualms with it. I don’t care for the design, but at least we never get to see it all that much. When he is in the suit, this version of the Shredder still has the absolute best design. He even gets a robotic voice that makes him even more menacing. Shredder proves to be too powerful for the Turtles most of the time as you’d expect, but he never really got any power ups. As a result, I do think that Leonardo ended up surpassing him. Shredder is my third favorite villain in the series behind Bishop and Tengu Shredder. It should come as no surprise then that most of the episodes with the Shredder as the main villain are highlights. He always has a pretty good plan at the ready and action is constant throughout.

Tengu Shredder was another surprise hit although we should say that the surprise was very mild. I was expecting him to be pretty good the whole time, but he went above and beyond my expectations. He was essentially the Shredder, but even more intimidating and imposing. If you’re familiar with the show, then you’ll know that this is a pretty difficult feat to accomplish. His power level was also off the charts and if not for the Turtles getting serious upgrades as well, it would have all been over. To put this into perspective, you can’t even compare Tengu Shredder to the rest of the heroes and villains. Even powerful foes like the Shredder and Bishop are still meta humans. Tengu was above that and his physical stats were something out of an anime. It was a treat to watch.

The show did enjoy its array of Shredders so we got another one in the form of Cyber Shredder. He may have had less personality than the other two, but there’s not much to dislike with this guy. Since he is essentially a data clone of the Shredder, he retains the personality and fighting skills of the original with some data enhancements. He was another fine addition to the cast. Going back to more minor villains, I enjoyed the Evil Turtle Bot. His role in the show is tiny and I probably wouldn’t have thought much him if not for playing the video game. The game certainly made me see him in a new light since he was awesome there. He’s a pretty decent minion and actually gave the Turtles some trouble.

Another good minion was the Foot Tech Ninja. They may have been handled rather easily after their initial appearances, but they looked really good during the beginning. You can’t count these warriors out and they made good use of their tech. Even the normal Foot Soldiers are actually pretty cool minions. I could certainly get behind these guys at any rate. It’s important for a show to have good minions since you’ll be seeing them quite often. The best minions were certainly the Foot Elite though. They were able to hold their own against the Turtles and aside from Leonardo, I dare say that they were winning. They certainly didn’t earn the title lightly and since there are four of them, it makes for a fun fight against the four turtles.

Another faction was the Foot Mystics. They were pretty interesting since I remembered their original forms quite well, but wasn’t aware that they had a true form. I couldn’t take them very seriously as villains to be honest and they weren’t as impressive as the rest of the Foot. Their elemental abilities are handy to have though. Leatherhead is another supporting character that I wasn’t fond of. He became a good guy for a good portion of the series, but he always struggled with the dark side. He rarely got around to actually helping the heroes and while he is strong, his lack of hand to hand skills would have likely been exposed if he appeared more often.

The Ninja Tribunal was a powerful group of warriors who were so powerful that it was easy to assume they had entered the wrong show. These guys didn’t fit in with the others as with the whole season, but that didn’t take away from how awesome they were as characters. The group was pretty mean and I certainly wouldn’t trust them, but they were an imposing group. Were they over hyped? Yeah, they didn’t perform quite as well as one would have expected but at least they still did try to put up a fight. Their character designs and special abilities were pretty fun.

Another super group that may have been a bit out of place here was the Justice Force. They are a not very subtle homage of the Justice League and they tackle the threats that no one else would dare oppose. Unfortunately, we never really got to see how they would fare against the Shredder and the gang. Again, it’s almost as if it was a completely different show when these guys would show up. At most they may have met the Shredder very briefly in one of those alternate future kind of episodes, but I can’t really recall that with any certainty. Their version of Superman and Batman were definitely the highlights here. They acted the part well and did a good job when it came time to fight. Batman’s character didn’t actually join the group for a while, but he took the plunge in the end.

One character that I didn’t care for much was Renet. It’s not to much that she was a bad character, but that she always brought along bad episodes. Each episode she appeared in was a very painfully drawn out filler episode where you would just want the plot to return. She didn’t really add anything to the series and you would constantly just wonder what she was even doing in the show. It felt like some kind of crossover for the fans, but I don’t believe she was ever a big character so that didn’t work well. (At least for me)

Cody was a main character in the infamous Fast Forward season. He’s a nice enough kid and you could make a lot of comparisons between him and Chris from Sonic X. It does feel like he was forced into the series to make the Turtles a little more sympathetic since you could now put yourself in the kid’s shoes. It was a nice wrinkle that Cody was rich though. His uncle may have been crooked, but that didn’t stop Cody from trying to save the day. He’s all right, but the character is so generic that it is hard to dislike him. By the same token, you could dislike him because he is so generic. Serling was a much more charismatic supporting character that was introduced in the season. He got a lot of witty dialogue throughout and had some of the best facial expressions. He actually could fight when necessary and even became a suit of armor for Cody towards the end of the show. His attempts at humor usually worked quite well and fleshed out his character.

The Ancient One is the kind of character that you would expect big things from right? He taught Splinter’s master so he must be super strong? Well, the guy let himself go so now he’s very overweight and prefers to be the crude humor specialist of the show. It’s always sad whenever the guy is on screen and he never fights so that leads me to believe that he is actually not all that tough. It’s a shame, but I guess that’s what happens when you buy into the hype. He was a wasted character and one who luckily didn’t get to appear much.

Viral was a fairly intense villain who appeared in Fast Forward. She had some really potent abilities and it was hard to permanently destroy her since the data could keep on coming back over and over again. She certainly didn’t mess around and while her role was ultimately pretty minor, Viral left a good mark on the show. Another decent group of minor villains were the Dark Turtles. Leonardo’s certainly got the most personality and he came close to turning good even if he ultimately couldn’t make the switch. The other three were comic relief for the most part, but it was still nice to see a team of counterparts to take on the real Turtles.

Khan is one of those characters that will make you take a step back and wonder where the writers were going with him. When he first appeared, Khan got a lot of hype since he murdered the Turtles in the future. Well, after his initial appearance, Khan was treated as a lightweight. The heroes didn’t have to pay any special attention to him and just wrecked him as they would any other villain. I feel like the writers maybe forgot that plot or had to shelve it due to backstage drama and as a result, we skipped Khan’s entire character arc. It’s too bad since the character had a lot of potential and could have been one of the best if handled right.

Usagi was treated as a hype character and you could also say that he was a guest star since he has his own comic series to think about. Unfortunately, I definitely didn’t care much for his character. I’d say that his skills were drastically overplayed to make him appear to be an even match for Leonardo. His advice was never all that good and once Leonardo went into his toughness phase after not being strong enough to save the day, Usagi didn’t do much to help. He was called in to try and calm Leonardo down, but it didn’t work at all and Usagi was always more about talking than acting. The character was just irritating whenever he’d appear.

That was a lot of characters eh? Well, now lets look at the show as a whole. The first season really started the show off on a strong note and you could make a strong case for it being the best season. Shredder Strikes Back, Return to New York, and The Shredder Strikes were all fantastic multi part events. I dare say that Shredder Strikes Back Part 1 is the definitive episode from the entire series. It’s my personal favorite because just about the whole episode is one large fight and it shows why Leonardo is the leader of the gang. I don’t believe that any of the other 3 Turtles would have been able to last very long here.

The next season started off with the weakest big event of the series. The intergalactic space war just wasn’t very interesting and since it was 5 whole episodes…it dragged on a great deal. Luckily, the season picked up again once they made it back home since we got to see more of Bishop and the Shredder. This season spent a lot of time with the Tournament at the end and had a good amount of stand alone episodes as well. It had less stand out episodes than season 1, but when you consider the consistent quality of the show, it’s not as if it was much of a change. Season 1 was more epic, but you could really appreciate season 2 because of how the tight continuity kept expanding the show.

Season 3 is probably the weakest season. Granted, you can have a very different experience when actually watching the episodes as opposed to remembering them from afar. That being said, the only 5-6 episodes were about the Space Invaders once again and that had to be the worst plot. Let me explain why this plot just didn’t work. I didn’t really care about the Dinosaurs or the resistance organization that they were fighting. I just wanted the Turtles to head back to Earth so they could have some good hand to hand fights with the villains. That’s really all that I wanted and this space business just didn’t do it for me. The villains simply weren’t as interesting as the Foot or even dare I say, the Purple Dragons. We did get a pretty nice climax where Shredder, Bishop, and the Aliens all got to play their final gambit. Bishop once again got the last laugh I’d say, but all of the characters got a good amount of hype there. Usagi got to appear here so that was too bad though.

Season 4 was pretty exciting. For starters, this season changed the status quo much more than any other previous season. Leonardo blamed himself for what happened on the fated missile and became a hot head like Raphael. He was more dark and brooding and stopped being the calm and collected leader that he used to be. This made for a lot of great dialogue and it also helped Leonardo keep his place at the top of the food chain. While later seasons started to mess up the power levels a bit, this one could not since it was a part of the plot. The final episode of the season was especially exciting as it directly led into the next big adventure with Tengu Shredder. It was a really bold and epic way to close out the season. This saga also had Leonardo infiltrate the Foot headquarters and basically beat up every single person there. These were the kind of highlights that were lacking in season 3.

Season 5 took a very different approach to the show and it worked well. While the first four seasons were your standard action adventure, I dare say that season 5 was more like an anime. The Turtles had to come together to stop an evil menace and to do this, they would have to learn how to wield super powers. Michelangelo got some great speed and really won out here since his ability was the only one that was lethally dangerous from the get go. The others also got some useful abilities and from there they worked to stop Tengu Shredder. They may not have had a lot of luck in the end since the Tribunal was overwhelmed, but the whole season had a feeling of danger and unease. Something was always happening here and it certainly had the fastest pacing out of all the seasons. Of course, at 12 episodes that was probably a given. Even the 12 episodes part seems like a homage to anime in general. Everyone suddenly got so crazy powerful and the fights were so good that this season really could have been a contender for the best in another title. As it stands, the short length does keep it back ever so gently.

Season 6 brought another twist to the show. It was the Fast Forward season and took a more toyetic approach to the show. It suddenly felt more like a Saturday Morning Cartoon and as such, every character suddenly had futuristic equipment at their disposal. It was a radical switch as the entire cast was switched out for a new one with the exclusion of the main 4 turtles. I thought it was fun enough. On its own, it was still good enough to get a 7, but you couldn’t really compare it to the older seasons. It was fun, but not as epic or action packed as what had come before. The Bounty Hunter Zixx was a decent addition to the cast though. He always had the upper hand on the turtles and was good at getting people to lower their guards.

Finally, we have the Back to the Sewers season. The appeal of this last installment was obvious as the Turtles finally got to go home and relax. Unfortunately, duty called as Splinter was split across the Digital World and Cyber Shredder wanted to break out of there and head to the real world. The Turtles had to move fast and activate all of their Tron gear in order to escape. Because of this, it still had some Fast Forward elements while bringing back the old cast. It was like a fusion of the two and it was a fun enough season. The new designs may have taken a bit of getting used too, but they were still pretty solid. I definitely preferred the old ones as they made for far better fights, but this will still beat most of the modern animated titles.

At 7 seasons long, the show had a lot of time to introduce characters and get you used to the lore. This is part of what made the series so successful. There were a lot of hypothetical match ups that you could spend time thinking about since they hadn’t happened in the show yet. I really wanted to see Shredder fight Bishop or to have any of those two go up against the Justice Force. The two aspects of the show rarely ever met up which is a shame, but I like to think that the series was saving that just in case it ever wanted to do a really big crossover episode. To an extent, the rocket finale was the closest that we got, but I wanted more.

TMNT lasted long enough where the show got to try out a bunch of different genres and we had a lot of action scenes. IT’s worth mentioning that even episodes without a big villain or a lot of fights could still be good because of the solid writing. It was just a well written show and the characters were portrayed in an accurate fashion. My only gripe was the noticeable lack of pizza in the show. TMNT goes hand in hand with pizza. That’s how it is and that’s how it’s always been. I’m sure that the show could have included pizza in more scenes if they wanted to do so. It just makes sense to add that into a Ninja Turtles show. Still, it’s a relatively minor complaint in the grand scheme of things.

One of the best parts of TMNT was definitely the soundtrack. It had a lot of really great tunes and these were themes that you could only hear in the 90’s. As one of the only 90’s shows that I had barely watched from the action genre, this show brought about a lot of nostalgia. I really do miss this style and just watching one episode will remind you of what you are missing. Naturally, the animation is also very sharp. The designs are very wholesome and you can feel every blow during the fights. The impacts had power. The animation style switched a bit towards and the end and it was definitely a step down. It still looked better than the current ninja turtles show, but the glory days were long gone by then. Luckily, that was at the very end so pretty much all of the really epic Shredder episodes had already aired. The show has a similar feel to other big cartoons like Justice League and not only does it age well, but it clobbers a lot of the currently airing shows.

I’m not even typically a huge TMNT fan, but the show was just really solid. Even if you may not have thought the characters were great before, they are solid in this show. A good show can do wonders for a franchise and this show is evidence of that. The recent movies certainly haven’t helped and the current TMNT show looks rather choppy. I’d definitely take another season or this title over that. After all, an element that this show has over those is its tight continuity. You could actually compare it to something like Young Justice as it keeps building and building off of its plot lines. Everything is connected and the more episodes you watch, the more all of the plots start to intertwine. It makes everything feel that much more important. For example, the illuminati guys started showing up very early on in the series and the show kept you guessing as to their true identities for a very long time. While the twist on who they actually were was a little underwhelming, it was always awesome to see those guys apear. They were strong, mysterious, and had everything that you could want in a shadow group who operates behind the scenes.

Overall, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a great show. It’s one of the lost gems of a legendary era for television and I finally got to check it out from start to finish. It had quite a lot of episodes and a high amount of replay value so it’s the kind of show where you can easily re-watch some episodes of at any point. I’d highly recommend this to any blog reader who hasn’t checked it out yet. I don’t expect any of the other Ninja Turtle shows to match this one. From what I’ve seen of the only others, it’s not even a close fight. This one simply can’t be topped and that means that the 90’s (Well, technically early 2000s, but it feels like the 90s so I may as well stick with that) has scored another big win! If I ever do watch another TMNT show to completion, I’ll try not to constantly compare it to this one every episode, but it’ll be tough.

Overall 8/10

Attack on Titan: The Harsh Mistress of the City Review

Posted on January 18, 2017 by dreager1

There are some series that can start out on a high note and keep that level of quality intact. Look at the Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. It has the super emotional song from the first film, but still managed to get by just fine in the sequels without it. That’s because the writing and characters were on point. Other titles like Skip Beat can start out decently interesting and go into the gutter. It’s not about how you start a race, but how you finish it. That’s true in life, cooking, platformers, pie eating contests, and anything else that is worth your while. This novel may have started out to be pretty good and a contender for best novel in the franchise, but crashed and burned in the second half. The title should have been a giveaway I suppose.

The plot of the book takes place in a small little town in the Titan World. The bridge collapsed so everyone is kinda sorta trapped in the town. They can go outside though so I guess they aren’t really trapped at all. I don’t know exactly how the layout is since it doesn’t make much sense, but essentially all of the other villages have left them for dead. All of Rita’s bosses end up getting bumped off so she is suddenly the leader of the military. She goes from being a really nice person to a corrupt dictator and decides that the only way to give the people peace is to murder them and anyone who falls out of line or looks at her the wrong way is subject to death. She will destroy anyone who defies her wish of a Utopia!

Meanwhile, Mathias is the other main character. He was a rich guy who never had to work for anything and was ignorant of the ways of the commoner. He was good friends with Rita, but he ended up murdering her other best friend so he had to go into hiding. He must now find a way to take her down and considers that he may have to use lethal methods. Friendship and camaraderie is thrown to the winds in this tale as everyone does what they feel they have too. Things get a lot worse before they get better and they never really get better so just focus on the first part.

This adventure is two novels long and the first one was actually pretty decent. It was a fun enough tale about Rita and Mathias and how they lived very different lives, but did their best to connect with each other. It wasn’t a bleak and gritty story the way that most Titan adventures were and it was cool to just have a happy scene for once. It figures that this wouldn’t last right? The story started to get a little more grim as Mathias made a deal with some bandits to rob his father in exchange for getting him to the town where Rita was trapped. It didn’t go very well so the bandits murder a bunch of soldiers and then Mathias panicked so he blew up one of the young workers who was helping Rita. He panicked again after that and ran off. This basically happened in the final pages of the first book so it was quite a downer.

The second novel is where it really goes off the rails though. Rita was apparently traumatized after seeing her best friend murder her other friend so she decided to go down a dark path. She forces people to get eaten by the Titan she planted in the city and tortures others until they get her some intel. Nobody is safe now and she murders her father and is prepared to do the same to Mathias if she can find him as well as her best friend Amanda. The novel shows us in great detail just how insane she has become. It gets about as bad as the main Titan series in that regard and there’s no way she can come back from this.

This is why the ending of the book is rather hard to swallow. The author suddenly tries to make her sympathetic as she was only trying to help and she’ll be a nicer person now. She has this 180 character development in the span of 2-3 pages as Titans attack the city and suddenly we’re supposed to see her as a nice person again. Mathias also forgives her for murdering everyone and putting the townspeople in jeopardy every day since it just doesn’t matter now. Never mind the fact that one of Mathias’ main allies was poisoned to death right in front of him on Rita’s orders. She may claim that it was for the greater good, but she stepped well over the line of vigilantism and became an evil villain during this book. It was far more extreme than the book and characters acknowledge afterwards and it was just puzzling the whole time. It was an even more drastic character arc than Shu’s from Guilty Crown and that’s pretty scary. It may not be in Black Butler levels quite yet, but Rita is easily one of the most evil main characters that I’ve ever seen.

It goes without saying that I didn’t like her. Regardless of how good she was in volume 1, she nullified it all in the sequel. I didn’t care for Mathias either as there is no way he should have panicked so much upon seeing the scout and he handled the situation as badly as possible. It was hard to take him seriously as the rebel leader since he was always terrified of everyone and got tricked so many times. He was just annoying to see. The rebels were also a bit much as they were all too overconfident and full of themselves even though they could never do all that much when it came time to fight. The super hyped leader of the Rebels went down in the worst way possible as his drinking habits finally got to him and poison ended his career. You’d think that he would have been a little smarter about something like that.

In the end, the only real good character was Amanda. Even she was a little fishy as she took forever to make a move and just allowed people to be tortured and eaten. At least she did something about it though. She also got a lot of hype as being the best fighter in the squad, but naturally once she turned good, Amanda was surpassed by Rita. So much for the hype eh? She still put up a good fight though and was probably the only character who actually stayed true to herself. Again, the book kind of glossed over the fact that Rita was so evil in the end as she gets Amanda back her gear and they team up again. It just shouldn’t be so smooth. If anything, I think the ending should have kept Rita as a villain, it certainly makes more sense than suddenly making her a hero again.

Even the ending doesn’t offer much hope though as the heroes lost their town to the Titans. Their plan is to head to the next town, but they already know for a fact that the Town doesn’t want them and will attempt to slay the group. It’ll come down to yet another fight and that should give the Titans an opening to move in and take them all down. It’s Attack on Titan though so you should never expect anything even remotely happy for the conclusion.

Overall, What started as potentially the best Titan novel ended up being the worst one. It’s why I always say that you can’t really tell these things ahead of time. A whole novel (or 2 in this case) is more than enough time for a story to turn rotten. You won’t even recognize the characters by the end as they could basically be other people. In the end, what really destroyed the book was that it was way too dark and violent. If you thought the other novels were gritty, this one is far more intense. The novel could have made Rita’s character transformation a little less drastic and it would have worked a lot better. There’s no good reason for her to become a full fledged mass murderer. She should have just gotten more obsessed about the rules and we could have had the town be under a curfew with a lot of punishments handed out every day. The situation didn’t need to jump all the way to 10 so suddenly. Had the book showed some restraint, it would have been a lot better and glossing it over so much at the end didn’t help either. If you want a good Attack on Titan novel, I suggest checking out Before The Fall. It’s the only good one at the moment and shows you what Titan novels should be like.

Overall 1/10

Lego DC Comics Super Heroes: Justice League: Cosmic Clash Review

Posted on January 14, 2017 by dreager1

It’s time for another Lego Justice League Adventure! This one is quite a step down from the last one, but lets be honest…how could it possibly have topped that one? The last one was near perfection and the series had been hitting it on all cylinders. It makes sense that it would have to slow down at some point and this was that moment. The film may not be all that long, but it didn’t feel that way and several parts slowed it down. Unfortunately, the film lost its identity, but I believe it will find it again.

Brainiac is coming to Earth and the heroes may not be able to stop him this time. This being has conquered many planets before and Earth is just to be another stepping stone for him. To ensure that the Justice League do not interfere, Brainiac erases their memories and sends them into the distant path. Specifically, he does this to Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, and Superman since they are the League’s heavy hitters. Batman must don the cape once more (Well, fine he already had the cape) and travel back in time to restore their memories and then come back to finish off Brainiac. Can the other members buy him some time along with the new recruit: Supergirl, or is humanity already doomed?

The film starts off very strong with the Justice League taking care of business as usual. The way that they handled the invasion was very on point and while Batman may not have been invited for hide and seek…at least the heroes were apologetic about it. I can see their side of the story as well since there is no reason for them to expect that Batman would have wanted a piece of the action right? These films are always at their best when the League is around since the banter between them is always solid.

You all know that Lego Animation isn’t my favorite so the film can’t rely on its animation to get it through to a solid score. The writing and soundtrack have to be on point. While the music isn’t quite as dynamic as some of the other films, it’s still pretty solid as it should be. What helps to make the film pretty good is that the writing is mostly good. This is also what brings it down from past films. The writing is excellent with the main Justice League members. They all look pretty great and Batman steals the show as expected. His voice actor does a tremendous job in the role and the character just has all of the best moments. Unfortunately, the writing falters with Brainiac and Supergirl. I feel like the film overplayed its hand with those two.

Supergirl’s personality is a little different than usual as she’s all about being a cheer leader and constantly cheers throughout the film. “Give me a D and an O and O and M” for example as she keeps on punching out villains and this gets old the very first time that she did it. As she continues on and on…it just doesn’t help matters. I can’t say that I really liked her in this film and she joins Cyborg as a member of the team who doesn’t really feel like she’s there yet. It was a fun in joke though as Cyborg was basically cut off during his big montage moment by the others. All of the main Leaguers got their own big moment inspired by the animated Justice League’s intro, but Cyborg had to share with someone and it only lasted for an instant. I forgot who he had to share with though.

As for Brainiac, he’s maybe a little too silly at times. His dialogue isn’t crafty and subtlety funny like the League members and just goes for more of the obvious jokes. His banter with the other Brainiacs is cool though and managing to see through their ruse was actually pretty impressive. I guess we know why he is the brains of the operation right? He can’t fight the others in hand to hand combat, but he had a lot of robots to make for a bit of a climax. His plan was good at any rate since erasing the memories of the heroes was basically fool proof. It’s just that Batman exists so no plan is ever completely fool proof.

As for the Batman plot, I only liked one out of the three time travel adventures. Wonder Woman’s will be clear as to why I didn’t like it. Batman warps back to the Caveman era so the locale is pretty bad and I don’t care for everyone speaking like a Caveman. It was interesting to see Wonder Woman show her true colors and murder all of the men though. They were asking for it so I won’t really object. Luckily Batman was around to set things straight. Green Lantern’s also dragged on, but not nearly as much. I did like how they incorporated the meme of Batman riding a shark and he just acted pretty hardcore the whole time. I’m not sure about Batman being caught so easily though. The pirates should have been thoroughly outclassed. These two segments are what held down the film to an extent, but at least the final segment helped to make up for it.

Batman winds up in an apocalyptic future that will remind you of Future’s End. Superman is now working for Brainiac so Batman must take him down yet again to prove once and for all who the strongest crime fighter is. Batman won’t even resort to Kryponite because deep down…he’s never needed it! It’s a pretty intense fight and we even have the Legion of Superheroes show up. This was definitely a fun part of the film and I’m always eager to see Batman and Superman go at it. It’s a match-up that never gets old and seeing as how they’re the best characters in all of DC Comics, it’s easy to see why.

If anything, I’d just like to see more of the League next time. When I mentioned that the film lost its identity, it’s that the plot just wasn’t worth it. Having the League sent to different eras ensured that we couldn’t see the whole team for very long. It meant that we only had the D listers in the main plot as Batman tried to gather up everyone in the B Plot. The film is at its best when the League is bantering and making fun of the villains as they humiliate them. We didn’t get much of a chance of that here, but at least we did learn that while Superman is one of the greatest Hide and Seek players, Batman is the best. Just about all of the really funny moments involve Batman, Superman, or the League as a whole. Removing that aspect also ensures that you’re removing a critical piece of the film.

Overall, This is still a solid film though and one that I’d recommend. Other titles like Teen Titans GO can learn a thing or two from this one on how to do humor effectively. Specifically, look at Batman. I can’t stress enough just how good he is and this is one of those cases where he is even better than Superman. Batman gets all of the best lines and character development as well as some of the best action scenes. He’s always got a good plan even if nobody ever listens to him. I don’t know where the League would be without him, but it’s safe to say that the group wouldn’t be nearly as potent. I look forward to seeing which Lego Justice League film comes out next. It’s a series that I hope doesn’t end anytime soon as there are still many stories to tell.

Overall 7/10

Little Battlers eXperience Wars Review

Posted on January 9, 2017 by dreager1

It’s time for the next and final series of LBX or Danball Senki. Whichever title you prefer to use for the series, it can’t be denied that it is one of the best franchises out there. Each season was consistently great and you could compare the franchise to other big names like Yugioh and Cardfight. LBX’s score range is currently 8-9, Yugioh, (8-9 excluding Capsule Monsters) Cardfight, (7-9) and that’s about it for series where I’ve seen a bunch of seasons. I could add Transformers and Slayers, but their scores aren’t quite as impressive. I am tempted to make an anime section where I divide them all by scores, but that’s a bit of a time consuming project so I’ll let it be for now. While this season of LBX doesn’t quite surpass the last one, it’s still absolutely great and I highly recommend it.

The series seems to take place a few years after the last one. The governments of the world decided to place a school on an isolated island. This school is used to fight mock wars in place of real ones where the outcomes of these battles have real world consequences. As such, each country selects the most promising students to represent them. Sena is selected and he is super excited to have gotten into this prestigious institution. He is teamed with Hikaru, Haruki, and the mechanic. They have to do their team justice and win as many battles as possible. Still, it’s a little sad that they have to crush other countries in the process right? The heroes begin to grow doubtful as to whether they are doing the right thing or not…but what can they do about it?

First off, I do have to admit that the premise is completely unbelievable right from the get go. I won’t go as far as to say that it insults our intelligence for the show to insinuate that it’s possible, but it makes every government look completely inept. Lets put this into perspective. Instead of America running into Europe and taking it over, they’ll have their kids attack the European kids in the school through the mock LBX fights. (In case you’re not familiar with the franchise, LBX robots are basically mini machines that can fight through virtual reality controls. They are quite dangerous and fight in a secure containment field as a result, but are still more dangerous than the average rocket launcher. If the main kids win and claim the territory, then the same thing happens over in the real world.

How is this logistically possible? Do soldiers just come in and tell everyone to vacate the premise? Do the countries that lose these fake battles actually accept them? That’s the main problem with the system. Lets say America lost New York in the video game battles, I could see them just laughing and telling the other country to take it by force. Considering that we lost no actual soldiers in the fight, there is no reason to actually honor the deal. There is another thing to consider here…cheating. This actually becomes a big part of the show towards the second half and it’s a possibility that should have been considered when the idea was first brought up.

The main villain is Kreisler and he acts as a terrorist, bringing along a bunch of traitors from the other countries. They just go around blowing everything up and taking over cities. They don’t play by the rules and this tips the scales quite a lot. The virtual equivalent of Russia had been winning throughout the series, but lost about 80% of their forces due to these attacks. How does the real Russia feel about this? Their virtual counterpart is now a lot weaker even though their physical country is still the strongest. This is why the game just had way too many limits and the villain was right about this.

Kreisler’s main objective was to end the mock wars as he believed that they solved nothing. They simply gave off the illusion of peace, but one that could not last. I don’t see how the game lasted this long anyway though. The government even locked the creator inside of the main engine so he could keep it running through his brainwaves indefinitely. Not a very heroic move eh? Following this, which government is in control of this? Throughout the whole series, the teachers and the principals can’t make a move because the “controllers” forbade them to do anything. The problem is that it turns out that these guys were with the villain all along. I don’t know who signed off on this rigged system, but it wasn’t a good move. The villains end up taking the Prime Minister (Or his foreign equivalent) hostage at gunpoint, but this was another odd scene. How did they get past the guards and why did this plot point never show up again? It was rather odd.

I could go on for days about how the whole plot of the show makes absolutely no sense, but you get what I’m saying. No need to drone on about it and if you have any theories as to how this could make sense or any input in general, feel free to let me know. As I already mentioned, the show is brilliant overall so lets talk about why it was so good. For starters, the show takes on a very different approach and tone than the first seasons. It feels completely different and plays out a bit more like a shonen than the last few. The new locale actually worked out quite well and I liked the visuals for their new training environment. The team based strategies for the battles were also fun although 1 vs 1 is still the best.

The main cast was interesting from the get go. Haruki may have been a bit bland, but Sena was the typical hard working hero that you can always root for. Hikaru was a champion of LBX tournament fighting so he already had a lot of experience even if he still had a lot to learn. Having all of the countries hang out for lunch break added some intrigue and tension since there could always be traitors or people listening in on your conversations. You even had real currency that you would use for every day activities and if you didn’t budget well, you’d go hungry. Finally, you couldn’t afford to lose your LBX at any time. If it was ever broken, you would instantly be escorted off of the island and would be labeled as dead inside of the game. You could retreat with injuries before being completely destroyed and many characters had to use this.

It comes as no surprise that the show had an excellent animation budget. The visuals were top notch throughout and there was constant action. You could expect a big fight in just about every episode and some fights would go on for quite a while. The power levels did start to be an issue by the end though. The problem is that the show kept trying to make the next villain even stronger over and over again to the point where they just ran out of power scaling. It makes for great visuals since they move so fast that everything becomes a blur, but the side characters shouldn’t be able to do anything by the end if the main characters are as strong as they appear. I think the power levels were better than in W though so they certainly have improved. By the end, the only real contenders for the title of the strongest are Sena, Kreisler, and Itan. The rest get left in the dust by a wide margin.

Accompanying the great graphics are a stellar soundtrack. This show had quite a lot of epic tunes and the music helped to build up hype for future scenes and to also amplify the battle scenes. The openings may have been not quite as epic as W overall, but I really did like one of the theme songs for Wars. I forgot if it was the 2nd or third one, but it was really sharp. On a technical level, LBX certainly did not disappoint and when you add that to the cast and the story, it comes as no surprise that the show was so great.

Sena is a great main character and there’s really no reason not to love him. He’s hot headed and always ready for a fight. While Sena is super eager, he never gets full of himself or arrogant. He’s just a really nice guy who likes LBX battles and he always does what he thinks is the right thing even if it breaks the rules. He’s a friend that you can count on to have your back and you can be sure that he’ll always give it 100%. He doesn’t back down to Hikaru and if anything, the only mistake that Sena makes is not using his special abilities whenever he can. Sena can move his robot at super speed through the same power that Hiro had in W. Only Kreisler and Itan also had this ability and you can see why they were the strongest. Without it, there is literally no way that you can win since you move in slow motion next to them.

Hikaru is the main rival of the series although you can throw Muraku in there as well. While he had great success in the tournaments, apparently it doesn’t always translate well to team battles. I don’t really buy this logic or at least not how it was implemented, but he still did good for the most part. He stayed neck and neck with Sena until the series was almost over and I really liked the design of his LBX. Hikaru was a good character and he definitely went through a lot. The villains sabotaged his capsule which nearly destroyed him and did traumatize him for a few episodes. Hikaru recovered, but it certainly made the game a little scarier than it ever would be for the others.

Muraku starts out as the first major villain, but he’s always been about honor. He gets along pretty well with Sena and while he did destroy many of Sena’s teammates over the years, it’s not as if they’re dead in real life. You should be going all out in the game and I think that’s why Sena didn’t hold it against Muraku at all. Muraku’s very skilled and is certainly one of the best operators in the game, it’s just a shame that he never got the super power. He is heavily outmatched by the end, but his fights with Sena are still some of the best in the series. Muraku’s a solid rival and one of the more interesting figures in the show.

Now let’s talk about the captains of Sena’s army. These captains are: Kaito, Catherine, Rikuya, Gendou, and Haruki. Kaito has a pretty high opinion of himself even if he isn’t that strong. His LBX just never seemed all that special and he never got a big fight to himself. He likes telling the others what they can’t do and stealing the glory whenever possible, but Kaito never earns it. He’s definitely not a very likable platoon leader. Catherine is pretty good and at least she is usually ready for a fight. She’s also not quite as tough as her banter though and desperately needed a power up throughout the series.

Rikuya is pretty important to the plot in the second half as the villains want a program inside of his mech, but he doesn’t do a great job of protecting it. He also keeps to himself a lot more than he should, which gets others to think that he’s a bad guy. He may as well be though as he gets quite a lot of people expelled from school. It was their mission though so I like to think that the government took good care of them. Gendou is a character who got a lot of hype, but ended up not doing a thing either. The show would constantly zoom the camera in on him or have everyone get worried when he’d just stare. Unfortunately, he actually wasn’t that tough or heroic. He quickly said that his group should keep the super lab even though Sena’s team put in the most effort. LBX always loves to have a character get hyped all season to no avail though so I guess it’s to be expected.

Finally, Haruki is one of the leaders and he’s actually a main character so he gets a big role. He once led his squad to complete defeat against Muraku and they were all expelled. This causes him to be a lot more cautious this time around, but that’s not a strategy that Sena and Hikaru are going to follow. They like the direct approach and I can’t really blame them when they are always way stronger than the villains. Without plot hax, a frontal assault should always be the tactic of choice for the heroes. Haruki gradually opens up and helps the heroes more. He’s a good character by the end even if he’s naturally not as charismatic as Sena or Hikaru.

Sakuya is the mechanic and he’s probably the most annoying character of the bunch. He can’t fight so he just watches (The show says that he can fight, but he retired so that’s the end of that) and fixes the mechs between battles. Honestly, that sounds a little boring and I don’t know how Sakuya doesn’t get tired of it. He’s not quite as reasonable as the others and is quick to get upset when the other characters don’t play by the rules. His episodes can’t really hold their own and his romance was also pretty bad. This guy deserves to stay in as a secondary character. Yuno was a heroine who hung out with the main group a lot despite being in another division. She never really did all that much, but she inherited a mech from one of the main characters so that gave her a pretty big power boost. She’s a nice enough character and she did save Sena at one point. Yuno’s a loyal friend at any rate and a good member of the cast. There were a lot of other supporting characters in the show who were around, but not quite enough to be mentioned. Yuno was more prevalent than them, but not quite as much as the main characters so she’s in an interesting position.

Mito is the squad’s teacher and she has a personal stake in all of this. While she teaches by day, she searches for her father by night. She is pretty strict and by the books the whole time so she never gets quite as interesting as the others. Furthermore, she doesn’t handle the situation very well at all once the stakes are high and even faints at one point. I’d expect a little more determination considering that she wants to find her father.

Finally, we’re at the two big villains. Kreisler is the final boss and shows up with his seriously overpowered mech at the end. It basically can’t be damaged and it’s so fast that the mere thought of getting hit is out of the question anyway. He completely outclasses Itan as well as Sena during their fight. This also gives us some more brilliant battles as Itan and Sena even team up at one point while still not being able to claim the win. Kreisler was definitely a very good villain and at least he wasn’t completely loony. I also liked that he had a contingency plan for just about everything. Even while the guards were leading him off the premises when they finally caught him, Kreisler was ready. His submarine appeared out of nowhere with all of his armed troops and that was the end of that. It was really hard to keep this guy down and the show certainly got even more interesting once he showed up.

While Itan was not the final boss, he was certainly a major villain and probably had the biggest role of them all. I always felt bad for his teeth though. He always held onto a lollypop to suck on, but would end up crunching it accidentally when he got some bad news or got too stressed about something. The sudden crunch would always startle you and he would still go for another one. Lollypop aside, Itan was definitely solid. He didn’t give up like the rank and file and even after being betrayed, he vowed revenge. He lasted quite a while as he kept dodging the cops and he did his best to get back at Kreisler. He was an exceptional fighter and the fact that he could fight Sena on equal grounds is quite telling. Almost no other character can say that and he was also fun to root for. He’s probably the second best character in the series behind Sena, although Hikaru is quite close at third. I’d probably have Muraku at 4th and Kreisler at 5th. As I said, it’s a solid cast and they’re all pretty high.

One slight disappointment was that the old characters didn’t get to do anything. The big heroes like Ban/Van are mentioned and acknowledged, but they never get to appear. They get a lot of hype, but I was hoping that they’d show up to stop the main villains. After all, they do work for the government and are LBX experts, you’d think that they would have been called immediately. Jin shows up quite a lot towards the end, but he never joins in on the fights and just watches the whole time. That was a big missed opportunity and I can understand that sometimes writers want the season to stand on its own, but then why add Jin in the first place? It’s like a tease to something that will never occur so it’s better left forgotten.

I also can’t stress enough how impressive it was for the show to have constant action all the time while still introducing more and more villains. The fights started off very grounded, but gradually got as fantastic as you can imagine. Sena also got quite a few excellent rage moments where he utilized his LBX to the fullest and took care of the villains. You’ll get very invested into the show right from the get go and it never falters from there. The writing is always on point and I don’t expect that we’ll ever see another show quite like this one. It’s a shame that LBX had to end. Hopefully another long running mecha show can fill the void for this one someday, but until then at least I have the LBX game to help me remember this. The show isn’t even all that popular as finding images for this review was tough for a while. We need more people to spread the word and it all starts with this review!

Overall, LBX Wars is definitely one of the best anime out there. The visuals are absolutely amazing and the screen caps can’t do it justice. Its decently long length will ensure that you don’t breeze through it too quickly and also gives it time to develop the characters and have a lot of things happen. There are a lot of big twists even if you’ll figure out some of them way before the characters and there are a lot of enemies to defeat. The show takes quite a lot of turns by the time you’re done with it and you’ll have to decide what you think the heroes should do. Fight and possibly allow the system to control you or stay back in an attempt of defiance, but it could be futile if nobody joins you and the villains may end up achieving their true objective. There are a lot of tough calls to make here, but Sena is always ready. If you haven’t checked this show out yet, then it’s not too late. You can still make your move now before they announce a big Hollywood film that will adapt it all!

Overall 9/10

Cardfight Vanguard G GIRS Crisis Review

Posted on January 5, 2017 by dreager1

I had finished this review up by the time that GIRS Crisis had finished, but the episode count kept on going so I decided to keep the next season under the same review. I already had the review done though so I decided to keep it instead of scrapping it. As a result, the first half is essentially still a review of the G season with its own rating. I’ll just add onto it once the next season is finished and then add the final rating. Think of this like a doubleheader review!

It’s time to take a look at the big Cardfight G sequel. This is what G had been setting up for after all. To an extent, this season is also mostly set up as well, but the plot does begin to start up. Think of this as the second film in a trilogy where the villain finally makes a move so more heroes are called in to come up with a plan. The big confrontation hasn’t happened yet, that will be for the third season. The main draw for GIRS Crisis is that the heroes have finally acknowledged that they can’t win on their own so pretty much the whole cast from the older seasons return. The crossover appeal is always strong and we get to see how Try3 handles the likes of fighters like Q4, Dreadnaught, Asteroid, etc. This season is a big improvement from the last one as it keeps all of the positive things from G and throws in more hype moments.

Chrono and friends may have stopped Kanzaki, but the hunt for the Depend Cards is still on. Chrono has 3-4 of them in his possession and he can only awaken them through strong emotions. He must engage in powerful duels to do this so he decides to enter the G quest with his team. They will need to conquer 6 areas to get enough points to be known as Generation Masters. Chrono will use this to learn what he wants to do with his life. Shion has been in a difficult situation as well. After losing to the mysterious fighter known as Ace, his family was thrown out of his company. Shion went from being very rich to barely scraping by and his parents had to move away. Shion wants to get revenge and to exonerate his family. He is entering the G quests to get closer to Ace and also just to keep up appearances. Tokoha has decided to go aboard so her goals are set. As a result, she can enter the G quest with a clear mind.

Meanwhile, the GIRS Crisis has begun. A mysterious man named Myoujin has started to summon monsters from Planet Cray to the real world as slaves. They will be his personal army for some kind of master plan. Kouji has started amassing a group of skilled cardfighters of his own to counter this. Mainly, his group consists of the best and brightest Cardfighters from the original series. To determine if Chrono and his friends are up for this task, they decide to test them through and G Quests and Cardfights. Can they prevent Myoujin from summoning his final units and bringing the world to ruin?

As you can tell just from the summary, things are really happening now. In a sense, the filler episodes now are the ones where the heroes go through the G quests, but those are technically important. Not to mention that they are all tournaments in one shape or form and those are always hype. You know a series is doing well when the tournament matches aren’t always the hype moments. Also, the tournament sagas are always the crossover episodes as Chrono’s team duels with the likes of of Ren, Leon, Kai, Kamui, and other big shots. Each tournament is definitely great.

As for the non tournament episodes, those typically follow the trials that the heroes are facing individually. For example, Shion decides to gather information on Ace the old fashioned way. He beats up a lot of thugs and keeps on breaking into strongholds until he gets the answers that he is looking for. He starts to get a little unhinged and Kai also takes him down a few pegs to remind Shion why he is doing all of this in the first place. Kai helps Shion shed his former self and just start from scratch. His riches are gone so Shion has to adapt or fail. Shion does a great job and I don’t mind him getting into a slump again because it is for good reason. Anyone who goes from being insanely rich to losing it all in a day would be crushed. Not to mention the fact that you know it was all your fault because you lost a duel when everything was on the line. Shion gets back up and is poised to be a much better character than he was. I already liked him in season 1, but I can safely say that he is much better now. His upcoming fight against Ace is definitely going to be great. They’ve both taken a win so the next and probably final encounter between the two is surely going to be something great.

With the black coat that he inherited from Kai, Shion’s also able to pull off this new personality quite well. He’s suddenly become the “expert” of the group and you could argue that he may have surpassed Chrono. I’m tempted to say that Chrono’s still the best since he keeps dispatching incredibly strong Card Fighters, but I feel like Shion should definitely be the strongest after all of the training he’s gone through. He’s been put through the ringer, but these tough scenarios have only made him stronger.

As for Chrono, he’s heading into a dangerous spot now. Being Miyoujin’s adversary can be fatal if he truly did have something to do with his Chrono’s father’s accident. Chrono warns his friends as well, but he had to deal with a more personal ally. His mother was never thrilled about Chrono starting to Card fight and lets him know that she’d rather he doesn’t do this. Shin backs her up and challenges Chrono to another serious duel. It’s a tough battle, but Chrono decides that he has to go further and his Mom ultimately gives him her support. It can definitely be tough letting someone know that you’re about to go into an extremely dangerous situation, but it is the right thing to do and Chrono knows it. Now that Chrono’s sure of himself it’s been good to see him just get set in his duels without having to worry about anything. He can really go all out at this point and he continues to be a strong lead character.

Tokoha doesn’t really have any more trials left at the moment. She wondered briefly about what she should do in the future, but after deciding on her goal that was basically it. As a result, she’s sure of herself in the duels pretty much from the get go. One source of drama may be coming up though once she found out about Ace’s plot twist. I don’t think that she’s handling it very well, but I suppose it is good to have an optimistic approach. She just needs to be careful not to let it become a liability and endanger the team. That’s where you have to draw the line.

Kamui returns as a regular once again. He even gets his own episode where he attacks an enemy strong hold. It was one of the big plot episodes so it was cool to see Kamui getting such a big role. He did good when it counted. His duel with Chrono was particularly intense as he did all that he could to win. If he won, then Chrono would not be allowed to join them to fight Miyoujin. Kamui doesn’t want to put Chrono in danger so that’s why he has to win. Yes it is a bit of a selfish wish since Chrono has decides to fight on his own, but it is one that I can definitely get behind. After all, who doesn’t want to keep their friends out of trouble? Kamui had to watch Aichi and Kai go through a lot of trials and even turn evil during them. It makes sense that he would do everything that he could to stop that from happening a third time. Plus, he was just trying to win. He didn’t try to do anything crazy like kidnap Chrono the way that Chris tried to nab Sonic in Sonic X. Kamui may be around a lot so it can be easy to underrate him, but as he showed in this series, he is still one of the best.

Kouji’s role is surprisingly small in this one. He doesn’t have a whole lot to do here, but he is technically the mastermind behind Plan G so that is a good enough role I suppose. He has embraced his role as another mentor figure to Chrono so there is no case of mistaken identity this time. He is still not as cool as he could be though. There is just something about him that I can’t take seriously. I dunno what it us, but at least he isn’t a bad character though.

Kai is pretty epic as per usual though. He is the hardcore rival that I remember and he managed to take down Shion rather easily. Seeing him take Shion down numerous times was definitely impressive and awesome. He still proved that he is still a nice guy as well though as he did all of that to help Shion get out of his situation. Kai has always been good at encouraging people after all. He is great and still my favorite character. Having him back as a main supporting character is definitely going to be awesome and nostalgic. The other guest stars are cool as well, but their roles are a lot smaller. Ren and Leon are among the big characters who show up.

The only problem with these guest stars is that they are a little underpowered to make the new fighters look better. For example, Chrono actually manages to defeat Ren and Leon. I don’t really think he should be portrayed as quite that powerful at this point. Kai lost to Shion as well. I get that they’ve got to hype the main characters up, but it goes a little far. Still, it was awesome to see the old cast and the crossover factor was handled really well in G. I look forward to all of them getting serious fights soon the way that Kamui did.

Luna is the new beginner of the show. She’s a pop idol, but she wants to learn how to play Cardfight so she can duel with her friend Am. Luna has improved quite a bit. She’s not a big threat just yet, but dueling a lot always helps out and she’s at the point where she is no longer a novice. She really wants to be friends with Am and as a result she is quite hyper. Ultimately, I’m sure that they will become friends and Am is lucky to have Luna around. That being said, hopefully Luna is brave enough to stand up for herself once the plot entangles her in its web as well.

Am is much more laid back and keeps to herself. While on the job Am will throw on a smile and get to work, but she can be a little too serious. It’s often hard for Luna to get Am to relax and Try3 has to have a little chat with Am as a result. Am gets a lot of character development and she will likely have a major role in season 3. Her role will be even bigger than Luna’s and 90% of the supporting cast as well depending on how they go with this. Hard to say what I think of her here without spoiling the twist. Before the twist she was a solid character and I prefer her to Luna. After the twist, she is still a cool character…but in a different way and I’m hoping that the mask doesn’t come back on so to speak so the post twist Am sticks around. That version is cooler.

Ace is a fairly hardcore villain and one of the better characters in the show. Since Shouma barely appeared, I’d say that Ace took over the spot as the best villain. This is partially due to the fact that he came out of nowhere and took over Shion’s company like it was nothing. His successful mind games are also impressive since Shion was supposed to be over the whole thing and their first big duel was one of the best in the series. After all, it doesn’t get much more high stakes than having millions of dollars on the line and your whole financial future along with it! While Ace may not have done quite as well in the rematch, he didn’t completely crack either. Rest assured, Ace will likely continue to have a powerful role in the next season although his confidence may not be as absolute since his standing in the villain organization is in jeopardy after the loss.

Myoujin is the big villain who will make his move in the next show. He hasn’t done anything as of yet though. His design isn’t that good as he is very old so I don’t think he can be a very menacing villain. Still, I am glad to have a villain who is lasting a while and for all we know he isn’t the mastermind behind the operation. With someone like Shouma still in the fold, I could definitely picture a betrayal. Shouma doesn’t play well with others after all. Still, I want Myoujin to put up a fight if that happens. Shouma’s role is small as he just makes a few cameos to remind us that he is still around. I was rather annoyed that Kouji stopped Shion from beating him up though. Shion was winning and taking a villain out of the picture this early would be incredibly helpful. Ironically, it seems like he’ll be the first boss of the third series. It’s not as if Shion was going to destroy him or anything. The heroes could have quickly captured Shouma and that would have been awesome. At least they forced a retreat though.

The animation is solid as in the last show. The characters all stand out and the battle scenes are fun to watch. There may have been one or two low budget episodes where physics started to get a little wild, but for the most part is was all consistently good. I’ve always liked the animation style of this company. It feels modern and I think the animation will hold up quite well. It’s not overly flashy, but that’s why the fundamentals will age well. The soundtrack is better than the last season’s. Perhaps it is because the stakes are more intense, but it could also be the crossover effect. For example, Kai’s theme returns briefly during his fight with Shion and we finally also have a bit of a villain’s theme for some of the duels. It’s still not quite at the level of the original Cardfight, but we’re definitely getting there. Good themes can always elevate a series.

Overall, GIRS Crisis added the excitement and stakes that I had been waiting for. This series was still more set up for the big battles to come, but it set the more interesting plot elements as well. Shion’s ongoing fight to restore his company (Although that isn’t really his goal anymore or so he claims) and Chrono’s quest to find his father should be pretty interesting. The father better have a good excuse for just wandering around unless he is a friend of the Dad or something. Seeing the old characters actually get to duel should be awesome and I’m fully expecting Aichi to finally get in on the action as well. The return of Psyqualia would be a nice added bonus as well. There’s a lot to look forward too and the third season should end up being the best G adventure.

Overall 8/10

Well, not all of that ended up happening in the next part, but we did finally get all of the big battles and the epic climax that I was waiting for. The heroes made their big move and the GIRS Crisis finally ended. It definitely was the best part of Cardfight G so far. If the first season of Cardfight G was to establish all of the characters and the world building and part 1 of this season was to bring back all of the old characters and get the main characters some training, then this is the big payoff where the heroes finally confront the villains.

Just about the whole second half is a gauntlet of battles against Ryuzu’s chosen warriors. Things don’t go well for the heroes at first as the season couldn’t be around 26 episodes if the heroes just won everything right? Chrono and Shion may have reached a really high level where they can fight with the best of them, but the side characters like Taiyou and Mamoru still want to help and that gives the villains some opportunities. Plus, the main characters can’t be everywhere all the time.

Unlike the last half, there is also an immediate sense of danger. The villains go as far as to blow up all of the empire branch headquarters and seriously injure all of the leaders as well. As part of Ryuzu’s plan, they also use Luna as a power source and prepare to destroy the world of Vanguard. The heroes have to move fast this time and while Chrono is the first to take charge as per usual, the others aren’t far behind. The climax involves a giant laser knocking everyone out as they prepare to enter a never ending dream state so it comes down to the main heroes against the big villains. They each get their own episode which makes for a lot of epic fights.

Not much has changed for some of the characters so I’ll keep those brief. Chrono is still a very solid lead. Ryuzu comes close to tricking Chrono, but the young hero stays strong. Shion stayed on his vengeful path, but ultimately decided to help Am and the heroes to rescue Luna. He wasn’t thrilled about it, but at least he made the right call. Shion’s still really close to Chrono with who the better main character is. I may have to say that Shion has the slight edge and likewise in terms of dueling skills. It’s always cool to have two leads at similar strengths.

While Tokoha didn’t have too much of a role in part 1, she gets thrown into the fray here since the situation with Luna and Am is personal. I think she was probably a little naive with how she handled it though since at least Am was actually evil for a while. It turned out okay since Am had a change of heart, but she could have put everyone in danger by meeting up. A hostage situation would have been sad. Kamui doesn’t really have a role this time. He maybe gets 1-2 duels, but part 1 was really his final hurrah.

Taiyou gets a big role here since Hiroki is his rival. He’s gone through a lot in the series and has become one of the sleeper members of the team. The show treats him as a semi weak-strong fighter depending on the episode. I consider him to be underrated considering how skilled he was back in his evil days. He does a good job of taking on his opponent. He’ll likely never become an outstanding duelist the way Shion and Chrono are, but he’s definitely a guy that you can root for. His rival Hiroki was also a decent villain although he came across as completely delusional. At first he would stand up to bullies, but then he became the bully. After that, he convinced himself that everyone who opposed him was evil while he was the true hero. It was an interesting point of view, but one that didn’t follow any logic. It made for a lot of nice crazy ramblings though. I’d say that Hiroki was one of the weaker villains, but he was tough enough to still be a threat.

Luna is an example of a nice character who allowed herself to make a bad friend. Trying to save Am only led to her being turned evil and being put in a bad spot. I definitely prefer AM a great deal to Luna. Luna isn’t bad, but she’s just not all that tough and lets everyone use her. She never really gets a moment where she stands up for herself or becomes a great duelist. Am was a great villain as I mentioned earlier, but I felt like the writers dropped the ball with her character a little. I just don’t see how she was so naive with the villain’s true agenda when her whole gimmick that she knew the world better than Shion since she wasn’t rich. Her turning to the hero side was a little cheesy, but now that it’s the status quo she could potentially become a cool hero. It’ll be hard to match her days as a villain though. She was easily one of the best villains in all of G.

Kouji still tries a little too hard to be the mysterious character, but I suppose he’s not bad. He’s just not very good at the role, but he spends less time on that here since he ends up focusing on actually fighting this tie. He puts up a pretty good fight against Ryuzu and more importantly, he’s able to give Chrono a new card which is critical in the final fight. Ryuzu doesn’t change much from part 1. Perhaps you will sympathize with him more after the back story, but I dunno. He just ended up going off the deep end and probably still would have done so even if not for Chrono. Chrono’s Dad probably should have done more to stop him though. Ryuzu is a cool villain whether he’s in his kid form or adult mode. I missed the latter, but the former was pretty catchy. I definitely wouldn’t mind seeing him return some day.

Shouma remained a really epic villain. His gimmick about chaos and discord seemed rather plot convenient as the villains had the whole thing sewn up otherwise, but seeing him sabotage everyone was pretty entertaining. He’s definitely not the kind of guy who blindly follows orders. That’s Wakamizu’s job and he’s probably the blandest villain of them all. He just wants to see what will happen to satisfy his scientific curiosity. There really wasn’t much to his character and he wasn’t a particularly strong duelist either so I was never all that interested. He’s probably the most evil of the members though as most of the others had their reasons for doing this or had some conscience about the whole thing. Wakamizu was happy to go along with all compared to the rest.

Finally Enishi was the last member of the group. They tried to make him sound noble as a villain with his whole “I’ll protect you” attitude towards Luna. The problem is that he still allowed her to be used as a power source and wasn’t going to do anything about it. That’s a pretty lousy way to protect someone and she would have died if the heroes hadn’t stepped in. It’s a little hard to see him hanging out with everyone as a good guy after that. How I see it, Enishi let the villains push him around and didn’t have the strength of character to stop them. I definitely was not a fan of this guy.

My only real disappointment here was that the old characters didn’t get to do anything. Apparently, they only showed up to train the next generation and to get their cameos in, but that was it. There’s no real narrative reason for them not to help. The heroes should have been protecting the Empire branches. Of course, the villains would have been stopped right away if that had been the case, but it’s still something to think about. It would have certainly made the whole thing even cooler. I’m waiting for the day when the old characters are heavily involved with the plot again or at least get some more fights in a serious setting. The tournaments were awesome of course and I could always use more of those, but seeing them help against a world ending event is what I want to see next.

Overall, Cardfight Vanguard G GIRS Crisis does a good job of improving on the first and making its way to the original series and its level of greatness. Essentially, everything that G did, GIRS Crisis did better and upped the ante. Better fights, more intensity to the duels, higher stakes, better animation, better soundtrack, etc. It did exactly what a sequel is supposed to do. It’s not quite ready to beat the original Cardfight series yet, but lets see where it stands after 4 full seasons. The first season was a lot of fun, but my one complaint was that it didn’t have a huge climax like the other seasons. This one fixed that and just generally had a lot more action and intensity. The tournaments for part 1 and then the big battles in part 2. That’s a great way to pace a season. The animation and soundtrack were certainly on point. I dare say that they got even better during part 2 and at the very least, I’m positive that the soundtrack improved. It’ll be tough for the next season of G to top this one with the new animation studio and all, but I’m sure that it’ll give it a fair shot. NEXT has a pretty interesting premise and plot at the moment. Plus, I’m sure that a lot of elements have yet to even appear. I highly recommend this show and you can get into it even if you haven’t watched the original G. Of course, you’ll be missing out on a lot of character introductions and development since that was the point of the original. Also, you won’t understand why it’s so hype when Kai keeps on crushing Shion. Allow for a little plot hax at the end of that subplot, but it’s pretty real otherwise. The show also ends with a big status quo change so prepare for that!

Overall 8/10

Kubo and The Two Strings Review

Posted on January 5, 2017 by dreager1

It’s time for another 2016 film to add to my list. I feel pretty modern after having watched so many of the recent hits. Kubo’s the first stop motion film that I’ve seen in quite a while. It’s still not my favorite style to say the least, but I do think that the film pushed the style as far as it could. The battles scenes are certainly the best that I’ve seen and this one definitely takes the crown as the best film of its kind. Prepare for a rather quick beginning as the best character takes the stage.

The film starts off with Sariatu fleeing from the villains, but her son Kubo’s eye is still taken. Kubo’s grandfather wants the other eye for certain reasons and Sariatu is determined not to let him get it. For years, the two of them hide in a cave in a fairly isolated area and Kubo grows up while knowing just one rule- Never stay outside past nightfall. If he ever does this, the villains will spot him and they will come to take him down for good. Kubo obeys this rule for a few years as he goes outside to entertain the inhabitants with his telepathic paper abilities, but one day he takes a little too long. He made a detour to engage in the paper lantern ritual and the villains find him.

The villains in particular are the two Aunts. They are the highlights of the film and their entrance is amazing. Their designs are easily the scariest in the film and I’d also say that they are the strongest villainss. Sariatu is basically said to be stronger than them, but they have the numbers advantage and Sariatu was seriously injured during her big fall in the intro. After the villains make their move and take Sariatu out, Kubo must now find the legendary items from his story in real life. Once he has assembled the invincible armor, he can defeat his Grandfather…the Moon King!

As I mentioned, the film starts off really quickly. It can be a double edged sword when you use up what could be the best scene in the film so quickly, but it is a surefire way to engage the audience. I knew that the Aunts would be my favorite character once they showed up and started taking names. Kubo was completely outmatched and the visuals for this really captured the intimidating aura that the villains wielded. The Aunt also returned for a second fight scene, which is the other contender for best scene in the film. She easily holds her own against Beetle, Monkey, and Kubo all teaming up. Her skills are certainly formidable and it’s a shame that she could not have appeared more. Her presence was definitely felt throughout the film though.

I was surprised at the fight scenes in general because I really wasn’t expecting all that much. Coraline and Nine are really the only other big stop motion films that I’ve seen, but neither of them really had fight scenes because it’s hard to do in this style. At the very least, you wouldn’t expect hand to hand fights with energy effects, but this one pulled it off. Whenever an energy blast or energy attack would appear, the animation could really shine. I’m not sure exactly how that works, but I imagine that they add CGI on top of the animation or use an advanced form of Movie Maker to throw the effects on top of what they filmed. Regardless, I’d say that it worked very smoothly and it definitely did help to amp up the experience.

The second half does slow down a bit compared to the beginning. After seeing the two Aunts, it’s hard to go back to trekking through the areas and fighting large monsters. I’ll admit that I was a little dismayed when the Moon King decided to shed his really cool human form in favor of that of a giant monster. It was instantly a downgrade and of course Kubo was able to slice and dice him. The Moon King should have had more confidence in his own abilities. It never gets all that slow though as every major part still adds in an action scene. The opening had the first Aunt moment, the middle had the rematch, and the ending had the battle against The Moon King. Overall I’d say that the pacing is pretty good.

Kubo is a good main character. It may have been a bit naive of him to stay out so late after all of the warnings, but maybe he was just ready for a status quo change. He certainly got that if this was the case. He acted like an ingrate for a while after meeting up with the Monkey, but eventually he got better. I also don’t totally blame him since the Monkey was being pretty mean for no reason towards the beginning. When the going got tough, Kubo took out his sword and steeled himself for battle. I’d definitely say that he did pretty good. He’s not as charismatic as the lead from Zootopia, but I’ll take him over Dory.

Sariatu is certainly strong and probably one of the stronger mothers from recent films. It’s a shame that we couldn’t get to see her fight more while at full power since she was evidently powerful. I didn’t totally get her long coma like appearances though. Especially given her later scenes and twists. I guess the injury was so bad that she had to go into those meditation esque moments, but it still felt rather odd. Certainly not her fault though and I’d say that she was the best hero.

The Monkey was a little on the annoying side. She talked tough and kept all of the vague answers to herself, but there wasn’t really much of a reason behind this. The Monkey gets a twist which actually makes the whole thing worse. Honestly, I think that the film shouldn’t have added the plot twist in. Not only does it not make any sense, but it makes all of the Monkey’s scenes out of character. The Monkey’s a good fighter though so she’s got that on her side.

Beetle barely needs any introduction as he is easily the absolute worst character in the game. It’s hard to emphasize just how bad this guy is. He’s the token comic relief character, but isn’t handled well at all and the plot twist just makes it even worse. The twist also hurts another character which is unfortunate. I just don’t know how the Beetle ended up being so bad. He can barely fight at all and he’s just annoying the whole time. He’s the kind of guy who feels like he’s always flirting and doesn’t really know boundaries so he just goes around annoying everyone. I grew tired of him minutes after he first showed up. He’s the only really bad character in the film so I was glad that he missed a lot of the first half.

Finally, we have the Moon King. He made for a pretty good main villain even if he made the risky move of turning into a giant monster. I definitely don’t recommend trying something like that when you go up against a serious main character. His motivations were a little strange. He wanted the eye so Kubo would join him in the afterlife and become a god of sorts, but in the opening scenes it seemed like he just wanted the eyes so he could see again. Is it just a coincidence that he had one eye when he first showed up? I figured that he had stolen Kubo’s so he could see again. Regardless, he was interesting and certainly strong. The scene where he just walks through the sword stab was definitely pretty hype and was sort of like a Superman moment.

Overall, Kubo and the Two Strings is a film that I definitely recommend. It has more action than you would expect and that’s always a big plus for me. It may not be the best animated feature of 2016, but from the theater ones that I’ve reviewed, it’s easily the most epic. I don’t recall any of the others having large scale mystical fights in the dead of night against denizens of evil after all. I want to see more action animated films in theaters so hopefully this one can pave the way for that.

Overall 7/10

Tenkai Knights Review

Posted on January 4, 2017 by dreager1

It’s hard to believe that I started this show all the way back in 2013. It feels like that was such a long time ago, but I suppose that’s the way it is for all shows that reach at least 50 episodes. The show definitely started out as one of the all time greats and had everything in its favor. Unfortunately, it started to peeter out a bit during the second half of the series. Perhaps it is a good thing that it ended before the downgrade could really affect its overall standing all that much, but it definitely would have been nice to have gotten that extra season. 100+ episodes of Tenkai Knights could have put it on the map or at least in the same conversation as Beyblade and the other big toy based shows back in the day. I’m assuming that many of my blog readers won’t even know what this show is because it’s so obscure, but you’re about to find out now!

The show follows four boys who find lego pieces and are chosen as the guardians of a mysterious planet in another realm. By activating the pieces, they turn into Power Ranger fighters and have to stop the dark armies led by Vilius. Of course, if the heroes die in the virtual world, they also perish in real life. Guren and Chooki don’t really give that last bit a second thought, but the other two need some time to wrap their heads around it. The heroes are strong and can usually stop the villains with ease, but the bad guys do have some advantages. For starters, they are on the planet 24/7 and can attack at any time. Guren and friends have to go to sleep or leave at some point and that’s when the villains can make their move. They have the superior numbers as well and I dare say that they had the better fighters for a little while. Of course, Guren and the others continued to improve at a rapid pace. By the end, the heroes definitely had the edge. Can the 4 part timers really stop Vilius for good though?

It should definitely give you some Power Ranger vibes. The series starts off with a lot of energy and really did everything right. Lets talk about the positives. The plot is pretty engaging and starts off rather rapidly. I’m always a fan of virtual world adventures and you could compare this to Sword art Online, but without taking itself so seriously. There are only 3 main villains, but they had a 4th and a 5th member for a while and they aren’t half bad when it comes to strength. Once the villains unlocked Titan Mode, they were always able to put up a fight.

The show got a lot of top notch voice actors here like Ichigo’s and Kirito’s to voice two of the main characters. I have to admit that this definitely added an extra layer of epicness to the show. The animation was also solid. I didn’t really care for the scenes where they are robots as much as it would take a noticeable dip, but they would still add a lot of budget to the big fight scenes at the end. If you were worried about the actual fights looking bad, don’t worry about it. The fights are still as good as you’d expect and probably even better than that. The colors were always very sharp and on point and the human animations hold up very well.

What really sets Tenkai Knights a bar above most of the competition is the dynamic array of music themes. The catchy “Tenkai whoaaaaaaa Tenkai” chant before every transformation is the definition of epic and really gets you ready for action. It distracts you from the recycled footage that is always used for the transforming moments. The battles all have great themes as well and there are just so many to choose from. I believe that part 2 of the show remixed the Tenkai theme and it wasn’t quite as catchy, but it was still solid. The soundtrack is definitely one of the best parts of the show, no question.

The main cast was really good as well. Guren does a good job of leading the team and he is certainly well suited for the job. He’s a natural leader and is a lot more ready for anything that the villains can throw at him. While he’s not quite as athletic as Chooki, he can more than hold his own in any event. His skills while in Tenkai form do certainly surpass the others by a wide margin. There’s really nothing to say against his character and he’s essentially just a kid version of the best protagonist that you can think of. He’s a hero who gets the job done.

Ceylan is Guren’s best friend and while he is not quite as outgoing, he’s always got a lot of jokes at the ready. He hits it off pretty well with the others, but is prone to quit or fall into a slump quite a few times. He just doesn’t have quite as much self confidence and determination as Guren, but very few characters do so it isn’t too much of a strike against him. His Tenkai form is ice themed so it’s not quite as cool as Guren’s flaming winged form, but it gets the job done well enough I suppose. By the end of the series, all four Tenkai warriors are very strong so it’s okay even if Ceylan isn’t the strongest. I’d put him at third for the record.

Chooki is pretty similar to Guren. He’s a natural born expert at just about everything and he’s always ready to make new friends. He’s just a cool guy who gets along with everyone and he does pretty well in the Tenkai fights. He’s an extreme contrast to Toxsa and helps to get the guy active in everyday life. Guren’s my favorite character, but Chooki’s definitely right behind him along with Gen. It shows how strong the cast is as Chooki could have easily been the best character in another show. It was an odd creative decision by the writers though since his character is just so similar to Guren’s. Usually a show will try to avoid that unless it goes for debates about leadership or something, but that never pops up.

Finally, we have Toxsa. He’s a big gamer so naturally that means that he isn’t very fit so he has a hard time keeping up with the others in the real world. He’s always talking about Doomsploder 5 and you have to admire his dedication to that I suppose. He’s the main comedy member of the group and really tries to slam the others with puns left and right. I like a good pun, but a lot of his jokes do tend to fall flat. He’s not a bad character, but Toxsa is easily the least interesting and a lot of his scenes are really just filler. It’s a shame since he talks such a good game, but still ends up being the weakest member.

Mr. White is the guy behind the group. He mysteriously knows a lot about the other world and is the one with the portal that sends the heroes back and forth. The show never really gets into his secret origin or that of Guren’s Dad since he seems to know more than he lets on. My personal theory was that Guren’s Dad is Beag’s human operator and Mr. White used to operate one of the robots. Maybe he operated one of the legendary council. It’s not like it’ll ever be explored though and Mr. White just comes across as annoying. He refuses to answer any questions and never makes himself all that useful. Beag is almost as bad. I can see what the show was going for with his character as he naively believes everything that the 4 heroes say and looks up to them quite a lot. He’s supposed to be charming and endearing, but he ends up being rather annoying instead. He also never really does anything to move the show along and could have been left out without really changing anything.

Gen was the hardcore rival of the show. At first he’s on the side of evil before eventually joining the heroes. I forgot what his exact goal was, but maybe he just treated the whole thing as a game. It seems like he was always going to betray Vilius so he just wanted to be the strongest being of them all. He sort of came close as the only ones who could stop him were Guren and Vilius. It’s safe to say that Vilius was ahead of him for just about the whole series. By the very end, I like to think that Gen and Guren were stronger than Vilius, but I suppose that it’s debatable. Gen was nerfed quite a lot when he turned good though. He suddenly stopped getting power ups and was heavily surpassed by the main 4. While he was a villain, Gen did quite well though. He was usually on the winning end of fights and he also rose the stakes. After all, he knew who the heroes were in the real world as well so they could never rest easy after that.

Beni was Gen’s partner and she certainly had fun with the battles. Her robot was incredibly fast and the writers clearly couldn’t decide how to defeat her. She’s the one character who basically never loses during the whole show and got to show up the heroes several times. They just couldn’t keep up with her and she would have made a great ally for the heroes to have. In arc 2, she couldn’t decide which team to help though so she ends up going back and forth between the two sides for quite a while. Maybe one day she will be a trusted ally, but even at the end it’s hard to trust her since she betrayed the heroes so many times. It didn’t even make sense when she helped the villains out, but I guess she likes to keep the heroes guessing.

Vilius was a very good main villain. He had a lot of power so he could back up his tough talk and he lived up to his reputation. I liked his design and his super forms made him even more dangerous. There was a brief moment near the middle where the heroes had actually surpassed him so the villain needed a power up for a change, but for the most part he did a really good job remaining as a threat. He’s fairly smart for a villain and was able to see through Gen’s deceptions. His only comic relief moment was in a fairly infamous comedy arc that I’ll get into shortly. We can safely ignore it as far as his character goes. He’s easily better than his two generals.

The other main two villains are Granox and Slyger. Granox is your typical strong, but slow and not very smart character. Slyger is quick and a tricky fighter to mess with, but I suppose he’s slightly weaker physically. Honestly, I’d pick Slyger to complete destroy Granox if they were to ever fight. It wouldn’t even be a fair fight. They made for really good fight scenes, but as villains I could only respect Sluger. Granox was just a little too weak and could rarely give the heroes much of a fight. At least Slyger was a credible threat and as mentioned before, Titan Mode really helped them out quite a lot.

Boreas was one of the 4 legendary Tenkai Elders and he got the biggest role of the 4. He helped the heroes out quite a lot from the very beginning. He’s likable enough I suppose, but he couldn’t live up to the hype quite as well as you’d hope. Vilius took down all 4 Elders even while they were teaming up and then brainwashed them to do his bidding. They put up some slight resistance, but it was all for naught in the end. They did have some really cool abilities though and were some of the best fighters in the series. It’s a shame that they always transformed into their giant lego forms for the final battles though since the humanoid ones always did a lot better. They sacrificed their great speed and durability for a little size? Definitely not worth it in the long run. The elders should have spent less time guarding the portal and more time actively fighting. If they had helped to defeat Vilius back in the early episodes, none of this would have happened.

Orangor and Scorpidon are responsible for the low point of the Tenkai Knights series. Basically, the main characters are kidnapped and brought to an odd little dimension where the Scorpion rules. To escape, they must defeat him in a Grand Prix or another such event that he dictates. They win several times, but are just thrown into a pit and forced to redo the events. This allowed the writers to use whole minutes of stock footage at a time. They redid 5 minutes of recycled grand prix racing and hoped that we wouldn’t notice…but we did. It was generally just too much comedy over action as well. We lost the Tenkai fights and the races weren’t worth it. Even Vilius showed up to play a game of soccer and the whole thing did not make any sense. It’s as if the genre just suddenly changed out of nowhere. It also dragged on and on for quite a while. I couldn’t wait to see it go and the two new characters never appeared again. Most excellent!

Finally, we have the Tenkai Dragon. He’s always getting captured and kidnapped so you’ll probably feel bad for him after a while. He is said to be invincible and unstoppable, but the villains prove that wrong many times. They even build a Dark Tenkai Dragon, which is just as strong as the real deal. To get the dragons in the first place, you need to assemble a lot of artifacts. By the end, it barely even feels worth it anymore. It was a cool design though, but I could never take the dragon seriously. Honestly, I’d take Guren in a fight against him.

Even if we take away the dreadful mini arc, part 2 of Tenkai Knights would still be under the first. The problem is the fact that they opted to do a soft reboot with the same formulaic style. Part 1 was very formulaic as one episode would see Guren unlock Titan Mode, then Chooki, then etc. Next, Guren would unlock his signature skill, then Chooki, then etc. Part 2 decided to do that, but also to dial it up to eleven. First, the heroes lost their Titan Modes, but they learned how to use elemental powers. You would always know that this would take at least 4 episodes since they would learn it one at a time. After that, they re learned Titan Mode, one episode at a time. They also learned how to fuse and naturally, they had to try all of the different variations. Once the Elders were mind controlled, it was the same deal with them. The heroes would fight one per episode and they would all use the same transformation to prolong the fight. It may have been even more repetitive than Buddyfight One Hundred’s battles at one point, but these were still a little better because at least we had some really cool action scenes and it wasn’t the same villain each time.

I think part 2 of Tenkai Knights could have definitely changed the formula up a bit. I think it would have done wonders for the show. After all, the climax was always very intense. The final battles of both arcs in the show are easily 5 star matches and you can always feel the gravity of the situation. The already solid animation would get even better and you couldn’t really discern this show from that of a Shonen during the serious moments. If the whole show could have been like that, it’d be an easy 9. Of course, you could say the same about a great deal of shows since they all try to be at their best for the climax. Tenkai Knights still operates at a rather high level normally, but the extra boost would help.

I’d say that it probably is the ultimate Saturday Morning cartoon. This isn’t counting shows like Yugioh which were originally more Shonen and Cardfight, which never made its way to the big screen. It may not literally be the greatest of all time as there is probably some show somewhere that I may be forgetting, but it has everything that you could ask for from a show aimed at kids. The series plays it very safe content wise, but still gives us great animation and fights. It never resorts to a lot of crude humor or anything like that and naturally the show’s target audience ensures that the title has absolutely no fanservice. There’s no language to watch out for and the writing is pretty strong. Most of the characters are likable and there is a sense of danger throughout. Tenkai Knights really pushed itself as far as it could go and other shows that are now aimed at a similar audience like Pokemon Alola and Monster Hunter could learn a few lessons from this title. You can be aimed at kids and still have a lot of action.

Overall, Tenkai Knights is a great show. It’s a title that just about anyone can get into since everyone likes a good action and who doesn’t like Power Ranger esque transformations? The show had a very modern/high tech feel right from the start like the PS3 and never lost that. The character cast is great and it performs exceptionally well on a technical level. The series went through a few hiccups during the second half, but it was able to bounce back in the end. I’m not sure what the series would have done for a third part, but introducing some new villains could have definitely worked quite well. There really weren’t many different opponents for the heroes to face so a little extra variety could have gone a long way. Introducing more human world fights would have also been great. We got some glimpses of this when the villains were able to materialize in the human world, but it was mostly used for laughs as opposed to action. Having the ability to crossfuse like in Megaman NT Warrior would have really upped the stakes. It’s one thing to be in lethal danger in another world, but it hits closer to home when your town is the one that is attacked.

Overall 8/10

The Vision of Escaflowne Review

Posted on January 3, 2017 by dreager1

It’s time to look at a recent anime that I saw. This one’s an old school action fantasy romance (Wait…what’s romance doing here?) with lots of danger and dragons. It’s a pretty solid show that may have an annoying main character and a lackluster ending, but hits most of the right notes with the plot and action scenes. The animation has aged pretty well and the music is very memorable. The most important part though is that I can add this title to my mecha list alongside Heroic Age, IGPX, and Transformers. (Probably another one or two somewhere in there)

The plot follows a girl named Hitomi who is on a search for true love, but only finds rebound guys and people who want to use her powers to save their kingdom. So…Hitomi runs. She runs and runs and ultimately becomes one of the best track and field athletes at her school. The main guy from school decides to move away so Hitomi confronts him and wants to prove that she can run really fast. Her big moment is interrupted when a giant laser shows up from the sky and brings her to another world along with a kid named Van. They slay a dragon and Hitomi realizes that she is now on another planet.

Van’s kingdom was exterminated by the Zaibach empire and so he is now the King by default. He intends to exact his revenge, but it’ll be tough since their technology is centuries ahead of the other kingdoms. While people from the hero side still fight with sticks and stones (With a few low tech robots as well) Zaibach has electronic assassins, people with shape shifting abilities, and robots that can burn whole cities to the ground. Luckily, Van finds a robot named Escaflowne. This robot is the strongest robot in history and it is the one thing that can tip the scales of this one sided war. Together with Hitomi’s ability to see the future (Wait, when’d this happen?) they will save the world!

Hitomi may have just been an ordinary runner at first, but travelling to the other world strengthened her pre cog abilities. She was already good at reading fortunes, but now she was the real deal. Hitomi can sense dangers before they occur and her predictions are 100% accurate. They can be changed of course, if she uses this knowledge to warn people ahead of time. Her very existence also works to nullify fate alteration weapons and if she becomes strong enough, she can heavily influence destiny as well. After all, any future that she sees will be in jeopardy since Hitomi can change it if she wants. If she were a strong main character, this ability could have really helped the heroes even more.

Unfortunately, being strong willed is not one of Hitomi’s abilities. She consistently makes the wrong decisions and is certainly one of the weaker characters in the show. For starters, she is really the symbol of the rebound character. She starts off liking one guy, then goes to a second, and finally a third. She goes back and forth between these guys throughout the whole show and simply cannot make up her mind. By the very end of the show, she finally makes a choice and everyone else made theirs anyway, but it was hard to sympathize with her plight. She also lied to one of her friends, which doomed that person to a failed marriage. Hitomi only deserves half of the blame since nobody should ever leave their marriage up to a fortune reading though.

The worst strike against her is that Hitomi ultimately decides not to use her powers to help everyone. She doesn’t want to see the terrible visions and would prefer the armies to just destroy each other than to end the war quickly. The joke’s on her since the visions come true regardless and will keep on popping up, but Hitomi does help to increase the body count dramatically. Yeah, I definitely didn’t like Hitomi and it felt like she just kept making things worse. A pet peeve of mine is that when she returns to the past…Hitomi decides to do everything in the same exact way. It defeats the purpose of getting a second chance if you’re not going to do anything about it right? It’s like if I could go back in time to my first Super Smash tournament. You can bet that I’d wreck everyone since I’d be ready for the attacks that they’d throw out.

Moving on, Van is a pretty good hero. For a while there, he was losing to Allen but ended up passing him due to a whole host of reasons. Van’s your typical action hero. He’s pretty head strong and is always ready for a fight. He craves battle even more than some leads since the whole matter is pretty personal. Once he unlocks the true power of Escaflowne, he really reigns down chaos on all of the villains. He becomes so powerful that they simply can’t hold a candle to him anymore. While the romance isn’t really handled all that well, it doesn’t become much of a factor for most of the series. For the most part, Van is just focused on taking everyone down. Even with the emotions machine making everyone a little more upset, it was odd to see Van and Allen go all out in the final episode. It was a good fight though and Van was definitely doing well. I didn’t care for Van too much in the first half as he was just mean for no reason and was surprisingly weak considering all of his tough talk. Gradually, Van did prove that he was a nice guy when out of his shell though and he became a good fighter. He’s definitely the best character in the series by the end.

Allen’s a good rival and for a wile there he was easily the best character in the show. Unfortunately, his character took a bit of a nosedive by the end as the show had to prove that Van was the only acceptable answer. For starters, Allen couldn’t make up his mind on whether or not he actually liked Hitomi or not. Once he decided, Allen was very heavy handed about the whole thing and seemed to just treat the whole thing as a contest where he could one up Van. He never seemed all that serious and since he would still be flirting around Millerna and had another affair in the past…it’s sort of hard to like him by the end. He never turns evil or anything so there’s always that.

Folken is one of the big villains who has one of the most unbelievable turnarounds out there. He’s behind the wheel, destroying all cities and villages to try and get to the goal. His own homeland is one of the first to go and he never looks back. See, Folken’s a pacifist who didn’t like that his village forced you to destroy a dragon at one point so he decided to become a mass murderer to end war. You know, it’s the classic “Take over the world and murder all the leaders so they can never start a war again” train of thought. It ultimately won’t work and will just make a lot more conflicts in the mean time and Folken eventually sees this. So….he becomes a good guy who is all about peace. Lets just say that this doesn’t end well for him, but he 180 turnaround was extremely sudden and I can see why Van wasn’t very accepting of this. Hitomi was way too accepting of this if you ask me as she instantly jumped on his side. I can’t say that I ever liked Folken, he was constantly using everyone so I can’t believe the turn around.

Dilandau was easily the more interesting villain. He likes to cause carnage and picks fights everywhere. He does get an identity/gender crisis by the end which is really weird and out of left field. I can’t say that I was thrilled about the twist at all. It was a little humorous with how sudden it was, but did nothing for the character and just felt unnecessary. Side stepping that land mine, Dilandau worked perfectly as the main rival for Van. He got completely outclassed once Van learned of Escaflowne’s true power and never put up a good fight again, but he had a solid run. I guess you can say that he’s like Allen as they both started out very strong and ended on a whimper. He’s still the best villain in the series though.

Finally, we have Zaibach’s leader, Dornkirk. He’s a really old man who can’t move anymore so he just sits down and looks at everyone through a telescope. He has McDonalds Wifi so the connection is always very distorted and blurry. No matter, he wants to build a Utopia where everyone is in a dream and living in harmony. He’s mad at the fact that Hitomi’s existence makes this just about impossible. The way that he goes out is definitely laughable as it’s how I picture The One Above All getting wrecked in a fight. It was rather clever to make sure that he met his end at the site of the reverse fate manipulation weapon though since that means that his death is flipped around. It was ultimately pointless though since he stayed in a ghost like state though. There’s nothing really interesting about Dornkirk, but he’s probably the funniest villain of the bunch since he literally cannot move. It’s hard to take a villain like that seriously. Especially considering that Dornkirk panics at least once an episode since fate cannot see through love and this is a romance series so that happens a lot.

Millerna was a decent supporting character. She’s a princess who is also a little confused in matters of the heart. She goes for the rebound character because everyone expects her to do so and naturally it leads to one of the quickest divorces in anime. That part definitely made her look bad since she was just lying to herself the whole time, but at least she’s not the one who broke it all off. Then again…maybe it would have been better if she had made the decision. She can’t really fight since Van and Allen are the only ones with mechs, but she’s always around to encourage Hitomi. Merle is another heroine who is always around and she’s a cat creature who’s very loyal to Van. She makes sure to insult Hitomi all of the time and is one of the main comic relief characters of the series. She’s not all that bad although her “romance” with Van doesn’t really add anything to her show. All of Merle’s scenes are basically filler although at least she called the guards when Hitomi was kidnapped for the 4th or 5th time.

Eriya and Nariya were two villains who showed up towards the second half of the series. They’re skilled generals who work for Folken. Their mechs are pretty speedy and they make for good opponents. They only got to battle Van in a fair fight once, but that round didn’t go well for them at all. Choosing to fight a rage mode Van is definitely not the best call. Their luck enhancements were seriously powerful and made them the toughest threats of all, but in the end the weaknesses of it were a little too grand. They were good villains, but mainly because of their mechs. Their roles were a little too small to do much other than that. They do beat a lot of the other villains like Folken though.

Dryden is a prince who shows up to get married and remind the characters that having a lot of money is handy in this series. He’s pretty annoying and while the show tries to present him as a likable guy by the end, I wasn’t buying it. He definitely doesn’t seem genuine and maybe I just don’t trust rich salesmen in these kinds of things all that much. I mean, who doesn’t remember the happy salesman from Majora’s Mask? There’s also a Mole Man who is very annoying throughout the series. He breaks into people’s rooms, steals things, and is generally just a bad guy. Despite this, the heroes never do anything about him because they just figure that he could never do anything too terrible. They don’t take him seriously, but if you ask me, he should still be brought to justice. The guy gets away with wayyyy too much. I do like the fact that none of the characters ever bothered to ask his name though. He literally doesn’t have a name, which is fitting.

The screenshots here don’t really do the animation justice. It’s definitely held up really well and the fight scenes are excellent. The colors stand out and you can feel the blows. There aren’t many energy blasts or weapons to be found here, but Escaflowne’s energy jewel stands out. The character designs are all solid and while I haven’t actually seen the movie, I can already tell you that the designs here are many times better. The best design is probably Allen’s robot, it always looked very regal and majestic.

The music makes sure to keep up as well. I can still remember most of the soundtrack clearly, which is something that I can’t say for other shows. The themes were also very good. We had an epic opera theme, a really good villain theme, a good thinking theme, and a whole bunch of others. The overall soundtrack is definitely a lot better than I had been anticipating. It has an old feel compared to most of my favorite soundtracks, like the techno Cardfight Vanguard, but it works really well with the show. It’s old, but it’s not boring and that’s an important distinction to make.

Escaflowne’s fight scenes are definitely pretty good. We get a few hand to hand battles, but most of the action scenes are with the mechs. Any battle with Dilandau is sure to be entertaining and I also liked Allen’s fight style. Since he is a great sword fighter outside of the mech, it makes sense that it would translate well to the robot. It’s a shame that his robot couldn’t fly or use any projectiles though. That would have helped him a lot. As it stands, he was still beating Van most of the times that they fought. Right now, Van would easily defeat Allen thanks to the fact that his robot is 100x better, but Allen still has the better fundamental skills.

Escaflowne is also pretty unique with how long it takes for the heroes to do anything. The first 3-4 villages that they go to are all destroyed by Zaibach. Each time, Van and Hitomi try to warn the locals, but they don’t listen and as a result, they’re all destroyed. This happens to them over and over and over again. Finally, they are able to make a counter offensive by the end. The whole dynamic goes from the situation being hopeless for the heroes to them being overpowered by the end. Without Van’s robot, there is definitely no way that they can win. The villains are more prepared in every area and also have the large advantage in numbers. By the end, Van’s so powerful that he can basically take on the whole army on his own, but all of his teammates are still in trouble.

That’s why the villains could have easily won so many times had they not made the mistake of listening to their old leader. They were winning drastically, but he told them not to make a move. Well, it cost him since one of the heroes decided to fire a nuke. The scene was super unexpected, but also pretty interesting. Once again, it was just not something that an anime would typically do. Usually, you have the heroes win the big final battle or something, but the main heroes didn’t actually do much this time around. They actually would have been overwhelmed if not for the nuke, although it was a rather sour ending to the alliance and got everyone fighting again. The ending showed everyone’s true colors after the dust was settled.

Escaflowne’s one weakness is definitely the romance. It plays a rather large role in the show, but none of the characters even know what they want. Hitomi chases after several guys, but loses them all. Millerna goes after one, but winds up with another. Allen goes after one, but it doesn’t end well so he leads on a second while he tries for a third and eventually comes away with none. Van tries for one, but loses her in the end. Two villains aim for one, but they lose their lives first. One guy gets his girl, but then breaks it off because he’s not ready for this. It goes on and on with these guys and none of the romances really matter in the end. Everyone just keeps on spinning their wheels and hurting the others emotionally while also getting hurt by someone else. It feels like the romance is just a distraction and should be treated as such instead of being the main plot for a while. Trust me, it does become the main plot as the main villain’s plan involves pairing up Hitomi with her second choice as it will let him take over the world. His plan was too vague to work anyway, but the fact that he has to help encourage a romance is also rather strange.

There’s no need to talk about the ending much since it’s hard to discuss without spoilers. Needless to say, I was not thrilled with it. It would work if someone had pulled the friend zone card before leaving, but since the character made the opposite move…it makes no sense. It’s one of those head scratchers where you just have to wonder what the writers were thinking. I certainly thought that it was a bad ending at any rate. One more thing you will question during the film is why the friends and the Mom don’t care about Hitomi being missing for months as much as they should? Hitomi gets one text/fax from the guy she was trying to impress and that’s it. Maybe they tried to send more and they didn’t get through the dimensional firewalls, but since one did I have to believe that others could. The Mom’s only reaction is that she’s sure Hitomi will be fine. That’s not the best reaction. There’s a plot twist about Hitomi’s grand mother which may have helped to bring this reaction out, but it was still rather unrealistic.

Overall, The Vision of Escaflowne is a solid anime. In its 26 episodes, the show managed to cover a great deal. We had several big villains, one shot villains, etc. The heroes got to visit a lot of different landscapes and even went into a portal where they met vague high above beings who built Escaflowne. It has a good amount of action and the plot is solid as well. While the cast may not seem all that great from the character profiles, they can hold the show with ease. Most of them may be unlikable individually, but at least they’re interesting. Boring characters are worse for a show than unlikable ones and while Dunkirk may have not been threatening in the slightest, he was a memorable main villain. (For all the wrong reasons) The show even got to try out several tones as we had a few dark and intense episodes, but also several light hearted ones. The pacing was always nice and fast and you could never tell when the next tragedy would occur. Be prepared for a lot of it though as the villains leave no stone unturned. They make sure to get to everyone by the end. I definitely recommend this anime and don’t let the romance scare you off. It’s definitely the weakest part of the show and it’s omission would have made the whole thing better, but it doesn’t drag it down all that much. Now you can safely compare it to titles like Transformers and Gundam. Winning that battle is another story though!

Overall 7/10

Insomnia Review

Posted on January 2, 2017 by dreager1

This review is of the edited TV-14 version of the film and all thoughts below should be addressed as such. A review of the unedited version would likely be more negative.

It’s time for a dark thriller by Nolan. This film’s a pretty sharp contrast to the light hearted Christmas films that I’ve reviewed of late so it’ll serve as foreshadowing to the horror films coming your way. The film’s battle between Will and Walter is interesting enough and the writing is pretty deep as you would expect. It gets a little too dark by the end though and the film ends on a rather bad note, which ends up hurting the film in the end.

Will is a pretty good detective who is caught in the middle of a rather tricky controversy. His partner wants to sell Will out because otherwise he’ll be the one who is caught in prison. Will has a solid reputation so he wouldn’t be in jail for too long, but the real problem is that many of his cases were dependent on his word so if he becomes a convict, a lot of villains will go free. It’s a tough moral dilemma and Will ends up shooting his partner. It’s an accident, but as the film goes on, Will begins to question whether or not that is really the case. Making things even worse is the fact that he is now being blackmailed by Walter, a villain who murdered a teenage girl. If Walter takes him to justice, then he’ll be freeing many other murderers and if he lets him go, Walter may go on to hurt others. What will Will do?

You can already tell that this is the kind of film where nobody really wins. It doesn’t matter what Will does to an extent, people are gonna get hurt. Now, this is true in life as there are always more villains out there and every choice has its repercussion, but it’s just a little too much if you ask me. I won’t spoil the ending I suppose, but lets just say that it’s verrrry dark. It’s heavily implied that one character makes a certain decision which means that the courts could make another decision that’ll end up with a lot of victims. Now, it’s not a 100% guarantee that the convicts will get out, but as there is no epilogue to the contrary, it’s just a very sad ending. It could have been easily fixed with a single scene at the end where the felons are still behind bars or a judge just says that the old cases are completely shut. It does show why vigilantism won’t work too well in the long run though. The truth always catches up to you and Will learned that the hard way.

The main plot is also rather dark with Walter murdering the girl. Not only did she die, but first she also had an abusive boyfriend who immediately moved on to her friend right after that. The rebounds were strong here and it’s why you can’t always trust sketchy friends from school. I don’t think we needed all of these dark elements. The film was already somber, this just helped to make it grittier and grittier with every scene. Of course, I’d expect no less from a Nolan and Al Pacino team up. Mix dark with gritty…and you get a dark, gritty film.

Will’s a good main character for the most part though. I’m of the opinion that it really was an accident when he shot the partner although the film makes it very ambiguous. You wouldn’t be wrong if you chose either option since it’s up to the viewer to make the final call. It’s a shame that we couldn’t see Will in his prime since he is clearly a very good detective, but doesn’t get to shine since he is being black mailed and manipulated the whole time. Walter’s actually a step ahead of him for the majority of the film, which is rather annoying. It seems like the villains are always geniuses as well in these kind of films.

Walter wasn’t a likable villain, but of course, he’s not meant to be. He’s just there to fill in the antagonist role and give Will an obstacle to overcome. There’s nothing redeeming about him and he’s just another psychopath on who needs to be brought to justice. It’s why you have to remember that someone’s always watching and lies will be found out eventually. In this case, it’s the worst possible scenario as it’s best to be found out by law enforcement or some kind of positive force rather than being found out by a villain. Then they can manipulate you as they please.

Ellie was a good supporting character. You feel bad for her since she looks up to Will and wants to prove herself as a detective, but slowly realizes that he is actually the culprit this time. She really did do a good job and ended up proving herself, but not in the way that she would have liked. Letting her guard down against the villain was pretty sloppy though and Walter really did embarrass just about everyone in this film. Again, it’s why it would have been fun to have a film where she could have teamed up with Will first before this situation had to pop up. No matter, Ellie made all of the right calls and depending on how you look at the ending, maybe she made another one. The decisions were all very hard, but in the end she had to accept the truth, whether or not she liked it.

The other supporting characters were mostly all good as well. I liked the local chief of police as he didn’t want to engage in all of the spying and double talk and just got down to business. He didn’t care about the scandals, he just wanted to solve the case. The local detective was also good and while Will kept on trying to steer him down the wrong path, the detective wouldn’t listen. He did a good job and I can sympathize with him since nobody likes to get pushed out of their job. He didn’t let Will’s legacy intimidate him and he just kept on chugging.

So, the whole film is just rather tragic. You’ve got a lot of good guys and girls trying to solve a murder, but little do they know that one of their own has been compromised. Will does try to break free of the black mail a few times, but Walter’s just too smart. The film also adds another layer to this by having Will murder an animal to try and use a gun’s bullets as some kind of evidence. I forgot the exact purpose of this, but I definitely don’t like to see any dead animals. Upon second thought, the animal may have already been dead and he just put the bullets in it, but I forgot. It wasn’t a pretty sight either way.

Overall, This was a well written movie and a fairly engaging one at that. There’s just only so much that a tragedy film can do and this is an example of a dark film getting too dark. There’s just too much misery here and almost no “feel good” scenes at all. It’s a somber ride from start to finish and it’s definitely not a film that I can recommend because you won’t enjoy it. It’s the kind of film that you simply experience. Cut out a few of the subplots and parts of the main plot…and maybe you’ve got yourself a good film. If you want a thriller with a good battle of the minds, then check out the recent Sherlock Holmes films. Those were actually quite good and also have a lot of engaging mind battles.

Overall 4/10

	Anonymous on Invisible Woman vs Molecule…
	jhg195 on Batman vs Zatanna
	dreager1 on The Man in the Moon Revie…
	Anonymous on Sonic Dream Team Review
	Anonymous on The Man in the Moon Revie…
	Anonymous on The Alain vs Leon fight should…

DReager1.com

The Ultimate Fighting/Review Site

Tag Archives: Action

Warcraft Review

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) Review

Attack on Titan: The Harsh Mistress of the City Review

Lego DC Comics Super Heroes: Justice League: Cosmic Clash Review

Little Battlers eXperience Wars Review

Cardfight Vanguard G GIRS Crisis Review

Kubo and The Two Strings Review

Tenkai Knights Review

The Vision of Escaflowne Review

Insomnia Review

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: