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Blue Exorcist: Beyond the Snow/The Blue Night Sagas Review

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Yeah that title is a mouthful right? Well in this case each cour got a different subtitle and that’s more or less how they list it on Wikipedia so I figured ehhhhh I’ll write it out like this. Get ready for a pretty long flashback saga thrown in. It’s important to be sure but you’ll probably be more eager to see what is going on in the present so in a sense this will definitely slow your roll quite a bit. We do get more action in this season although I still find myself wanting for more Rin battles. This must be what Edward fans felt like in FMA where you could go 20 episodes without the guy getting a real battle. Some MCs just don’t get all the screentime.

The first half of the season mainly focuses on Shura as we finally see her backstory. She vanishes one day in the present and Rin/Yukio are sent off to find her. There is still a bit of tension here as Yukio is still acting really shady and irrational. Even Rin who is one of the more oblivious guys out there is starting to pick up on this. With Shura being in danger there isn’t a whole lot of time to think about it but the situation will only continue to get worst at this rate. Shura is being controlled by a villain from her past known as Hachiro. Defeating him won’t be easy and it would appear that Shura may die anyway due to a contract. Can she be saved or will the heroes have to make a sacrifice here?

Once your soul is partially owned by a demon then you’re going to be in for a rough time. It really isn’t easy to save Shura as a result and she’s secretly known what was coming up ever since childhood and just didn’t tell anyone so they wouldn’t worry. It’s a heroic mindset so I don’t fault her for that. She probably could have left some kind of word for the rest of the characters so they wouldn’t chase after her but I’m not really sure what kind of wording you could have even tried to say that would have stopped them. Odds are they would see through most lies.

Shura has always been one of the more powerful fighters so it was nice to finally see her in the lead again. For the most part she is no match for Hachiro but she still gets some good action scenes. She is still used a bit for fanservice at times and even this life or death matter couldn’t help but still ship her a bit with Yukio. Definitely a really weak ship especially when Yukio is acting all crazy but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and say his actions here really were to help Shura. I like to think that he was totally faking everything he was saying even if it’s lightly implied that to a degree he meant part of it. Forming a pact would grant him more power which is something he desperately wants after all. This arc was able to continue his slow decent into darkness.

I can’t say Hachiro was one of the more interesting villains though. He’s certainly powerful but not particularly ambitious and it’s not like he has a super end game either. He’s someone you don’t want to cross but that’s about it. The heroes are way too lenient the whole time though and should have crushed him at the first opportunity. You will want to roll your eyes by the end of this arc. I would have liked to have seen Rin do more in the fight here but surprisingly he doesn’t play a pivotal role the way you might expect.

Rin still looks really solid throughout the anime though. He is really trying his best both in handling what the past brings in the next arc and even confronting his own feelings for Shiemi. It’s always best to take a pro active approach rather than sulking on the sidelines so that was really good. He may no look as good as he should in the fights by this point in the series but there are asterisks behind some of his worst showings so I cut him a tiny bit of slack here. By the next season I’m hopeful that we will be seeing more of prime Rin since he was down in the dumps for half of this season.

Unfortunately I can’t say that Yukio looks good at all here. At this point he is so jealous over Rin’s abilities that he is trying really dangerous methods to awaken his own. Even risking his life and basically coming close to ending it on the hopes that a life or death situation will manifest his powers. Yukio is willing to go to any level to wake them up including working with the Illuminati which is obviously a bad call. Not to mention pointing a gun at his friend Suguro. By this point in the series Yukio cannot be trusted at all and it’s a shame to see how far he has fallen.

It’s also a drop that has lasted whole seasons by this point so it’s certainly been a while since we’ve gotten to see him as a very heroic figure. Ah well, I guess that just wasn’t in the cards for him this time around. He is without a doubt getting stronger though so he will be hard to deal with. I expect that eventually he will be pulled back into the light, hopefully before he causes too much damage.

Aside from the Shura story, we also get the end of year celebration for the main characters. So we get a classic festival and interpersonal developments with the various characters. Not to mention that Lightning continues to discover more about the blue night massacre which is putting a lot of eyes on him. Lightning is a tough guy and not afraid to ruffle some feathers though, he just continues to work hard on that and doesn’t look back. I think he can be a bit too extreme at times to where he can feel like a villain but I can understand why he is tired of dealing with all the bureaucrats.

One thing to remember about this series is just how corrupt the government is. The “heroes” are working with Mephisto, a legendary demon after all. A lot of the issues they are dealing with in the present are due to crazy unethical experiments in the past. The whole second half of the season deals with a whole lot of that and the government doesn’t seem to have learned their lessons. They are still better than the villains who are trying to destroy everything but by no means are they innocent. You eventually need them to be taken down but right now that’s not really on Rin’s radar. The main characters will stop any evil in front of them but a systematic change is hard to do.

Rin’s various school friends are still around as well of course. Suguro helps Lightning out a lot and as a result he knows a whole lot more about the situation than most of the kids. Of course the more he learns, the more danger he gets put in. This is why Yukio targets him after all and at this point the guy definitely needs to watch his back as well. The villains can come from anywhere after all and Suguro isn’t the most powerful fighter by any means.

Meanwhile Shiemi is still dealing with romance issues. She is just unsure of what love really is and sorting out her feelings has been difficult. I appreciate that she is giving this some real thought rather than falling into anything too quickly. It’s not an easy concept to wrap your head around after all and once you have someone confessing to you, it just gets that much more complicated. It’s as if she’s on the clock now and has to decide much quicker than otherwise. There are so many kinds of feelings you can mistake for love as well so she needs to rule those out. She’s also started taking a route away from being a fighter which is a good decision, although now she’s being forced into a role that might put her in even more danger. Sometimes you just can’t win I suppose.

Shima is still working all the sides and continues to be an interesting wildcard. I can’t say I trust the guy at all though and none of the characters should. When you’re working all of the groups against each other, you have to be extra sure of where his real allegiance is or you will end up getting burned. He’s not the most powerful fighter so Rin could take him in a straight fight but the guy definitely feels like the assassin type so all he needs is a clean shot and he could still be a problem.

Then the second half starts and we have to take a break from the present right when things were getting real interesting. It’s time for Rin to learn the truth about everything that happened in the present. I know this flashback is a real big deal but it is the weakest part of the season in part because of how passive the main characters are. They just allow everything to happen rather than making moves to stop it all.

We see how Shiro grew up and joined the order. How he met a lady named Yuri who would be tasked with watching over Satan and would have a first row seat to how crazy the guy would get. It’s a very twisted dynamic to be sure and who would have guessed that Satan would turn out to be evil?? I would have liked the warning bells to have gone off within the organization a little bit sooner but they’re all just so arrogant and cocky that they could contain him. If there’s one demon you should not underestimate, it would surely be this guy right? Definitely not their best appearance and Satan definitely makes them pay for it.

There are a number of annoying things about the flashback but the would be romance with Shiro and Yuri has to be at the top of it. Ultimately he’s too gruff and stubborn to actually say that he likes her and allows her to keep on seeing Satan and basically sacrifice herself for the mission. Yuri also doesn’t seem to want to be a burden and so she takes on each mission even knowing about the danger. She also begins to care for Satan to a degree which was definitely a mistake. I was glad the series didn’t try to go out of its way to make him seem like a caring guy.

Satan may have started out as a baby but from the start his evil impulses are definitely there. It’s portrayed in a way where he would turn evil no matter who helped to raise him. It’s just in his very DNA and soul. You can’t fix that and I would say this is as clear as that’s going to get. At the same time I would say he loses whatever mystery is left within the guy. We just see him in a vulnerable/weakened position too often to take him seriously. He gets a whole lot of cringe scenes while growing up in the asylum and the fact that the humans were able to placate him for so long is rough. It’s the same thing that happened with Lucifer and I even dare say Mephisto gets hit with this. You can’t take them seriously when Lucifer and Satan are constantly spitting out blood and dying to be reincarnated later on. Then Mephisto takes a gunshot and winds up in the equivalent of the hospital? Yeah he’s probably trolling but cmon now.

Of the 3, Mephisto seems to be the most dangerous with his time manipulation but they all have full weaknesses. Mephisto at this point has been jobbing so hard for so long that I almost wonder if he still remembers how to be a fierce opponent. One thing’s for sure, he’s been playing the long game for a longer time than most other antagonists. He probably gets some kind of record for this. No matter what his end game plan is, I dare say I will find it to be way more convoluted than it needed to be.

I also would say Yuri having kids with him was definitely a mistake. The less said about this ship the better but the whole plot definitely makes you shake your head. Like I said, she took the job way too seriously and her feelings got way too confused the whole time. None of the characters make it out of the flashback saga unscathed. They all make their share of mistakes and all of them seem like self inflicted errors. Any of the characters could have handled it way differently like for Yuri abandoning the order, the Order could have just taken Satan down earlier and worried about the resurrection at another time, Shiro could have stepped in, etc.

The characters really allowed things to get out of hand and of course the ramifications of this are that we got the blue night disaster and all of the current events in Blue Exorcist. This also put Shiro further under Mephisto’s thumb which would really become a life debt. That’s probably one of the toughest things for the heroes in this series which is that they’re basically forced to work for the villains under penalty of death. Rin is really the only hope to shake off these chains if by now he is strong enough to change the world.

The animation for the show is good. Nothing amazing and I don’t think you will be seeing this on lists for best animation but the action works well enough. I expect that once we get a long Rin fight we will get to see the animation explode. When characters have fire powers, it really helps the animation to look extra sharp because the colors work well with the swordplay. If you mess up fire based fight scenes then the studio has a real problem I would say.

As for the soundtrack, they are still using a whole lot of the old tracks from previous seasons so there isn’t much new here. Neither one of the openings are particularly solid. I would say they are okay but definitely not game changers. They really aren’t doing anything innovative here unfortunately. It’s not bad or anything but I do hope they can spice things up a bit in the next season or just use some of the old tracks more. The electronic battle theme and the classic Blue Exorcist themes are right there begging to be used more!

While it feels like we are starting to approach the end of the series, it also feels like the title is dragging its feet a bit. Blue Exorcist has always had some weird pacing issues. It feels like the world is only partially fleshed out. The characters accept some rather odd situations without questioning it. Only Rin seems to know how twisted things are but half the time when he speaks up, Mephisto just threatens him to his face. There is no winning if the world is still ruled by demons and it’ll be interesting to see how Rin finds a solution to this. While trying to obtain more and more power is usually something the villains do, I think it is the heroes who need to crave it this time. That’s the only way they can overthrow the demons and really change things up.

At this point there really should not be much more time for school adventures. I like them as much as the next guy but the world is going crazier and crazier with the demons running amok throughout the country. I need to see some initiative for the heroes as they take them on directly. I also really need to see Rin taking a more prominent role. If they find a way to sideline him again in the next season then I’ll be shaking my head. It’s time for Blue Exorcist to get serious and give us some serious plot progression in the present timeline.

Overall, The season spends a lot of time in the flashback which definitely slows up the pacing. Most of it you can easily guess and piece together from the lore we already had so I think this could have been condensed a whole lot. I just want to know what’s going to happen in the present so the next season has the potential to be the most explosive yet. I would say as always, Blue Exorcist continues to be solid but still lacking things to make it a very good show. It’s a mix of characters and action. The series just has not been ready to turn the corner but perhaps that will change now. If you’re this deep into the series, you should definitely continue in order to stay current. It feels as though the series is starting to approach the climax so I doubt we will be getting another 4 seasons at this point.

Overall 6/10

Land of the Lustrous Review

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It’s time for a very unique manga. This series is about a bunch of sentient gemstones living out their lives as normal until eventually one of them starts to get a little inquisitive. I would say initially this is a classic slice of life title but gradually becomes one that’s a bit more philosophical in nature. The gemstones angle does sometimes make it hard to recognize the characters since a lot of them look really similar but you could almost say that ties in with the themes either way. It’s an interesting ride and worth checking out.

The series takes place in the far future long after humanity has been wiped out. The world is now inhabited by a bunch of Gemstones known as the Lustrous as well as their leader, a father/monk sort of fellow. All of the characters are immortal so you can expect a lot of time jumps spanning thousands and thousands of years as the series goes by. They will talk about 100 years ago as if it was the previous day. Our main character here is Phos who is unfortunately a very weak gemstone. Each gemstone is made up of different materials and the weaker a gem is, the less helpful they are.

This is unfortunate for Phos who likes to be involves with everything and is a real go getter. Phos just keeps on breaking on every mission though and is basically the laughing stock of the group although fortunately you could say the gems aren’t too mean about the whole thing. Part of the gems duties is to protect against invading monsters that show up on occasion to kidnap the gemstones. Phos wants to learn more about this and feels like the leader might be keeping things from everyone. Phos doesn’t really have any leads though but one day breaks to pieces for the millionth time and gets reassembled with some weird alien hybrid creature. Now Phos has regeneration and way more strength than before. Will this allow Phos to perhaps understand the monsters and start to put the puzzle pieces together?

You could say that one of the opening debates here is if it’s worth it to rock the boat. Phos is someone who wants to keep on learning and figuring out more about the world. Not just living the same day every day but trying to change tomorrow. Meanwhile most of the other gemstones are perfectly content. Their lives are fairly monotonous in nature but there is nothing unhappy about them. So whether you agree with Phos or not will likely depend on how you feel about life in general. If your life is really happy but you always do the same things and don’t actually know much, would you be satisfied?

It comes down to what the point of life is. When you are immortal and will never die, it can be weird to think about the future. The gems have lived for thousands and thousands of years and will continue to live for untold billions of years. What do you even decide to do when you have that much time? It’s why I would probably be on Phos side. You might as well use all that time to try and uncover new secrets and truths that will give you something to think about. Unfortunately that begins to turn into an obsession with Phos who really ends up losing a whole lot in the process.

The series also does a good job of showing how life would be way different without the concept of death or even pain. When Phos gets shattered, sometimes the characters will just laugh or be amused. They can just put her back together the next day. Whether they break an arm by mistake or fall down and shatter, it’s just not a big deal. Having an argument? Just shatter the gemstone so you can make your point and restore them later. “Death” doesn’t actually mean anything, it’s like taking a nap and so the characters act differently as a result. It’s a series that actually thought through the ramifications of the changes.

Phos is so different from the beginning of the series to the ending that you can barely recognize the characters. Both in terms of looks and personality, Phos is incredibly different. The same is true for most of the characters who change a lot but Phos is definitely the most changed. This is due to some pretty big plot reasons. Ultimately I would say Phos got the short end of the stick here. It’s one of those cases where making life better for everyone else, came at the expense of Phos. Sometimes you live long enough to create change without actually getting to experience it yourself.

Kongo (The monk figure) doesn’t make any of these easy. Now as the series goes on we get some plot reasons on why this is but it doesn’t make you like the character all that much. My biggest problem with him is just how cryptic he is. You get the feeling that he could have tried harder to help the characters out even within his limitations. I know that he can’t just do the impossible but surely throwing a bone here and there would not have been such a big deal. It should have absolutely been doable.

Kongo also tends to sleep a lot which causes the invasions to be more difficult to stop. Kongo is the person who can stop the monsters but even fails at this duty. The toughest part about being immortal would have to be the fact that this guy won’t just talk to you. During the winter most of the gems go into hibernation so only 1-2 stay awake with Kongo and I can’t imagine that he is the most interesting guy to talk to.

Now there are a ton of gems and this is my biggest issue with the series. It is just hard to tell a lot of them apart. You have a few that have really distinct designs like Cinnabar and Bort, but most of them feel rather interchangeable. Their personalities are distinct but then you still have to wait for them to talk to remember who that is. They may all be gemstones but in the thousands of years of living surely they could have come up with headbands or something to differentiate themselves.

To a degree it’s probably also due to the art which is not all that polished. The artwork is okay but can get rather rough during the fight scenes so the action is hard to follow along. It’s a manga that gets very detailed which is good but at the same time it also means that each page is rather hard to follow so you really have to concentrate. It’s not a series that you can read quickly so that does help make sure the length is really solid.

I still did enjoy the series entering the action phase though. Phos had all of the best scenes there while I didn’t care quite as much about the space plot. There is something surreal about the gemstones doing a 180 and trying to live more like humans. Even that seems like it might not end well long term because with immortality, the life of a human may not be super fulfilling. I do think the series does a really good job of showing what life might be like if you were immortal though. There is basically no wars, no violence, or any problems out there.

It’s a nice change of pace from the usual dystopias where people are still fighting anyway. If you really can’t die and you’ll all be living forever, then why would you bother fighting with your neighbors? You might for the first thousand years or so but eventually you see how futile it is. So in this series, everyone basically just gets along and looks on the bright side of things. There are occasional arguments an disagreements but nothing serious or remotely violent. At least until Phos really started digging into things.

I should mention that while the gemstones can’t die conventionally, they can be taken apart to the degree that it doesn’t matter. For example we see that Aechmea, one of the Lunarians would pound gemstones into dust and scatter them across the planet. They were grounded up so thoroughly that putting them together again would be virtually impossible. The characters overlook this a bit quickly or at least that was my initial thought but since in a sense death means something very different to them, I guess it made sense.

In fact, the goal for a bunch of the characters is to finally die. It’s the only way they can know peace after millions and millions of years. It’s actually a rather depressing thought that you could live for so long to the point where you don’t want to be around anymore but being so powerful that you can’t actually die. This gets into more of the final story elements but there is one method for death. You could even say the series is about trying to convince someone to let them have their eternal peace.

It’s a very interesting goal. The series is at its best with these big questions as you ponder what the right way to respond to that situation would be. The series is more on the weaker side when it’s about the romance between one of the gems and the lunarians. It just doesn’t add much to the story and also seems a bit insane considering the history between the two. They also don’t feel emotions in the same way as a human would and so they’re going through the motions but it all feels rather empty. I think the idea was to make some parallels here but I would have focused more on the story itself.

As for the other gems, they all have to basically decide if they will follow Phos or not. It’s not so easy since Phos path will be going directly against Kongo. So they have to decide if they continue to follow the master they have worked with for thousands of years or with one of their colleagues. Neither path has a guaranteed outcome either so it’s all rather high stakes. It does make for some pretty intense battles near the end of the series though and also shows how far Phos has come from the start.

Bort was a really fun character in the series although in this case I liked Bort the most from the intro volumes compared to the ending. Of course this is because Bort gets a lot of character development as well but the vicious, always ready to fight Bort is my favorite version. Bort served as a solid power fighter for the team and someone for Phos to aspire to be like. Bort wasn’t asking the tough questions or trying to figure out life. Instead Bort would just fight off the invaders and keep the peace.

Meanwhile Cinnabar is a gemstone with a unique poison disposition that meant no hanging out with the other gems or even being on most missions. Just being around Cinnabar was dangerous and Phos early goal is to find some way around that. A way for Cinnabar to be freed but that ends up being a very difficult thing to do. It does show how much Phos always cared about everyone even from the beginning. It’s not like the other gems didn’t care but they just wouldn’t think to try and change things up like that.

Most of the important gems end up looking and acting way different in part 2 than in part 1 after the twists and time skips so get prepared for double memorization. Ultimately it’s actually not too important if you memorize all of them as most are not super crucial to the plot but it is definitely impressive if you are able to keep track of them. The cast is surprisingly big for the series by the end of its run.

As for the ending, I can’t say I was a big fan of it. We get some new characters at the very end and I think it’s again for more parallels but it’s just too late for more characters. I’d argue it also just feels a bit depressing. Now you were never going to get a downright happy ending to this series but I could have made do with something in the middle. I was glad that they didn’t cop out on one big decision in the series but they should have ended it there. I would argue that ending the series one volume sooner would have been closer to the ideal ending and would have just been a perfect way to end off. A bit abrupt to be sure but also very clean on the messaging.

Overall, How much you enjoy Land of the Lustrous really will come down to how interesting you find the series to be. Yes there are some action scenes but most of the series is definitely focusing on concepts and such. You have to actually like the sci-fi ideas that are brought up and find the discussions among the gems to be interesting. If you don’t like them then odds are that you won’t like the series. I thought it was a good title that was perhaps held back a little by the art and the uninteresting side characters. I would have heavily reduced the amount of gems around and I think that would have made for a stronger series. It would have given more time to really focus on each one and let us see more into each of their thought processes rather than throwing so many of them into the fold. It would also show just how desolate the world was.

Overall 6/10

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 Review

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It’s time to return to the world of the Guardians of the Galaxy where they have to deal with a whole new threat. The films have had their ups and downs to be sure but how would this one wrap things up? Well, unfortunately I would say that it is the weakest one of the 3. The Rocket subplot is a double blow since it introduces animal violence while also writing him out of most of the movie. A very risky call no matter how you slice it since he is such a popular character. Ah well, we still do have a lot of fun banter with the rest of the characters.

The film starts off with the Guardians still being in a rocky spot as Star Lord grieves over not having Gamora around anymore. She died and was replaced with an alternate version of herself that never actually dated him. Now he just gets drunk all day but when the team is suddenly attacked and Rocket gets into critical condition, Star Lord realizes that he has to get his game on. Rocket’s unable to be healed by the usual sci-fi tech because of a bomb inside his chest and so they need to find a way to deactivate it. This may mean going up against the high Evolutionary but the team has never allowed themselves to be deterred before and they aren’t about to start now.

So lets get the dicey parts out of the way first. The High Evolutionary’s whole gimmick is that he experiments on animals in order to evolve them further. He aims to make a new human race that is superior to the old one. So naturally in a film adaption that means that we are seeing a lot of animals in rough states. Several of them were essentially dismantled and are part cyborgs now. Rocket grew up with a bunch of them so we see this quite a bit. Fortunately the surgeries already happened as that would have really pushed the envelope into absolutely terrible stories but it is a really dark plot that to this day you never need in any kind of film. It’s never going to elevate things.

Rocket also had a lot of experiments done on him which were quite painful. It’s a subplot that really drags the film since we cut away to it numerous times. Meanwhile the High Evolutionary looks really bad the whole time. I’m used to him being a fairly poised villain who is in control but here he constantly whines and it out of his depth. He doesn’t seem to be a great super genius and was unable to find Rocket for many years despite the guy being a world famous Guardian. This guy’s utopia didn’t even work as he has actual drug dealers running around.

He says he’ll just start again but why would a new attempt be any different? He feels like he is just completely insane. That’s not a bad thing for a villain necessarily but at the same time I would say that it just doesn’t make sense amidst the wider context. I would argue it makes his whole goal seem weird since he wasn’t even close to succeeding and having Rocket won’t really help with that. he discards all of his test subjects too quickly.

While the film also did a number on Warlock in terms of totally changing his character, at least he was funny. I can see why longtime fans wouldn’t appreciate this version since he’s nothing like the comics/games but at least he looks reasonably strong. I would argue he should have crushed the Guardians with ease though since that team is hardly the strongest one out there. I suppose he just lets his guard down a little too quickly when the going gets tough. With the Sentry coming up, Warlock’s probably not going to be able to stand out quite as much in his next appearance.

Where the film is stronger is in the usual banter. If you liked their discussions in the first two films then you should like them here as well. This team loves to constantly be bashing each other and they’re always doing pranks. For better or worse, you can’t trust your teammates on the small stuff but you can count on them when the stakes are serious. Mantis is always pranking Drax despite his many protests, Star Lord seems like he can’t help but constantly flirt with Gamora, etc. The team is completely dysfunctional but you could say that’s part of the fun.

The only member who is mainly left out is Groot thanks to Rocket being gone the whole time. Still a rough decision I gotta say and they should have kept him awake the whole time and helping out, just have there be a time limit on the bomb or something. From the Guardians I would say Mantis was my favorite character. Yeah she is definitely very immature and gets the team into a lot of trouble but at the same time I would say she cares about the team the most. She is always doing everything she can in order to help the rest out. Her attempts sometimes backfire but it’s the thought that counts.

Gamora is also solid considering how much she has to put up with. She is completely a different person than the old one so it’s really not fair how much pressure they put on her. I was glad that she stuck to her guns and did not let peer pressure win. That would have been a pretty bad look if you ask me. It was also good to have at least one team member who could fight well and keep the team on track. I would say that’s Drax’s role but he still ends up being the team’s jobber for most of the film. He does well against Warlock in the opening fight though so I’ll give him that. He also gets some big moments near the end of the film.

I didn’t care much for Yondu’s replacement but at least he doesn’t appear much. He was being kinda rude to Cosmo for no good reason. Cosmo did good though and reminded viewers why he is one of the most powerful creatures here. His mental abilities are really impressive. Finally we have Star Lord and he does not look good at all here. Getting so drunk and wasted during the intro was really rough. I needed him to step up as the team leader a whole lot sooner than he did. This is supposed to be his team after all, it was time for him to man up and act like it. I already talked about the Gamora stuff but yeah he’s just too desperate. I think he works well as the whiny comic relief in most cases, the serious moments just don’t hit as hard.

The film does a good job of making him funny at least though. I would make the case that the humor in the film tends to land more than it doesn’t. For that reason I would label the film more as a comedy adventure than adding any action to it. We do get some good fight scenes but I would say no great ones. The first fight with Warlock is way too slow and the best fight is the room battle near the end where everyone fights at once. Unfortunately there isn’t a great climax fight this time. I think the reason is because the High Evolutionary can’t really fight so there was no big villain that would force the heroes to team up against him.

While the second film had a lot of faults, it did deliver on a rather big climax which also had Star Lord’s best scene in the MCU. If you take away the Rocket subplot entirely then this film has a clean win over the second film but with it then it does end up sinking more than expected. Ultimately I guess you just can’t beat the original film which had all the fun first meetings. It was probably the funniest as well. In general it’s not possible for every joke in a comedy film to land but I would say most of them did there. A good amount landed in this film as well though.

As for the music, I would say it’s a step down from the first two films. Maybe that means low key the new music eras can’t beat the 80s. That is definitely possible although I tend to like 2000s so maybe it’s just the selection. There were no themes here that felt like they would become iconic or anything like that. They were good enough but not crazy good. Meanwhile we don’t get the usual big stingers at the end of this film so the ending is rather subdued.

Overall, Guardians 3 could have been better. It definitely suffers from having one of the worst MCU villains to date and not having a proper super bad to end the film with. Removing Rocket from most of the film was not a good decision and of course his backstory really ended up hurting the film as well. This was just one negative too many for the film to get around and so that sealed its fate. I think if you go into the film as a fan of the Guardians and just want a fun time you may get the best out of this. If you’re going in as an action fan or a big comic book guy, then you are probably not going to have as good a time here between Warlock and the High Evolutionary.

Overall 4/10

Johnny Mnemonic Review

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

It’s time for one of those sci-fi films that is really all over the place. It’s a dystopia but definitely not the most interesting one out there. I do like that corporate is basically the big villain in all of this but even then I wouldn’t say that it is the big win you might be hoping that it is. That’s just not enough to carry the film and so this won’t be remembered as one of the better sci-fi titles.

Our main character is Johnny and his job is to transport confidential information around. With the internet being incredibly compromised, people rely on humans to traffic the data like this. Johnny puts it in his head and then gives it to the client. He wants out of this gig, but his partner tells him that he will need to do one last job first. The problem is that this latest job has a data size that is way above Johnny’s specs. There is just no way that he can process all of this. So what is he going to do? Well Johnny figures he’ll download it anyway and it should be fine. Unfortunately this job isn’t as straight forward as it appeared and now he’s on the run from the Yakuza. He has a bodyguard named Jane helping him but she is not in the best shape. Yeah this is gonna be rough.

Right from the jump Johnny’s decision is just really dumb here. I know that he’s in a hurry to get out of the business but downloading something into his brain that can’t fit just seems like an easy trip to the grave. It’s not a brave or smart thing to do, it’s just plain dumb. A really foolish move and he is counting on the fact that he doesn’t just die instantly from this. He has a few hours before the brain leakage goes too far but any form of brain leakage obviously brings some risks along with it. So yeah this was a bad idea.

Then Johnny’s partner is super shady from the start so it comes as no surprise to find out that he’s involved with the craziness too. First rule of Dystopias is not to trust anybody. Johnny ends up working with Jane out of necessity but it’s not like he can trust her either. She is very strong and capable but gets a severe case of the shakes all the time. That puts her in a really rough spot for any professional gigs so she is also desperate enough to work with a shady fellow like Johnny. Surely there is no way any romance could bloom out of this right? That would just be poor writing.

It just feels like the story is already pretty forced from the jump with Johnny getting into this mess. There’s just no way he should have stuffed his mind and surely he could have found another job. The people giving him the data also seemed very ill prepared for the villains who showed up later on. You’d think that they would have been more prepared. Ah well, Johnny does his best but I wouldn’t say that he is the most interesting lead character.

Jane is okay and I would even say that the shakes aren’t as bad as the film treats them. Jane’s very first scene has her crushing another bodyguard so clearly she is still strong enough to take out the average fighter. Should shaking really be such a big deal? It feels like in most cases she would still be able to get along just fine even if she will need some breaks here and there. Well, at least she does well as the body guard.

The most interesting villain is the Preacher. He’s a complete nutjob who is a hitman that likes to quote the scriptures the whole time. A real twisted guy but he’s also just such a random addition to the film. Corporate hires him whenever they desperately need some action but the idea that this huge company needs to resort to this is pretty funny. The corporation has so much unbelievable power at their disposal and they still need a secret hitman? It’s not like this is a one time thing either, from the conversation it sounds like they summon him from time to time.

Then for all the hype the Preacher gets, the heroes just run him over during their first encounter. Way to ruin the hype right? It was a very questionable decision as soon as it happened. Preacher does return and gets his share of victims but you still keep remembering the first moment. Naturally the film can get a bit violent so keep that in mind if you’re the squeamish type. The film isn’t holding back with how dark the future gets after all so this is not for the faint of heart.

We also meet a friend of Jane’s, The Spider. This guy doesn’t really like the future. He thinks that things should be done without all the electronics everywhere and he tries to be old school. He was entertaining so I appreciated that. The guy was constantly upset about everything and would really speak his mind. More characters like him could have made the film more interesting. I also did like one of the main villains, Shinji. He had a cool energy whip that could cut through nearly anything. It made him a very deadly fighter and the weapon just looks cool in action. He certainly gets his share of hits in.

I do think the film had some potential here but it’s all convoluted without being super interesting. I like a good mystery and sci-fi babble but it just doesn’t always go anywhere. We have a plot with a lady in the screen with ties to Johnny’s past, a resistance that has been around for a while, and both of those elements don’t appear as much as you would think. It’s the kind of title that has a whole lot of world building and character development behind the scenes but we just don’t get to see it. It probably would have worked better as a full on series.

I would also say that as a future story it should have embraced the fun sci-fi elements a bit more. Bring in more cool weapons like Shinji’s energy whip. Johnny isn’t a super fighter or anything like that so it would make sense for him to be carrying something instead of having to hope that he can deal with these guys in hand to hand combat. When you’re dealing with the future it’s not like you need to stick to some pre-existing ideas.

Overall, I think the film could have been better but it’s not nearly as interesting as you would expect. The film could even be a bit dull at times. The idea of people carrying information in their brains is interesting and dare I even say realistic? I could totally see that being the case in the future. Corporate as the villain was also a good idea but it just goes to show that you need more than ideas. You need proper execution! If you want a good sci-fi film, you should definitely check out something like Sword Art Online instead.

Overall 4/10

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania Review

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I can definitely see why this one has such a low score compared to the average Marvel production. For the most part this barely even feels like a superhero movie. Whoever decided to make an Ant-Man film that is far less about Scott running around and more about sci-fi lore should have had some second thoughts. All of the film’s issues can be traced back to one thing…..nobody cares about the Quantum realm. It’s got to be one of the more boring settings that I’ve seen in years and feels like it’s trying hard to stand out and instead gets shown up by just about every sci-fi environment before it. Ah well, at least we do have some fun fights.

The film starts off with Scott enjoying life. He helped save the world and his family is back. Things could not be going better for him…well until his daughter gets arrested again. She has been flying further and further off the deep end and it doesn’t help that the rest of Scott’s family almost seem supportive of her getting arrested. When Scott tries to shut this down, they make fun of his book because these are some of the most annoying, pettiest side characters I’ve seen since The Devil Wears Prada. They all seem jealous of Scott saving the world and it’s completely unwarranted since he’s such a nice guy. He’s not being a jerk about it or anything. Ah well, Cassie thought it would be a brilliant idea to send signals to the Quantum Realm and this causes everyone to be warped in there. Can they escape this tyrannical realm before certain twists tear this family apart?

Now you may be thinking that since Scott is basically the only real likable member of the Ant Man family that this film will be a way for everyone else to become tolerable? Well, unfortunately the film only has the opposite effect of that. The Wasp is probably the best out of the main supporting characters but she was actually more fun in the last one. The Quantum Realm brings out the worst in most characters although it brings out the best in one of the antagonists though so I’ll give the film some credit there.

Darren finally returns! The guy gets so much hype and recognition. Every time he shows up, the characters exclaim “Darren!” In a really puzzles but excited way. It’s sort of like when you’re at a party and you finally bump into someone that you know. So that was pretty cool and definitely worked out pretty well. He is now known as MODOK but it’s not like he’s a very serious character so his best scenes are when he takes the visor off. He had the best jokes throughout the movie. Yeah he gets some serious moments by the end but for the most part you will be remembering the laughs. It’s another glimpse of what the film could have been. Imagine a lot of banter between him and Scott above ground. Now that would have been fun.

Scott is still a good main character. He tends to carry his scenes and most of his dialogue is just good fun. He can banter with the best of characters. Scott may not be the best fighter but he’s a good dad just trying to help his family out of a jam. The guy endures quite a lot of damage and punishing blows throughout the movie with no real complaints either. I’d say he’s generally one of the most likable Avengers at this point.

That’s why the Quantum Realm is such a waste. You just don’t really care about Kang’s empire or the resistance group fighting against him. It just feels like the most generic war possible and we don’t get enough out of the characters to really be invested. The backgrounds are more boring than cool and of course the film can’t resist going with the disgusting ooze angle a few times like with the controls or having to drink some to understand the aliens. It really felt like the writers had no idea what to do with this place.

Then this place also destroyed Janet as a character. He was around here for a while and basically got into an affair. You’re hoping the whole time that maybe it wasn’t as bad as you’re thinking, only for rebound guy to confirm it. Janet’s excuse is also the worst possible one as she talks about having needs. That’s the lamest thing I’ve heard in a minute. Her constant secrets are also why everything fell into disarray so this film destroyed any possible character she could have had prior. There is just no coming back from this.

Meanwhile Hank is just way too passive about the whole thing. He’s very chill upon learning about this and then also admits he went on some dates himself. It’s all such weak stuff and then Hank is sidelined for a large part of the film. He does end up helping out with his ants later on but the main problem is that in a film like this there just wasn’t much to do. It’s not even a particularly action packed movie as things don’t really get explosive until the climax. Until then it’s mainly a lot of setup and lore.

Then we have Cassie and a whole lot of this is her fault after all. Shrinking cop cars and breaking the law is bad enough but then messing with the Quantum Realm when she knew Janet had been stuck there for decades. It seems like Cassie was mainly doing this out of curiosity which is not a great motive. It’s not like she was getting ready to save tons of lives or anything like that. Yeah I can’t give her a pass on this either. It’s just such a bad look for her all the way around. Of course by the end she has found a cause worth fighting for and does her best but it’s more like a broken clock finally getting the time right. I need to see some real character development that stuck for her in the next film.

Hope isn’t bad but it feels like she spends a good chunk of the intro to the film just smirking in the background as opposed to actually backing Scott up. I do appreciate that she is always a lot quicker to action though. Her suit is basically always on and she also didn’t panic with her alternate version copies as much. every group needs a good fighter an she does thrive in that role. So I may not be her biggest fan but I do appreciate her in a fight and she is definitely the backup that Scott needed.

As for good ole Kang the Conqueror, he just looks way too wimpy here. Yeah you could say it was part of his plan but his first appearance just makes him look so small and weak. Even once he has the tech back, you’re telling me he couldn’t react fast enough to stop Janet initially? Then having any trouble with Scott later on is rough. You really have two options here. Either his tech isn’t as good as he thinks it is and he never beat the Avengers in the past, or he is an absolutely terrible combatant who squanders his tech the whole time. Either way it is not a good look for him.

I would not be able to take him seriously to handle a big team of fighters so I’m definitely cool with the character being written out. We get two post credit scenes involving him and they’re more funny than anything. Kang really thought he could do something. The guest stars in the second scene were a lot more fun. Especially with one character completely calling Kang out the way I would have in the audience. He just doesn’t look that imposing at all and this film really sealed the deal there.

Overall, This film had its moments but the beginning and ending were easily the best parts. I wanted more of the surface world which always has a lot of fun to it. I usually like a good sci-fi environment but the world building for the Quantum Realm was just way too boring. The film did not do enough to justify its focus within the story. Ultimately that took a big toll on the film and it could have used some more action to keep you interested. There’s really on replay value to be had here or any reason to really watch the film. So for that reason you could probably skip this one and jump to the next film that really counts. Of course if you do plan to watch the movie, it’s not like it is a bad experience or anything so you’ll be fine. Just don’t expect a classic Ant-Man light hearted adventure.

Overall 5/10

Shangri-La Frontier Season 2 Review

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Shangri-La Frontier is one of those shows that definitely took me by surprise with exactly how good it was. Now make no mistake, I knew the game would be excellent because the manga was. Yet the show still managed to be downright elite and this season starts to adapt my favorite arc in the series so it really ended on a high note. Definitely a title to keep an eye on because this is the kind of content I’m talking about when looking at excellent material.

The season starts on the more low key side with the devs fixing the Scorpion glitch Sunraku found so that he could no longer exploit them. The heroes also made an alliance with some guilds to get the pressure off but the first big event is that Sunraku and Psyger 0 run into the ultimate boss Lycagon. This is the ultimate rematch for Sunraku but the tough decision is deciding whether to go all out here or lose on purpose so he doesn’t give too much away. You understand the predicament but also realize that he has sunk too far into the social battles of the game. Giving up without trying your best would go completely against Sunraku’s character and it would have been a real shame.

Psyger 0 snaps him out of it quickly enough and then we get a really fun fight. The series excels in quite a lot of things, but one of them is definitely the fight choreography. You really get to see a lot of strategy in the battles like knowing what move to use and what cool downs are still in effect. It feels like a proper video game and I would say it’s probably the most realistic look at what a true VR game of the future could look like. I was definitely real impressed. Even Sunraku’s fights against minions tend to be fun for this reason although of course the bosses are when he’s at his best. At least with one exception, fighting other players but that’s really rare.

I tend to enjoy the quick voyages into other games outside of Shangri-La Frontier for that reason. In this season that means a quick journey into a mecha fighter game where Sunraku fights some old pals. This was a fun one because they did a good job with the robot battles and also because we get to see Sunraku strategizing against a real person. Outsmarting AI is one thing of course but it’s even more impressive when you defeat another player. Sunraku consistently shows that he is able to do this with minimal difficulty as well.

Then we begin two arc at once. This is a rare example of a big arc getting interrupted midway by another one. The main arc involves another unique scenario where Sunraku has to go to an underwater area to figure out how to take down the next monster. He brings the robot buddies along but this time Pendragon and Katzo have to miss out. It’s a fun enough arc but it does get completely overshadowed before long. The reason is because a giant tournament scrimmage is announced and Katzo has called Sunraku in.

Yes, this is the real final arc that the season ends off on. Sunraku is going to have to go toe to toe against the most powerful pro gamer in history at a game that he has never played before while she has played all of the other titles in the series. The one advantage he will have is that the game runs on the Shangri-La Frontier engine which is only available in Japan at the moment. It’s also a fun milestone because now the main characters are all going to meet each other IRL so we get a whole lot of banter. It’s pretty crazy to think that they had actually never met each other in real life before now.

The season doesn’t show us much of this arc yet, just enough of a taste to really get you excited. It still works tremendously well though and these episodes are top tier. The music, the directing, everything about this is extremely hype. In particular there’s one scene where Katzo basically admits that Sunraku and Pencildragon are the best gamers out there that stood out to me. The show played one of the new themes that is extremely hype (It’s not even out on Youtube yet) and really set the stage for how much this tournament means to him. I also love the rules as it is a real knockout style fight, meaning as long as you win, you keep on playing. Yeah the next season is going to rock.

As always the animation is really good here. It has a very solid style to it. You feel all of the blows and the movement is very smooth. It’s all very good and really goes to the next level during big battles. After that you have the soundtrack which gets full points. The first opening is spectacular as you’d expect. I didn’t care for the second opening as much but it’s still good. Then the tracks during the episodes are really incredible once again. Full on action themes that cover a wide array of genres. Nothing negative to say about any of those. It’s all just so good.

As for the characters, Sunraku is a great lead as always. I like how analytical the guy is while still acting like your ordinary gamer. He’s very down to Earth and competitive which are great qualities to have. His fighting style is fun and he always has a good time with the game. The show is far from being a comedy in any way but it definitely does know how to have some real fun gags every now and then. The show just has the perfect atmosphere and vibes for this kind of story.

Poor Psyger-0 still suffers from the fact that she has not worked up the courage to confess to Sunraku yet. So for now she just continues to hone her skills and do her best but it will be a while before she makes any progress. Fortunately inside of the game she is very powerful and she does great during the Lycagon fight. I’m generally not big on the more timid characters but she’s not bad. I would say it helps that she is really good at the game because at least in her own way she is trying to get closer to Sunraku. It’s not that she is passive or anything, she just can’t take that last step.

Meanwhile Pencilgon is one of those characters who has no problems getting whatever she wants. She generally just likes to be a vicious overlord in video games who has everyone at her beck and call. She is very skilled at deception and makes for a fun character. She may be a model in the real world but fortunately her friends are only into video games so it’s not like they care. They treat her normally and so it makes for a great trio of characters. They all just have fun with each other which is really the right way to go. Any scene with the main 3 in it is always a blast.

Katzo is the pro gamer of the group although I would say he is still often outshined by Sunraku. Not really his fault, that guy is just a legend. Katzo still holds his own the whole time and is a really good character. He does have connections and a lot of money which is how the final arc was even possible. He basically spent tons of money to get the best hotels and game equipment. His rivalry with Sunraku is always bound to bring in a lot of laughs as well.

I will say that the supporting characters in SLF tend to be on the weaker side though. Aside from Emul, we now know about 5 other rabbits and none of them are particularly interesting at the moment. They’ve all got their own unique gimmicks and all but you just don’t end up caring all that much. If the show has a weak point, it will be any scene inside of the Rabbit home world where it’s important for lore but that’s about it. You want Sunraku to get back out there and play the game some more.

Akane is probably the only interesting thing relating to that place and technically speaking she is still a separate character. She’s the second person to discover the unique quest and so now Sunraku is nervous that she might tell more people about it. The more people who know about this, the less valuable the info is as a bargaining chip. For now she seems trustworthy but we’ll have to see. Her overall level is much lower than the rest of the characters though so she’s a bit of a glass cannon at the moment.

Rust is the mecha pilot who ends up joining SLF temporarily along with her sidekick. She’s not a bad character but for now is on the weaker side. I don’t feel like she really adds to the dynamic at this point so she will need to do something to change that. Once that is the case then the cast will really be in an even better spot. At least she can fight though which is the important part.

The various leaders of the different clans like Animalia, Psyger 100, and the Professor haven’t done much yet. We got to see Animalia being rather overconfident and being stomped by Lycagon but that’s it. Each character seems interesting so I appreciate them being around to flesh out the world. They will be good for future confrontations even if they haven’t done much of anything just yet.

Lycagon of course is still one of the best monsters. She seems the most sentient out of all the unique creatures with how she plans and strategizes. She leaves the rest of the creatures in the dust in these respects. I also like how she even gets some plot twists which end up resulting in the power level going further up. You just don’t see that kind of dominance very often.

Then for the game arc, Sylvia is the most important new character for now. She’s basically a girl version of Sunraku with how talented she is. Her reaction times are insane and of course she is competitive as well. This is really what made her an opponent to beat. The series really cooked by making her the primary antagonist coming up. Sunraku will have to bring his A game if he wants to defeat her.

Then on Katzo’s team we have Megumi who is mainly used to hype up Sunraku and crew which I naturally don’t have a problem with. After all, the more hype they get the better. She definitely means well and her concerns are even pretty valid. After all, why would some random teens from Japan actually be better than pro gamers? I’d be concerned too and she was reasonable since after being stomped by Sunraku she stopped with that. She is a reasonable addition to the crew and I’d be cool with her sticking around.

Much better than the new underwater character in Araba. Nothing really wrong with him I guess but he just lacks depth. He’s a sea creature with a good honor code who can fight. I’m not sure if it’s the fact that he’s an A.I. ally and not a real player but I just don’t find him too interesting. I’d rather Sunraku be dominating the opponents on his own and monologuing instead of working with this guy. So he’s not a bad character but is an example of someone who does not add to the dynamic.

Also, while the tournament is far more interesting, we are getting closer to a climax here so in the next season that will still be fun. The battle itself is definitely quite intense with a lot of stand out moments all throughout. Next season will be a masterpiece regardless but definitely focus on the first episodes the most because Shangri-La really shows how you do a proper tournament arc. It’s absolutely impressive with no real weak points. I would maybe change one fight but it was still extremely satisfying either way.


Overall, This series continues to be an elite. The cliffhanger is absolutely spectacular and really gets you hyped for what is to come. I suspect it might be a while before we get a season 3 now that they are close to being caught up with the series but when it does return I shall be ready. In the meantime you should definitely watch this series. It’s really a great experience and not something you could find just anywhere. This is a series with a ton of heart an it reminds you how much fun video games are both to play and to see in action.

Overall 9/10

No Guns Life Review

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It’s time for a series with a very unique premise. I can’t say I knew what to expect when first getting into No Guns Life and I can say even now that there aren’t many shows quite like it. It’s sort of a steam punk Noir at its heart and the combination works pretty well. I’m not going to say it’s a great title or anything like that but it’s pretty good and has a lot of interesting concepts. I mean, what would you do if your head was an actual gun? I’m not saying shaped like one, I mean it’s an actual gun! Better be careful what position you sleep in or you might blow the ceiling up.

The story takes us to a world that is basically ruled by a corrupt company that is at war with a large gang. Just about everyone lives in slum-like conditions and even the rich seem to have quite hollow lives. So many people have lost limbs that there is a whole market for “Extended” which are when people have robotic upgrades to replace their missing parts. Some just get upgrades to be more powerful and then there are people like Juzo. Juzo was a weapon used in the last war. He took many lives and now he has sworn to never let anybody use his gun again. He works as a detective solving crimes everywhere and has gotten a pretty strong reputation. He has more enemies than he can count but this is the road he has chosen. His life really gets thrown for a twist when he meet a kid named Tetsuro. Tetsuro has a weird power that lets him affect all machines which is of course extremely handy in this world. Just about everyone is after him, can Juzo really protect him? At what point is he going above and beyond his actual mission?

There’s so much to the setting and story that it was hard to keep it to one paragraph. While parts of the story may sound a bit absurd and would never happen, a lot of it also feels very realistic. Is it possible that some day we will have so much daily violence that most people will be missing a limb? Absolutely I can see that. Is it also possible that anyone with a robotic limb will be seen as inferior and relegated to the slums? Yeah that can definitely happen. Obviously the world being owned by a corporation is also in the cards so yeah this definitely seems like a very dark future and one you can picture.

Juzo basically stays out of the politics of it all and is mainly just trying to do his job and ignores all the rest. He gets threatened constantly but handles it all smoothly. No matter what is going on, you can count on him to just be smoking his cigarettes. It’s not just to look cool though, those are what allow him to dull his never ending pain and also allow him to function normally. They’re basically filled with a kind of pain killer that he needs. Yeah being a living gun definitely sucks and he is put through a lot throughout the series. He never complains about his lot in life though.

The series ends before he can truly confront his past and get all the answers though. You’ll probably be able to notice right away as the series ends that not everything is answered. It’s definitely one of those titles with an early ending but it still works well enough where you don’t need the full adaption. I would still like to see more of it in the future though. Juzo ends the series as one of the strongest fighters and dominates most of his battles. Even the other gun units don’t tend to be able to defeat him.

As for Tetsuro, he’s a nice enough kid but he sure does get into a whole lot of trouble. It feels like he is constantly making more work for Juzo. The guy has a big heart and basically wants to be a hero but he doesn’t really have the ability for it. Yes, he can hack any extended but he doesn’t have a lot of stamina and can only control one person at a time. So when the control ends, then he is completely vulnerable. He also falls into his share of traps. So I like him well enough but he definitely doesn’t think things through quite as much as he could have.

Mary is a mechanic who helps Juzo out quite a lot by fixing him up and also supplying him with the special cigarettes. She even ends up getting a fairly big story arc involving her brother Victor. She has to do a whole lot of digging in order to find him and see what happened. He basically vanished amidst a huge conspiracy and with this world is can be hard to find the truth. There is also the question of who he truly is. There is an Extended with a copy of his mind, a hand that may or may not be controlled by him, and his real body only might be out there. There are a lot of questions floating around and she’s not exactly a fighter so it’s not like she will be able to just get out there and find the answers on her own.

So she makes for a good sidekick but like Tetsuro she can bite off a bit more than she can chew. Olivier is a police agent who seems rather corrupt and yet she is better than the average officer. She always enjoys a lot of banter with Juzo and throws threats around like they’re going out of style. That said, her hands are often tied when it counts and then she has to rely on Juzo either. Certainly not the position she wants to be in since it definitely undermines that tough image she is going for. I can’t say I was a big fan of hers. To a point her character was just an excuse for fanservice.

On the whole the show is pretty good about not having too much fanservice. There are some moments here and there but rarely anything too crazy. There was one pointless episode involving a perv who goes to the shop just to spy on the ladies there. He gets off way too easily as well. It’s the only episode where you are wondering why it is even there. It’s not the entire episode or anything but it was a pretty large chunk that was effectively just filler. I’m always up for some filler but it should be something a little more fun with good substance. Not whatever this was.

Meanwhile the graphics are good although the fights can get a little messy. It’s far from being a top budget show or anything like that but it looks good enough for me. The character models are good and the backgrounds really help fit in with the noir vibe. The show definitely nailed the atmosphere which was the most important thing. The ost isn’t bad. There are 2-3 themes that I enjoyed but otherwise it can be a little forgettable. It might have clashed with the noir aspect but I’d have liked some good rock themes.

Back to the characters, Kronen was a pretty interesting one. The guy is a human who doesn’t like Extended and that always makes for a fun character. The series doesn’t make him absolutely insane or anything like that either. In fact you could say he may be the most powerful full human in the series. He actually fights well against Juzo without any enhancements. This is due to his powerful throwing needles which can paralyze any opponent. This guy is very resourceful and while he will always be at a disadvantage, he still fights his absolute hardest at all times. You definitely have to respect that.

Wachowski is one of the big leaders of the Spitz organization and I really like his name. Yeah, not a great reason to like a character but it’s just such a fun name to say. The guy is ancient but plans things along pretty well and always has a backup plan in the works. He really comes close to succeeding in his ambitions and the guy even thought ahead enough to bring along some Extended equipment in his wheelchair. Now that is some proper dedication. I tend to not take these old timers too seriously but this guy at least had a decent plan so I’ll give him that. He just let his guard down too quickly.

Then we have our next psychotic villain, Pepper. She seems rather messed up from the start, thanks in no small part to a pretty dark backstory. She had to survive through a lot in a messed up environment and then basically made a pact with one of the gun units. The sob story did include some animal violence which was regrettable. Whether it is bugs or bigger animals, the show didn’t need to go that far. Even with the dark origin, I can’t say that I ever became a big fan of hers though. She’s just too crazy without having anything “cool” to back her up. So it’s just crazy in more of an aimless way and her twisted version of a bond with Seven never got through to me.

Meanwhile Seven gets a fairly raw deal here. After all he needs Pepper to use him as a gun unit, but at the same time he is now super attached to her. So he follows her every order and doesn’t really think for himself anymore. He gets jealous easily and ultimately just acts a lot like a kid. It’s too bad that Pepper was a villain since that ensured that Seven would be as well. Otherwise Seven could have gone on to be a decent hero. That said, when you don’t use your own freewill to decide what to do, it can be easy to make excuses. Ultimately it would have been up to him to have made the right moves.

Another villain we had is Kunugi who doesn’t actually get to do a whole lot. He uses needles to paralyze opponents as well and does pretty well in his fights. You get the idea that he is definitely more of a sub villain than a main one though. On his own the needles would be tough to defeat a more powerful opponent but I like his confidence either way. He’s a very interesting villain and works as a wild card since you can tell he has no feelings of loyalty. I like villains who just do whatever they please like this guy.

The show has 24 episodes and manages to fit in quite a few cases in those episodes. You’ll see traitors like Colt who are forced into hard choices and then other characters like Victor who are a true mystery. We also see Juzo’s origin story and how he used to act back when he was in the war. In a way the series is about showing how he has developed free will since then and won’t be anyone’s weapon in the future. It’s a big deal in the show when he finally lets someone use his trigger since that’s definitely a sign of complete trust.

On a lighter note, the show even talks about the other downsides of a gun head like the fact that it can rust so Juzo has to be careful in the water. It’s not like Juzo ever had any choice in the matter but he does have free will. That whole character arc with showing Tetsuro how to make his own choices was good. The series has a lot to say about not letting yourself be manipulated and making choices for yourself. Juzo ends up being a good role model for the other characters even if it is a role that he absolutely doesn’t want.

Ultimately I’d say the show is also about knowing that you can’t change every part of the world but you can make a difference locally. Juzo keeps on helping people even while the whole world is in such a sorry state and the two villain organizations are still doing whatever they want. Juzo doesn’t let them get in the way of his missions and fights back as necessary but he’s also not just trying to get out there and bomb all the villain bases. He can’t change the world on his own but he can at least change the paths of those right in front of him. It’s the core of a good Noir title.

I’d say the best mystery that represents the show would be when Juzo is called in to help a girl who is being haunted by a ghost. There are a number of twists here as well as set up for future missions but otherwise it is a good stand alone story. Juzo goes in, solves a case, and gets basically no gratitude for most of it. By the end people realize that he is a good guy but it’s not easy. The life of a Noir detective is rarely easy after all. I will say it’s funny how almost nobody reacts to his gun for a head though because of how crazy things are in this world. Juzo is always expecting a reaction so we can assume that off screen most people still get nervous but at least all of the main characters are a bit too busy for that. Why worry about a guy who has a gun for a head when you have to solve a string of murders right?

Also while a lot of the series is about setups and mysteries, there are certainly a good amount of action scenes here. Juzo goes up against everybody from other humans to Extended, to fellow Gunheads. He really runs the gauntlet on the kinds of different opponents who take a swing at him. He doesn’t just win every fight either, he takes his share of losses as well. It’s good that the pain killers remove most of his pain too because he tends to lose in rather painful ways. Juzo always finds a way out of the situation though. The series ends on a completely open note with the adventure continuing so at least it will be easy to get a sequel some day if they ever want to do one.

Overall, No Guns Life is a pretty good show. I like how unique it is and the show has solid enough production values. The writing is good and so you will have a good time here. It will keep your attention the whole time and you’ll be engaged with the cases. Generally it’s not a Sherlock Holmes kind of case where you’re interrogating everyone and getting to the truth but there are still mysteries regardless. Juzo makes for a good narrator in these moments as he walks you through what happened. He’s really got the voice for it. Yeah if you see this show around you should check it out.

Overall 7/10

Lost in Starlight Review

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Whenever I watch a movie and the romance is lazy and/or rushed, I want to watch a foreign movie because they often handle the topic a lot better. Lost in Starlight is an example of that. While it’s not my favorite romance story I’ve seen in recent animated movies, it is still a good title. The movie is also a solid watch overall. I’d consider it a very low key title that isn’t going all out or trying to be explosive but just giving you a solid story with good pacing and no real issues.

The movie starts off with Nan’s mother dying off in space. Unfortunately while the space missions have been going well for humanity, she was the sole victim of the voyage. Her daughter Nan has still decided to pursue a career in going to space but others wonder if perhaps she is just burying her feelings. Her supervisor decides to play it safe and prohibits her from actually going to space. Nan is upset and tries to force her way back in with her scientific knowledge. In the meantime, she meets a guy named Jay who is a bit of a technician. It’s not his true passion though, he used to be a musician but then stuff happened and so he has walked away from it. Can Nan help Jay embrace his musical career once more? As for Jay, can he truly root for Nan to go into space when it will mean that they are separated for a long time?

Relationships will always have some drama and that’s the main dilemma for these two. Now Nan was pretty upfront about wanting to go to space from the jump so naturally I tend to be more on her side with this. The relationship was built with the understanding that she may have to go away. She definitely should have come clean to him the instant she was selected to go to space, but even so it’s not like this came out of the blue. Whenever you get together with someone who has a big life’s passion, you can’t expect that to ever fade. Fortunately Jay does his best to be supportive and handles it better than other leads would have. I was expecting more of a big crash out but for the most part it wasn’t so bad.

I can sympathize with it feeling sad of course, particularly the distance of it all. He can’t just walk over and visit her while she’s in space after all. At least they are able to stay in touch, albeit with a fairly long delay. That’s still far better than having no contact at all. Nan gets into some trouble over there but all in all things go pretty well. The themes of determination and trust are handled really well.

The plot that feels a bit unnecessary is Jay’s music though. I understand that he needed something to do and it was set up as a plot point early on but it was just hard to care as much. Nan was facing a life and death journey in space while Jay is trying to sing. They had to do this at the same time for parallels but when the stakes are so lopsided it just doesn’t work as well. I’d also say the music in this film could have been a bit better in general. It’s not bad but fairly subdued. It’s not the kind of soundtrack that will bring tears to you eyes the whole time.

This may go back towards the theme of this being an ordinary adventure as opposed to some kind of end of the world event but you could still go a bit crazier with the songs. They’re not bad by any means but you won’t remember them quite as well. The animation is pretty solid though. In particular it felt like they were putting a lot of attention on the clothing textures, animating more wrinkles and sharp colors there. So I’d say that works well enough and the movement is good. The film looks a little more faded in that cinematic look a lot of animations go for but it doesn’t hold the movie back or anything like that.

In terms of supporting cast, Jay probably beats Nan here. The rest of the band seemed rather interesting and I wouldn’t have minded seeing more of them. Nan’s best friend gets a decent amount of screentime but she tends to be a little more on the annoying side. She does a good job of cheering Nan up every now and then but some of her pranks can go a bit far. I always thought it seemed a bit annoying to just pick up the phone to try and embarrass your friend when the boyfriend is calling. Nan’s friend is there for her during the serious moments though.

The romance may feel a tad rushed but we did have some montages here and there so at least it’s not like it took place over the course of 5 days or anything like that. Still could have been built up more but at least it’s not a rebound or anything like that. The main two have some disagreements but don’t lose their heads either. It’s why I can call this a good romance all around. With both characters having some trauma (Nan’s being a lot more serious) it was also good for them to be able to talk to each other. Nan ultimately gets some closure in space although I would have liked a long conversation with her Mom. Perhaps that would have been a bit cheesy but I think it could have worked considering all the setup was there.

I was glad we got to space though. It takes a while before we actually see Nan leave so for a bit there you’re wondering just how much time is left. The beginning is definitely fast and very frantic but by the end the pacing slows down. it does help you to get the setup out of the way early though so I don’t have any issues with that. If I could add just one thing to the film, it would maybe be a final interview with Nan to show how far she has really come. We do see that she is over her trauma now but that would be a pretty good ribbon to tie the film from start to finish. This is the kind of film that will likely not get a sequel, but if one ever does appear it’ll be fun to see how that goes.

Overall, Lost in Starlight is a good film. It won’t hit the same levels as most of the anime romance films you watch but Korea’s still off to a good start with this one as a big budget animated title. I’ll look forward to seeing what they bring out next. There is no end to the amount of stories you can write after all and everything about this one was fundamentally sound so I’m not particularly worried. If this movie is up your alley then you should check it out. It’s one of those wholesome films that is hard to dislike and it being so down to Earth and low key is part of its charm.

Overall 7/10

Azure Striker Gunvolt: The Anime Review

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It’s time for a quick anime OVA that adapts the beginning of the Gunvolt game. That game was really a blast when I got to play through the trilogy and I can say that it was fun to see some of the events again here. It reminds me why Gunvolt is such a great character as he defies orders to get the job done. He does what he has to here and not many characters could have followed suit. It’s also nice to be following a prodigy who is known for the best as opposed to some rookie. It’s not like this is the only story like that but they are still rarer than the alternative so I enjoy each instance.

The story starts pretty fast as you’re thrown into some battles and we see Gunvolt get captured by the enemies The Sumeragi company basically owns the world and they are as corrupt as possible. Gunvolt is part of a resistance group that saved him a while back and he uses his powers to help out. There are people who have special abilities like Gunvolt and they are all basically hunted down or end up joining the villains. This should have been a routine mission of sabotage but it all goes sideways when it turns out that the thing powering up the villains is actually a little girl. Gunvolt is ordered to murder her but naturally he refuses such an order. What all these characters forget is that Gunvolt is a hero!

Naturally that should be an easy decision for any main character because murdering a child would make them no better than the villains. It also immediately ensures that you don’t like any of the members of the resistance since Gunvolt was the only one to stand against them there. Sure, it’s easier for him since he is the strongest one but the others still could have done something instead of just watching the whole time. So that’s why Gunvolt is the only true hero here.

We also get a glimpse of his fighting style when he takes out a bunch of minions and we even cover one of the boss fights. The cameo from the rival is a bit random as he fires some shots at Gunvolt and the villain before vanishing. I suppose it just took him a while to get there. He is a fun character to have around though. You just don’t really know what his deal is from this episode.

The animation is not the best but I wouldn’t call it bad or anything like that. It gets the job done in terms of the action and showing us the electricity effects. The voice acting definitely could use more energy as well. It feels a bit too low and the characters don’t sound as if they are in the middle of a deadly conflict. You can’t be quite so calm in such a circumstance. So that’s definitely something they really could have improved upon. It’s clear that the technical elements weren’t a top concern for this special but at least we did get a song.

This is almost like a pilot chapter for a series. It just gives you the intro and you’re on your own from there. So I would say that this one succeeds because it would have definitely made me want to check out the games. If I hadn’t played them already I would definitely be racing to order them off Ebay. While the video games feel like Mega Man, I would say the anime and concept are sufficiently different so this does feel like a new experience. Definitely full credit and bravo to Gunvolt here. The special is really over in the blink of an eye.

It’s why you don’t really want to buy any excuses for series that take until episode 10 or more to get good. You need to be good right out of the gate. If you aren’t able to be good by the end of episode 1 then you did something wrong. Even with the technical limitations, we had good writing and a solid story here. Right away you could buy into the bond between Gunvolt and the kid he saved. Gunvolt will definitely be a good mentor and protector. You can feel the hero vibes off of him immediately.

Overall, This was a good special. It certainly didn’t get top production values or anything like that but it told a good story. The concept is enough to hold the product up on its own after all. The game will just have to show you the rest of the content. Hopefully one day we will get a proper adaption of Gunvolt because this could really be an awesome story. It’s also a completed one at this point so that should also help in terms of helping the creators pace it. In the meantime this special will have to do though so enjoy it while you can.

Overall 7/10

Titan A.E. Review

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It’s time for an old sci-fi adventure! After all the year is pretty old by this point. It’s been almost 30 years and so now this could even be called retro. Fortunately I can say that it is retro in a good way. The animation holds up quite nicely and the battle scenes are on point. It’s a strong film all around with solid execution across each field. If you haven’t seen it yet, this is one film that you don’t want to miss.

The film starts off with an alien race called the Drej showing up and exterminating the humans. They blow up Earth and so now there are very few Earthlings left alive. One of these is a guy named Cale, whose father died tragically during the big attack. Cale is now going through a rebellious phase where he’s just rude to everybody and doesn’t care much about his species. Well, this all changes when he is targeted for elimination by the Drej and is saved by another human named Joseph. Joseph has some kind of plan to flip everything around but is Cale really ready to risk his life against tremendous odds? It’s not exactly a safe option here.

Well, to be fair Cale also isn’t given much of a choice. If he didn’t go with Joseph then he would die on the spot and once he’s on the ship it’s not like he can ask them to turn around. Fortunately for Cale, he is a tough guy so he takes this in stride. The film has a whole lot of banter going on the whole time as Cale is constantly taking shots. The thing is, he isn’t really able to back up all the tough talk as humans appear to be far weaker than virtually all of the other species. Defeating Cale appears to be an easy feat for pretty much everybody. I still like his spunk though. Cale plays a good role in why the film is solid.

His character type is one that you’ve seen before. He starts off as a total punk but gradually starts to believe in the mission and even gets heroic. It’s a journey that works pretty well here and that is always crucial for a film like this since a lot of it is built around the main hero. Additionally this means we get quite a bit of nice banter between several characters. One of whom is the main heroine Akima. She’s also rather tough and so she doesn’t back down. This means we get quite a bit of intense dialogue between the two of them. Yeah you can assume this will turn into a cliche romance later on but initially the banter is still fun.

The animation also really pops out at you. I really enjoyed the designs for the Drej. They look like really cool cybernetic fighters which adds to the horror factor. Since they are made out of energy, you also can’t hope to defeat them through normal means. In fact, there are very few ways to stop them at all so it’s clear why humanity lost. While the average Drej fighter feels fairly character-less, they still make for good obstacles.

Meanwhile the music is also really good. The soundtrack definitely has a solid 80s feel to it and a lot of times animated films tend to sound rather standard. This one decided to be different and absolutely succeeded. Each song works really well and they also helped you feel the grand scale of the movie. The universe is at stake after all so it should sound like that. It’s things like this that can really help a film succeed.

Of course the same is true for characters so lets get back to those. Akima is definitely a fun heroine and I appreciated that she was a tough fighter as well. Definitely someone who doesn’t give up easily and was quick on the uptake. I also appreciated Joseph. At times it feels like his character was rushed a little bit when things could have moved slower but he definitely had a massive role in the story. His scenes were all really solid and definitely served as a good contrast to Cale. This guy is a lot more driven for his ambitions, but to a rather dangerous degree.

There were also a few more passengers in the crew but these guys were way slower on the draw. You had the science creature who was a little too annoying at times. He never picked up on any hints and also could take too long to get to the point of where they had to go. He was busy messing around and being mean to Cale the whole time. Then you had the weapons expert and she talked tough but let her guar down when it counted and never looked as impressive as you would have expected. The right hand man was solid though. Now there is a character who was always alert and ready.

Throughout the film you also have a sense of danger that can be rare in these animated films. We’ve really got huge stakes with the universe in the balance and Earth itself was blown up early. It’s not like the villains are threatening to destroy Earth throughout the movie, in this case they already did it. It adds a little more credibility to the villains right away. They also have good aim and actually land hits on the characters early on so you can’t hit them with the Storm Trooper allegations. Yes, this film really did a lot of things that was ight and helped to make the film more fun. It even does have time for humor on occasion which worked well thanks to the film’s solid writing.

Overall, Titan A.E. is a pretty good film. I would definitely recommend it. I always enjoy a good sci-fi so this was always going to be trending in the right direction but then throw in the solid execution across the board and this was a winner. I’d definitely be up for a sequel some day. There is more you can tell with this story and the characters. It’s a charming title all the way through with good pacing and a fun atmosphere. So if you haven’t seen the film yet, you need to fix that as soon as possible.

Overall 7/10