Total Recall (2012) Review

Posted on May 7, 2022 by dreager1

Total Recall is one of those remakes that did a really good job of managing to surpass the original. It’s a good action movie all the way through that never lets up on the thrills. There’s a lot going on here and while it may not be a thriller that’s super different in any way, I would say the fundamentals are always on point so you have a good time here. It’s got that YA feel both in the look and feel of the film but also in how you feel this could have been a trilogy if it wasn’t moving so quickly. Of course the good thing about that is that the film never drags on.

The movie starts by introducing us to the state of the world. So things are not going great right now. The world was completely ruined and so now there are just two sections. One part is for the rich continent which has taken over most of the world and then you have a small colony that does not want to be forced to join this union. There is a bitter battle going on between both sides but the colony is considerably weaker. They have less people on their side to defend themselves and less tech as well.

This is all way over Quaid’s head though. He just goes about his life as always and just complains to his friend Harry that the days are kind of boring. He’s married to Lori and they have a good time but he feels unfulfilled. That’s when he ultimately decides to go and give Rekall a shot. This is a place that will give you fake memories which feel real so now he can finally do all of the stuff that he never could in the real world. Not a bad bet right?

Well, maybe not a great one either. Everyone warns him not to do it, apparently your mind can be fried and the whole thing sounds shady. Quaid wants to do it anyway but before the procedure can go through, he is viciously attacked by a whole squad of troopers and Quaid ends up murdering them. He runs home where his wife tries to murder him and everyone claims that he’s someone that he’s not. Has Quaid been living a fake life this all time? He has no answers yet but he’s wanted by just about everyone so it’s time to buckle up and start racking up the wins.

The fight scenes here are all effective. I definitely enjoyed the hand to hand which was handled well and you got the king of secret agent vibe you would see in James Bond or Jason Bourne. There’s never a particularly powerful fighter on the villains’ side which is too bad but there are still a good amount of action scenes in general. Lori puts up a good fight but usually Quaid is not actually trying to hurt her which is something you really need to put into perspective here. It definitely changes up the dynamic quite a bit.

The effects are solid but I will say that you never feel too engaged with the world building here. It’s a classic kind of dystopia story but Hunger Games and Divergent built their worlds a lot better right out of the gate. For this one a lot of names and terms are thrown around but you have a hard time actually caring. It all just feels uninspired in that sense. Even the whole elevator system of getting from one side of the planet to the other could and should have been a lot more interesting than what we actually got.

Part of why I thought this had the vibe of a trilogy was because there were so many players it didn’t feel like we were going to get to everything but then the final 20 minutes turn the pacing up to turbo. We’re bumping people off left and right and closing out all of the plots so things have a bit of a magical ending. I have a hard time knocking fast pacing and if you know that there’s no sequel then it’s good to throw everything into the mix but then some characters feel wasted.

The big leader of the resistance is hyped a whole lot throughout the movie and does not come anywhere close to living up to that as the movie goes on. He’s extremely underwhelming the whole time. Back to Quaid though, he’s a decent main character. I wouldn’t say great though because it does feel like he ran to Rekall too quickly. What if his mind was shut down? He didn’t really stop to think about how that would affect his wife and friends. It was a bit selfish of him to just head for that machine straightaway like that.

As for his friend Harry, well he had a fun attitude about him. I can’t say I liked him much by the end but he did well in humoring Quaid all the time with how the guy was bored of the routine. Switching seats so quickly the way he did was a good way of being supportive. Meanwhile Lori is pretty much the main villain here with how she’s trying to murder him the whole time. She made for a fun opponent to be sure even if she probably could have handled things better to accomplish her goals.

At first Quaid was seriously confused and not sure what was going on. So instead of trying to choke him out, why not reassure him and say that things will work out? Keep up the role until you actually have a great chance to shoot him in the back. She had every element of surprise in her favor so this really should not have been hard. She could absolutely use that as a way to claim victory here and that would have worked out. Quaid wouldn’t have really had a way to stop her.

As for Melina, she’s a solid heroine. I think it’s clear that she isn’t quite as skilled as Lori but she does her best to stay in the mix and land a lot of good shots in. I would say that she definitely still does good the whole time here. The complete cast here is rather small to be honest although we also have the leader of the government who runs around talking tough. He’s a very classic kind of leader villain so there isn’t much to him beyond his plans to take over the world. He did outthink most of the cast for the whole film though so kudos to him there.

At the end of the day what makes Total Recall work is how it’s really just nonstop action the whole time without any chances for a breather. The fights keep on coming and while the whole amnesia plot can usually be more annoying than interesting, it wasn’t executed poorly here. It’s also interesting to see Quaid not even be able to trust himself since he knows how thorough the brainwashing can be. The final part of the movie has some pretty interesting moments with trying to make you doubt what’s what. I don’t think it’ll end up fooling you at all but it’s still a nice try.

Overall, Total Recall definitely beats the original for me. It doubles up on the action and just never lets up. It’s a solid all around film and while it may not stand out in many ways, it just executes on the premise well. This is a better YA film than most and definitely deserves to get a sequel. Its only real weakness is that the worldbuilding is incredibly weak but that’s something that should be easy to fix. At least I don’t see that being a hard one to correct so if it can just pull that off then we’ll be good and this can make a name for itself.

Overall 7/10

Terminator: Dark Fate Review

Posted on May 7, 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 certainly been a while since the last Terminator film. Genysis still ranks up there as one of the best installments in the franchise and seemed to be getting everything back on track so it’s a shame that we didn’t follow it up. Dark Fate is still pretty good though. I thought it had a solid story and good call backs to the originals. That said, some parts of the plot may be a little tough to buy into. With time travel there’s always a way of course but that doesn’t stop me from giving it a second glance at times.

So the movie starts off with with the Terminator showing up and destroying John Connor. He has just completed Skkynet’s mission at long last so that has sealed humanity’s hope. The films always made it clear that if John were to die then SkyNet would win. Humanity no longer has any kind of chance at surviving and it feels bad but at least we lasted a long time. Sarah reflects on this but then something odd happens…the world doesn’t end. There is no SkyNet and there is peace across the planet. What’s going on?

Well, Terminators still keep on appearing but it’s hard to say what their goals are and Sarah just goes around blowing them up. She gets mysterious text messages that let her know when they are coming. Their new target is now a girl named Dani. Dani is being protected by a cybernetically enhanced human named Grace but the newest villain (Rev-9) is a difficult man to keep down. It looks like they may all have to team up to stop him this time but it won’t be easy.

So a big thing here is that poor John was destroyed fairly early on. It’s been a rough road for him since the guy seems to always either die or get mind controlled. The main plot part I get skeptical about here is how SKyNet isn’t around anymore. Legion is the new villain since apparently SkyNet was never created but that doesn’t really add up for me. The whole point is that John is the only one who can stop Skynet so when the Terminator blew him up, that should be it. Now there are a lot of time loops, paradoxes, and everything going on with these films so there are a lot of ways to explain it away but it still feels a bit iffy.

Then apparently even if you beat Skynet they will just be replaced by another villain so it’s like there’s no point to whatever the heroes do. They’ll just be doomed either way. It’s not as bad as Star Wars episode 7 suddenly erasing the previous 3 movies by having the Sith army rise up again but it still does undermine the efforts a bit. I would have kept Skynet around as the main villains because it could have been an interesting way for the heroes to try and resist fate. Knowing that they are in a doomed timeline but they keep fighting anyway would really be a solid story right?

Well, Dani does a good job of taking up the mantle here. She’s more grown up than John was here so she’s able to take the situation more in stride than he ever could. I liked her confidence and she did make sure to step up when the chips were down so I appreciated that. She stuck up for her brother pretty quick even if it meant talking tough to the boss. Even at the end when they’re discussing plans, she is quick to volunteer to be bait. I definitely had no issues with her here.

Then you have her bodyguard Grace. Grace does well for a human against these robots but it’s a shame that she can’t use her abilities for longer periods of time. It felt like every other scene had her running out of energy or gasping for breath. She would need water often to keep her body heat down and it felt like the future humans really needed some better tech. If this was the best that they can do then it’s no wonder that they’re losing the war. That said, in a way the villains barely needed to send anyone to the past in that case. I could say the same about Skynet though, it’s always hard to believe the humans stand any kind of chance but they always manage to pull through somehow.

As for Sarah, she talks really tough and isn’t afraid of all these attackers. It’s rather impressive of her. Now the hype can be a bit much with her apparently taking down a bunch of terminators already though. I know she’s got a lot of guns and has the element of surprise but taking out terminators casually? It’ll take a lot for the film to get me to believe that unless all of the terminators have started getting really sloppy. Power levels aside, she is just a fun character though.

Then you have the main villain Rev-9 and he’s definitely cool. The guy’s even got a bit of a personality as he has fun messing with the humans. He’s very smooth with how he lies the whole time and that lets him sneak up on people. To the outside world this is just some guy but he knows how to get serious when fighting the heroes. His ability to split into two people was really cool and same with his regeneration and ability to manipulate his body. This is the kind of opponent that’s very dangerous to fight and he does deliver in each fight.

Finally you have Carl who gets a run role here. As the original Terminator you know that he’s seen a thing or two in his day. It’s impressive how well he holds up against the newer models since he’s very dated at this point. The idea of him just relaxing and enjoying the family life is also pretty interesting. It’s nice that he actually got to have a bit of a happy period of time here. Carl takes a lot of injuries and verbal shots from the other characters but never falters. He really did well to show that even a Terminator can have a heart. It never feels particularly cheesy either but just like a solid character development moment.

The fights are definitely really good here. The choreography is on point and you really get the feeling of the Terminator being portrayed as the hunter here. The characters are doing their best to stay out of his way and to keep moving while he just chases them relentlessly. There is no escape from an opponent like this and the film portrays that really well. There’s always a feeling of fear in the air.

Additionally I’d say the special effects were solid. Perhaps they could have done more in the future setting as I feel like Terminator 2’s dystopia looked more impressive which is saying something. This one didn’t get that same feeling across. The effects for Rev-9’s abilities are top tier though. The soundtrack is also good. Again, not as impressive as T2 but you get some of those old themes in the mix here. There weren’t a lot of new themes that I found to be very memorable though.

The writing is good and the film doesn’t drag on so all around it’s a solid experience. At most this film can suffer from the issue of having a villain that’s too powerful. You constantly feel like Rev-9 could have just ended them already. Every time he doesn’t you are a little skeptical just because of how crazy strong he is. All he should need is an instant to take Dani out.

Overall, There’s definitely room for more films and sequels as always so I’d like to see that. It would be cool if they can bring Carl back in some way and with time travel on the table that really shouldn’t be very hard. Throw that in and then things should get pretty interesting. I tend to like all of the Terminator films so I’m sure I’ll be satisfied with the next one as well. Just give me a lot of action and some time travel for good measure. Then I’m all set every time.

Overall 7/10

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness Review

Posted on May 6, 2022 by dreager1

I think it’s fair to say that Phase 4 of the MCU is really doing quite well now. It’s certainly risen above Phase 1 with Doctor Strange now if it hadn’t already. I don’t have all of the phases totally memorized though so one of these days I ought to make a list and just see which is the strongest phase overall. (Likely whichever one has Infinity War) This film certainly holds its own with some of Marvel’s strongest films and is a really memorable one with high replay value. You see quite a lot of people already checking it out a second time and I can see why. With nonstop action and a quick pace you certainly won’t be bored here.

The movie starts off with Strange and a girl named America on the run from a monster which leads to the fight in the middle of the street that’s in all of the trailers. These monsters are after America for her abilities which may present a danger to the entire multiverse. Doctor Strange will have to handle this carefully but multiversal entanglements have already caused him a lot of trouble before and he’s not even the sorcerer supreme anymore. Will he be able to save her alone or will he have to call in some help?

It’s a very quick plot summary but as I said, the movie moves very quickly. There are a lot of twists and turns here and the film does not waste time on any of this. Within 15 minutes everything you expected starts to change and you’re really thrown right into the mix. This is a massive asset to the film because this is the kind of thing that helps with replay value. It’s hard to go 15 minutes without something happening after all. I’ll have a spoiler section later on for going into these things but the main review is assuming you haven’t seen the film so I won’t be revealing much here.

The action scenes here are definitely top notch. The movie still shows Strange’s magic to its fullest and in a lot of imaginative ways. I also enjoyed how he was using his magic in minor ways too like getting his tie set up. If I had magic I would be using it for things like that too so it definitely made a lot of sense. The visuals are also good for the scenery and effects. You can tell that a lot of care and detail went into all of this and it will certainly hold up well even 10, 20, or more years into the future. These kind of effects will always age well.

I want to give a special shout-out to the soundtrack too which was exceptional. I can easily say that it’s one of Marvel’s best soundtracks. Probably the best since Dark Phoenix but if we stick to MCU films then I’d have to think a little harder. As an overall soundtrack it is very likely the best one. It’s got a solid array of horror and action themes here. Each theme really helps to amp up the scene that it’s in. “A cup of Tea” is a very memorable track and there are a ton of others. Part of a theme song also plays in one pivotal scene which was excellent. Now that was a deep reference and one that I certainly appreciated. You can very much here the Spider-Man to Spider-Man 3 type themes in here as well. I feel like some had to be remixes or at least incorporated some of that music in there.

Naturally as I mentioned we do have some horror vibes here as well. There are jump scares, characters contorting their bodies like an undead monster, etc. The imagery is not something you would tend to expect in an MCU film and in fact I would say it’s probably the most violent one as well. It never crosses the line into being distasteful or too excessive though. The film knows how to show just enough so you know what happened without dragging it out which is appreciated. This is really what I would call expert handling of each scene and moment. The film has its humor of course but you don’t have characters throwing jokes in a desperate chase for life and death.

In a lot of ways this had some of the best balance between all the genres that we’ve seen. It’s why I would call this one of the strongest installments in the MCU. It may not top the latest Spider-Man film which also had a lot of multiverse type plot elements thrown in but it’s absolutely on the same level and ends up putting a really close fight in. Also in terms of which movie I would rather re-watch right now, it would have to be this one because there’s more I feel that I could pick up on in the fights and background elements while I feel like I did catch basically every reference and easter egg in Spider-Man.

In terms of the cameos and multiverse elements, I thought this film did a really good job. Yes, one character does look really bad and as a whole I think one group could have done a lot better but they really played the match-up wrong. The power scaler in me may be shaking my head a bit but at least in the way the fight happened I can absolutely buy into it. I wouldn’t say I had any big power level issues here which is always good. I also appreciate that the Wandavision show was actually rather important to this movie.

I’ve never liked when something happens in a show/comic/game that is never really referenced again to the point where it just didn’t matter. That was a vibe you got from Agents of Shield a lot of the time and of course the Netflix shows never really became a big thing. A quick cameo here or there maybe but nothing super important. With this film you can tell that this is starting to change and that’s a good thing because we’re really getting to the point where the films feel a bit like the comics. Anyone can show up at any time and you’ve got a lot of interconnected stories happening at the same time.

So with all of these positives you may be wondering, where are the negatives? Well, I didn’t have any big negatives, the film was a blast all around. I guess I can say that some of the emotional type scenes are maybe a little overplayed so I can’t take it super seriously. Any scene involving some kids comes to mind. I’m glad their roles were rather small. Some of the characters didn’t make the best decisions for sure when it comes time for a fight but that’s not the kind of thing that hurts a score unless it’s particularly egregious and it wasn’t here. I would say I wish the film was longer. Some parts just felt super fast as the film had to keep its brisk pace but some fights could have absolutely been longer or the experiences in the different places. Tons of potential right there.

I’ll get into some minor stuff in the spoiler territory but yeah on the whole you can jump into this film and be reassured that there are no big negatives here. It’s a very excellently made film all around the board. It’s also one of those films that just keeps getting cooler and cooler in your head. I’ve already been listening to the soundtrack a lot since I watched the film and play some of the scenes back in my head. A lot of times a film may cool down a bit once you’ve had time to relax but it’s the opposite in this case which is a really good sign to me.

Doctor Strange is still an excellent main character as always. In a lot of ways he’s like Tony Stark with how he’s super confident in his abilities and isn’t afraid to throw out some insults. He’s also matured a lot like Tony and knows how to talk to the younger heroes and explain the stakes. Strange never falters in the film and has a strong will that is ready for anything. It’s why he was such a great pick as the Sorcerer Supreme and why he should get that title back. No offense to Wong but it’s clear that this was meant for Strange.

As the new heroine here, America is okay but I do think she could have been better. I’d definitely liked her to have been able to use her abilities more. Grin and just demolish opponents. With her sheer abilities this would not be a crazy task against most fighters. She does have a tough backstory and hasn’t exactly had a lot of downtime to prepare but that would have been cool. As it is, she’s not bad but she’s not close to being a solid character just yet. Give her one more film appearance and I can definitely see her changing that.

The movie also has some pretty interesting monster designs during its run as well which were nice to see. I thought the monster in the opening minutes of the film had one of the coolest designs although at one point you see some Minotaur type creatures as well that were really cool. It’s a shame that they didn’t get to fight this time. There’s also a little joke taken at the Avengers expense in the movie to show how much weaker the roster is right now. I thought this was a nice touch because it’s true. Thor and Captain Marvel are never on planet so you can’t count them. There’s no Captain America or Iron Man anymore. So the Avengers are basically Ant Man, Spider-Man, Black Widow, Bucky, Hawkeye, and maybe the Hulk who is a power hitter for sure but with how the Hulk’s been acting he may not be as strong as he once was. Still wouldn’t hurt to have him on board.

I was cool with how the heroes were handled here. They were acknowledged enough so you know they are around and that the film hasn’t forgotten them but you totally understand why they are MIA for the film. It would be difficult for them to even know what is happening aside from the opening attack and I doubt they have any really solid information networks at the moment so they’d really be doomed here.

Okay now we’re getting into the spoilers territory so skip the next 17 paragraphs if you haven’t seen the film yet. It’s always best to go into the movie blind especially when it’s got a lot of twists and turns like this one. So keep scrolling until you see a message saying End Spoilers in bold.

I really enjoyed the fact that Scarlet Witch was pure evil here right from the jump. The movie wasted no time in having her make a move which was brilliant. Look, I’ve been yelling down from the cliff ever since Wandavision came out that she was pure evil and causing a lot of damage and harm to everyone all around her. Literally enslaving a whole town to the point where they were begging Vision and yelling in pain the whole time showed how sick this was. Mind control is the ultimate invasion of privacy and this was for quite a while too.

I thought an issue with the show was how easily it waved this away and everyone was patting Wanda on the back as if she was some kind of hero. So this film took things to what I considered to be the natural conclusion and it did this very well. So major kudos to that and of course she does make for a really great villain. Seeing her pulling out all the stops to destroy the heroes was really something else. Surely she can’t be a hero after this, keep her as a villain that the heroes reluctantly go to for help once in a while but after murdering so many people she can’t just come back to join. Naturally I don’t think she died here.

The film shows how insane she was with the whole kids plot too. When Strange asks what would happen to the other Wanda, it’s pretty clear that Scarlet Witch would murder her. So much for not being the monster in this scenario right? Scarlet Witch did really well against Thanos and that was before her upgrade so it makes sense that she would do so well here. That said, I still think the Illuminati could have done better. Sure, I like clowning on them as much as the next guy because they always talk tough but the fact is they’ve got a lot of multiverse experience here so you’d think they would do better.

Whenever Mr. Fantastic dismisses Scarlet Witch “We’re not worried about her” you have some doubts but in the back of your mind you figure he must have some kind of plan. Surely he wouldn’t just be saying that for no reason right? Well, he might as well have since he had absolutely no defenses at the ready except for some ultron bots. They all went down in seconds, why was he so confident? The main problem with this is that it just makes him look incompetent and this is supposed to be the smartest man in the Marvel universe.

I really think the film did him dirty here. It was nice to see Jim from the Office playing him (Although whenever I see him I just see Jim with the iconic grin/smirk) but the character needed to do better. Lets see him stretch around and have a big fight. This group is basically the Avengers of this timeline so they should be defending the world rather well if you ask me. Carter and Captain Marvel put up a much better fight at least because they keep moving around but it would have been even better for them if the whole team was helping.

I can’t blame Black Bolt because Mr. Fantastic basically gave Scarlet Witch all of his weaknesses so there was nothing more he could do. The guy was doomed the instant that happened but again, Fantastic isn’t usually the kind of guy who underestimates his opponents so much. Xavier actually did well though and I give him kudos for being the only member of the group to actually act like a hero. I dare say that I couldn’t even say that of Carter. Xavier was the only one who gave Strange a chance.

I liked seeing the telepathic world too which was like something out of X-Men. The fact that he actually saw a version of Wanda in there was also interesting since it really showed the Dark Hold as an outer force manipulating her. I feel like people can try to use this as an out for Wanda not being that bad but I’m not going to give that one to her. It was still Wanda’s choice entirely, it’s not like the world was at stake like with Dr. Strange. That guy had every reason to use the book and he didn’t get corrupted like that. I would have liked the scene to have been longer though so Xavier could have fought in his astral self. That could have been a really solid battle in there and the Illuminati battle in general could have been longer.

One theme in the film is that you don’t have to be just like your other versions and I thought it was a good one. Just because things happened one way in one universe doesn’t mean that it will be the same everywhere. Strange ultimately got to see what it can do to people and I’m convinced that he won’t let this happen to him. The film has a really intense ending and initial after credits scene involving that. I liked it because for one thing, it was an extremely bold ending. Probably the most intense one aside from Infinity War. You just never expect a film to end like that except for a horror movie which is in line with keeping this like one.

Then with the after credits scene, it was cool to see Clea show up and Strange quickly jumping into the portal without fear. I’ve always enjoyed his confidence and he really is a great main character. I think he’s the best bet to stay as the face of Marvel mainly because he’s right in the thick of the action and as a big magician he can be anywhere at any time. That makes it easy to write him into a bunch of stories.

I could definitely go on about how cool the fights are here. It’s just amazing visually and with how all the fights go. Each spell is very memorable like the piano battle or even Strange firing off his snakes to stop Wanda once he saw how unhinged she was. Wanda also works well as a villain because we know her so even though she’s evil now, it’s still like watching a battle between Avengers. It’s kind of surreal because in movies it’s a little rarer to see a hero that’s been around for multiple films turn evil like this. You just don’t tend to see that kind of thing.

Oh yeah Baron Mordo showed up here and the guy is as petty as ever. He makes for a fun villain for that reason though and I liked how Strange called him out. Losing to a guy who didn’t have magic at the time is definitely embarrassing for the guy. Time and time again we see why it’s good that Mordo didn’t become the sorcerer supreme, that’s for sure. Christine appears and looks good in the normal universe but completely unreasonable in the other verse. Okay picture this, a monster is going around murdering all of your friends and allies. She’s heading your way now so you’re asked to find the waypoint so everyone can warp out of here.

Rather than logically start helping, she starts complaining about how she can’t trust Strange and this and that. It’s one thing I couldn’t believe for her and the Illuminati. They act like Strange is such a mega danger and yet….it should be clear that Wanda is the bigger threat. Even if you believe Strange is greater, you gotta acknowledge the context and at this point Wanda is already a mass murderer so Strange should be treated as a follow-up item instead. These guys were not reasonable which made it easy to almost root for Wanda there. Of course you weren’t since her motivations and goals were just villainous the whole time but it could be close.

As a quick note, I didn’t like Wong here. The guy really takes too much pride in being Sorcerer Supreme even though he gets decimated in every fight. Just give Strange the title back already. I forget if the title gives you extra power but I thought it did so give it to Strange so he can win already. Wong just holds him back and naturally makes the wrong calls under pressure. When he said they should sacrifice America at the end I wanted to sigh. Cmon man, the whole film was about learning why that was absolutely the wrong way to go but he went through it anyway. You’ve gotta learn from your mistakes.

Strange absolutely learned from the first version of himself who died as he became a traitor. Then he got to learn some more when he saw how the Dark Hold absolutely messed up another Strange. I like to think this is why he will be able to completely negate the Dark Hold’s abilities. I feel like the ending was him overpowering it personally but we’ll see if that is more of a full sub plot that will appear soon. Strange never doubted himself and kept fighting for what was right. Even when he was up against opponents who were stronger than him, Strange didn’t give him. That’s how you become a real hero.

As for power levels, at this point it’s safe to say that Scarlet Witch would wipe most of the Marvel heroes out. I’d still put Thor and Captain Marvel ahead of her in a battle though provided that they attack fast. Witch’s main strength is that she can rewrite reality so she can do anything if she has prep time. Removing their faces or hearts would even take Thor and Marvel out but Witch’s defense isn’t on the same level. She can and will get bruised/beat up if she takes hits. Those two have the power and speed to make it happen.

Hulk could potentially beat Witch too but I think he’s too slow so that’s out. I could see Strange winning this fight if he was absolutely fighting to kill and could use some kind of advanced spell to get her but at this point he would lose many more times than he would win because he’s just not fast enough and her powers outmatch his. So she’s definitely near the top of the verse in terms of power now.

There’s probably a lot more I could say about the film but this is what I got off the top of my head at least. The movie knows when to be funny, scary, or intense. It’s really quite impressive and I look forward to seeing what’s in store for Strange next time. I hope the gap isn’t quite as long though because I need some more cool magic scenes already. The waiting it always the toughest part for these things.

End Spoilers

Overall, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is definitely a great film. I 100% recommend it every step of the way. You just won’t want to miss this one and it’s great how ambitious the films can be now. You absolutely would not have been able to expect a film like this even just 6-7 years ago. It’s able to go completely into its comic book roots with all kinds of flashy colors and abilities. At no point do you feel like the film is going to slow things down for you or make it general audience friendly. You’re either able to keep up with it or you can’t but matching the film’s pace is your job here. If you haven’t watched the film already then you should change that. If you have then it’s time to check it out again! Make sure you stick through the credits for the first of the two scenes at least since it’s a pretty important one that ends the film on a perfect note.

Overall 8/10

The Giant Gila Monster Review

Posted on May 2, 2022 by dreager1

This film came out just a few years after Godzilla which is pretty cool. It definitely didn’t wait long to try and capture that giant lizard kind of feeling. It’s a pretty good film even if the budget is noticeably low for the monster so half the time he looks like a normal sized animal. The camera angles weren’t quite clever enough to try and hide this either. The writing is strong though and the film is always keeping things interesting with a human antagonist in the mix for when the creature isn’t around.

The movie starts off with a bang as the Gila monster takes out two teens who were on a pleasant drive. This is within 5 minutes of the film starting so that’s definitely one way to make your Kaiju have a lot of presence right out of the gate. From there we cut to the actual main character Chase. Chase is someone who really likes his cast cars and learning how to hot-wire them so they can go at crazy fast speeds. He is more responsible than the rest of the teens though and keeps them in check which is why he has the respect of the Sheriff. Initially they don’t think much about the kids vanishing and figure they may have just gone off to elope.

Mr. Wheeler insists that the sheriff does a more thorough job on all of this though so he enlists Chase’s help to figure out what happened. Part of the issue here is that the area is incredibly large and the Sheriff force is quite small. It’s really just the Sheriff most of the time which is why he needs to ask the teens for help. Another issue is that this area is really dense and hard to get through because of all the branches and shrubbery. It’s possible that the monster could have been here for years and nobody noticed.

While Gila does appear early on, it’s a long time until we see him show up again after that. The human story is good enough so you’ll stay engaged but I would have liked a little more creature action. It may have been hard on the special effects team but that would have been a really good way to make him appear more as a true threat. Then the characters would definitely not want to mess with this guy. It would probably change the film’s plot a bit since more disappearances would mean that the town would have to take things serious a little sooner but I think it would have been a good move.

Instead the film is more about showing what a responsible guy Chase is. He does make his mistakes like towing one of the vehicles before the Sheriff can see it, but he does help a lot more than he doesn’t. Chase also still manages to balance out time to hang with the other teenagers, do the detective work, while also working on his car business. He’s quite busy and we quickly find out why. His little sister Missy needed some work done on her legs so that she could walk again and so Chase has done his best to put up the money. He’s used all of his savings on this and works really hard so that he can get more money.

In short, Chase is really shown to be a great guy who does his best at all times to make ends meet and to help out. Without him the Sheriff would have really been in trouble here. At the same time I did like how Chase’s mistakes come back to haunt him later on when Mr. Wheeler gets involved. Little scenes like Chase stealing the broken car’s tires and headlights (Since he figures the owner won’t need them anymore) are brought up as evidence for Mr. Wheeler that Chase needs to be detained. It’s hard to argue against some of that evidence as well. We know that Chase was hard up for cash but theft is still theft.

Mr. Wheeler made for a solid antagonist in general. He isn’t a complete villain or anything as he just wants to find his kid but along the way he gets more and more unreasonable. In a way that’s probably how he is coping with his loss here. Wile the death happens immediately in the film so it’s not too sad for the audience, it’s certainly crushing to Wheeler as he has to start contending with the idea that his kid is dead as the movie goes on. I was almost starting to think they would find a way for the kid to have lived in the end as part of some perfect twist ending but the film doesn’t go back on that.

Chase’s girlfriend Lisa also does well here. She definitely doesn’t want to be split up at any point and so she accompanies Chase on his more dangerous mission. She helps out a lot with the nitro and also covers Missy when the bombs go off. Throughout the film she is very supportive and does what she can to help. The movie certainly knew how to develop strong characters. Same with the Sheriff who would stick up for Chase and called Wheeler out on his bluffs. The Sheriff was a very reasonable man and I would say he handled the situation quite well.

This movie has very strong writing which makes up for the monster not appearing all that much. You really get to enjoy the human characters here and their dialogue. The movie can feel a little long at times so for once I won’t say that the pacing was perfect but there’s really nothing to dislike in this film. It’s just a pleasant title from start to finish. I will say that I was skeptical about the nitro containers not bumping into each other with the way the characters had it set up though. Holding them all less than an inch from each other while driving a car? That’s not happening and I wonder how Chase thought he could have done this on his own. Seems to me like he would have been doomed there.

If the film has any negatives it’s that the songs aren’t very catchy. It’s definitely going for a very old beach movie kind of vibe which makes sense since this was the era but the songs haven’t aged really well. The actual soundtrack was really impressive though. There was a Twilight Zone kind of theme that would play every now and again that I thought was really solid. It helped build up the intrigue and suspense for whenever the monster would show up or even when the characters were investigating it. That was surprisingly solid.

Overall, The Giant Gila Monster is a fun film. The effects may not have aged well but the writing certainly did. The characters are all very professional and know how to get things done. It’s hard to picture a character being quite as responsible as Chase nowadays. I could have used more monster action but fortunately the human moments were strong enough where this was able to work out in the end. I’d definitely recommend this one if you’re looking for a solid creature feature.

Overall 7/10

Fate/Apocrypha Review

Posted on April 24, 2022 by dreager1

This one definitely had to wait quite a while since it’s been months since I finished it up. Apocrypha is an interesting Fate title in that it adapts the Holy Grail War as usual but then throws a lot of wrinkles into the mix. The whole format is different as a result. I would have liked to have seen a little more done with the concept and I had some issues with this one but ultimately it’s a good title. It certainly has the kind of high tier production values you would have come to expect here.

The show starts off with a group known as Yggdmillennia deciding to steal the Holy Grail War for their own nefarious purposes. They intend to start a Grail War with the Clock Tower. The new element here is that it will be a 7 on 7 battle instead of the usual 7 masters all duking it out to be the one true champion. The Clock Tower has to quickly assemble its own fighters in order to combat this thread. As always every master and servant has their own agenda here but this time they will actually have to team up a little which will be difficult for them. Which side will end up winning it all?

Pretty much the whole series is about the war which is impressive. There isn’t really time for anything else but because the war is so vast that does mean the characters aren’t constantly involved in battle. They still have time to strategize for a while and at one point even do some sight seeing around the village to lure someone out. Everything is done with strategy in mind though. Of course there are also a whole lot of subplots going on here so you’ll want to eye every character closely. It’s really a great premise.

Each servant gets his or her hype as well. Nobody here is extremely weak compared to the others although some are definitely what I would consider to be top tiers. This does come with a weakness though which is that the show cops out of almost every fight until we get to the climax. Fights constantly end in a tie over and over again to a degree I haven’t seen since Sengoku Basara. My main issue with the second stage of Basara (The Hideyoshi arc) was that almost every fight wasn’t conclusive. One guy might win but he would spare the opponent for some random reason and walk away. It was hard to recognize the battles as being in the middle of war because they would get up to fight again, over and over again.

Apocrypha fixes that towards the end but because of that you could skip most of the fights in the early half and not really miss much. The fights still look good though so you wouldn’t want to miss them. While the animation isn’t quite up to Grand Order or any of the Ufotable productions I would still say that it is quite solid. The battles have good choreography and the climax battles really get intense. The best battles typically would feature Saber of Red or Achilles but everyone brought something to the table.

For the soundtrack, I thought the two openings were really the highlight here. They have a very ominous feel to them and really set up the war. The cool 7 on 7 montage in the first opening especially feels epic and I can imagine how cool t would be to have something like that used for any crossover title or another big Fate epic. The chessboard is a good analogy to the players on the battlefield so I just like it for a lot of reasons. The tracks within the show are surprisingly not super memorable but they’re definitely good enough. They still have the grand feel that is associated with Fate.

After all, no matter what Fate product you watch, the servants are always supposed to feel very regal and majestic. They’re all famous heroes in their respective cultures and countries after all so you would expect nothing less. Now it’s time to start talking about the 6 masters and 6 servants across each faction. There are quite a lot of characters to get at here so lets dive into this. With so many combatants on both sides it also means that it can be hard to know exactly which side to root for. To an extent they both seem shady at best and evil at worst. Not to mention that everyone has their own agendas so you really have to be careful about who wins the Grail. (I mean it does feel like a bit of a gag that nobody ever gets the grail for good but you still have to be careful.) For the record, I was on Team Red on this one. At least they aren’t running human experiments and such.

Before the two sides lets talk about the two main characters who are officially neutral even if they feel like extra members of Team Red by the end. First off is Sieg who is one of many mass produced clones that Team Black made. He was able to escape his ultimate fate and met up with Jeanne who helped him forge a life for himself. Sieg is unable to abandon his fellow clones though and goes back into the war. He even ends up getting a servant’s heart so he is able to transform into the mighty Siegfried. That definitely worked out really well for him.

Sieg is a classic hero who wants to help everyone out that he possibly can. He may not be quite as ambitious as Shirou in that regard but Sieg gets the job done. It was definitely fortunate that he got the servant form though because in his normal mode he really would have had a hard time leaving much of an impact at all. It’s hard to defend justice if you aren’t able to fight for it but this helped. While Sieg is the main character he still has to share screen time with a bunch of others.

Then you have Jeanne d’Arc who was summoned as the impartial ruler in the war. This means she was granted an exclusive ability to stop any servant as if she was a living command seal. It’s a really good ability to have and while it won’t protect her from cheap shots, it does mean that no servant can beat her in a head to head fight right now. It was wise of the Grail to give her this ability because otherwise the servants would have definitely tried to get rid of her. As it is, they were close to trying that right out of the gate.

Jeanne has a very strong honor code similar to Saber so she really doesn’t care for a lot of the dubious plans that all of the characters are launching. At the same time it’s hard for her to have to go in and take on a bunch of fighters because at that point it would be as if she was an active participant. So she’s in a rather tough spot and perseveres as much as she can. Jeanne’s also seen a whole lot and isn’t easily rattled although I would say it sometimes comes at the price of making the right move.

There was one such moment when Jack the Ripper was close to being defeated. We find out that every kid he murdered is a part of him now and so the option came to get rid of all of them or spare them but it means Jack would continue. Archer of Red did her best to protect them but Jeanne decided they were a lost cause and ended it. In this one I disagreed with Jeanne. In a world of magic like this I feel like there has to have been a way to save them and it would have been worth it for her to have at least kept on trying. By completely abandoning the kids like this, it just didn’t feel particularly heroic.

By the end Jeanne was certainly jaded enough where nothing could phase her to the point where she told one of the villains: “Is this the part where you murder some kids in front of me?” because it felt like bad things would follow her everywhere. The Fate titles can definitely get rather dark and this one’s no exception. Fortunately it uses artistic license of having puppets and dolls be destroyed instead of showing us the kids like in Fate/Zero so things didn’t go completely out of control.

If you’re going to tackle something like this then using a proxy is the right move. I still could have done without some of the grit though but that seems to usually follow the Fate series around. I don’t think we need to know about the kids dying and there’s no way you can buy into Caster having any kind of redemption arc after going so far. It’s just way too much there. Then you also have some of the usual creeps around like Rider’s master in this case who was rather twisted. I guess the Holy Grail War tends to bring out the real twisted characters here.

Okay so now lets get on to the teams. On Team Black the first servant is Siegfried and he’s definitely a heroic kind of guy. If he got to appear more then I think he could have worked well as a leadership figure. Definitely not the top ranking guy but someone that the others would listen to and respect because of how adapt he is in battle. The guy is strong and gets a lot of good moments to be sure. While I wouldn’t say he stood out as the MVP or anything, he was one of my favorite members on this team.

Next is Chiron and I would say he was the best member here. While his abilities aren’t as flashy as some of the others, his archery skills are quite good to the point where he could even tag Achilles. He makes up for not being as physically powerful as the others by being the best strategist. He has a very solid character arc from start to finish and is one of the guys that you can root for. A shame that he’s on the more villainous team even if I use that term relatively since Red aren’t saints either.

Then there’s Vlad III, aka Dracula. It was pretty cool to see this guy get involved in the mix. His abilities are also really broken and if he was fighting anyone other than a warrior of the Sun then he may have won. His whole domain ability is just such a good long range option and those spikes come at you instantly. I think if the team had planned things out just a little better then he could have won it all for them. Even by the end of the series I felt like he was one of the strongest fighters.

Astolfo is next and he’s one of the weakest fighters. The rider class truly is cursed to never be super powerful huh? Fate/Zero’s rep seems to be the only exception to this. Well, he’s a nice guy and at least Astolfo does have a hero’s sense of justice within him. It’s why it’s always so tragic to be summoned to an evil master because there’s not a whole lot that you can do. He still resists as best he can though.

Frankenstein’s Monster is one of the servants here which is interesting. I mean I wouldn’t consider this beast to be a hero but if you can have reverse heroes (aka villains) like Jack the Ripper here then why not right? Either way she also looks very weak and really would not have done very well paired against almost any servant. Berserkers are at a disadvantage since they have a hard time thinking but Lancelot and Hercules were far more impressive.

Avicebron is the Caster of the group and he’s not really my style either. Casters are always rather shady fellows who can’t fight on their own and tend to sacrifice their allies to get ahead. Avicebron is no exception and while he’s not super bad or anything, he’s just not my kind of character. Likewise, Jack the Ripper is definitely not my style either. It’s interesting to see Jack as a little kid here. I suppose it helps with the disturbing factor as she goes around murdering everyone. It is impressive that she caused enough of a stir to temporarily prolong the war as both sides had to go and try to finish her off though. She certainly didn’t abide by the Grail War rule of not targeting civilians.

Now lets go into the Red faction’s servants. First you have Mordred who is similar to Saber in terms of moveset and design but their personalities are quite different. Mordred is always eager for battle and trying to prove herself worthy of being the King. Her battle style is less about elegance and efficiency but rather going for savagery and sheer power. She will just overpower any opponent in her way and this strategy works rather well.

At one point Mordred is in a gauntlet where she fights several opponents in a row and just keeps on winning. That takes enormous amounts of stamina and she made it look easy. I would like to see the others try and pull that off. Ultimately she is a fighter who always perseveres and was easily my favorite character in the Red faction. Her scenes were always just a lot of fun.

Next up is Atalanta and while she doesn’t get as much to do as the others, she does have her big fight at the end and gets a grudge with Jeanne over the issue of the kids I mentioned earlier. The whole thing is pretty sad for her because she just wanted to help the kids and feels guilty about not being strong enough. This ultimately causes her to lose her mind and gain great strength but at a huge cost. I liked her though and I can’t fault her for wanting to save everybody. It was certainly a noble vision even if it didn’t end up coming to fruition.

Karna is next and he’s the only character I really knew before starting the series. That guy always got a lot of hype and ended up being rather popular. He was even a big player in the Exstella game. I’d say this is deserved as he looks really impressive here. He’s got an honor code so he isn’t just going around beating everyone up and his sun abilities are fantastic. I don’t see almost any of the servants being able to defeat him here. He’s right up with Mordred and Achilles as the top 3 servants in the whole series. Only Vlad III has an argument for being included among that number of top tiers. (So Team Red has 3 of the top 4 fighters in the war. That’s pretty good) An honor code goes a long way in a character so you can see why I liked this guy.

Then we have Achilles who is another all star here. The guy has a ton of confidence and why shouldn’t he? The guy is virtually invincible except for his ankle which is really hard to hit as it is. It’s just his bad luck that he had to meet up with Chiron who was familiar with his fighting style. The two had a history together and that’s the only reason that he could keep up. Otherwise Achilles would absolutely be wrecking everyone in combat. He’s just that good and ultimately he does his best to help the others out as well. I definitely had a lot of fun with him.

The next fighter is Sparticus and I can’t say that I liked him much either. The guy doesn’t know how to stay back and do any planning. He runs into battle and it often costs him a lot. He lets his team down and if you’re a berserker that can’t resist mind control then you’re in for a world of trouble. He would just end up annoying me the whole time as he put his team in trouble and never really made up for it. Definitely one of my least favorite services here.

Nearing the end is Shakespeare who really isn’t all that strong although you might have guessed that. He’s more of a planner, someone who jumps in as needed with illusions but doesn’t do much beyond that. His illusions can certainly be twisted and he is effective at using them but I’ll never be able to put someone with a non offensive skillset over the power players. He just can’t fight much even if his life depends on it and that’s a rough state to be in. Imagine if he was summoned for a 1 on 1 war like most? HIs master would be absolutely doomed.

Finally you have Semiramis who is really solid. Certainly she’s much stronger than the team’s actual caster at using magic and that’s a bit ironic. Of course the way the summoning goes, you have to play into your role even if it’s not the strongest like how we saw Lancer summoned as a Caster in Grand Order. Apparently every servant can use all of the roles but naturally they just won’t be as strong. So you can only imagine how powerful Semiramis would have been if she was summoned as a Caster.

Either way she is very impressive though and is really the most pivotal member of Red’s team as a result. Without her summoning the large airship and manning the cannons then the team would have had far less opportunity to carry out their plans. She was absolutely necessary to everything playing out as the leader wanted it and she always gave the task her all.

Now which side do I think was stronger overall? Lets put them side by side and I’ll show you who wins every fight.

Siegfried vs Mordred : Winner Mordred
Chiron vs Atalanta: Winner Chiron
Vlad III vs Karna : Winner Karna
Astolfo vs Achilles : Winner Achilles
Frankenstein’s Monster vs Sparticus : Winner Sparticus
Avicebron vs Shakespeare : Winner Avicebron
Jack the Ripper vs Semiramis : Winner Semiramis

Red wins 5/7 rounds and easily clears the deck after that. The teams are still well balanced overall since it’s not like these fights are stomps but Red is just better around the board. Their heroes are more impressive and better suited to win each of the rounds. The only reason it didn’t play out like that is because Team Red would rarely be on the same page and lost some pieces early due to people doing their own thing or getting wrecked.

Time to talk about the masters. While most of them aren’t fighting on the front lines along with their master, some of them do get good roles. Most of Red’s masters are nonfactors though as they get bumped off real quick. It was a little sad since it would have been nice to see what they were all thinking but at the same time maybe it would have been too difficult to show all of them. So Red only has 2 real masters. First is Shirou and yes this is not the same Shirou from the main series but that would have certainly been interesting.

Shirou’s very much the mastermind kind of character here who is manipulating everyone to his own purposes. He can even fight to an extent which is impressive. Perhaps not well enough to beat most servants but he can defend himself and probably beat some of the weaker ones. As a result parts of his fight with Sieg are impossible to buy since he should be winning that one easily but the main character will usually need some plot armor at the end. Beyond that the fights tended to make sense so at least it was rare.

His wish is the classic villain wish of creating a Utopia. This time he would make everyone immortal to fulfill that goal and in theory if nobody can die and they’re all perfectly happy then bad things will never happen to people again. It’s one of those things that always sounds good at first but then you realize that this would completely remove free will as a concept and so that sours the whole thing. It does always make for a solid villain motivation though and that’s no exception here.

The other master is Shishigou who controls Mordred. I like that he’s not someone who blindly follows orders. He still intends to win the War with only Mordred as his partner. He can also fight on his own with his array of guns, grenades, and other anti-servant weaponry. It takes a lot of guts to get out there to fight opponents who could end you in an instant so that’s impressive. He mostly just does well against other humans but being out there at all to fight is a testament to his bravery. I also thought he and Mordred had the best dynamic as they would trust each other to fight their battles.

On the Black side we had a few more notable masters since all 7 got to do something. First was Reika who completely allowed Jack to murder people and even encouraged it. Naturally she’s one of the biggest psychos here and the fact that she always acted as a really kind person right through the end was certainly something. To her this was all just natural and shows how messed up she was.

Roche is a bit younger and definitely very naïve. He figured Caster won’t betray him but that’s just how the ball bounces sometimes. I never liked him personally. Gordes is another cruel master (Man this team really is mean huh?) who was helping with the clone project and doesn’t treat them as real people. He gets a character arc where he starts to get nice by the end but it’s a little late for that so I still wasn’t buying into it. This guy really went down a dark path with no remorse until after he was knocked out of the war.

Celenike is also master that makes it easy to root for Team Red to win and take control of the world. She likes beating up on her servant for no reason at all and just comes across as another twisted psycho. Her weird obsession with Astolfo doesn’t help her case either and the sooner she’s taken out the better. Any scene with her is definitely annoying and given that she doesn’t help the team in any meaningful way, the bosses should have picked a more capable member from the millenia group.

Fiore and Caules have their own servants and are immediately the two most reasonable members of the group. Fiora wants to do her duty to bring honor to the family name and plays things by the book. She’s one of the few masters who doesn’t lose her cool and just does her best to win each fight one at a time. Her main weakness is that she’s a little too nice so she has a hard time taking people out which is tricky in a war. Then you have Caules who is mainly fighting to protect Fiore and gradually starts to take mores responsibility within the family. It’s a hard road but he starts to pull through it.

Darnic is the final master and the guy at least has some leadership experience. He actually won the Grail war once before even if it was a long time ago. He’s a master manipulator but I would say his weakness was in not choosing better teammates. Either way he gets the job done and lasts for a long while. He almost won in the end but just got a bit too greedy and sped things up too much. I wouldn’t say he was great but he was memorable and played a good role in keeping team black in the running.

So that’s pretty much all of the characters. There are a few more here and there but that’s the majority at least. The cast really is quite big so it takes a while to introduce them all but I’d say the show did well with the development. Just about everyone gets something to do and then the fights are more emotional since you’ve seen both sides. As long as you like seeing a lot of action then you should definitely have a good time here.

Overall, Fate/Apocrypha is a good show. It can get a little extra gritty at times and I think more of the early fights should have had real winners but the show jumps up during the second half as we get the big climax battles. The animators went all out with those and the series does have a conclusive ending. It’s always nice to see the Holy Grail Wars and having a completely different cast with this one works pretty well. I don’t think these servants would beat the FSN ones in a straight fight but some of the top tiers like Karna and Mordred would absolutely go very far. Maybe we’ll see some of these guys pop up in Grand Order soon. Either way if you haven’t checked this one out yet and want to explore more of the Fate verse, it’s a good option.

Overall 6/10

Megaton-kyuu Musashi Review

Posted on April 24, 2022 by dreager1

Megaton is a show that I would consider to be reasonably obscure. I forgot about the franchise entirely after it came out because you just never saw it talked about anywhere. Well, the show actually turned out to be rather great. You’ve got a solid main character here and a lot of good battles. I do think parts of the core plot don’t make a lot of sense so you will have to stretch your disbelief but the show turns up in all the other aspects and ends up making for a very satisfying experience.

The show starts by explaining that humanity was nearly wiped out by aliens. These invaders struck quick and hard so the humans that did survive now live inside of one last city. This city is protected from the outside world and most of the people within it are being mind controlled so that they think life is going on as normal. The ones who do know better have constructed robots to fight against the invaders and protect us as a last line of defense. There are also some scattered human settlements around the planet that try to survive but for the most part humanity is over.

We then cut to our main character Yamato who is a bit of a delinquent. He is always getting into fights with Ryugo and the other gangs. Well, one day he is attacked by a group that’s a little different as they’re all cyborgs. Yamato crushes them and even the robotic leader so he is brought into the fold by the government. They unlock his memories which were torn away and he decides that he will exterminate all of the aliens. Ryugo and Teru join up as well and find out that more people are a part of this resistance than they ever could have known.

The robots require multiple pilots to use so you can’t just go in and start moving around but Yamato gets the hang of it right away. The show starts off with a very Attack on Titan kind of vibe with humanity almost being down for the count and all. Same with Yamato and his grudge against the aliens because they destroyed his whole family. From there the similarities start to end and either way this is a pretty solid way to kick things off.

We actually see the alien’s point of view rather early on in the series too. They don’t all seem super evil but they do want to eradicate humanity so we still have to stop them. At the end of the day they’re trying to take over our planet so we have to stop them no matter what. You’ve got the queen and her loyal subordinates trying to make a move on their end and then you have the subplot with princess Anshem and her mentor. Anshem wants to prove herself by murdering Yamato but has a hard time doing this. At first it’s due to comedic shenanigans where she just can’t pull this off but gradually starts to doubt her cause.

I should mention that the aliens can’t live properly in Earth’s atmosphere so they terraformed most of the planet. The city that survived has its own oxygen so in order to carry out her mission, Anshem possesses the body of one of Yamato’s classmates. You feel bad for the girl being controlled since Anshem is really hurting her reputation the whole time. It’s a fun enough subplot even if you’re really waiting for the battles.

Where the series really excels is in the fights, particularly the hand to hand ones. Yeah this is a mech show but the best fights are definitely when Yamato just picks up a pipe and starts to beat everyone up. He gets many different fights in the series ranging from street thugs to robots to aliens. In each fight he gives it his all and manages to come out on top. At first you may think he’s just a little too talented but I like seeing him be able to take on these new challenges without a sweat for a change. Usually you’d expect the lead to be overwhelmed eventually but that’s not what happens here.

Yamato’s determination really goes above anything that can be thrown at him and he is really a great main character. It may be hard for anyone to change his views about destroying all of the aliens but it’s hard to really be trying to stop him since they are the ones that invaded the Earth first and are causing all of these issues. As much as Anshem starts to talk about peace later, it’s hard to forget that they did already genocide billions of lives across the globe. That’s a rather large thing to put to the side for peace.

Now, I mentioned that there is a part of the main plot which is hard to buy and this is it. The aliens knocked out almost everyone on the planet except for this one city. They know where the city is as evidenced by their sending assassins to bump off individual agents and have known about it for a while. So why not take everyone out? The reason the villains don’t nuke the place is because they want the evolution factor. This hasn’t been fully explained yet but clearly it’s not super crucial since by the end of the series the villains are launching a big invasion anyway.

There are just so many ways to take out the city without nuking everybody. At least send a big group in to wipe out the chain of command and get some villains stationed there instead. It’s hard to buy into the human’s survival here because they are so outmatched. The reason it worked in Attack on Titan is because the titans were largely mindless so a wall could actually work. In Seraph we had ways of fighting back and the numbers weren’t so bad. The issue here is that the villains have an entire planet’s worth of fighters on their side and countless enemies. We’re talking millions and more as they send thousands of fodder to be wiped out by the heroes every episode.

Conveniently they send just enough to be destroyed each time. In ep 1 for example they’ll send just enough to Yamato could beat all of them. By ep 3 they’ll send more than he can handle but the heroes recruit Jun to the team. By 5 even more but now the heroes have more mechs, etc. If the villains had just sent more mechs then humanity would have been doomed but they always send too few again and again. Just send a full assault of aliens and mechs to take over the city once and for all. When you do that then there will be no way for the humans to fight back.

The fact that they haven’t just feels like incredible plot armor. There’s no way the aliens should have not done that by now. It just doesn’t make any sense. Moving beyond that, I think it’s a mistake on the humans part to be mind wiping everybody. What’s the purpose of them living ordinary lives instead of preparing for war? They certainly could have helped the war effort a great deal if they could have been allowed to do that. I also think that erasing their memories on principle is the wrong decision. That’s something you’d expect out of the villains, not the heroes. It’s a big mistake and I wouldn’t be surprised if this becomes a bigger deal in season 2 as more characters think about it.

Meanwhile I thought the soundtrack was excellent as well. There’s a lyrical song that plays when Yamato is beating people up. It’s surprisingly catchy and really shows just how skilled he is. You can feel the power behind all of Yamato’s attacks and it feels like a bear that he might listen too while walking down the street. There are plenty of solid tunes throughout the show but the only one I was not really a fan of was the intro. It’s just not all that catchy and I would like to see the song changed up a bit for next time. It just wasn’t really working for me.

Now back to the characters. Ryugo is the classic punk type character who ends up being one of Yamato’s best friends but I never liked him all that much. The guy isn’t very tough even if he thinks he is and never really enhances the show in any way. He’s not all that bad but there’s nothing particularly interesting about him. In comparison Jun is a lot more fun because of her fiery personality. She’s always picking fights, having hero moments, and generally dominating during her screen time.

It’s also worth noting that she was beating Ryugo when they fought briefly. It wasn’t a great look for him since he didn’t lose for great reasons but I was impressed that she quickly went into battle mode. Jun clearly put a lot of work into the whole scheme of finding out what was going on and also defending her troops when it was time to do so. Ultimately she was one of the more memorable characters as a result.

Reiji is more of a pacifist so you can bet that he wasn’t my favorite character. When you have great power then you need to use it to defend everybody rather than sitting on the sidelines. Doing that isn’t going to ultimately end up helping anybody at all. He takes too long to act and it ultimately costs the life of one of the cats. It was a very emotional moment to be sure and it was regrettable that the show had a cat die at all. He didn’t deserve that and it was really a gut punch by the show in having such an emotional moment there. Don’t think we needed all of that to guilt trip him into action.

I can see his role growing even larger in season 2 as we delve further into his super abilities. Yamato seems to be developing his as well so that would make sense. Then we have Teru but I wouldn’t say I was a big fan of that guy either. He’s the smart member of the group and tends to pick up on things rather well but at the end of the day his emotions will get the best of him at the worst times. He stops Yamato from saving someone near the end of the show which wasn’t a good look for him. I’d like to see him be a little more aggressive in battle instead of calm and calculating in season 2 as he takes a harder stance against the enemies.

On the alien side we have Anshem who has a solid character arc as she starts wishing for peace. At one point it seemed like she wasn’t very powerful considering that she was an alien but fortunately that didn’t turn out to be the case and she ended up using her true form. At this point she’s doing all that she can to help. It may be a little late in the game but better late than never right? She’s a good character and I look forward to seeing how this plot plays out.

There are quite a few students that I didn’t talk about but the show doesn’t really have enough time to juggle all of them so some don’t get to do much yet. A good example of this is Takumi who is around but doesn’t do a whole lot. He’s the tech guy so he doesn’t go into the robots but helps with preparing them and making sure that everything is ready. It’s a necessary role even if it isn’t a particularly interesting one. Meanwhile Asuna spends most of her time being mind controlled but tries to help out when possible. Fortunately she remembers being mind controlled even if she doesn’t know what she was doing.

She’s a little quick to be okay with Anshem taking her body over but at least since she could sense the alien’s emotions that helps a bit. It would be nice to see Asuna pilot one of the robots eventually. Momoka ends up becoming Jun’s rival in the show and she does well in that role. She can fight well in hand to hand and also has a good amount of super strength. Both of those traits are handy in this fight. I was usually on team Jun in these moments but Momoka made for a solid rival all the way through.

Kiyoka hasn’t had nearly as much to do so far. She is working in a support role but I’d like that to change soon since it’s the only way that she can end up rising in the ranks. Otherwise there just isn’t a huge future in the support field. Kouta was the worst member of the heroes though. He’s an android who has decided not to fight back so he lets everyone bully him all the time. Momoka slowly teaches him how to defend himself but it’s a long road. One of the most egregious moments here is when a villain runs into the command room with a gun. Kouta is clearly the best person to try and take him down but he just watches until after someone is shot and then he makes a move. The rest of the characters are guilty of not jumping in either but as an android I would put the heaviest burden on Kouta here. It’ll take a long while for him to really go up after that.

Sayaka has a fairly big role here as the commander in charge of field ops. She gets a twist which you might see coming a little before it happens since the anime throws you some hints but either way it’s a solid twist. Sayaka is a good character even if she never got to do a whole lot here. From what we saw she was always a good leader. Then you have Sarzant who is the bodyguard to Anshem. He’s not very good in this role as he tends to lower his guard constantly and allow her to go into dangerous circumstances. He seems like a nice guy but perhaps being a bodyguard just wasn’t the right role for him. It’s a shame since he always looked and talked like he would be really tough.

Rounding up the villain side we have the Queen who is all in on destroying the humans. I blame the fact that they haven’t done this yet on her though since the buck stops here. She talks really tough but never really lives up to her hype. I liked the idea behind the character and she’s cool in most of her scenes but ultimately that just isn’t good enough. She couldn’t step up when it counted and that cost her.

Finally there’s Grieffas and he is easily the highlight as far as the villains are concerned. He has a clear goal in trying to save Anshem and is loyal to her above his normal duties. He has some great fights with Yamato and just doesn’t back down in his convictions. The guy is crazy but doesn’t just throw away his goals in the end. Instead he stands by them and I look forward to seeing more of this guy going forward. He’s really got a lot of promise.

For the most part the show has the look and feel of a kodomo type anime. The characters have vibrant designs, the atmosphere is light and the soundtrack is energetic. That’s why it’s particularly effective when a character dies or the fights start to get intense. This clearly isn’t a kodomo but you could have been tricked for a little while there. In the end I would consider this to be more of a classic Shonen but it balances all of the genres well. There’s even some drama here although I would consider the romance to be a little more on the weak side. The show is always at its best when there is some action going on but that’s true of most titles.

With the way the season ends off I’ll be interested to see how season 2 goes. We could easily have a time skip or just continue from where this one leaves off. I do think they will have to address how humanity isn’t just wiped off of the map though. We need more than a vague “evolutionary materials” excuse now that the villains are getting more serious. The heroes are getting stronger and stronger too so the aliens absolutely need to factor that in before they become the prey in this equation. Once that happens then there is really no way back.

As for the debate about destroying the aliens or not….right now I’m with Yamato’s initial view on taking them out. Look, there will be a time for peace and coexistence later on but right now you’re looking at an army that is many times stronger than your own. There isn’t an easy way to spare them on the battlefield without sacrificing your own men. It’s different than in most situations where I’d say to spare the villain where you have the framework to do so. When you’re defending the last 10% of your species against the invading force that has every advantage then you really just have to go for the win.

Holding back at all will put you in a really bad spot. It’s also fair to say that most of the villains have pretty much been brainwashed right now so it’s unlikely that you will get many supporters. It’s just a slippery slope with Anshem saying to spare the villains every time when they just run back to their ship and request reinforcements. It’s not a viable strategy at the moment and I’d say the episodes illustrate that pretty well. Near the end of the season the villains come up with a giant robot that takes everything the heroes have to take out and they only barely manage it with a trick that probably won’t work twice.

The more time you buy for the villains who seem to have better tech, the more unwinnable the fight is. I will say that the show did a very good job with that fight as it could have easily been more on the boring side with the heroes not being able to do much of anything but instead you really felt the durability of the robot and made the whole thing feel grand. I use robot and alien rather interchangeably for the minions because in a way they both work but they really are robots since the actual aliens look like humans.

As a final point, the villains even have a lot of operatives running around the city assassinating the pilots so they can’t fly the mech suits. Until you deal with that then the situation will keep on getting worse for them. It’s why it’s still odd that the humans are being mind controlled to just go to school and live life as normal. Makes it way easier for the villains to bump them off if they feel like it. The slice of life scenes we do get in the show are always fun enough but this is what you’ll be thinking in the back of your head.

Overall, Megaton might not be a show that you are super familiar with but I’d definitely recommend giving it a shot. Whether you’re a fan of classic mech shows or just want a good action title then you’re in luck either way. While I singled out the hand to hand fights in particular, I thought the mech battles were still good as well. The animation is solid in each way. The story is interesting and while I may not be a big fan of some of Yamato’s friends, he stands as a strong enough lead for the rest of them. You do not want to miss out on this adventure!

Overall 8/10

The Recruit Review

Posted on April 17, 2022 by dreager1

The Recruit is definitely a movie about the dangers of romance. No matter how you slice it, things would have been way different for the main character if he had stuck out of that arena. Still, you’re in for a fun time with this movie. It’s got a good plot and a lot of twists and turns to keep you interested all the way through.

The movie starts by introducing us to James who is a master coder. He’s invented a program which lets him take control of anything else. Well, he’s approached by a guy from the CIA named Walter who is recruiting him and brings up the dad card. See, James never knew exactly what his Dad was doing and it turns out that he was in the CIA. Walter tells James that he won’t get any more answers about that but this is in his blood so he should join up. James does and quickly meets a nice lady named Layla. The actual CIA tests are tougher than expected though, can James hold on?

Right off the bat James isn’t one of the best main characters. Imagine being drunk and arriving late to the biggest event in your life? If he had missed the presentation entirely and ruined it for everyone then that would have been downright tragic. Fortunately things turned out well but it showed that he wasn’t very responsible. This continues when he goes to the CIA for tests and is immediately distracted by Layla. He had to be cautioned by the proctors because he was so out of it. That’s not a good look for someone who should be highly motivated to succeed so that he can find out more about his father.

Romance proves to be his biggest weakness and it gets him into trouble several times. One test by the CIA is to take a girl out as if it was a date but naturally he messes this up as well. The first rule here is always to not get too attached but he doesn’t excel at that to put it mildly. Throughout the film he doesn’t think things through at all and it always puts him in a tricky spot. By the end of the movie you can at least appreciate that he is decent at being sneaky in the field but he also gets lucky just as many times.

For example, at one point he has to use a computer while at someone’s house so he sneaks off during the night/early morning to pull this off but of course she sees him. He lays a fake trail down to cover himself but I don’t think that would erase the suspicion at all. If anything it still makes him stand out like a sore thumb and as a CIA agent that’s not what you want to do. Luck is a part of the game of course but James really did himself no favors the whole time. I’d say he’s a cut below the average action lead here.

Then you have Walter who is more of a stand out character. He’s good at manipulation and deception which is exactly what you want from a CIA fighter. He knows what makes everyone tick and how to get the best of them. The guy has an impressive track record on the field so everyone is pretty much in awe of him. I thought he delivered on that and knows how to be kind one moment and gruff the next. His sudden emotion changes always make it hard to know exactly what he is thinking here.

Finally you have Layla as the main heroine. Initially she doesn’t care for James and that makes sense because he can come across as annoying and she is here to be an agent, not to have to put up with this guy’s flirting. Naturally you can guess how this will play out anyway. The romance is one of the weaker parts of the film but I’ll give Layla credit for not being completely outmaneuvered here. She still did well on her own with carrying out her plans and also being aware that James was acting a bit fishy. In that way she wasn’t just another minion getting defeated or anything like that.

Now how much you enjoy the film will likely come down to how much you like the CIA training because a solid chunk of the film is all about how to become a CIA agent rather than actually being out there in the field so it’s all a bit different in that sense. Usually the field work is the majority of the film although there is time for that too. It was interesting to see how the tests went although some seemed a little too intense. At least one in particular would be enough for me to decide to leave the CIA entirely. It was just way too crazy.

I always thought that the test about how to beat out the lie detector machine was always interesting though. Is it really so easy to beat out? If so then it seems like that is not a very good machine to be using on any of the sides. So instead you have to assume that both sides have better machines at the ready that they keep hidden in which case this training won’t be super useful. At least it’s painless compared to the others though so that’s a start. It’s the silver lining here.

Once James is in the field then we get to the meat of the story. It was nice to get the chase scenes and the big action moments that I was waiting for. So I thought all of these scenes were pretty solid. Seeing James have to decide what to do next since it’s hard to trust anyone was also good. These scenes were all really solid and helped the film live up to the action angle.

So it boils down to my one real issue with the film being the romance. It just felt like one of those romances that had to be included. Sure, it fits into the big plan at the end but that just makes it feel all the more convenient. A really large part of the plan revolved around the romance so if it hadn’t gone through then it seems like the whole movie would have been really different. Couple that with the fact that the romance really shouldn’t have gone so smoothly and it feels like the film was trying too hard to make everything connected. I also still think the CIA training went way too far in one of the tests and don’t see how that would be allowed here at all. Surely one of the execs at the CIA would have shut that down a lot sooner right?

Overall, The Recruit is a solid film and makes for a good spy thriller. If you want to watch something sort of like Jason Bourne or James Bond but with a look at how it all began then this is a good one to check out. James can be a bit of an annoying main character who is very easy to manipulate but he does have the tough disposition you would need to have for this job. He is able to manage that much at least. A sequel to this movie would definitely be fun but by this point it’s probably going to stay as a one shot.

Overall 6/10

Persona 5: The Animation: Stars and Ours Review

Posted on April 5, 2022 by dreager1

It’s time to end the main journey of the Persona 5 cast. With just about everyone down for the count you’d think that this is all over right? Well not quite as a new villain shows up and the heroes have to quickly try to save the world last time. This time they are not fighting merely as thieves but as protectors to stop corrupt cosmic beings. It’s all in their hands now!

After stopping Shido things should have gone well but instead humanity has started to forget about the Phantom Thieves. That wouldn’t be so bad except that the Holy Grail has decided to end these guys once and for all and is turning this into reality. The heroes will cease to exist if they aren’t remembered soon and Joker is thrown back into his metaphysical cage. Can he get the band together one last time to stop this god or will he be taken down for good?

This special really gets out there with how powerful the villain is but Persona usually does like to get crazy by the end so it was nice to raise the stakes here. It’s hard to say exactly what the Grail’s goals are beyond just messing with everyone though. Perhaps that is it as it’s the negative feelings of everyone brought forth into life. It seems like the Grail tends to be evil in most shows where it appears and this one’s no exception. The fact that it can actually talk and has a cool super form is pretty near though. It makes its presence known right from the start as a fighter who should not be trifled with. There may not be a lot to him but he made for a solid final boss.

It was also nice to see the old jail cell appear again because this was one plot that never really got resolved. The whole time they’ve been telling Joker how he needed to be rehabilitated and all of that but he seemed like a nice guy from the start so it was always odd to him. Well, it turns out that the whole thing was a farce at least for a while now. Fortunately the two jailers had enough strength of will not to make a big mistake. I still wouldn’t say that I’m a big fan of them considering how close they came to ending it all but despite their vow but better late than never.

Joker manages to save everyone pretty quickly so it doesn’t become a full adventure or anything but it was a nice side journey. We also get to peer into Mementos for part of the climax and you get cameos from all of the other villains. The idea of a shared dungeon where everyone interacts was pretty interesting when they first showed it in the anime and it’s still cool here. It does make you feel like most people need to watch their backs though because all it would take is one really strong soul to overpower the others.

Joker and friends are strong enough to resist but they have powers of their own which helps a lot. The average person would not be quite so lucky. This leads into the main battle with the Grail as it is so the whole dungeon really was dangerous from the start. Now we find out by the end that destroying Mementos would also remove the powers that the lead has or at least that’s a main part of it. Presumably everyone else loses their powers as well so there will be no more dimension hopping but I have to wonder how that’s possible.

In theory shouldn’t everyone still have a dark side at some point or another? Did the heroes really cleanse the whole world of negative thoughts in one shot or was it just the city? I’m not a big fan of the whole losing powers thing because while it may be a common type of ending, I don’t think it made much sense here. I don’t see how the realm would go away or why the powers would fade. Furthermore, it also hurts the chances of a true sequel. yeah you could say the heroes just got their powers back or it was just a temporary loss but doing that from the beginning would be preferable.

It’s also a shame because the heroes had been doing so much good work throughout the city. They stopped a bunch of the corrupt adults and were making the world a better place one step at a time. Having to lose their abilities is just a really rough fate should they decide to stop the Grail. The way the ending plays out is decent. It’s happy enough and all but I don’t think it’s quite as complete an ending as it could have been otherwise. At least you don’t have to worry about cliffhangers I suppose.

The animation is pretty standard here. We get a pretty intense face off near the end but this one doesn’t have as much action as the last special. It’s definitely more of a dialogue based adventure this time around as the heroes get their closure. Then for the soundtrack you’ve got all of the fun Persona themes so that’s always a thumbs up. Persona did not hold back when it came to the musical tracks that play the whole time.

One of the most memorable parts here is definitely when the people forget the thieves and they start to fade away. It’s like something out of Infinity War and I thought it was really impressive at least. Fortunately Joker had the demons and parallel world looking out so the jail prevented him from losing it all but it was still close. I also thought it was just intense how the Grail could make that possible and cause people to forget so quickly. The Thieves weren’t exactly private figures after all so that was an impressive feat.

Overall, Persona 5 may have ended in a different direction than how I would have done things but it’s still good in the end. The story is interesting from start to finish which is always the important thing. The main cast was solid here and everyone got to help out. In these two specials I wouldn’t say that any member got a big role in particular aside from Joker but just being there to help out in general is always appreciated. Teamwork through unity right? The Grail made for a solid final boss so in the end the special made the right moves here and I look forward to seeing what Persona experience is next. This is definitely a good title to check out now if you haven’t already seen it.

Overall 7/10

God Eater Review

Posted on March 28, 2022 by dreager1

God Eater is a series that very much feels like Attack on Titan. It’s got a pretty interesting premise and fun concepts but it ultimately focuses too much on the tragedy and horror surrounding the characters. They’re all put through the wringer quite a bit and this only escalates as the series gets closer to the end. Ultimately the series goes way too far into this and ends up shooting itself in the foot so it can’t end up taking advantage of the interesting art style.

God Eater is effectively divided up into two stories that are being told at the same time. The present where Fenrir trains fighters known as God Eaters to fight the Aragami and defend the Earth and the past where we see how the Aragami first appeared on the Earth and how the scientists reacted. The past is told in a black and white art style while the present is full in color. Each story gives new information and context to the other so they end up bouncing back and forth on that.

The main character is a boy named Lenka. His goal is to destroy all of the Aragami and it’s his motivation for being a God Eater. He is one of the new types but unfortunately he doesn’t know what that means or much about the world. His only focus has been on destroying the monsters so he never really bothered to find out more about the world than that. Well when the defense force is low on fighters, Lenka takes that chance to run out of the base and fight. Unfortunately he gets crushed rather quickly and has to be saved by the First Unit. This happens again in the next episode so it’s rough for him but ultimately he is allowed to enter their squad. Can he make a difference or will he learn that aspirations alone are not enough to win?

God Eater is one of those titles that is tragic in a way because I do think this could have been an absolute top tier if it could just tone down the edge a bit. So lets get the negatives out of the way here because those are pretty easy to go through. First off, the series is just incredibly violent. You have a character who gets eaten alive in a really disturbing way. People are chomped, blown up, and very few characters get a happy ending here. Whenever you have a flashback to a character’s past you now that things are going to get crazy.

Like with Attack on Titan there is a lot of focus on how despair is all that most of these guys have to look forward to. These monsters are just too numerous and keep on coming. Aside from a select few top tier fighters, the rest can only hope to defend themselves for a few minutes before getting eaten. While this is the case throughout the series, Lenka’s backstory definitely gets the most drastic about it.

God Eater is just unrelenting on this. Soma’s backstory also gets rather tragic with a birth going wrong and you probably wont go more than an episode or 2 without something twisted happening. The crazy thing is that the show didn’t start out quite so violent. I felt like the first 2-3 episodes seemed normal. Perhaps a little intense but nothing crazy. Then the show just dialed everything up to 11 all of a sudden. Even in other ways like the scenes with Lenka’s sister got rather crazy by the end even outside of the violence. Don’t think we needed that kind of subplot there.

This is why I said it was easy to go through the negatives pretty quick though. Really it boils down to the show being way too extremely edgy the whole time. With this kind of premise it could be expected to an extent (Even the opening starts off on a rather dark note) but there’s so many possibilities here. If you focused more on the story and less on the violence this could have been really great.

Now for the animation, it’s a little different as I mentioned earlier. The style is heavily shaded and it’s hard to describe but it feels like there’s a ton of detail in the shots. Some scenes almost feel like an illustration. It takes a little getting used to because it is so different. It’s certainly not touching Ufotable’s big hand drawn titles like Demon Slayer or Fate but I would say it’s still a high tier production in its own right. Then the animation randomly seems to change later on.

I felt like the first episodes looked a lot more high budget than the latter ones at first but that’s when it dawned on me that it was just a very different style. It didn’t necessarily get worse, just different. The deep illustration style was gone and it looked more hand drawn I’d say or at least trying to emulate that style. It threw me for a bit of a loop because both styles are good but just different. So this was a roundabout way of saying that I liked the animation style. Once you get used to it, it holds up well and it’s the kind of style that looks really good even when you pause at any point. It works well for the dark atmosphere the show is going for as well.

The show starts to fall into the fanservice trap a little more during the second half though. It was virtually nonexistent in the first half outside of Alisa’s impractical costume but the show never really puts any attention on it so that’s easy to overlook. The fanservice in the second half just feels out of nowhere and just added in for kicks. Too bad on that, it’s enough to be noticeable but not excessive enough where I would deduct big points or anything.

As for the soundtrack, I thought that was excellent. There are quite a few lyrical songs that show up and they all have a fun electronic feeling to them. They really get the hype going in each scene like when Lenka’s escaping the base to go and try to save the day or when the heroes finally fight as a unit. There are quite a few different songs too so it’s not like they’re just spamming the same lyrical song either. You’ve got battle ones, somber ones, and montage types. There’s a good variety here. They all have the same feel but work well. I also like how the opening starts with that great rock beat although I feel like the rest of the opening falters a bit after that. Either way, this is definitely a 5 star soundtrack that I would recommend without a doubt. You can just listen to the music without context and get how it would work really well in the show.

Now lets talk about the characters real quick. It took a little time to really learn the main guy’s name since it’s so similar to the captain. Lenka is really like Eren Yeager. He wants to save the day and destroy all of the Aragami but as the series goes on he starts to learn what that really means. It’s really not as easy as it sounds and while the first unit makes it look easy, every monster can be a threat under the right circumstances.

Lenka quickly gains a lot of development from being someone who wants to jump into the action each time to becoming more of a strategist. For a minute there I actually thought the show was going to totally have him shift roles so I’m glad that he still stayed in an action arrangement. It would have been a shame if he didn’t get to fight again. Lenka goes through a lot but always gets up no matter how grisly the injury. He also hasn’t abandoned his morals and will try to help people as long as he can even if it means going against orders. I always like main characters who prioritize doing the right thing over following orders like that so in the end I did like him quite a bit. He would be the second best character here.

The best is captain Lindow and that guy earns every bit of it. He really knows how to lead a team and has the right amount of discipline while still being a hothead. He doesn’t just accept how Fenrir does things and has his own plans to save the day. This does mean that he’s always in a dangerous position though and doesn’t really let his teammates on it. The guy prefers to do things on his own. He’s also not a new type but has strong enough abilities to compete with them. By the end it’s fair to say that he is still one of the strongest characters in the series. It was always fun to have him around and Lenka owes a lot of his development to this guy.

Sakuya is the right hand woman on the 1st Unit and she is always there to provide backup to Lindow. She specializes in strategy and also helps a lot with making sure that the plans are good. Her sniper skills come in handy when training Lenka as well and you could say that she’s the heart of the team. She doesn’t want to be the leader and is always satisfied just being there to support the team. She’s another good character and I feel like Lindow could have trusted her a bit more and told her what was going on. I’m sure she could have helped out.

Soma is another one of the core members of the team and he’s quite powerful. He can shoot out a giant energy blast that takes down a lot of monsters. I wonder why more characters don’t have a cool finisher like that but I suppose it ties into his backstory. The guy certainly had a rough time of it as a kid and so now he just tries to avoid everyone as much as possible. You can’t blame him because that does seem like the safest bet at this point. Things never work out when he’s around others so at this point it makes sense to go in solo. He’s not afraid of dying and even puts himself in positions where that’s likely.

Lenka is able to give Soma a little hope which was good. The guy was certainly drowning in his despair by this point so it was nearly too late. I like his cool demeanor although I wish he could have done a little more. I suppose he would have a larger role in season 2 if that ever came out. Then there’s Kota who feels a little out of place next to the others because of how weak he is. I suppose that’s the fate of being the old friend of the main character, you’re not one of the hype characters nor do you have a lot of power ups coming into play. I like to think he’ll do better soon but as it is the guy just didn’t stand out to me. I thought he was okay I guess but not too impressive in any way.

Alisa is interesting because initially I thought she was going to be one of the best characters. She has a dynamic intro where she is shredding the Aragami and shows Lenka what a real new type looks like. She has absolute confidence and even makes sure to save everyone on the plane even if it meant that she wouldn’t get out alive. So she has top notch skills while still looking out for the innocent. All right, count me in! That’s a great start for any character and she still keeps up her tough personality after that.

Unfortunately she falters once we start seeing more of her past. There is one Aragami that is stronger than all others and he takes a real pleasure in destroying humans. You can probably imagine that her family didn’t have a good time here. This traumatized Alisa to the point where she needed serious therapy. It worked for a while but unfortunately during the course of the show she relapses and from there she’s just never the same. She spends whole episodes hiding and letting everyone get eaten around her because she can’t move. It lasts for way too long and it’s always just sad to see everyone dying when a character could have prevented it.

If Alisa had been able to help at all in the village then things would have been over really quick. A single new type is a game changer in any battle so having her off the board like that was unfortunate. I’ll give her some credit for not going too far in the end and being able to resist her brainwashing and trauma. Alisa does eventually get over it all but it just takes way too long and it did hurt her character a lot. It shouldn’t be an issue for a sequel but at least in this season she dropped hard from temporarily being around the top.

Back at the base you also have Tsubaki who is head of operations. She is also doing her best to look into the darkness plaguing the world but I tend to disagree with most of her decisions. While she does have a tough job of trying to balance being careful with going on the attack, she is too quick to give up and let the areas plunge into chaos. She should have just let Lenka jump in each time. Sure, he’s untrained but you have to take a risk to save a lot of lives right? Even if he did die, the risk would have been worth it because everyone would have died otherwise.

Then you have Johannes who has a big role in both stories. In the past he is the head researcher studying this Aragami threat and the origins of how that appeared. He ends up hiding some research and acting shady but everyone is shady here. In the present he is the head of Fenrir so you can directly blame him for some of their policies like not letting any nonpowered individuals in. The guy is incredibly shady and you always have to wonder if he is really a hero or a villain. I’ll talk more about this later on.

There are some parts of the show where you feel like they are missing something from the game though. For example, we see that Lenka can boost his speed somehow and presumably this is a feature from the God Arc weapon he wields. How come he only uses it once or twice in the whole season? It would be really helpful in a combat scenario. In fact, he should be able to absolutely crush the Aragami with this but ends up getting wrecked by basic types early on. Soma has that cool energy attack I mentioned, why don’t the other characters have something like that? I bet every character has a super attack in the game so I’m wondering why they aren’t here. Either way I think the show could have gone more into detail on how the powers work.

Getting some exposition and lore is good in cases like this. They went more into detail on how the Aragami work inside the weapons at least which is good. I thought that was a very interesting idea and as we saw it in action, it was an effective one as well. I dare say the heroes should use them right off the bat instead of waiting towards the end. Seems like it’s a one hit KO in most instances so why not use it sooner right? Would save the team a lot of heartache that’s for sure.

Okay time for some spoilers so skip this paragraph and the next 2 if you haven’t seen the show yet. You’ve been warned so proceed at your own peril. Lets gooooooo. Begin Spoilers So near the end of the show we find out that the Aragami can’t be destroyed because they are produced from the very planet. Meaning no matter how many you destroy, they will keep on coming endlessly. The members who have found this out either retired in despair or left the combat role. It’s hard to find out that your efforts seem to be completely futile. As a result there are a few different plans here on how to deal with it. The first is to build an arc. It will take hundreds of thousands of monster cores but in a few decades this goal may be achievable. Humanity will be able to move in there and be protected from monsters forever because none can break through it.

That’s the idea but you should be very skeptical about that. No dome is unbreakable and we see some really powerful monsters in this series. It feels unlikely that this would work and Johannes agrees with this. So his idea is he believes that the monsters are some kind of way the universe keeps the balance. The monsters will destroy the planet and reset everything. So his plan is to get a bunch of people into space and then blow up the Earth himself to speed up the process. The obvious downside here is that the rocket can’t carry everyone so a whole lot of people will be left behind to die by the monsters or get blown up by Fenrir. So it’s a plan that has a better chance of success than the dome but it is also giving up in a sense. He also went full villain by the end with how he’s intentionally sabotaging the characters and undermining their efforts. When you’re trying to injure some of your best fighters, you have to wonder at what point you’re just helping the Aragami out. You need someone to guard and launch the rocket right? I think he needs to think this through a bit more.

Finally, the rival doctor’s plan is to have humans coexist with the Aragami. He figures if they keep on evolving then it will be possible to coexist. We already have one case where the monster evolved enough to develop emotions and feelings. Of course the downside is that this monster ended up turning evil as he enjoyed all of the negative emotions. This plan feels really far fetched. Imagine if this guy is actually intentionally evolving monster and we find out that he created the big one? That will cause a lot of drama within the ranks for sure. We don’t yet know what route Lenka will take but I think he would lean towards the dome. That said, he may not be able to see it since his death is being accelerated. I feel like the ending ends up confirming that he has surpassed the illness and won’t die anymore but it is open to interpretation for sure. End Spoilers

By the end of the series you probably won’t like Fenrir though. As with many titles involving the end of the world against a common threat, the lone government group left is as corrupt as can be. Seraph of the End, Attack on Titan, Resident Evil, etc. This is how it always happens and God Eater is no exception. As mentioned before, Fenrir doesn’t even let you go within the walls unless you are compatible with a God Arc or have family who are. Everyone else is left outside to fend for themselves against the monsters.

Now, we do have several instances of monsters getting within the borders anyway (As early as episode 1) so maybe there’s not a huge difference but it does make the group come off as cold. On a practical sense you can see how they can’t possibly house everyone but at least try to do more against these monsters right? Provide some support or slowly keep on extending the walls to get more people in. It is a little idealistic and since I was with Ironwood to an extent in RWBY I should be with Fenrir right? The difference is that Ironwood’s plan actually seems to have a chance and isn’t actively sacrificing everyone while Fenrir seems to just be delaying the inevitable by locking people outside. Surely you could come up with more weapons or ways for the outsiders to fight. At least give them mechs and some better guns to work with. It’s why I was glad that Lindow and Lenka helped out.

Finally, I’ve mentioned him a few times but Pita is the big monster who gets a lot of hype here. The guy is evolved to an extremely high level and has no problems slaughtering both humans and Aragami. It makes him a real mystery as well as for why he enjoys murdering people so much. The monster toys with his prey and also has a good memory as he remembers his victims. The show really makes sure that you know this guy is a threat. Even if there was just one more of him then I don’t think the heroes would have a chance. It took everything they had to just take one on. There are other fighters around the world but it doesn’t seem like there are a ton of them and even with reinforcements it wouldn’t change a lot since most would be taken down in an instant.

While I did think some aspects should have explored more, I do want to say the writing was still pretty solid. When the show wasn’t going for max edge, it did take time to really establish each character’s personalities, motivations, and why they are here. There are a few different factions running around and you get just enough details to keep you interested while also making you feel like you want to know more about what’s going on. The dialogue between the characters is also strong as they wrestle with the situation they’re in and discuss things like what they could have done differently. In each case where Lenka had to fight without a God Arc, I agreed with him that he had to do something. Abandoning others because you didn’t have the right equipment just won’t fly.

Overall, God Eater is a series with a very interesting world and a whole lot of world building. There’s a lot going on here and a whole lot to discuss and theorize. It’s the kind of title where you will leave with a lot of questions and the ending has so many sudden twists and cliffhangers that you’re ready for season 2. Whether the sequel could capitalize on that is another question. The game had several sequels but it looks like the show may not get there. That’s why it’s too bad they couldn’t just tone down the darker aspects. A lot of times the shows with the most interesting premises are the ones that jump off the deep end like Attack on Titan, Fate Zero, and a bunch of others. The dark atmosphere plays a part in why these get so interesting but you can absolutely keep that without all of the extra content. Madoka Magica certainly pulled that off, Digimon Tamers got rather dark at times and there are more as you go down the list. Madoka would be my top recommendation if you’re looking for a show where things get dark and the heroes seem to be up against impossible odds.

Overall 3/10

Persona 5: The Animation Review

Posted on March 28, 2022 by dreager1

The Persona video games are immensely popular. Not only do they guarantee a lot of content in the games which really run on the long side but the characters tend to become very popular and the franchise is huge at this point. Persona 5 is likely the biggest installment in the series as well so it’s fitting that this one got a full anime. It’s definitely fun to see the thieves in action and the ending really leaves things at a high note. One of the best endings I’ve seen a while. A rough first arc is really what keeps this one from going higher.

The series revolves around a character named Ren and starts with him being beaten by the police and then interrogated. We then cut to the past where he has just gotten out of probation. It was a tough period for him because he was arrested solely for doing the right thing in defending a lady from some random creep. Unfortunately she didn’t defend him when the cops arrived and the whole experience set him back but to this day Ren does not regret what happened. Now his life is really spinning though. At night he has dreams where he is behind bars again and this time a demon is talking to him about rehabilitation.

What does he need to be rehabilitated against though and why is he here? In the real world he finds out that the PE club is run by a villain known as Kamoshida who is exerting his will over all of the students as he assaults them. Ren runs into another student named Ryuji who wants to help but neither one of them are sure what they can do. Fortunately that’s when they end up in an alternate universe of the school where they can tap into summoned spirits known as Persona. These heroes now have the ability to steal the hearts of the wicked and force them to repent. Perhaps they can free the world of all evil? We know that he ultimately ends up being captured by the police so throughout the series you’re wondering when that’ll happen and what leads up to this.

You know this is based on an RPG type game when just explaining the plot takes a few paragraphs and we’re not even past episode 2 yet. There is absolutely a lot going on here. The sheer amount of characters and cases is impressive so you can see how the game would be long. Especially since it seems like this show doesn’t cover the whole game based on how it ends. So lets dive right into this.

First off, the soundtrack is really a blast here. It’s got a very party kind of vibe to it. The opening is very catchy, both of them in fact. I prefer the first opening for sure but the second one grows on you after a bit. It’s definitely going for more of an emotional vibe while the first one is very upbeat the whole time. Then you have the transformation theme whenever the characters activate their persona and a lot of other insert songs throughout. They spared no expense on the soundtrack for sure.

For the animation style itself, it’s good but I wouldn’t say it’s great. It has what I’d call a very standard style here. There aren’t any cuts that are particularly impressive but it never looks bad either. So it’s just standard/average which is good enough here. As long as the animation isn’t bad I’m usually okay on my end. In the end this show really succeeds on a technical side. So now lets jump into each of the arcs.

First is the Kamoshida arc and as I mentioned, this is the weakest one. It does give us the origins of the Phantom Thieves which is nice as they get up to 3 members and learn more about how the castles work. The show leaves a lot to your imagination on this which opens the door for a lot of questions but I’ll get into that later on. So the reason why they have targeted Kamoshida is obvious. His actions have brought great harm to the school and one of the students even tried to commit suicide after he attacked her. So the heroes have to go in and take him out.

How this works is a bit complicated, they can’t just go in and destroy him after all. The way to take his heart is to first scout out the area and find the treasure room. From there they have to send him a notice in the real world to announce that they aim to steal his heart. This causes the treasure to appear in the castle and only then can the heroes steal it. Of course by this point the target is aware of their presence so they always end up having to fight anyway. These thieves never get out without a fight.

So with the rules out of the way, the adventure goes pretty directly. The heroes break in and give Kamoshida the hands with their transformations. Ann gets to directly enact her revenge next to the other characters. It was good that she got to have the win and of course they have removed the evil in him so he can’t hurt anyone else. It’s just too bad they couldn’t have done this a little sooner. A lot of the damage was already done by this point.

Persona 5 really goes out of its way to show that most of the adults are crooked here. They’re either going after girls like the corrupt fiancé, the guy from Ren’s backstory, and Kamoshida; just generally violent like the cops who enjoy beating Ren into the ground, or just plain mean like every other criminal they go after here. It’s rare to find any adults that actually seem like good people here. The only big one I can think of would be Futaba’s legal guardian and a politician who realized that he needs to bet on the youth of this world. So as you can guess this is not a very pleasant world to be in and that’s why a lot of heart snatching is necessary from the heroes’ side. That’s a whole other debate which I’ll go into later as well.

The Kamoshida arc is felt throughout the rest of the series and will be brought up a lot. It was certainly a big moment for sure but the show would have been better off skipping this one. That kind of villain never enhances an episode. The next arc introduces Madarame as the big villain. He’s a corrupt art teacher who steals his students’ work and then tosses them aside when they’re no longer useful. Right now his victim is a kid named Yusuke who refuses to believe Ren and the others when they talk about this. Since it will be incredibly hard to prove that Madarame is guilty, they’ll have to take his heart away.

Yusuke was very unreasonable the whole time but this was a good case. By this point we’re starting to meet some other characters here like Akechi who wants to catch the Phantom Thieves and the cast is slowly growing. The main moral here has to be that you should always not lose sight of the fact that people will take advantage of you if you don’t keep your guard up. Yusuke figured that this could never happen to him but sure enough, it did.

After that it’s time to go up against Kaneshiro. Yes this name is really similar and they are pronounced in very similar ways so that makes it a little hard to keep the names apart. Kaneshiro is using money to ruin lives as he gets people used to gambling and then takes their futures away and blackmails the rest. It’s a tough scheme that reaches all throughout the city and so the only option left is to take his heart. Each arc so far has added a new member to the team and this one is no exception as Makoto joins in. She’s definitely one of the better members and it was good to have her on board. This one was fun enough and the heroes made quick work out of him. It’s another reminder on why you want to stick away from the shadier parts of town though, everyone’s just waiting to mess you up in Persona world. Make one mistake and they’ll throw the blackmailing at you.

Next up, Medjed declares that they will attack the city if the phantoms do not give themselves up and reveal their identities. Up to this point people had been rooting for the phantoms but now with their lives at risk the people change their minds real quick. Naturally giving up their identities would be a bad move here since they would not be able to do much after that. You could make the case that it would be tough to prove their guilt even if they voluntarily turned themselves in but with everyone knowing about how all of these criminals have suddenly turned a new leaf, it is still too risky. The heroes have to steal Futaba’s heart to stop all of this.

Futaba’s not really a villain the way the rest of the people had been so far but she needs her heart stolen because she has been traumatized by this point. She hasn’t had the best experiences with her family as her mother committed suicide and the rest just weren’t particularly pleasant at the time. She blames herself for what happened and no longer goes outside. She has locked herself into her room and intends to never leave it again so if things don’t change, that will be game over for her. For once the heroes are trying to change a heart to directly save their target.

While I was not really a fan of Futaba, this was a solid arc. Sojiro got to appear more ere and he was doing his best to protect her the whole time. That guy gave Ren a chance when everyone else wouldn’t so now Ren had a chance to help him out in return. This helped the team really get together and now they had even more members in place. You have to think that this is happening just in time because every boss requires more and more fighters to beat it. Imagine if it was still just 2 or 3 of them?

Next up, the heroes are confronted with a string of mental blackouts where someone seems to be stealing hearts the way that the phantoms are, only these guys are completely murdering their victims. The blackouts effectively turn you into a vegetable or worse. The only lead is that a company owned by Kunikazu stands to gain from this. His daughter Haru is also being married off to some random creep and he won’t even talk to her about it. So the heroes have to stop Kunikazu quickly but making matters more complicated is that Morgana has been getting upset at them recently because he feels that they don’t appreciate his contributions.

Additionally, Morgana is still a human trapped in a cat’s body and feels like there has not been any progress on this part. So he also blames himself for this and not being able to help so all of that frustration comes to a boil here. Haru also gets to activate her persona here so the group gets even bigger. This arc wasn’t bad, I liked the idea of Morgana teaming up with someone else to form a splinter group of sorts. Then we have the mysterious guy in black and these mental outs so a lot is going on here. It ends up being one of the more important arcs in that sense. While Haru’s father looks awful and the would be fiancé is just as bad, you’re used to it by this point since all of the adults are just corrupt here.

The arc also doesn’t end the way you might expect. Finally, we enter the last arc which leads up to the present where Ren has been captured by Sae. The show really had the whole first season be a flashback if you think about it so it was nice to be in the present. Basically Sae has been gradually getting more and more off the deep end by the day in her desperation to stop the Phantom Thieves. So Akechi tells the team they need to steal her heart and he will even help. It’s hard to know if they can trust him but Ren agrees. As it is, it’s been hard to actually act lately with Sae around every corner and improving security all around.

Well this is the big arc and it lives up to the hype. Putting aside my questions of the capture for now, it was just great to get to this point. This also ties into the ending. Of course I can’t go into it but it really doesn’t go the way you might have expected. I wasn’t ready for the twist and then the ending theme that plays as the episode concludes is phenomenal. The ending just felt very valid. There was a game of wits and someone won while someone else lost. You sort of know that this ending cannot possibly stick but even so it was just really solid. Also, the show did end this way so if you don’t watch anything afterwards or play the game then in a way this was really the ending. Either way it definitely threw me for a loop.

So one of the big debates here is the ethics of stealing hearts. After all, the way it goes, this seems to be like mind control to an extent. The person’s whole personality changes and suddenly they want to be an upstanding citizen. The reason mind control is always controversial is because it’s a slippery slope. The good intentions you have can change over time and it’s not always clear what is the right thing to do but taking away someone’s agency is a big thing. Even in a series like One Piece people deeply disliked when one of the heroes would go around mind controlling the villains. I’m usually an advocate against mind control myself for those reasons.

The reason this one is tricky is because the heroes aren’t giving any commands. It’s not like they’re telling this guy “Go donate your money” or something like that. They remove the dark intentions without any orders so in a way the individual is still making their own choices. The difference is that they’re making their choices from a much smaller list of options because no evil ones appear there. It’s still a bit squishy but I would actually be in favor of the Thieves here. You’d have to convince me that there is a tangible downside to doing this.

In my mind it’s not equivalent to mind control and that’s why I’m on board. So if I’m the phantoms I’d keep on going. You can never get to everyone of course but each person they convert means one more potential victim that they’ve saved. The team is objectively making the city safer. Of course I don’t fault Akechi and the cops for trying to stop the Thieves. They have no way of knowing all of the information that we the viewer have but I think if they did have that knowledge, a lot of the would end up agreeing with the main characters. There are valid reasons to keep on opposing them since that’s a lot of power to be giving a few teenagers but it’s a good bet. I like to think if we had a way to tangibly make the world better then we should take it. Particularly since this world seems so corrupt but even in the real world, being able to eliminate evil emotions while only keeping the good ones just seems like such a good deal. Of course you take a risk since you could die in the castle but it’s a risk worth taking.

Now, there are some questions about how the castle system works out. In the show we see that the heroes take out their phone apps and the surroundings sort of turn into the castle framework. So in the real world are they still walking around and looking crazy like it’s a VR? Well, we see in the last episodes some cases to suggest this isn’t it. From an outside perspective the characters seem to just vanish. If you’re really close you’ll even vanish along with them. So once you are transported there is no connection to the human world until you get back.

With this in mind, how could the characters possibly get caught by the cops? I didn’t buy it personally but someone led them into the virtual world and they nabbed Joker. Here’s my thing, Ren has summons, super powers, and is more used to the world. You’re going to have a hard time ever convincing me that a bunch of cops with no knowledge of this world just popped in and took him out. Come on now, that’s just hard to buy. It’s a pretty big deal too considering the entire season hinges on him getting captured. I’m glad that we got an explanation on how it worked by the end at least because the whole season I was wondering about it. The heroes sure are lazy about keeping the secrets though as they’ll just vanish in the middle of school or right outside and get caught several times.

It’s a small thing, but I enjoyed the music and atmosphere whenever we’d cut to Ren being interrogated. You’d always hear that click sound effect and then be brought right back to the room where Ren definitely just wants some sleep but has to keep answering questions over and over again. You could feel his exhaustion just from watching the screen and also see how it feels like he wasn’t getting anywhere in his story. We still don’t have any answers on the rehabilitation jail Ren is in with the demon so we’ll have to see what becomes of that. Arsene also doesn’t appear much at all. Unlike the rest of the heroes who keep using the same persona, Ren keeps on switching so that’ll probably be a big plot moment eventually.

All right, time to talk about the characters. First up is Ren and he’s okay at best but I wouldn’t say that I’m a big fan. It’s hard to get a read on the guy as his personality just seems to change or not really make much sense to me. He’s often quiet and just trying to do the right thing but then he’s also a pushover. He lets the guys talk him into ordering a maid for sketchy reasons which was a real low point for him. He has some debates with Akechi but doesn’t seem to have any enthusiasm for them so this banter is not nearly as good as it could have been. Ultimately Ren is a good guy but he’s not a great character. He needs to be either more outspoken or just more confident but something needs to change a bit there.

Then there’s Morgana who is the animal mascot here and he’s good for lore but doesn’t help a whole lot in the fights. He does have a persona but it seems weaker than the others. Perhaps that is not the case but it feels like that at least and it works well with the whole sub plot about Morgana doubting himself so it makes sense. Too bad Morgana never got a big power up.

Ryuji’s a fun character. He’s the first person that Ren meets up with from the phantoms and really gets the hang of things quickly. He doesn’t doubt himself or the mission as much as some of the others do. He’s not perfect or anything but by and large he does his best. Ryuji just has fun with the mission and tends to keep an upbeat attitude.

Ann joins shortly afterwards and is all for the mission too. She takes it very seriously considering that she’s been a victim of the corrupt adults before and is always helping out a lot. While more members join up later, I consider these 3 to really be the main players of the group and the leaders when you boil it all down. If they have an opinion on the next mission you expect it to get a lot of weight.

Next up is Yusuke and I never warmed up to the guy. For starters he claims to seriously be an art guy who does his sculptures just to achieve his mastery and yet it doesn’t seem that way when he wants the sculpture of Ann. He stopped being reasonable at that point and while he gets past that after the episode, his normal personality isn’t great either. He’s always rather aloof and just doesn’t really contribute as much as the others.

Makoto is one of the last members to join but she’s one of the best ones. For starters she was actually trying to enact some justice on her own first by working for the school and then by tailing the main characters. Her connection with Sae helps in that regard but so she’s always been on the front lines here. Becoming a phantom was the next logical step on her path and she had more personality than most of the other characters.

Futaba is not nearly as impressive. She’s a great hacker who helps out a lot on that front but she’s not really used to the outdoors and can hold the others back a bit. She doesn’t take as active of a role in fighting either. It’s good to have the tactician monitoring the situation of course but ultimately I’d like to see her do more. Due to her origin story it’ll take some time for her to really get the hang of things but after that maybe she will be fighting more.

Finally you have Haru. I give her credit for being able to self teach herself how to work in the castles a bit. I’m sure Morgana helped out as well but it was nice to see. Haru’s stint as an alternate hero group to the phantoms was very short lived but it was still a nice plot point. She shows up late enough in the series where she hasn’t gotten to do a whole lot just yet but should be a nice addition to the cast.

That’s it for the main heroes. I’ll mainly sidestep the villains as there isn’t much to say about them. They show up and prove how evil they are before being taken down by the heroes. The exception to this would be the mysterious man in black but we have yet to know who that even is. There’s certainly a big suspect on who that is based on the context clues but it’s not totally confirmed just yet.

For the side characters, well we’ve got Sojiro who I mentioned before. He’s a nice enough bartender and while he talks tough, he still helps Ren out in the end. There is Sae who we slowly see get more and more obsessed with the Phantom Thieves. She may not be a total villain but Sae is right on the edge about that. She is tempted to falsify evidence and can’t be reasoned with by the end so that’s when you know that her heart needs rescuing. I appreciate her determination but she really was crazy by the end so even though she started to see the light eventually, it was a little late. Sae makes for a good villain though.

Then we have Akechi who really lives up to the hype. He’s effectively like L from Death Note. Akechi is a super sleuth who is out to catch the Phantom Thieves because he believes that what they are doing is unjust. He thinks it’s an abuse of power and that it bypasses the court systems. So like I was saying earlier about how you could easily get this viewpoint and that it’s a valid one, I do like him as an antagonist. He is willing to talk with the thieves about this although they can’t out themselves so they’re careful about it. Ren’s not very subtle but you like to think they have a subtle understanding that they will talk vaguely around each other. Akechi doesn’t do much until near the end of the show but he really makes his presence felt in those episodes.

That covers all of the big characters I’d say. It’s really a colorful cast of characters here. I wouldn’t say it’s a great cast since I’m not a big fan of quite a few of the Thieves but Akechi and Sae make for two formidable opponents. The thieves seem to spend more time being fighters than thieves in the virtual world but the show makes up for it by having the characters strategize in the real world a lot.

Now, while the animation as a whole I wasn’t too impressed with, I did really like the transformation sequences. Each character gets one for the very first time they merge with their persona. These moments seemed to get a really high budget in particular. The attention to detail with each of the transformations was really excellent. There was even a specific theme that would show up each time this happened. These moments were always a lot of fun and we got a look into each character’s psyche as you have to tap into your inner desires to use the power. I was half expecting the characters to start faltering when they had doubts, but fortunately that didn’t happen. They may have had some doubts but on the battlefield they would stow their fears and keep on going.

The show even squeezes in a few one shot episodes like the moderator of the website going crazy, the heroes heading to the beach, etc. The slice of life episodes tend to be a little on the boring side though. This is a show where you really want to see the next story beats and the episodes for character development don’t land as well. Probably because I wasn’t a big fan of some of them but also because they tended to not look very good in these episodes. They tend to bring out the worst in Ryuji and parts like the maid episode don’t help Ren either. The show mainly avoids fanservice fortunately but if there were any episodes where you could expect some, it would be in these episodes which didn’t help their case compared to the plot based ones either.

Overall, Persona 5: The Animation seems like a very good adaption of the game. It doesn’t end all of the plot points so get ready for a few cliffhangers but that just makes the whole thing even more epic. I’d have liked more of an explanation on how the Persona’s work. Why can Ren use several while everyone else is tied to one? Headcanon will work in the meantime though. The opening arc started the show off on a real rough patch with the villain getting away with way too much but the show rebounds from there and by the end I’d still say it’s good, in no small part due to the climax really being quite epic. I still say that was one of the most effective endings I’ve seen in a while. If you’re up for some good ole mysteries and moral discussions on if you should change hearts or not then this is up your alley.

Overall 6/10

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