Black Torch Review

Posted on July 17, 2022 by dreager1

Black Torch didn’t last very long which is definitely a shame. The series had a really solid premise and good action scenes. I thought it got good real fast personally and it’s the kind of premise that could have kept on going for a long while. Ah well, it’s still a really fun read either way and you’ll definitely appreciate the epic action that’s here. At least it uses character bios in the final volume to tell you how things would have played out if it had kept on going.

So the story starts by introducing us to Jiro who is living a normal life. Well, mostly normal. See, he can actually talk to animals and one day he finds a cat that is injured. Jiro helps this cat out whose name is Rago but then he’s attacked by a Mononoke, a kind of monster of incredible power. Unfortunately Jiro is destroyed but Rago revives him by fusing his essence into Jiro. Jiro is now a power wielder and so a mysterious group known as the Bureau shows up and forces him to join. He must now help them stop the rest of the Mononoke or they will destroy him personally. Not much of a choice if we’re being honest here but them’s the breaks. Can Jiro get these guys to trust him?

So at its core this isn’t anything new and different. It’s a fairly classic premise with a demon inside the main character and now he is one of the strongest in the verse. We’ve got the demons attacking and a group of heroic fighters who do battle with them. So what made this one stand out to me? Well, it’s the fact that the series really doesn’t waste any time in getting to the good stuff.

For example, by volume 2 we’re already seeing some pretty serious battles with the villains. High speed action scenes and the characters are powerful. This is the kind of series that seems like it was going to give everyone a high power level right out of the jump. The art is also really good and looks a lot more advanced than what you would expect from a new manga. All of the battle scenes are very detailed and the series uses ink really well to emphasize the power of each attack. I can’t stress enough just how solid this looked right from the jump. The level of detail here is excellent and I already liked the character designs. You’ll be blasting through the series really quickly as a result since each volume goes by so quickly.

Black Torch was really firing on all cylinders and another good reason for this is the main character Jiro. Jiro’s an excellent lead who feels a lot like Ichigo to me. He minds his own business but if he sees someone in trouble then he helps out. Jiro was ready to fight with literal monsters to save a cat that he just met and throughout the series he is always ready to jump into the fray. He never really holds anything against Rago or the other characters for keeping secrets and doesn’t let the villains sway him with words either.

Jiro is very self confident and knows that he’s on the right side. No mind games work on him so the guy comes across as a veteran. He’s easily the highlight character here. Then you have the main heroine Ichika who is solid. She’s more of a classic tsundere type who insults Jiro and is always acting rather aggressive. She starts to mellow out later on though and I thought that she was a solid ally. I think she would have only continued to get better as the series wore on. As soon as she finally accepted Jiro as an ally then it was all up hill.

Reiji is the third member of the big 3 and he even has a whole plot to himself involving his brother. Reiji is skilled but I would say he was quickly surpassed by Jiro so it’s hard to really call them rivals. Allies probably works better even if Reiji thinks that he stands a chance. I would say he’s just strong enough where he doesn’t fall into the issue of really holding Jiro back like Renji from Bleach. So I ended up liking him.

Ryosuke’s the leader and he’s a crafty old guy. You always feel like he may be hiding something or probably lots of things. I wouldn’t trust him if I was Jiro but at the end of the day he seems like a good guy. Either way the series ends before anything too tricky happened there but otherwise I feel like he may have ended up becoming a bit of a villain by the end. Not totally sure though, it all depends on if the Bureau itself would have been antagonists at some point. I don’t tend to trust big groups like this, it feels like there is always a mole in there or they just want to destroy Jiro because he has a monster in him.

Hana helps the group as a support member but she can’t really fight which means that she was never going to be too relevant in this series. You absolutely have to have abilities in order to get through to the end. Otherwise you stay as a supporting character. Hana is nice enough but there’s just not much to say about her as a result.

There are two fighters who appear later on in Takeru and Banri who are upper members of the Bureau but the series ends before they can do too much. I did like how powerful they were even if Jiro surpassed them quickly. It’s always good for the heroes to have some upper echelon members who won’t be immediately surpassed in the power creep. They at least give Jiro something to think about if he wants to run off. Granted, it’s always the Bureau starting trouble if you ask me.

Now one character I really didn’t like was the grandpa Toshimasa. This guy is just awful. So Jiro is doing the right thing in saving lives and fighting monsters but his grandpa is not understanding at all and just starts beating the living daylights out of Jiro. Keep in mind that Jiro won’t fight back since he’s not trying to beat up his own grandfather. This continues on for quite a bit and sure we get that Toshimasa has some history with the Bureau (Which he is keeping secret) and doesn’t want Jiro to be in danger but beating him up and landing severe blows isn’t helping. He comes close to murdering Jiro a few times as well. It was annoying and I never like when a hero takes it this far while trying to say that they’re just protecting the guy. Nah, it doesn’t add up.

Meanwhile Rago is a solid character. He has a good bond going with Jiro even if he ultimately tends to fight it out alone. When the going gets tough, Rago is always ready to throw Jiro away to save him instead of fighting as a team. I don’t dock points from a character for doing that but it shows that they didn’t have perfect trust among each other for a while. Rago is sort of like the Nine Tailed Fox but a little nicer from the jump. After all he wanted to protect humans from a long while ago.

One part of the series that I didn’t think made sense was Rago’s reaction in the past though. So the main villain here is Amagi and he wants Mononoke to rule above the humans. Naturally one part of his plan is to murder all of the humans so that they’re not in the way. Okay, I follow up to this point and he wants Rago on the team. Right now Rago is protecting some humans so what does Amagi do? He murders them….yeah he just shows up and destroys them all as well as their families.

Lets not say what happens next for now but in theory shouldn’t that destroy Amagi’s plans? He wants Rago because Rago is the most powerful demon on the planet and right now nobody can beat him. So if Amagi shows up and starts messing around then Rago will probably end him and there goes the plan. So it made no sense for Amagi to approach this the way that he did. The most frustrating part is that it worked. Rago is so sad about all of this that he allows himself to be sealed up in a rock for all eternity while Amagi goes back to murdering everybody.

You’re going to roll your eyes at that because it was so convenient. It is the only possible way for Amagi to have survived in the past and it makes no sense. You’d think that Rago would have finished the guy off first instead of going to sleep. The guy just disrespected Rago to his face and should have paid the price for it. Definitely not a good look for Rago. I like him in the present but in the past that made absolutely no sense.

Meanwhile, Amagi’s plan also doesn’t line up anyway. So his power is that whenever he murders a mononoke, he gets stronger. So right now he knows that he can’t beat the humans and has decided to destroy all of the mononoke in the meantime so he can be strong enough to do so. Except…his goal was to protect the mononoke from the humans. So somewhere along the way he compromised on his goals and so instead he’ll just destroy everybody. At the very least most of the Mononoke would be dead by the end so instead it seems like his true goal was just to be the strongest of them all.

I guess it shows how insane he is, but I’d rather he had just made that his goal from the start. He even comes close to challenging the demon of the forest which would indirectly have been a big help to the humans but ultimately backs off. Amagi is crazy powerful so this strategy did help him rise to being near the top of the verse but regardless, it isn’t going to be doing much for the mononoke. It’s just putting them in another bad situation. At least he does have a cool design though.

I did like Ibuki though. She’s another super powerful demon and is a lot more reasonable than the others. She owns the forest and just lets the humans know not to go in there. If they do then she murders them but otherwise she is content with this space. It’s a solid arrangement considering how powerful she is and it’s quite reasonable. I was glad that Ibuki didn’t back down when Amagi showed up and in general she got a good amount of hype. Now here’s someone that you want on your side.

Another villain I liked was Kouga. Initially he is with Amagi and just follows orders but gradually he realizes just how insane this all is and makes a move. After all, a lot of the Mononoke are on board with destroying humanity and making a better spot for themselves, but they aren’t about to destroy their own comrades for this goal. So once Amagi starts to show his true colors, Kouga really comes in handy. He ultimately isn’t strong enough to stop Amagi or anything like that but he still comes in clutch.

Then we have the most interesting villain in Shinji. He’s the older brother of Reiji who turned evil and fled the scene a while back. The series hints that he may actually be possessed by a Mononoke but at the same time implies that it may just be him in control. Either way he’s extremely powerful and it feels like he would have been one of the end game bosses for a future arc. I thought there was a lot of potential with him here, you get some Itachi vibes. I somehow don’t think there was a heroic reason for doing this so his only chance at still being a good guy is if he is mind controlled. Maybe he tried to stop a demon from hurting the family but it defeated him and then possessed him. He’d probably be traumatized by that point.

There’s another villain named Roren but I wouldn’t say he’s that good. He liked Ichika a lot and while he isn’t gullible enough to fall for her tricks, he makes his goals rather clear. He’s more interested in her than in the big plans at large which says a lot about his lack of dependability. He doesn’t have the drive that the other characters have the whole time and isn’t as powerful either. This guy is not someone I’d depend on even if he fully turned good.

That about wraps it up for the characters. Now with the series ending so quickly, one of the questions would probably be, why? If I had to guess why this may not have hit it off with some folks, I would say that they may have just been bored of the demon hunting sub genre at the time. There are always a ton of those after all and with this one not trying anything different, it may have just felt like the same old thing they’ve seen a ton of times.

If that is the case then it’s definitely a shame because the execution is on point. The only worrisome thing I could see would be how Jiro really likes animals and that’s a part of his character. That could have easily been used against him in a future arc which would get real bad real fast since I don’t want any animal hostages or sacrifices thrown into the mix. If we trust the series not to have gone down that route though then I think it would have been just fine. There are a lot of ways you could go with the plot and it’s not like Jiro had finished powering up. The sky was the limit here.

Why the series worked for me really come down to the action and main character. This feels more like an old school manga like Bleach. Yeah Bleach is old enough where I can call it old school at this point. Black Torch had a very retro vibe to it and the world building was on point. This would have really been something special if it was given the chance. It can be a little violent and the series doesn’t hold back there but I wouldn’t say it ever got too dark either. I think it would have all balanced out. Another volume or two would have really thrown it over the top as the next big great. There goes all the potential. We still needed to learn more about the brother, the organization, world building with the mononoke, etc. There were a whole lot of seeds planted here but the series did an admirable job of at least finishing off the big plots right away.

Overall, Black Torch hit the ground running and never looked back. It had a very interesting setup and cast right from the jump so it’s a shame that this didn’t become a hit. Of course not everything can become super big and that’s just the way that it goes sometimes. I’d still recommend checking this out if you ever see it. It strikes me as a fairly rare title so that may not happen too quickly but don’t miss the opportunity when it arrives. It’s not every day that you find a hidden gem like this one.

Overall 8/10

A Good Day to Die Hard Review

Posted on July 10, 2022 by dreager1

This is a review of the TV-14 edited version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

Die Hard’s a fun series. It may have its ups and downs with quality but you know that you’ll always be in for a lot of action and thrills. This one was a little better than I was expecting though and I would even say it beat the last two. It doesn’t quite match up to the original but has a nice spin on an older main character here. If only the kid wasn’t so annoying.

So the movie starts off with a villain named Komarov being ready to shed light on some recent corruption and tyranny from some Russian officials. The thing is, the whole trial is naturally fake and they’re just going to blow him up. Before that can happen, he is rescued by Jack McClane, the son of John McClane. This guy works for the CIA and is ready to complete his mission no matter what. Wouldn’t you know it though, John happens to be in the area and decides to help out. There’s a lot of friction between John and Jack though which threatens to compromise the mission. Can they put aside their differences to save Komarov?

Now I’m referring to both of them there but if we’re being honest every issue is completely Jack’s fault. He’s constantly getting on John about everything when it’s never about him. Seriously John saves the guy’s life early on and Jack has absolutely no gratitude to show for him. Jack’s just constantly yelling and being slow on the uptake. He seems to forget that John has saved the world multiple times.

The movie does try to give Jack a little support here as it reminds us that John was often away from home which would make things tense but I think you ought to cut him some slack. At the very least John’s doing his best to make things right and even if Jack isn’t ready to be friends yet, he doesn’t have to be antagonistic. I absolutely understand him not wanting to be a close family or anything as that’s a deep wound but lives are at stake and he’s supposed to be a professional agent so he could act like one.

There’s one scene where they just keep yelling each other’s name for a full minutes as they’re walking around and I couldn’t help but think that they were giving their location away to every possible villain in the area. There’s definitely a way to be discreet but the heroes haven’t mastered that yet. I didn’t like Jack at all as you can probably guess. He can’t even give John credit like when he was able to get some car keys and always has to have some kind of bravado going.

John carries the film here. He’s clearly tired of saving the world and just wants to rest at this point but steps in with no hesitation once Jack is in trouble. John just makes sure to blast the villains off the road and it shows that he will always be there for Jack when it counts. John can be a little sarcastic all the time but he’s still taking the adventure seriously. I can say with confidence that Jack would have been doomed without him.

As for Komarov…well he’s around a lot but there’s nothing too memorable about him. He’s someone who has to be kept alive so Komarov is always around but basically his only character is that he also wants his daughter to be safe and that ends up being a whole other thing. Once again the situation may have been avoided a bit if Jack was more cautious since John realized that something was up right away.

For the main villain Alik, the film tries to give him a fun personality as he rants about America but I wouldn’t say it works as well as the earlier films. He’s an okay villain but ultimately he’s just a guy in a suit so you won’t remember him much. I would say that the film’s biggest weakness is that the plot isn’t super interesting. I’d say the best parts of the film are more about the dynamic with John and the fun action scenes.

The actual plot you don’t care all too much about. So there’s another corrupt guy in Russia and we’ve got a whistleblower here to talk about it. For starters part of you feels like it won’t actually amount to much. These guys have enough power to have a fake court proceedings and were comfortable going to murder him out in the open so realistically…will this guy make a big difference? I suppose he should and we have to believe that but the stakes just didn’t feel as big as any of the other Die Hards. So even though it won overall against some of them, it just wasn’t for the story.

Where the film succeeds is with a solid script and pacing. The movie is always moving rather quickly and doesn’t waste any time. It may be by the numbers but the execution is good. The change in scenery worked rather well too, it all just looks a bit different. It makes for some fun battles on the streets since it all doesn’t look familiar. Finally there was one scene I appreciated where the villains told the heroes to drop their guns and John just didn’t.

After all, why would you possibly do that? The terrorists will just destroy you as soon as you drop it. Unfortunately Komarov has horrible reaction times so he messes this up and the heroes get taken out but otherwise John was going to go out blasting. I absolutely think that’s the right call. Hostages can make things tougher but otherwise you should always go down blasting instead of dropping your gun. All the latter will do is guarantee a slower and more painful death. At least if you’re riddled with shots you should die almost instantly.

Overall, A Good Day to Die Hard is a solid movie. It has a good amount of replay value and is the kind of film I could definitely watch again. It’s fairly stand alone as well so you don’t even need the context of the earlier films. In fact, not seeing those may make you sympathize with Jack more but it can also make John seem a little too good as he outpaces all of the CIA agents immediately. (Those guys don’t look very good here) I didn’t like Jack though and it’s hard to see that changing. When you watch the movie just be prepared to see him whining over and over again.

Overall 6/10

Thor: Love and Thunder Review

Posted on July 8, 2022 by dreager1

Thor has returned for his first solo adventure in quite a while. Thor Ragnarok still ranks as one of the top Marvel films while the first two have their mixed moments. Perhaps controversially I always had Thor 2 ahead of the first one even if the power levels in that film would go on to make everything else a little tricky. I’ll go into the full Thor rankings later on. Love and Thunder is a solid installment in the series even if it doesn’t come close to matching Ragnarok.

The movie starts with introducing us to the god butcher known as Gorr and his origins on how he came to get this title. He seemed like a rather decent guy but ultimately a tragic experience pushes him to the dark side. He begins to destroy all of the gods one by one. We then cut to Thor who is in a bit of a slump. He goes around and finishes battles with his immense strength but it all feels empty to him. Now this mission to save the gods and his people may be just what Thor needs but he will have to also deal with the shock of seeing Jane Foster become the new Thor. Will they be able to put aside their past history to team up and take Gorr down?

There’s a lot to unpack here so first lets start off with some of the really solid aspects. The action scenes are great when they happen. The biggest highlight for me was naturally the big team up with Thor and Jane as we get to see a lot of good combos there. The movie does a good job of having each energy weapon be a slightly different color which works well for contrast during the battles. There’s a lot of good movement here and I would say the power levels are accounted for as well. Each fighter has a different fighting strategy based on how they battle.

Thor still retains his power increase from Ragnarok which is important. For the most part I didn’t have too many strength issues. There is a moment involving being tied up that I found a little hard to buy and one or two fights end in more of a stalemate than I would have expected. It’s all more on the mild side though and nothing as head scratching as the Kurse fight from film 2. There’s one scene where Thor holds back two sci-fi motorbikes with his legs which may be the most impressive physical feat we’ve seen from him.

The soundtrack is also very solid. Not quite Dr. Strange level but there are a lot of good action tunes. I do think it was an odd decision to leave the best sounding lyrical song for the credits though. I think it would have worked really well during the movie similar to how Ragnarok had a song that appeared when Thor unlocked his true abilities. Either way it makes for a fun soundtrack to look up online.

As the main character Thor is good even if he’s still feeling a bit of his Endgame depression here. The movie plays up the gag with his hammers a bit too much and Thor has slowly become more of a full on comedic character than an action star. You can definitely have the balance of both and do it well but what makes that work is Thor’s full confidence. The scene with him taking the gang to Zeus’ palace for example can have some decent humor moments but it all feels a bit out of character. Thor’s the kind of hero who would usually take to the stage and start talking as opposed to almost being nervous and just staying in the stands the whole time. Thor can have a hero sure…but the whole thing didn’t really make sense.

So Thor is good and looks strong in combat but I wouldn’t say it was his best appearance. During battle there is no problem as he goes all in. There’s one scene in particular that is pretty much taken out of the Seven Deadly Sins playbook involving a solid catch and throw back that was very impressive. Definitely one of the highlights. The romance scenes can have him struggling a bit but in general the romance in the film was really weak. It’s been so long since Thor and Jane have been apart that this should really be something that they don’t rebound into. Stay as good friends and that would have been a much better dynamic. You could probably have better banter that way as well. There wasn’t any romance scene here that really worked.

Then we have Jane as the main heroine and she is a good character. I thought her plan involving using Mjolnir was a pretty smart one and I would have expected it to work a lot better. Her plot is the serious one in the film and provides a contrast to the happy Thor moments. Ultimately she’s a solid character who makes the right choices in the end and her fans should be really pleased with her portrayal here. She uses the hammer in a lot of creative ways too.

Valkyrie’s role is a lot smaller here than last time but she is around for the whole journey. Unfortunately she just can’t keep up in terms of raw power along with the others at this point so she tends to play more of a backup role. I like that she’s always ready to fight though and she gets more to do than Lady Sif, that’s for sure. Jane’s friend gets an even smaller role and that was a supremely good idea since she doesn’t add much to the story.

Zeus looks awful but I won’t go into that much further for spoiler purposes. Lets just say that I don’t see him gaining any real fans from this appearance. Now we get to Gorr and I thought he was an interesting villain. I’m a little less impressed with the execution as I felt the film could make him a little overboard in how petty he could be. (Scaring some kids comes to mind) His goal actually makes sense and the intro scene does a lot to really get his character across. His actions in the grand scheme make sense as a result which makes him a really interesting villain.

I felt like the writers realized he was starting to get a little too sympathetic so they had to quickly try and stop that but it’s not needed. Having a villain like this is always a good idea because even if you don’t root for them, at least they’re not just randomly psychotic. I would argue that at times the film even shows how a lot of people would potentially support his goal to destroy all of the gods. Over 90% of the gods we’ve met have all looked absolutely lousy and are basically unchecked evil. The heroes aren’t going to deal with them so that’s where Gorr steps in. That could be a longer editorial in itself but basically the appeal is that he’s like the Punisher. A villain who is judging other villains but down the road Gorr starts to be more generally unstable and and loses focus in his vision which hurts him as a character.

Now lets talk about the rankings a bit. So ultimately I would say that Ragnarok is clear and away the best of the 4 Thor films. I wouldn’t consider it to be that close. In second would be Thor 2, then Love and Thunder, followed by the original Thor movie. The reason why the first Thor film is at the end is really because there wasn’t a whole lot of action and it’s old enough where the visuals don’t hold up next to the others. Still a solid movie but in last by a solid amount.

The reason why The Dark World beats this one mainly comes down to that film having better pacing. Love and Thunder has higher peaks with its action scenes but also lower lows. Dark World had some cringe humor of its own but it doesn’t last as long and tends to rebound quicker. Yes, there’s the infamous moment of Thor’s mother being murdered and he’s back to joking shortly after, but this film matches that. There’s a moment where some people are kidnapped and are in mortal danger. Seconds…literally seconds later and Thor is back to flirting and joking around with Jane. Both of them seem to not care at all until a little later when they address the situation. That’s a perfect example of humor appearing at the worst possible moment.

Humor in itself can be a lot of fun of course. A lot of the best titles out there have a lot of humor and it works well but it’s all about timing. This film didn’t always get that across like with the Zeus scenes being way dragged out and Thor’s friends really not being helpful for a while there. Characters like Iron Man, Spider Man, and Ant Man just tend to have a better balance. They’re funnier and of course that does come down to writing of course but it also fits in with their characters more. If you want a comedic Thor, Ragnarok shows how to get the best balance of this as he’s still supremely confident as opposed to joking more at his own expense.

Then there’s also a very cheesy scene near the end. Lets just say it involves sharing power but man while it’s supposed to be an inspirational moment and all, it was still just hard to get into. Super convenient to have this on the go but I would have cut that scene out entirely and just had Thor use some cool range moves. It would have had a whole lot more impact that way.

The visuals are stunning all the way through, even away from the action scenes. I saw the movie in 3D so it was a little blurrier than usual. I couldn’t necessarily make out any easter eggs if they were too far in the background or get the full battle experience but all of them will likely be up on Youtube in 4K soon so then it’s time to relive the epic battles. I hope the films continue with emphasizing the glow of the weapons because it’s an almost anime type technique that immediately enhances a battle. Watch any Ufotable battle and you see that one of the tricks they used to have the best animation is that there are always a lot of colors at play.

I also enjoyed seeing the Guardians of the Galaxy for a bit. Their role is small but this is a really solid way to remind you that this is a cinematic universe without having the guest stars steal the film. (Not that I ever mind having them get a huge amount of screen time) It’s a very solid way to get this across. As a final note before approaching the end, I thought the way the film handled the monsters was really good and how the heroes would take care of them. I’m mainly thinking of the battle on the black and white planet. Instead of it being a traditional 3 vs 1, you had a 3 v 1 with a lot of monsters acting as stage hazards.

The characters would have to deal with them at times while also trying not to lose sight of Gorr and it helped make the battles more tense. Also, while the monsters were glass cannons, they could still deal a whole lot of damage so it’s not like you could ignore them completely. I wonder if this planet is one of the moments where there was some cut footage because there’s a scene involving a big blow and then next has the characters walking and squaring up for a fight. It felt like something was just missing there. Either way one of the best sequences there.

The ending to the movie is good and sets up a lot of fun ideas for the next movie. In theory there’s a whole new avenue of situations and scenarios that you can do now so I’ll be interested to see how that goes. In a lot of ways I can easily see the next one beating this film. The setups that are around have a whole lot of potential. The first after credits scene gives us a good glimpse of how the next film might go. Now, this next opponent is not even remotely a threat at this point in time but I’m sure there will be a way to even the playing field. There’s only one aspect I didn’t like about the first after credits scene and it involves one of the characters who appeared. I just don’t see the value in having him around so hopefully the next film can change my mind. It’s too bad the Avengers aren’t fully formed right now because this plot could almost work as the next Avengers title rather than a Thor standalone movie.

As for the second after credits scene, it’s decent enough. It opens the door to some interesting possibilities. If it follows a DBZ kind of logic, it will open things up almost as much as the whole multiverse angle. The movie already showed us a decently high cosmic level of things so at this point there isn’t much that you can rule out from the films incorporating into future plots. That’s a good thing since it will help to keep things really unpredictable.

Overall, Thor: Love and Thunder is a pretty good movie. With the big theater films there is always a lot to discuss. Ultimately it’s going to have less replay value than most of the other recent Marvel movies though. It beats Eternals but gets slaughtered by all of the other Phase IV titles. (Shang Chi, Spiderman, Dr. Strange, Black Widow) It beats Guardians of the Galaxy 2 but loses to all of the other Phase III titles. You get the idea and of course that does speak to how solid the Marvel movies have been for this to still be a positive score and lose to so many but it also shows how this movie didn’t reach its full potential. Most likely you’ll rewatch the fights online more than you will the whole movie. Still, the benefit of the comedic tone is that you can put this film on and just enjoy the moments. It’s mostly all light hearted and even if it does drag at times, there are still a lot of good moments. If you like the Marvel films then you’ll want to check this one out.

Overall 7/10

Breath of Fire Review

Posted on July 3, 2022 by dreager1

The Breath of Fire video game was a lot of fun so it was time to see how the manga would fare. Adapting a complete RPG in only 6 chapters is definitely quite the task. I’d say the manga did a good job but of course for obvious reasons it does cut a whole lot out. Things tend to move quickly here, particularly the climax which has to go at lightning speeds. Some of the villain generals also don’t get to appear here. For example you’re not going to see Goda here unless he had some kind of wordless cameo. Even in the game these guys didn’t appear much until the end though so it’s not too surprising.

The manga starts off with a ton of lore and the cliff notes version is that the world was once inhabited by a bunch of dragon clans. One day the Dark Dragons decided to go and murder everybody for some reason. The White Dragons were the only ones that could have stopped them but unfortunately they decided to become complete pacifists so they just watched as everyone got slaughtered instead. I’d be steamed if I was anyone living in that world tbh. Well, eventually the dark dragons got to the final survivors and nearly murdered them too but Ryu’s sister Sara made a deal to keep it as a 1 on 1 fight. She sacrificed herself so that Ryu could live.

Fast forward a few years and Ryu has made it his life’s goal to destroy all of the dark dragons. This will not be easy but he’s ready for this. Inn the meantime he also comes across other characters who have had their lives ruined by the dark dragons as well. The heroes will have to move quickly though or there won’t be a world left to save. They are also heavily outnumbered and so the heroes have to make sure that their plans are completely on point.

This feels like a very classic action adventure story. You’ve seen the characters and this kind of adventure before. It’s not trying to be super ambitious or anything like that and is just trying to tell a good story. It works well at doing this and if you like fantasy adventures then you will definitely have a good time with this one. Ryu makes for a solid main character. He’s your classic heroic kid who has a personal grudge against the villains. As the series goes on he learns that rage isn’t the way and that he must fight for justice instead.

Ryu never backs away from a challenge and will defend his friends to the end. He jumps right into action whenever there is danger and so I definitely don’t have any issues with him. I thought he handled all of the situations really well. Then you have the main heroine Nina who is rather retro in how she’s always beating up on poor Ryu. She can’t fight super well or anything but she does have healing abilities which come in handy. What Nina lacks is self confidence as she is easily set off by the sorceress Deis with rather light teasing. Nina needs to stay strong so she doesn’t cause any trouble.

Danc gets a fairly important role here as he has a tragic sob story as well and is ready to help out. The kid can’t really fight but helps give a motivational speech as one point. I wouldn’t say I’m a big fan of his but he’s not bad. If you want a bad character, Manillo fits that bill. They try to play him off like a decent guy by the end but I wasn’t buying it. He wouldn’t let the heroes get a boat so they could go save the world because he wanted extra money. His offers to them were pretty bad on the kinds of other tasks they could do to raise money. I don’t see how any of the characters were cool with him after that. They should have just knocked the guy around instead.

Builder gets his moment to shine as well. Things started out rather rough for him but the heroes helped him regain his confidence and make a comeback. Ultimately he got a happy ending which was nice, things almost got pretty dark for him there. Gillian also has his own chapter and that’s probably one of the perks of being an early character. I feel like you get more time to shine since you’re also around in the background for the rest. He’s a good character and helps everyone stay calm.

Mogu is an example of a character who came in too late. By the time he appears the series is pretty much over so there’s not much for him to do. He is a nice enough character who wants to help out but you don’t really feel like he can fight as well as he may think that he can. Deis is the final member to join the group and she’s a fun character like in the game. Her abilities are actually really good so she can help Ryu on the front lines unlike the others. Her spells have a lot of versatility to them and you can count on her help in any circumstance. She does enjoy teasing Nina for sure but you can say that it’s to help make Nina stronger. Deis has quite the strong personality and definitely helped to enhance the overall team dynamics.

As for the villains, most of them didn’t really make the cut here so the roster is rather small. You have Zorgon who thought he was the leader but he is manipulated from start to finish and never actually gets to look all that good. In the end this guy was really all talk and his role is so small that you may chuckle at the end. Judas is definitely the standout villain. He makes his presence known at all times and is incredibly powerful. He lands a lot of super big blows to the heroes and is relevant for the whole series. He gets more to do than I would have even expected and it makes for a great character arc.

Naturally Ryu’s sister Sara is also really solid. She’s determined and has a lot of power just like he does. She never backs down and doesn’t end up playing second fiddle. Sara just goes in and keeps on fighting all the way through to the end. She gets one of the most emotional moments in the manga. Finally you have Myria who is really the big bad here. The destroyer of the universe and she has other cool titles like that. She can fight and has kept up with the power creep over times.

While her goals may not be much more than total destruction, she does a good job of setting this into motion. Myria is strong and I liked her well enough as a villain. She may not stand out in terms of personality but her abilities are the real deal. This is where I would have liked another chapter or two though because the final fight ends up being a little rushed due to the length. In the span of 10 pages the heroes have to try and land their first blow on her and then the series ends. Not a lot of time for a real fight considering how powerful she was right?

The artwork is nice and retro. This looks like a very old time manga and it does adapt the video game designs well. At times the action can be a little hard to follow along so I think the manga could have been clearer there. It’s still good but it’s what keeps the good art from being very good. This would lose to a lot of modern titles for example but it’s solid enough where I wouldn’t call it bad. You’ll be able to blast through the chapters either way. The series has a little fanservice like with the obligatory river washing and Deis messing with Ryu but for the most part there’s not much here. It feels more like the series was ticking off a box than they were trying to add a lot of this. I’d argue that’s a box you don’t need to tick off since the scenes don’t add anything but they’re minor enough where they don’t bring the series down.

The story has good vibes to it and stays upbeat for the most part. There are a lot of tragedies as each character has a sob story but there is no time to really dwell on it. Even the characters are quickly back to having fun as they travel the distance. I’d say the manga does a good job of showing just what an adventure would feel like and how the characters adapt to it. It’s fairly low key even with the world at stake which helps on the retro feel.

I still say that the manga should have been longer but ultimately that’s not something that would shave a star off of the final product. It just means that this will probably encourage you to play the video game to really get the full experience. That’s my recommendation here as well, if you like the manga then definitely play the game. You get the bullet points here and all of the big story moments but it’s just not the same compared to a 20-30 hour experience on the game version. You get more time for the twists and character development there.

Overall, Breath of Fire is a solid title. It’s a very quick read at only 6 chapters long. It’s ultimately 2 volumes long as a result but they would feel like fairly short volumes to me. At least you could also say this speaks to the quality of the series as you will have no problem binging it all the way through. It’s what I’d consider to be a fairly safe pick. It’s not really going for any outlandish twists or bold story choices. This is a traditional adventure with fun characters and really plays out exactly how you would expect it to. So it’s a fun story that should appeal to most without trying to test the waters. I’ll be checking out the Breath of Fire 2 adaption soon and we’ll see how that one stacks up. I’d say I’ve got pretty good hopes on that one as well. Should be a solid adventure too.

Overall 7/10

Ayashimon Review

Posted on June 26, 2022 by dreager1

Whenever a series gets cancelled you feel a little bad because it could have kept going and become the next Naruto. A series that everyone respects as one of the all time greats. I know that’s what I was thinking the whole time for many titles since if you ask me, a series that it good should just continue forever. Never end the series unless it’s actually bad. Now, this one may not have been super amazing or anything like that but it was pretty good and definitely should have lasted longer.

The series starts by explaining that the demons used to all be ruled by a single man named Kioh. He was a strong monster who kept everyone in check and under his rule things just worked out. Unfortunately he died under mysterious causes and so the group descended into a bunch of small gangs. In particular there are now 4 gangs that rule the world and they are all striving for power. We are then introduced to the main character Maruo.

Maruo is really obsessed with Shonen Jump and has read all of the big titles. He lives his life like he’s a protagonist and is bored because everyone’s too weak. That’s when he bumps into a girl named Urara who is being chased by a bunch of demonic yakuza. Maruo beats them up and decides to serve her as a Yakuza member. She is the daughter of Kioh and intends to destroy all of the demons and become the top family again. Maruo will help to the best of his ability because he really wants to get some good fights. Can he pull this off or is it game over?

So lets start off with some of the good parts here. The series has solid action. I enjoyed the action scenes here and the series has good art from the start. Usually you’d expect it to be a little rough around the edges but it holds up from the jump. At worst I would say some of the designs may not be all that memorable but you won’t have any trouble reading what’s happening in the scenes. It all just flows together really well.

I also thought the character cast was good. Perhaps a bit small but I think this would have ended up being a solid team. The manga moves rather quickly and it’s already getting a little high tier with the feats. There’s a lot to like here and while the manga delves into some darker subject matter, I wouldn’t say it goes too far. The idea of uniting all of the Yakuza gangs is also a classic. Just replace “Yakuza” with almost anything and you’ll see that it’s a classic kind of plot. Maruo and his friends need to be the best and it’s a tested formula.

So what happened, why did this series get cancelled? Well, I do think some of the world building elements may have been a little too much too soon. For example we learn about different kinds of ghosts here and how they can only stay alive through coins and belief. It’s hard to say which is more important but we know for a fact that demons turn into coins when they’re destroyed. The others can then use that to strengthen themselves. Belief somehow helps keep you tangible as well but it’s hard to say if this turns into more coins or not.

Otherwise, how does it help when you’re made of coins? The series goes on to show that demons exist in another realm and the coins help them get a physical form. That’s a little odd to buy into though, what is this other realm and are they always just floating around but invisible and intangible? As you can see, you can make sense of this whole thing if you make some assumptions and connect the dots but the series overcomplicates the issue a bit too much.

Especially because it’s honestly not that important. Just say that yokai are made out of money and when they die other demons use the money to get stronger. Boom, you’ve still got everything you need without big info dumps. Especially when a series is new you don’t have time to be throwing info at people like that. Still not a big enough issue for the series to have been cancelled though.

I suppose Maruo’s backstory was a bit grim with his having an abusive father and all but main characters have had worse. I was really surprised by this but it’s handled fairly well. It explains why Maruo got into manga and how he trained to become so strong. Usually you have the heroes training to fight some end of the world boss or something but here it was just so that he wouldn’t get absolutely crushed day in and day out. It was a pretty interesting change of pace there.

As a main character Maruo may not stand out a whole lot but he’s a good kid. He likes to fight and is always trying to get stronger. That’s already the most important step for a main character so he’s off to a very good start there. He may be a little too one note in how obsessed he is with Jump but I’m cool with it. You have to establish character traits early so I can see why he is this obsessed. I think it would calm down a bit as the series goes on. His physical strength was impressive and I always like a brawler fighting style.

Maruo is a loyal guy and doesn’t give up easy so I’ll always remember him as a pretty solid character. Then you have the heroine Urara who is good. She has mixed feelings about exactly why she wants to be at the top. In part it’s because she wants to bring honor back to the family name and in another way it’s also because she wants to find out the truth about what happened to her father. I’m sure there would ultimately be tons of twists about her father had the series kept going. Still, she did her best and tried to follow the rules the whole time. Things just didn’t work out for her.

She ultimately becomes a good character once she decides that her friends take priority over the revenge. At that point she was really making all of the right decisions and goes from being a shady boss to one who has found her priorities. Hopefully she’ll get a longer time limit on her super form eventually though because only being able to use it for a few minutes is pretty iffy. It would also be nice if she could fight at least a bit in base considering how powerful her father was. Perhaps as the series went on she would have gotten stronger.

So the first story arc has the heroes decide to find a weak gang to beat up so they can have a base of operations. They run into a demon named Ten who gladly invites them over to take out his mean boss. Maruo pulls this off easily enough and it works well as an introduction to show how strong he could be for a human. The series does give an explanation for this like every few thousand years a human is born with incredible power. I almost feel like you didn’t need an explanation for this but I suppose it’s better than nothing so that is still fine.

The villains here are mainly one shots aside from Ten who actually joins the team. I can’t say that I was particularly impressed with the guy though. He’s your classic coward type character who is afraid of everyone and can’t fight. That’s definitely not the kind of guy that you want to have on your squad. He gets one fight before the series ends and the whole thing is really cheesy. Ultimately he wouldn’t have done much to help the dynamic if the series had kept going on.

Then we get to the first big arc which introduces us to the leader of the strongest gang, Doppo. Doppo kidnaps Urara’s informant Hashihime and it’s clear that he plans to take her out for the count. She was a bit of a double agent which is always a super risky job. Maruo figures he can take this guy down since Shonen Jump heroes never lose. It’s a good way to show off one of the end game threats of the series and to have Maruo lose. The action was good and everything but I just had one big issue here.

You immediately realize that what will give Maruo some pep back in his step is that he’ll remember how leads can lose the first fight but then will win the rematch. The reason the plot is too contrived here is because Maruo was already established as a complete manga expert. There’s no way he would somehow forget that the heroes lose from time to time. DBZ is one of the series that he said he read and Goku lost his share of fights. So the author could and should have handled that part a lot better.

Hashihime was a really solid character and I definitely missed her once she was gone. She could fight and did rather well in combat. At the end of the day that’s just not enough when you’re up against Doppo’s group. Her flame powers were fun while they lasted. Then you have Doppo as the big leader of his group and that guy was a solid villain. He is one of those quirky types who likes his artwork and making sure his victims don’t die easily.

He explains that this was actually difficult because of course in this world the demons will die naturally without money and if they recover too well it could be dangerous. Well, his idea is to let them partially regenerate and turns them into piggy banks which forces them to stay alive. The whole thing was very clever on his part. It’s good that they’re made out of coins though or the scene could have been a little too grisly. Either way it is rather disturbing for anyone who gets captured by him. You do not want that to happen.

Doppo’s power is able to suck fire out of anything or anyone which is interesting. I haven’t quite seen a power like that before and I thought it worked really well. It helps the ability really stand out next to the others. A normal ice ability wouldn’t have stood out as much. I may not be the biggest fan of the guy but he certainly lives up to the hype with how powerful he is. Even by the end of the series he isn’t taken out.

Next up is more of a small arc as the heroes realize they need to get much stronger while also increasing the fights at their disposal. The best option is to form a truce with the biker gang. Naturally this ultimately leads to a clash between their leader Kotton and Maruo. Kotton reminds me of an Accel World type character with how he zooms all over the place. He’s incredibly fast, maybe too fast as it’s hard to see Maruo fighting with him at all. Sure, Maruo is getting wrecked for most of the fight but maybe it should have been for the whole fight. The water weakness was convenient against Kotton but he should still be too fast to fall for any traps.

It could have been worse as the author at least tries to cover the bases but that’s always an issue with speed types and I think it would have continued on even further here if it had kept going. I liked Kotton as a character though and now he’s a guy who could really add onto the dynamic. He likes a good fight and is all about friendship and protecting his men. He’s the kind of leader you want to have on your side.

Finally we enter the last arc where Urara is kidnapped at a hotel by Tamagawa, another one of the leaders. His ability is to shapeshift and he even gains that person’s powers. It’s a solid ability with the only downfall being that if he stays in the shape for too long then he can’t transform back. That’s certainly a risk here but one that is likely worth the extraordinary powers that he gets. This guy is one of those by the books fighters who doesn’t like to live on the edge. He’ll take the safe option every time.

He didn’t really stand out to me even though he did make for a very solid boss. He’s more of an obstacle than a big character. This worked as a preview to the final boss with Doppo though as the guy turned into him. Since the author likely knew the series was ending at this point, it makes sense why he would have the guy turn into Doppo. If the series did end then at least Maruo got his revenge in a sense.

At 25 chapters long the series escaped the U-19 club but ultimately it still didn’t last a very long amount of time. It feels like you have the series wrapped up in an instant. As you can tell I had a good time with it. Sure, it may not have broken out on its own as some kind of elite or really stood out a ton but ultimately it got a lot more things right than wrong. Each chapter was fast paced and the story was engaging.

The story also had a good amount of humor which worked well. Maruo constantly talking about beating people up or using his special attacks was always entertaining. The series was even going for almost a One Punch Man kind of vibe with Maruo one hitting everyone for a bit but it branched out early on so I wouldn’t say that it was trying to rip that off. In general I thought the power escalation was handled well. Maruo faced off with his first real challenge right away but won enough fights where his hype was warranted. That’s a good way to go here and of course the series had its emotional moments as well. I think you could easily retool this into a one-shot movie since the series didn’t keep going.

Occasionally it would have some tonal clashes like the heroes having a comic relief, slapstick fight against the villains in the hotel but for the most part it was relatively serious. The action was good and I do think the author was working hard to get in a solid main cast. I always have a section on what the series could have done differently to avoid getting cancelled and I listed them earlier, but I do think the author tried really hard. I’m a bit surprised that it didn’t go further. The series didn’t really have any fanservice and it seemed primed for big things.

Overall, It’s a shame that Ayashimon ended but I suppose they can’t all be winners. I would definitely recommend this if you’re looking for a solid action manga. Maruo was getting stronger and stronger so it would have been nice to see what heights he could have reached. Perhaps a sequel will be out someday but I’m always super skeptical. It is a longshot after all but never rule it out. This is at least one series that I won’t be forgetting anytime soon, especially with how bold it was to have characters like Goku and Joestar actually appearing in Maruo’s head.

Overall 7/10

Breath of Fire II Review

Posted on June 25, 2022 by dreager1

I was really satisfied with the first Breath of Fire and I can safely say that this one is a really good sequel as well. I wouldn’t quite say that it beats the first as it loses out on at least one big quality of life feature but it’s still a really solid game all around. To compensate for that it does have the better story here. Either way if you like RPGs then you will definitely like this game.

It actually starts off with some Undertale type vibes as the main character and his pal enter a dark cave and things get rather trippy. You have an evil eye that it always running around, a giant monster that murders them, and things like that happen. Finally, a few years pass by and Tery’s (That’s what I called the lead) best friend Bow decided to become a bit of a thief. He is going to help this one guy who was already stolen from so in a way it’s like payback but it backfires and now everybody thinks he is a thief. Tery must quickly come to his aid and prove Bow’s innocence. Additionally Tery must find out why nobody remembers him and why his whole family is gone. Does it have something to do with the main villain?

There are a ton of monsters in this world so naturally it is not quite the kind of place that you want to be when things get tough. Tery got to meet one of the more powerful creatures in the tutorial after all even if he isn’t sure whether it was a dream or not. There’s this whole emotional system too where talking to people will light up or darken your crystal but there didn’t seem to be much of a point to it. Perhaps it alters your ending but I would have liked it to have made a bigger difference throughout the game. I appreciated how the game would get rather spooky at some points but ultimately it’s more for show than anything else.

The game is fairly long and you can certainly expect to take many hours to conquer it. Unfortunately the game doesn’t track your play time but it has to at least be 25-30+ hours. There’s a whole lot to do here, villages to help and party members to recruit. Additionally there is no easy way to bypass minions. So in the first game you could buy an item that stopped them from appearing for about a minute or so. I would stock up on as many of those as possible and it was a great deal but that’s not the case here. There is an item that (barely) reduces how often they spawn but it can’t prevent it.

Half the time it feels like the item didn’t do anything to be honest so it was a bit of a waste. It’s too bad they didn’t bring the item from the first game back because it’s just so much more peaceful when you’re able to run around and don’t have to worry about minions attacking. You can explore to get treasure and all kinds of things like that. Trying to run is usually not going to work so you have to keep rewinding until it does or you could just fight every minion in your way.

It is good for grinding I suppose. Speaking of which, be prepared to grind a whole lot here because the final bosses suddenly jump up a bunch of levels. They were not playing around but I would expect nothing less from an RPG final boss. Those are the kind of opponents that you want to go all out. Show us why you are the demon king or whoever the final boss is. The final battles are really an endurance test so buy as many potions, revives, and MP items as possible. I had over 100 items when you add in the amounts for each and I still barely made it. That was definitely not easy in the slightest.

The game’s ending isn’t super satisfying though. You can’t help but feel that Tery made the wrong choice unless there is some kind of true ending here. He overthought things but it did work as an intense twist of sorts. The game always has that uneasy feeling thanks to the prologue which shows just how effective it was even if the rest of the game plays it straight for the most part. The story is really engaging so you should be having a blast from start to finish. Tery’s companions were definitely really good as well and if anything the toughest part is deciding who to keep home.

Each ally has their own special ability which you’ll need on the hub world. One can fly, one can swim, one can jump, etc. So there will be times when you have to switch companions and you just can’t worry about it. Additionally some characters have a 1 on 1 story fight that can’t be skipped so if they are at a low level then that’s game over. You obtain shamans to power up your fighters but one if missable which can be disappointing if you didn’t get him. So if you see a chance to donate some money later in the game, make sure you click donate 20 times. If you don’t do that then you won’t get him at the end.

That’s really my main tips here, you should be able to get through the game with no real issues. The graphics are real good here and some aspects of the game have aged extremely well with the visual style. For example there’s one boss fight where you’re falling off a tower and then there’s a scene where Tery is running through the flames. You don’t see a whole lot of cutscenes using the sprites like this outside of combat so I thought that was pretty cool. The soundtrack is also good although as far as RPGs go I wouldn’t say it stands out a ton.

This is the kind of game that just freezes once you beat it so that means there is no replay value. Fortunately the main campaign is so long that this really is not an issue in the slightest. You’ll get to have your full barrel of fun here. The cast is fairly solid and of course Tery steals the show even if he’s the silent kind of protagonist so you won’t really see him talk here. You just know that he has what it takes to win.

Overall, Breath of Fire II is a great follow up to the original. I would probably still learn towards the first game as a whole even though this one had the better story. Breath of Fire is certainly one of those games that could do well with a modern sequel or remake. After all stories about dragons are always cool and this one has plenty of them. It’s a very challenging game so you do need to keep your guard up but then making it to the ending is that much more satisfying.

Overall 8/10

Megaman ZX Advent Review

Posted on June 20, 2022 by dreager1

This is one of those manga titles that is just so tragic on every level. It’s got solid art and it’s based on a game that should be a lot of fun. Just give me a straight to business manga where the heroes are fighting off the mavericks. It’s not that complicated…and yet the series goes straight to being a gag manga like the Zero title. It only gets serious for the final two chapters and of course by then it’s over anyway so there’s not even much of a point by then. It’s a true shame….feels bad man. Feels….baddddddddd.

So the manga starts with Ashe on one of her treasure hunts when she bumps into a little kid named Grey. He has the ability to bio merge with the model robots that are nearby and so he can become Megaman. Ashe figures that will be handy in her hunts and so she recruits him to the team. Grey is happy to help since he just loves to mess around. Their mission is officially to grab Model Ws which can be used to help resolve the energy shortage on the planet but Ashe just wants to be rich so that’s her main priority. Will she be able to get rich in 10 chapters?

Every chapter has a different maverick show up to cause some trouble and take names. The heroes pack them up and go on their way. The chapters are fairly short so it’s easy to go along with the formula approach but it’s just not a great formula. So you’ve got Ashe, Grey and Model A running around all the time. Model A’s whole character is that he’s a perv and that’s even how he is introduced in each chapter’s cover page. Man that’s a sad reputation to have. The manga seems aimed fairly young so at least his antics don’t get too crazy but he still tries to cop a feel and such which is just disgraceful for a Mega Man character.

Model A is just awful the whole time. Then I don’t get why this series decided to not have Ashe be a fighter. Basically she can’t fight at all and I don’t know what she would have been doing before Grey showed up. Evidently she’s been in the group for a while so did her hand gun actually prove to be all that she needed? This is even worse when we find out in the very last chapter that she also has the ability to merge into Mega Man but didn’t realize that because she always had to keep her distance from Model A since he was so suspect.

I don’t blame her for not wanting to merge with him but it’s all just such a forced way to keep her out of the battlefield. If you were going to make her a noncombatant anyway then just don’t even put her in that arena. Have her stay as a support/treasure hunter right through to the end. Otherwise it’s just a tease the whole time. Even with that she still manages to be the best out of the trio.

For Grey, he’s just too young. The kid is always messing around and never gets serious. I suspect that he really doesn’t even understand the true gravity of the stakes right now. Not like there’s much danger since he can dominate any opponent anyway but they should have made him a little older. That would have done a world of good for the character if you ask me.

Aside from the main 3, you have the robot for each chapter but of course they’re dead almost as soon as they appear so they don’t get a lot of character. For example Buckfire is up first and before he can sizzle the characters then he is vanquished. The water type is blown up before she can even be introduced. Rospark at least gets to have her main trait as a flirt but is still taken out without mercy. The most tragic one might be Vulturon because the poor guy was just trying to play his music but he was doing better than Ashe so she declared that he had to die.

The scene is played as a gag as they murder the poor guy but when you actually think about it, he hadn’t really done anything wrong yet. Sure, as a maverick he probably would have done something soon and in most games the villains are basically shoot on sight but with how the robot reacted you couldn’t help but feel bad for him. He really didn’t think he had done anything to deserve being completely destroyed and I can’t really argue against that.

Albert was the big villain in the game so you’re probably waiting for him to turn evil here but that barely happens. He’s the comic relief scientist for most of the chapters as he tries to use the W energy for good each time but it tends to backfire in his face. He has Ashe and Grey babysit his kids at one point as well. The only time they get to fight him is when the W energy takes him over and they beat him up real fast. Then he’s back to being comic relief again. Such is the fate of Albert in this continuity.

Interestingly in the final 2 chapters it’s like a whole completely different series just like with Megaman Zero. Suddenly Albert is evil and shady and there is a whole new group of villains. You have Prometheus and Pandora talking about how the great Megaman war is approaching as all the Megaman are gathering across the planet. We see characters like Vent and Aile, Omega, the 4 guardians from the Zero games, Grey and Ashe, and someone who looks like Copy X all show up. It’s a great premise for a series that’ll never come out.

Why have all the cool things at the very end when it won’t amount to anything? It always reminds me of what a wasted opportunity this would have been. There’s so much cool potential that you can do with this instead of the actual gag manga that we got. I suppose I’m glad that these two final chapters were added in at the end but this is really the tone and feel that the whole series should have had. It would have been so cool and I want to see those characters mix it up. There’s a lot of great lore here.

Another thing that holds the series back is that it’s not very funny. I can’t say I’m surprised as comedic manga tend to be funnier when they aren’t the gag types. Gag manga tend to rely more on crude humor and everyone being super exaggerated instead of acting like real characters. That’s what holds them back here. The crude humor isn’t excessive at least, it’s probably just a scene or two but the main humor like Grey having to mimic animals to transform just doesn’t land. You probably won’t crack a smile here.

The art being strong is definitely the best point of the series. That’s at least something that you can point to if you want something really good to say about the series. There just isn’t much of a sense of purpose to this title and since I liked the original ZX a lot, this felt like a real step down. As always I’m glad for more Megaman content but I’m not sure why the Zero and Zero related titles tend to become gag titles. Doesn’t feel like that would be the first thing you think of when it comes to Zero right?

Again I have to point to the final 2 chapters on what you’d want to see in a Megaman title like this. A Megaman war would be unbelievably awesome. Even if you don’t go and grab some of the ones from alternate timelines like EXE or Starforce, there is still a lot to love here. My money would be on Omega and Vent as the top big dogs in the arena for sure. They should be able to soundly crush all of the other Megas in attendance but the fights would all be awesome nonetheless. You shouldn’t waste someone who is really good at drawing action scenes on a series without much action.

Overall, Megaman ZX Advent is a series that you’ll probably finish very quickly. After all 10 chapters goes by in the blink of an eye especially when they’re short like this. It’s not good but if you really want to see some more Megaman action then you may as well go with it. At least if they ever do decide to bring this one back and adapt the Megaman war then you’ll have some context for it. That’s definitely the best case scenario by a mile and is the optimal way to think about it even if that’s a super long shot. It’s more likely to hope for an X Dive manga which would be pretty awesome to be fair.

Overall 5/10

Punisher: War Zone Review

Posted on June 20, 2022 by dreager1

This review is of the edited TV-14 version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

It’s time for the return of the Punisher but this one isn’t quite able to match the first one. It goes all in with making the Punisher a rather imposing figure who takes down everyone in his way but along the way it forgot the charm of the series and doesn’t focus as much on how he helps people on a local level. This film is one you’ll ultimately want to end up skipping.

The movie starts with Punisher taking down a group of villains as he always does but this time he ends up taking out an FBI agent as well. The guy was undercover so Punisher figured that he was one of the villains but that was not the case. Now he feels like he should retire out of guilt but his partner Microchip convinces him not to do that. At the very least he tells the Punisher that he needs to finish the job by taking out Jigsaw first since that villain ended up surviving. Punisher agrees so he’s back on the streets to murder the villains but will he really be able to take out Jigsaw and his brother Jim?

The interesting part about the movie is that it would be over before it began if this version of the Punisher wasn’t so sadistic. Usually the Punisher goes around just shooting everyone as a quick death. He dishes out the punishment which is lethal for these villains and that’s the end of it. Only this time instead of doing that he tossed Jigsaw into a machine that crushes glass so it would slowly shred the guy to bits. Usually that would work but not in this case. The Punisher just seemed to be enjoying the show a bit too much here as he was even watching until some other villains attacked and he had to deal with them.

It’s clear that in this version the Punisher really enjoys his work to the point where he goes all in on this. You’d almost think he was a super villain as well with some of the scenes here. There’s another moment where he beats one guy up, then tosses him to the ground where he is impaled by spikes, then he breaks the guy’s neck/slashes it with a final fall. It’s all so extra and unnecessary that when the Punisher lands you could easily photoshop him with Michael Myers or someone like that and nobody would bat an eye. That would absolutely be a villain’s intro.

Now, I would always argue that the Punisher is a villain in all continuities. He murders all of his opponents and while they are villains, it’s still murder. Characters like the Punisher are always interesting as a what if since you can imagine this to be how things would go if Batman or another hero would murder their opponents. Ultimately it may result in safer streets and probably does but the cost is too high. So while it’s an interesting idea, we’ve still got to keep in perspective that if the heroes were here they would have a duty to take him down.

At least what still makes Punisher a decent character is he does have an honor code and doesn’t go after innocents or anything like that. When you see him just taking out the villains it’s fun enough but anytime you have to resort to torture or really taking it to the villains then it can be a bit too extreme. For that reason I much preferred the Punisher as portrayed in the earlier film. He seemed to have a lot more of his humanity and he was still punishing his opponents but very somberly and without getting into it.

Now if the Punisher’s scenes are that violent, you’re probably wondering what the villains do. Well, they don’t hold back either and you have people being eaten and ripped apart. The film’s absolutely as edgy as you would expect and it’s all really over the top. It’s the level of violence that would doom any film right out of the gate. You’ve got to have some restraint with scenes like this. Establish that the villains are evil and we don’t really need to see the rest. It would have made the film a whole lot better.

There’s no real reason to like Jigsaw as a villain. The guy is your classic mobster who wants a shot at greatness and will do anything for it. He betrays allies and just keeps on moving up. The guy is rather insane although you would expect most villains at his level to be insane since they probably crack on the way up. His design after getting torn up is certainly gruesome.

Then his brother Jim is even worse. That guy is completely off the walls and even talks like he’s looney. The scene of him being a cannibal is disturbing and you know that ultimately he won’t be taking the Punisher down. This guy is good against people who won’t fight back but a gun will take him down like all the rest. It’s not like any of these villains are bullet timers after all.

Paul is the main FBI agent trying to take the Punisher down. You can see why he’s so frustrated since the local cops all seem to support the Punisher and even the guy at the head of the taskforce isn’t particularly cooperative. The reason for this is fairly clear as everyone is rooting for the villains to be taken down. The city seems extremely corrupt so they’re probably tired of every villain just getting in and out of jail. This makes Paul’s job of avenging his comrade a lot tougher.

Paul’s a good character though and one of the few that you can root for all the way through. He does tend to get in the Punisher’s way but it’s very understandable from his perspective. Then you have Microchip who is a good partner to the Punisher. He knows exactly how to make that guy tick and what sets him off. You need someone like that to have your back and get the ammo ready. Punisher wouldn’t be able to function nearly as efficiently without him. The guy should probably carry more guns with him though so that he isn’t picked off.

While the movie is mainly devoid of humor, there is one scene that was pretty fun. You’ve got 3 athletic villains who are running and jumping across the roof while a really fast paced happy song is playing in the background. You can see how it’s all going very well for the villains but suddenly one of them explodes and we cut to Punisher with his cannon. That was the best scene in the movie by far. It works in showing that the Punisher is absolutely not playing around here and also in how fast the tone changes. It instantly goes from being a happy moment to a really intense one. The scene also helped to enhance the film’s overall soundtrack since the music there was really good.

Overall, Punisher: War Zone will definitely remain in the shadow of the first one. It just doesn’t really improve on much while falling below on a lot of areas. I would say the only area where this one wins is in showing the Punisher off as more of an unstoppable force. You can see why the whole city fears him and one scene shows how he has already taken down hundreds and hundreds of opponents. That was a great moment without a doubt. The film just can’t get away from its tendencies to make every scene as violent as possible. Show don’t tell is a rule that it takes too literally and that can often be what takes a film down for the count.

Overall 2/10

Dredd Review

Posted on June 19, 2022 by dreager1

This review is of the edited TV-14 version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

Judge Dredd has returned for another film outing. The first film was rather solid and had a good blend of action and excitement. This one doubles down on how corrupt the city is which makes sense on why the Dredds are around. It unfortunately focuses a little too much on the tragedies as opposed to Dredd making the world a better place and ultimately falters due to its own violence but at least you do get a hype soundtrack here and some memorable action scenes.

The film starts off with Dredd taking out some more delinquents and then his boss says that he will have to evaluate a new cadet. Dredd isn’t thrilled about that because historically he’s been a solo act but this is how it has to be this time. The new recruit is Cassandra and she is a telepath which is definitely handy to have in the field but Dredd still feels like she might not be ready for the level of danger in this job. He intends to be a harsh but fair mentor but what should have been a routine bust ends up being a whole situation as Ma-Ma takes over the building and locks it down. She is the head of the ultimate gang that runs this show and says that Dredd must die. He and Cassandra must try to stay alive while also keeping their prisoner Kay alive so he can be tried and brought to justice.

With the heroes locked in that does make for a rather tense setting in the building. I also thought there was a good amount of variety as the heroes go through the floors so it never felt confined. This is a really big building after all so that never became an issue. The visuals are solid here with a lot to look at and Dredd’s uniform definitely appears to be very faithful to the comic. I wouldn’t have any complaints there. It also ties in well with the really good rock music that plays throughout the film. It helps to get you in the zone and it makes the film as a whole a lot more exciting too. A good soundtrack goes a long way.

Dredd also makes for a very solid main character. He doesn’t let his emotions get in the way and tends to be a very pragmatic character who wants to take in his opponents alive but if they shoot first then he has to respond. Often times they are dealing with hardened murderers here so Dredd and Cassandra just have to open fire when they’re being attacked. Given the context of the world at large and the situation they’re in, it makes sense why they can’t all be jailed. In this world attacking a Judge is also a really serious offense.

The criminal system here is definitely interesting and I’d like to see that go into more depth someday. Regardless, Dredd lives up to his hype of being the most dangerous Dredd around. He overcomes a significant disadvantage in numbers and makes it all look easy. Not to say that he’s unbeatable though and he has to deal with real issues like running out of ammo but he always chooses the optimal path in tough situations.

Then we have Cassandra who does really well too. Her mind reading ability comes in handy several times. I was glad it helped her dodge a pretty big trick by the villains in pretending to be an ally at one point and it also gave her the edge over Kay. When you’re a telepath you should absolutely be able to crush anyone trying to beat you in the mind space and that’s exactly what happened here. If it had been close at all then that would have been disappointing. An expert just shouldn’t lose to a novice.

Cassandra’s abilities also put her in a unique position to really know who is a victim and who is an attacker. She’s more emotional and lenient than Dredd as well which can be an asset or a liability depending on the circumstance. Either way she would definitely make for a very good judge and they would be lucky to have her on the team. There aren’t any other heroes in the film with a notable role so Dredd and Cassandra have to be able to rely on each other when the going gets tough. If either one of them was not prepared for this then it would not have gone over well.

The main villain Ma-Ma was not all that good though. I appreciate that she had a plan for everything at least. No matter what the heroes did she would reveal another tactic or technique to even the field. Right up to the end it felt like she had everything under control and it took a really crafty idea to take her down. I can appreciate the grit it took to rise to the top and all but ultimately she’s quite psychotic and her grand goals don’t amount to much more than wanting to be at the top. If she could fight more personally that would have helped her.

She’s considerably better than Kay though. They’re both rather demented and I don’t think for a second that she would hesitate to do any of the stuff that Kay did, but he was around more so in a way we got to really see how depraved he was. The guy was annoying throughout the film and in a way he’s lucky that he wasn’t shot dead with a lot of the other villains. If Cassandra could have said she was 100% positive he may have been axed out near the very beginning.

So the Dredd movie has a lot of nonstop action and I love the premise of being stuck in a building filled with enemies and no way out. That part’s good but the film just ends up suffering due to how over the top violent it is. In a lot of ways I think the movie was trying to really show that it was different than the original. The original was more comedic and had a lot of light hearted moments so this one probably wanted to show how dark the city of Dredd’s is. It does make sense that it would be bad out there since the point is that the world’s really gotten as bad as possible but even then you can do that without all of the details.

The people who die are basically cut up and die in really vicious ways. You have the whole mental battle with Kay and Cassandra which immediately goes for the gritty/nasty kind of visions for them. They both play dirty in order to get the win at the audience’s expense. Then even the gun fights could be handled in more of a stylized way. You definitely don’t need the full explosion for every shot. There are plenty of action films with gun fights where you know the hit connected and the guy goes down but it’s not a huge splatter. It’s not as big a deal as the other elements since they are at least combatants but you could tell it’s the film trying hard.

I also thought the slow-mo was way overdone here. I went in a full circle with that because at first I was rolling my eyes at this, then they showed that it was a part of the plot. So I thought, all right…they showed this so we could understand the drug. But then it kept on happening over and over again so it went all the way around the world back into being excessive again. At that point it just became a negative. Slow motion shots can be cool, a lot of action films use this to great effect but there needs to be a purpose. A cool background effect, a nice scene, a great pose, etc. Not just someone smoking their drugs as we see it in slow-mo. It was just annoying more than anything. At least it did nullify one scene that I thought was going to be a fanservice moment but it turned out that this was not the case. Slow-mo has its use there at least although you could just say that the scene was filmed well because slow-mo could also backfire in that kind of way.

Overall, Dredd is a very intense action film. I can see the appeal as it’s basically the Punisher in a really rough environment who doesn’t need to take any prisoners. In this case he’s even government sanctioned so it’s not like he is defying the law to do it. I’d say you can do this without making the film be so over the top though. It takes away from the scenes that are pretty cool like when the other Judges showed up. That was really interesting. This film in a lot of ways is like Resident Evil. It’s a very interesting film but also tragic in the sense that you can see how this could have been great if it could have just held back a lot.

Overall 2/10

Fairy Tail: Happy’s Heroic Adventure Review

Posted on June 19, 2022 by dreager1

Fairy Tail is one of those franchises that is very interesting because it has extremely high highs but suffers from never ending fanservice that always drops it way down. This spinoff is no different. Well, I wouldn’t say the highs are that amazing but in a lot of ways it looks rather solid. The fights are great, the art is top notch, and the story is interesting. Towards the end it starts to sputter a bit but it’s never able to truly achieve greatness because the fanservice sticks around. Yes, even without Lucy and the gang this keeps up for the animals…ah well Fairy Tail will be Fairy Tail I suppose.

The series starts with Happy being warped away from his normal world over to animal village. He’s not exactly sure why this happened or how but now they are saying he is the hero of legend who is here to save them all. Happy is more interested in going home but the only way to do that is to perform a lot of good deeds. This will fill up the smile heart that he has to wear and once it is filled up, then a miracle will occur which will take him home. Sounds easy enough right?

Happy is a nice guy for the most part even if he’s not super heroic. So for example if he sees a crime in front of him then he’ll definitely jump in. Happy isn’t about to let something like that slide. At the same time he still just wants to go home above all else so it’s not like he’ll stay to fulfill the prophecy first if he has a choice. Ultimately Happy doesn’t really have a say in the matter though as completing all of the tasks will take a while. There is a lot to do in this world that’s for sure.

The pre arc introduces us to some of the characters in the village and Happy starts to win over everyone’s trust. It isn’t particularly difficult since he is able to fly and is physically strong enough to help everyone out. I wouldn’t say that he is the strongest character around but he can hold his own with the heavyweights since the characters aren’t all that powerful here. The introduction is sound and all as we gear up for the first big arc.

At first you may have expected this to be more of an adventure title without a whole lot of action but that quickly changes as the series goes on. It transitions into a complete action story which I thought was an excellent move. You get dynamic fights with a lot of characters who have different skillsets. The art is top notch as I mentioned earlier and the story is sound. The chapters really breeze through too so you can definitely fast blast through the series.

On the negative side, yes the fanservice is as bad as you would expect. It’s crazy how even with no human characters in the series for most of the arcs, the series still manages to include a lot of fanservice like this. You have one character constantly flirting with Happy and while he doesn’t react to it at all, it still gets crammed into the series a whole lot. If you take this away then the series would be a lot better without a doubt.

The final arc involving time travel also gets a little dark. Keep in mind that these are all animals running around here. They are evolved versions that can talk and walk so they get a bit more humanoid but we find out about a farm that basically forces the animals to fight and get slaughtered in vicious war games. It’s possible that they all survive since Fairy Tail tends to spare them at the end but they certainly go through quite the ordeal and it’s hard to say if they actually did make it completely intact. I think for a series like Happy this felt rather out of place. You even had characters pretending not to know about it and while they were threatened, it’s awful that they didn’t try harder to stop this whole project. Ultimately this ended up being the weakest arc.

Lets jump into the first arc now though. We are introduced to a group of animals from Wild Town led by Chee who want to rule the village. They don’t believe in friendship and operate in a might makes right kind of mindset. Happy’s group of fighters will have to try and show them the error of their ways but it won’t be easy at all. This was a solid arc with a lot of fights and a really solid villain in Chee. It was the first point where the series really felt like a Shonen title with a lot of good battles. I would even say this was the best arc in the series.

Chee is an emotional villain who has a tough exterior but the whole time you know he’s going to have a big backstory. The fact that he is constantly emitting a poisonous aura that he can’t really control shows just how tough he would have had it. Not being able to approach anyone is hard to deal with no matter how you slice it. Chee ends up becoming a solid supporting character afterwards and someone that Happy can rely on. It’s always good having allies who can really fight.

Then we have Rhino who is one of the more petty villains. Sure, he eventually sees the light but I felt like he went a lot farther than Chee the whole time so it was a bit harder to get on board with his turnaround. The guy was just willing to go so far to claim his win and help the villains that I ended up already not liking him. It’s not bad to really go all out as a villain but you typically need some kind of master plan or honor code. There just wasn’t anything that I found really cool about this guy.

Tigre was a much better character and like Chee she would really get to help out in future fights. Her speed is excellent in combat and she has a lot of confidence. If anything I thought she should have been able to defeat her opponent Eleph but it was a close fight either way so that works out well enough. The villain group as a whole was rather impressive which really helped you take them seriously as a threat in this arc.

I should go back and talk about some of the heroes now though. I already talked about Happy for a bit so we can get past him. Long story short, he’s a good main character and surprisingly a lot better than in the main Fairy Tail series where he could be a bit iffy at times. Ururu is a reoccurring character and one of the main heroines in a way. Happy helps her out when she’s sick and she looks up to him as the legendary hero. Ultimately her role isn’t particularly big since she’s very young and can’t fight so she represents the emotional part of the village. Hamta is in the same boat here as he’s a little hamster kid who looks up to Happy but can’t really fight. He has his big moment where he stays back to fight the villains but that’s really it.

Captain Bull is the police chief who means well but tends to scare Happy a lot. He’s a nice guy though and while he isn’t very strong, he does stand up for what’s right and tends to always show up in the climaxes. Bull just can’t keep up with the power creep. There’s the elder Tortoise and while I would say he’s a non character for most of the series, he suddenly gets a big role near the end. I can’t say I liked him though. To me he makes all of the wrong decisions both in the past and the present. I wouldn’t want him as the leader of my village.

Now we get to Luna who is the real main heroine in a lot of ways. My issue with her aside from being the main fanservice character here is that most of her character is about flirting. She has a tragic backstory and can fight but those elements always fall to the background for her. I think there is a decent character somewhere here but I don’t think she was handled all that well in the series.

Dori Dorin is another character running around who was a villain and then helps out the heroes. That’s a running theme in Fairy Tail as most characters can ultimately be redeemed so long as they are fought with healthy amounts of friendship. He doesn’t leave as much of an impact as the other characters though because he doesn’t fight much once he turns good. One character who was good from the start was Eleph who is a powerful warrior. You can probably tell from the name what kind of creature he is. Eleph is good and even gets a power up before the series finishes.

As someone who was loyal from the start I definitely have to give him extra credit here. Agi was another good fighter here who was always ready to rumble. He had some good combos with Happy and was a great addition to the hero army. He tends to create a lot of misunderstandings with the roundabout way he talks but ultimately he does mean well.

One more villain from the arc was Moppity but I didn’t like him at all. He’s the pervy character of the series and that’s all that you need to know about him. He was completely doomed from the start and whenever the manga tries to make him sympathetic or something it just doesn’t work out. It’s just not going to happen, there’s no way I’m going to buy into that. He just needs to try being a better person and since that’s not going to happen, he was never going to rise up.

There’s a mini arc where Happy shows up to help a girl named Kai against some robots but then we get to the next big arc. Happy is captured by Leon who rules the holy kingdom and is sentenced to death as the devil who will bring ruin to the world. Even Happy’s friends begin to doubt him so this will be a true test of loyalty. Naturally Leon has a powerful group of fighters at the ready for him so we get a lot of action here. I do have to say that I don’t see why anyone had doubts about Happy though. By this point in the series he had already saved them so many times. Even if the prophecies were turned around, you have to believe in your friends right?

It’s not like this kingdom is all that trustworthy either. They showed up and were acting real aggressive right from the jump. At least once the heroes focus up then they are ready for the big battles. Leon himself works well as the big boss. He talks tough and wants true power. It may be a little straight forward but he had more charisma than Rhino. The guy didn’t even need a big backstory here, just the ability to run in and take names. He gets a cool final form and really gives Happy and the other heroes a lot of work in trying to take him down.

One of his big three advisors is Shieshiemon who is really impressive as a villain. The guy is able to fight numerous opponents at once with how his hair can stretch out and even by the end of the arc he looks like he can fight a lot more. The guy was rather naïve in being quick to believe Leon but his fighting abilities can’t be doubted. I thought he was rather solid as a result. Shadow is another good villain who ends up getting some emotional moments. His role isn’t huge or anything but he does a good job with what he’s given.

Needles and Maru are also decent villains but they got more of the shaft compared to the other villains. They have good designs and potential but their fights are over in a flash. Happy means a little animal named Bakkun but he has that annoying gimmick where his nose is always running and he talks like a baby with how he can’t pronounce some of the words. He can read minds to an extent which is handy but the kid’s not too subtle which leads to him being captured. He’s a kid so you can’t expect him to be an expert but I didn’t think he was all that good here.

Finally we enter the final arc where Happy gets to find out the true reason why he is here and goes through his last trial. This arc involves time travel which is always fun and there are a lot of twists here. It is still my least favorite arc but we do get more fights. So Happy heads over to the tower now that he has the hearts and it sends him 1000 years into the past where he gets to meet Marice and the ancestors of all his friends. It turns out that a villain named General Star wants to use her powers for himself so of course that’s something that Happy can’t allow.

One of the big issues with this arc is the ending. Oh man, this is the kind of ending you never want to see because it effectively voids the entire series. It’s not a dream so everything still happened but the ending is the classic copout you do for spinoffs to ensure that it is never mentioned or brought up in the main line. It’s the ultimately copout for me and just hurts the arc. If you ask me they should have played it straight and you could easily handwave questions about why Happy never brought up this place in the main series. He just chose not to, there’s nothing wrong with that.

Then as I mentioned way earlier, the arc just randomly gets to be more on the darker side here. Star ends up torturing a bunch of the animals and even the kid Marice for her power. Everyone is too shellshocked and nervous to do anything about it either. So what you have is a cast that doesn’t look very good here as they overlook Star’s actions. Blackmail can buy some time for the villain for sure, but I’d expect the heroes to have thought of some way to stop him eventually. Instead it felt like they hadn’t done anything on their end.

Ah well, we do get some fights but then there’s also a whole new group of villains that show up when there are only around 5-7 chapters left in the series. Needless to say, they don’t last very long. I liked their designs and everything but there isn’t enough time to really like them. Their names are Cyclops, Unicorn, and Griffin. They are robotic fighters who are super powerful and get a lot of hype. Technically they would have really won and done a whole lot of damage if not for the heroes getting major buffs at the end. Take that away and it would have really been game over.

The 3 were all cool, I just probably won’t remember them after a while. General Star is the only villain with a really big role here and he’s a tough villain but not really my kind of antagonist. For starters he probably could have had a winning strategy if he was nice to Marice instead of tricking her. She would have listened to him if he wanted to use some power since she doesn’t know much about the world. Why not just have her help you like that instead of going through all the trouble of having a conspiracy and all of these different plans? Star ends up overcomplicating the issue which costs him in the end.

Dr Magicana is a lot more reasonable. He’s still not perfect as he’s one of many characters who just overlooks what Star is doing the whole time but at least this guy isn’t quite as insane. You can at least count on him to try and think of some idea to help Marice. Better to help a little than to not do anything right? It’s a start at least and he’s a decent doctor kind of character. He’s just not much of a fighter.

Marice gets to have a big role here. The whole arc is definitely tough on her since she’s a little kid and yet she has to deal with a whole rebellion going on and a would be world conqueror. She grew up in a small area and doesn’t really know anything about the world either so it’s easy to manipulate her. Ultimately she is manipulated for almost the whole saga and tends to go wild so she didn’t end up being very high.

Finally, you have the 3 hearts who were actual characters in the past. It was nice to see them try to help out but I was glad that Happy beat them in the competition. He’s the true hero after all so he’s not about to lose to these guys like that. It’s just not happening. I should mention that this arc throws in some DBZ homages like the introduction to power levels and one character’s power level going over 10,000. It was a small thing but it’s always cool when DBZ is brought into the fray like this.

Overall, That wraps up the Happy adventure. Happy was a surprisingly solid lead so that worked out and the action was good. If you cut out the fanservice then I dare say this would be a pretty good manga but ultimately that held it back just enough to keep this one from breaking even. There’s less time for it at the end of the series but man is it heavy at first. One day Fairy Tail will be able to resist the whole time and that’ll be a great day. I mean I know some of the shorter ones can be fine at times but I’m talking about a decently long adventure like this. I want Fairy Tail to reach its full potential and this is the best way. Of course I’d like to see the actual members appear next time. Happy is cool for the novelty and all but ultimately you want Natsu and the gang to show up and get their action.

Overall 4/10

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