As the title says. Basically, my job is starting to pick again, and going to be slightly more busy than usual offline. What do I do exactly? I basically work in food processing, and make sure product that gets shipped out is consumable more or less. There’s some heavy lifting, and some paper work involve, but that’s the gist of it. So, the usual movie review posts for this week that would go up on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday won’t happen. I’ll be working more weekends, and I’ll have less time to juggle my job, social life, and blogging.
I do have movie review drafts I’m working on, but none of them are close to being completed. In particular, the big four (as I’m referring to them) I don’t want to rush completion. I blame my own laziness for this, and therefore going to use this week, and hopefully next week to finish a few of them on time to post. The usual anime posts for Tuesday, and Thursday will still go up. The Tuesday one is already done, but the Thursday one is not. Aside from probably being delayed til Friday, there will be two anime related posts this week. The reason is simple, my anime content is barren! I shall fix that….slowly.
Also, it’s an excuse to watch more stuff. In terms of watching, didn’t see much anime, or movies. So, I’m getting onto that. I know, I must struggle to sit back, watch something, sit, and type! Oh the humanity! I shall aim to return to the regular posting schedule by the end of next week. If I can’t, I’ll post another update. So everyone reading this, take care, and see you when I come up with a more original closing line.
What’s sup, and yes I am still alive despite being inactive for over a year. First of all, happy belated new years. Second, my job really killed my motivation to write last year. Going month after month working seven days a week, and at most getting two days off made relaxing more alluring than writing anything. There were also days on rare occasion I simply knocked out as soon as I laid down on my bed. Yep, offline job didn’t make it any easy for me to sustain my creativity, or energy to do anything. Finally, it was a busy year in general. Even without the whole job working me to the bones I still had offline drama to deal with, and I frankly had enough of it.
2018 started off well for me, but then, yep, something happened yesterday, and I’m trying to resolve it. Oh boy, 2018 is off to a good start, and I’m not going to bore you with the rest of my life’s detail cause it’ll take three more paragraphs to do so.
So why do I keep coming back? Simple, I just can’t let it go. Despite spending over a year of not posting anything I just simply can’t stop thinking things I watched, nor stop discussing them among my offline friends. There was also the bonus of 2017, and the many, many films that I was completely enthralled in viewing. I kid you not, there were so many films in 2017 I could gush about to the point that for a week I could write about films that I would award perfect ratings too. Some of them, if you still remember what I wrote back in my more active days comes as no surprise movies like Baby Driver, Logan, War for the Planet of the Apes, and The Lego Batman I would give perfect marks too. As well as some surprises like Blade Runner: 2049, and Dunkirk especially receiving a perfect rating from me even though war movies in general don’t impress. Plus, as an action junkie, 2017 was easily the best year for action movie since 1992 with the likes of Wolf Warrior 2, SPL: Paradox, Baby Driver, Extraordinary Mission, The Villainess, as well as others not as great action films (looking at you John Wick: Chapter 2) made it quite stellar time for action cinema enthusiasts.
Needless to say I love 2017 in terms of what I saw. Granted it helped I wasn’t writing for a blog, or site so I didn’t see any atrocious pieces of cinema like I usually would. Same with anime, I rewatched the original Fullmetal Alchemist anime for the first time in years, and it got me back into watching anime. I got reminded why the original Fullmetal Alchemist is my second favorite anime series of all time, and a little bit of help from the first two Selector Wixoss seasons, and both seasons of Noragami didn’t hurt either. However, the biggest surprise for me in terms of anime watching was none other than watching Cardcaptor Sakura for the first time, and man what a magical experience it was. I ended up liking Cardcaptor Sakura a lot more than I thought I would, and is now a personal favorite of mine. It simply put a smile my face, and the characters are so endearing to me.
With that brief summarization of events out of the way the reason I wanted to write this blog post is because I didn’t want the first piece of the new year to be negative. Yes, the first movie review I write in who knows how many months, and it’s a negative review for a Chow Yun Fat movie you likely never heard off, and even less likely seen. At the moment, I’m working on the details on juggling my personal time with this blog/site. I already set myself a quota of how many reviews I want to post this month, as well as made specific selections between must complete, and optional written reviews. For example, a review I must/want to complete this month is for Return Engagement (1990), and a optional one is The Long Good Friday (1980). The optional movies I’ve chosen ahead of time are simply there for extras if I want to exceed my intended quota. I can’t say I’m back for certain, but we’ll see, and I implore you to wait on welcoming me back (assuming you intended too, you did right) until March where I’m currently debating dedicating the month mostly reviewing art house cinema. Why, so I can finally work out my thoughts on art house cinema besides saying Takeshi Kitano is the biggest enjoyment I’ll ever get from art house films.
Until the end of the month, take of care yourself, and (hopefully) see you around if my job don’t kill me first. Happy 2018!
Lets begin with I’m sorry for not having posted anything in March. I probably should have written this blog post sooner to keep you informed on what is going on behind the scenes.I am writing this spontaneously as a I take a break from packing my luggage. So, here’s a quick overview of events.
First off, what happened?
For over a month I’ve been unemployed. Thankfully I haven’t been starving thanks to family members who also live in California helping me out. Financially, I’m not making any money, but my family help makes sure I’m not living on the street. This helped me significantly as I actively searched for a job to support myself. However, weeks after weeks of being rejected by multiple employers from fast food restaurants to office work at stores no one been hiring me.Seeing my bank account decrease out of necessity for food is demoralizing. I’m someone in my family who likes taking pride of being a responsible adult. Ever since I was little I told my parents how much I wanted my own home, and my own place. I’m not oppose to accepting help, but I much prefer being able to sustain myself than be entirely reliant on another person.
Second, trouble getting sleep.
Something I’ve been having trouble doing around the second week of March is sleeping. At first I’ve thought nothing of it since on a regular basis I have trouble sleeping. This time is different as I could go on for days 52 hours, 38 hours, and so forth without sleeping. Problems with my body went unnoticed for the first 18 hours, but past that I notice extreme emotional mood swings. In a instant I went from being grateful that my helped me out in my hour of need to becoming hate fill, delusional that they were taking pity on me. I talked out my feelings with my family about me being dissatisfied in my current position (at the time) not being to provide for myself, and my fear of possibly nothing being in my bank accounts.
This should have relief some fears from me, but it didn’t. It continued up until two days where I was finally able to get a good night sleep. It could be a result of false memories which can cause a lack of oxygen from reaching the brain. Now I do think I cause my own issues with false memories. I’ve read some pages on the Lost Media Wiki on real life events, and some of the incidents I’ve read about stayed in my head. There’s also the increase fascination with the Deep Web I’ve taken an interest in. I would like to use something like the existence of the Deep Web for a fictional story so the more I learned how twisted it can be the more I wanted to know. So, me reading for writing inspiration from the real world prevented some sleep. I still don’t know the cause of momentary sleep deprivation, but for the mean time it hasn’t returned for now.
Lastly, I’ve got to cut this short.
Sorry this blog entry is rather short. I return to regularly posting in April once I land in Kansas. Another factor into a lack of posting also comes from intensively playing video games, and not trying to be too demoralized. Video games help feel accomplished for a short while before returning to the real world to realize I’ve been unable to find another job for over a month. I find it best to be comedic in lifting my spirits, but if I fail in my time in Kansas looking for a job than I got to get my complex issues with Pittsburgh University in Kansas to resolve. Besides my credits, we got bad history with a college university black mailing me for money.
I might go over what happened in that incident in another blog post once I land in Kansas, but in the mean time I’ll get ready, and work for a better livelihood that I can reach, and maintain to the best of my ability. I’m sorry I posted next to nothing this entire month. I’m hoping to make up for it by making sure the same thing does not happen for the remainder of the year. Also, seriously f@#k cancer. I had trouble accepting a friend sudden death from cancer cause he kept it from me, but I’m grateful he allowed me to treat him like any other friend, and received no special treatment from me for it. It’s a different experience knowing your friend cancer, and could possibly die from it compare to it just being sudden. Either way, I deal with my personal life best I can, and everyone reading this you also do the same in your own personal life. Next time I post, I’ll be in Kansas. Laters!
So I notice it’s been a long time since I posted anything anime related, but I haven’t started a draft review on anything I planned so this should further delay them as I think about what anime series (Kaiji animes, and live action movies are currently the frontrunners), and anime movies (Unico and its sequel are being draft) to review this year. It’s also winter seasons, and from what I gathered the series that were too premiered this season have already started. I don’t consider posting first impressions much since I don’t feel they require much effort from me no matter how I think about them. Unlike a review, my immediate impressions on a single episode won’t be as detailed as when I complete something, and my thoughts on what I’m initially experiencing can change the longer I stick to it. I’m also not organized in expressing my initial thoughts on anything often finding my thoughts going somewhere else on a regular basis. For this instance, I’ve been lacking in the creating content aspect so it’s the least I could do.
Assassination Classroom Season 2
Studio: Lerche
Length: 25
How many have I seen: 1 out of 3 that currently aired as of this moment
I didn’t like the first season of Assassination Classroom much for the same reason I found One Punch Man average; the comedy in both barely made me laugh. However, at least One Punch Man had the decency to be short, while it did relish in shounen tropes it at least cut out the filler portion when One Punch Man joined the battle, and had a cleared a direction. The first season of Assassination Classroom had nothing One Punch Man did right to even be average. For instance, the tone is all over the place with it wanting to be a light hearted comedy, but also provide serious commentary on the flawed education system in Japan. The first problem with this is it’s being done in the shounen genre where characters, and conflicts are usually kept simple. Instead of fighting their opponents with fists the cast in Assassination Classroom fight against their opponents with Test Scores which yes, is as lame as it sounds.
It also couldn’t shift between tones successfully going all out in being serious, or being light hearted for its whole run. Never finding a perfect mixture of the two tones. Creating a disjointed series of events when it came to delivering its material. Then there’s the story which was predictable. Given the tone it aimed it was made clear the students would fail to kill Kuro Sensei until maybe the last episode, but that quickly got spoiled with the existence of a second season. So the premise itself ruins the experience in season one since the existence of a second season confirms threat Kuro Sensei doesn’t get kill. When allot of the humor relies on that lone aspect it’s a one joke series that get tiresome to witness.
The story also follows a classroom filled with 25 characters in the first episodes. Obviously it can’t introduce everyone in the first episode unless it wanted a pilot episode to be two hours long, but why Lerche studio didn’t bother changing anything when adapting the manga into anime is a bigger issue. For instance, why bother having a classroom with 25 students only to introduce two more students later on in the series that receive more screen time than those that who appear in the first episode. Simply make them part of the initial cast from the first episode to avoid this issue, or remove the fluff characters that don’t do much. By removing the fluff characters it give more time to the ones who actually contribute to the story be better utilize, and allow them more chances to grow as characters. Also, why have a main character when the classroom goal are the same. It would have allowed viewers to get to know other characters, and what they were struggling through. Instead, it has it leading character with feminine looking guy Nagisa.
Now when the first episode aired I had to read subtitles to know what was going on. I had to, get this, pay attention to the anime English subtitles along with everything else on screen. You could imagine the cringe-worthy comments I sometime bother reading on my goto legal, and illegal anime streaming site when viewers were surprised Nagisa was a dude. If you saw the English dub I understand it’s not as easy to catch, but for those who had to read subtitles what were they doing while watching the anime? In the middle of the first episode when Nagisa has a flashback there’s a subtitle that says “Ooh. Well, that’s it for him” followed up with “I better delete him from my address book”. In this scene, Nagisa is being shunned by his classmates, and within the scene is given a literal spotlight pointed at him. Nagisa is also in a dark room with him being the only visible character, and barely visible outline of others students in the background. So the characters obviously couldn’t be talking about anyone else in this moment with how it was being presented either. Which begs the question, what were the viewers doing watching an anime with English subtitles if they’re not going to bother to pay attention!
Another irksome aspect of the whole series, for me, is Assassination Classroom oozes in its double standards, and wearing it on it sleeve like a badge of honor. I mean, it is wrong when the fictional school does not treat all students equally, but it’s not wrong when the anime itself places more focus on certain characters inequal. By this logic, the series itself is about as villainous represented as the school system it criticizes with no irony, or self awareness to use it in comedy. There other aspects of the series I didn’t like, but the biggest one is Kuro Sensei weakness. I won’t spoil it for those who haven’t seen, but for anyone who seen M. Night Shyamalan movie Signs you know it already since it’s the same as in that movie. It makes this particular twist a bigger gap in logic since Kuro Sensei gets slower the more he gets exposed to this substance, except for the fact it breaks logic establish within the anime when it doesn’t effect Kuro Sensei speed in previous episodes before it’s reveal. So what about the actual first episode of season 2 for Assassination Classroom? It was tolerable, and a bit amusing. Kuro Sensei, and eventually the student were playing hook up in the pilot episode which as expected of shounen goes nowhere in the episode. Like last season, the first episode didn’t make me laugh much, but unlike the first season pilot episode. Season 2 shows to be leaning more on the lighthearted side of its tone which is welcome for now. As far as first impressions goes it didn’t get me hooked as someone who disliked the first season, nor did it change my perspective in any way. To be honest, it was probably a good move for season 2 to standout like it did to ease viewers back into its story. However, having rolled my eyes at the discover it’s listed for 25 episodes is not a comforting idea for someone who dislikes the series. My prediction for the series, if it falls trap to the same issues of season one, it’ll end up being a bad anime. I would give the first season for Assassination Classroom a 3/10, which is the same rating I gave to Aldnoah.Zero (both seasons) which is one of my most hated anime series.
Assassination Classroom Season 2 First Impression Score: 4/10
Bubbuki Buranki
Studio: Sanizgen
Length: Unknown
How many have I seen: 1 out of 3 that currently aired as of this moment
I wasn’t excited for this series when I looked into it. The one reason I knew about it was the studio behind this, Sanizgen, animated the anime Arslan Senki last year. While I did like Arslan Senki simply for the plain fact it was at least competent compare to what anime came out in 2015 the story was typical, and average for the genre. You have young royalty naive in the understanding of the world getting his whole kingdom taken away from him from either a forgotten bloodline/someone loyal to the king, and the young royalty having to roundup warriors to create an army to take back his kingdom. You seriously can’t get any more typical than that for a fantasy/war drama story as the major narrative points are telegraphed before they occurred. Saying this kind of story has been done to death would still be underplaying how frequently the template use in this specific genre format. The same applies to the animation; when it stayed in 2D animation it was okay, but when 3D was involved it was jarringly bad at times. While the story did evolve by having its protagonist get involve in the politics of running a kingdom, and had good pacing to progress naturally it had too many characters most of whom didn’t receive development. If I didn’t enjoy it I would rate it a 5, which on my scale I consider to be average. Me simply liking Arslan Senki doesn’t make the anime better than average. I could confidently say both anime of Kaiji, regardless of me liking them, are excellent anime series. Arslan Senki is simply average, but it’s the kind of average that did specific things right for me to like it.
Bubuki Buranko on the other hand gave me more to worry about when I saw the trailer. I’m not against 3D animated series, unless they are from Japan since generally they don’t spend the time, nor money on 3D animation compare to what the US provides. It’s seriously pathetic that Donkey Kong Country, a 3D animated series from 1996 has consistent frame rate, but both seasons of Sidnoia no Kishi/Knights of Sidonia that came out in 2014, and 2015 don’t even have that. My hatred for the sci-fi trite that is Knights of Sidonia is further exemples when considering Donkey Kong Country also has more expressive characters. What’s further maddening is Donkey Kong Country had some terrible musical numbers, yet those sometime hilariously awful pieces of music provided me more entertainment than anything I’ve seen in both seasons of Knights of Sidonia.
So the 3D was off putting, and the synopsis did nothing for me. It was promoted as an original creation from the studio, but given how typical the story was in Arslan Senki it didn’t boast any positive reactions from me. When I finally got around to seeing the first episode it was a mess of a pilot. Now, while seeing it I found the anime surprisingly tolerable, but once I thought about it I realize what an absolute trainwreck it was. For starter, the world building does not answer anything. Half of the episode is spent on this planet, or crater inhabited by machines called Buranki. Where they came from isn’t explained. Why the main character family lives on this crater isn’t explained. The main character has a heart that everyone wants, but there’s no explanation for what it does. Since I was bored, I just traded the word Heart for Penis in my head to laugh at laugh at the story. It’s also all action in the first episode as the characters it introduces have little defining features to them, and half of the episode is spent on the main character being in constant danger. Four times, within the first episode the main character could have died, but doesn’t.
Everything else in the series was so badly established I stop caring before reaching the end of the first episode. When it does end there’s even more questions that pile on. Since it isn’t established what a Buranki is imagine my confusion when the main characters is shocked when one is simply a pile of bones now. So, the Buranki are organic machines? If so, how come one of the weapons, called Bubuki, is a hand from one of these Buranki? Can they feel emotion? Because if they can, it’s twisted to think children with this knowledge would actively take limbs from this organism, and use the limbs for combat. Also, one of these Bubuki simply looks like a more upgraded of Glover.
Yeah, remember this guy? Though, a dark anime adaptation of Glover would be better.
One positive thing I will say about it is the 3D animation had consistent framerate for the first episode is already better animation than both seasons of Knights of Sidonia which never had consistent frame rate in a single episode. Just like in that series, the characters all move robotically, and unlike Knights of Sidonia, the voice acting in Bubuki Buranki is bad. My prediction for the series is that it’ll be a story of children fighting against evil adults to save the world. I’ll still finish the anime since, at this moment, it didn’t feel like a chore to get through. While the story was a trainwreck it didn’t do anything to personally frustrate like the other 3D anime, Knights of Sidonia, constantly did in every episode. I doubt the story will evolve into anything decent, but it ends up being tolerable it’s a step up for Japanese 3D animation.
Bubuki Buranki First Impression Score: 2/10
I don’t give a VAN DAMME: 10/10
Dagashi Kashi
Studio: Feel (No, seriously that’s the name)
Length: 12 Epsiodes
How many have I seen: 2 out of 3 that currently aired as of this moment
Now I didn’t intend to see this anime series because the synopsis sounded boring. It’s a slice of life about a candy store. Nothing about that description interests me? So why did I see two episodes of the anime? My little brother dropped the anime 10 minutes in, and said he didn’t want to see it. So I told him I’ll also see it since yes, as horrible as it can be at times, seeing bad anime is necessary to develop standards for the medium, and different genres.
The first episode was surprisingly entertaining for me so I saw another. Unfortunately, the anime reminds a bit of D-Frag where the humor relied on characters acting over the top over minor things. The humor does appeal to me, but just like with D-Frag, there likely won’t be character development, nor much of a story to tell. Granted the two episodes of Dagashi Kashi I saw did make me laugh, but the jokes don’t have any structure to them. It’s random for random sake. It’s not something like Monty Python, and the Holy Grail (a favorite of mine) that while random has a structure to delivering it jokes that makes them funny even on repeated viewing. I also seen it over a dozen time because the story wasn’t an afterthought making the sight of people reacting angrily to the ending hilarious for me.
Episode 2 had one of those WTF am I watching moment, but even stranger was it duplicated part of the opening to the original Mobile Suit Gundam replacing the robots with candy products. It was a surreal sight to behold which had me laughing. Narratively it was a stupid to get exposition, but at the same it was so nonsensical I was laughing. If you like slice of life you might enjoy this, but the main reasons I don’t like many slice of life anime also hold true here. There won’t be much of a story, virtually no conflict, little continuity in anything, and the characters will be probably learn something from a life changing experience without showing the result of it. The animation is okay I guess, but the one issue I do have is Saya Endou, and Kokonotsu Shikada eyes are very off putting for me. It seems like they never stop taking cocaine with their wide eyes never blinking. Which is why I theories by the end of the anime it’ll be reveal they were Vampires the whole time, and the candy are made out of people. It’s simply genius.
I do have expectations, but when looking up studio Feel, and seeing they created titles like Bikini Warriors (original creation from what I could gather), Kiss X Sis, and Makura no Danshi (an original creation) quality isn’t really a priority for Feel. At this point, I think they’ll settle for making an anime that at least is popular on some level. I pretty sure it’ll be popular to some degree because of Hotaru Shidae is hyper, weird, has purple hair, and has the fun personality. She also is shown eating candy suggestively too.
Dagashi Kashi First Impression Rating: 4/10
Amusement Rating: 7/10
Dimension W
Studio: Studio 3Hz
Episodes: 12
How many have I seen: 1 out of 3 that currently aired as of this moment
Now finally on to the first anime that premiered this year that had me facepalm in how lame it was. The studio behind this doesn’t have much of a resume so to know if they could pull off something decent, but the first episode looks cheap. In certain shots, there are backgrounds that are a single color wall. Whether or not it’s stylistic is hard to tell since the anime can’t afford to have good CGI in its opening animation for a car chase. Along with having little substance, and lame action in the first episode it comes across as trying to be cool, but failing. Try to imagine a an old man in his 80s trying to be gangsta and that’s this anime in a nutshell.
My biggest issue with this anime besides being lame, badly explaining the story, and a main character is who doesn’t do much at the moment are the ass shots of the loli. In the world of Dimension W there are these things called coils which to the best of my ability are basically robots that harness energy. One of them just happens to look like a little green hair girl. Who begs the question, how perverted will the people behind this anime be? They had various ass shots in one episode that would you mistake this for an A-1 Pictures animes. I have don’t much to add to this one since the studio is relatively new, and they aren’t impressing me in any category of the anime.
I do expect this anime to be bad since the last anime that used a song from the band Stereo Dive Foundation I seen was Kyokai no Katana/Beyond the Boundary which was an absolute mess of an anime. So with that reasoning, I expect this anime to end up being bad too. Sure the logic makes no sense, but when the first thing that comes to mind after a single episode is lame than I pretty much put on my conspiracy theorist cap on to make correlations between things I hate. It also has dancing into the opening animation, and so far out of the three anime I saw that include dancing in its opening only Princess Tutu I like which has allot of elements I don’t care for, but man, the anime is very great regardless of my lack interest in those things (young kids romance, fairy tales, balet). The other two anime being Death Parade which was a mess of writing, and finally Overman King Gainer which, yes, has an awesome goofy opening song.
How many have I seen: 1 out of 3 that currently aired as of this moment
For me, Madhouse, JC Staff, and A-1 Pictures are a trio that no matter the quality of whatever anime they make I always given so much material to work with. No matter what anime I see from them I always have so much to say about whatever they made. Madhouse I love no matter whatever trash they put their name on (Death Parade, Mahouka Kouku no Rettousei), and I think positively of them for bringing to life Death Note, two seasons of Kaiji, Trigun, and several other great works into animation. Even JC Staff for how uninspired they come across have made things I liked. A-1 Pictures on the other hand has made some of most infuriating anime I’ve seen from any studios.
First off, there’s Sword Art Online which has some terrible, terrible writing. However, I enjoyed the first season for the bad writing, sadly that wasn’t carried over into season 2 as it was simply bad. Season 2 of Sword Art Online was very boring, tedious, and not much happened in it. Then there’s Aldnoah.Zero which is the anime I think about first when it comes to broken writing. Sure I said Death Parade has broken writing, but at least it did a few things right with the characters. However, Aldnoah.Zero offers nothing in the story department. Things simply happen just because, and there’s no logic to it. It expects you to sympathize with a character who was part of a group that assassinated the princess of the universe which sparked a war. It wants you to feel sad for the fact her father died by the hands of the people she helped, pretty difficult when she shows no sympathy for causing the death of million of innocent people, and even still tries to kill the real Princess even after being betrayed by the people she was suppose to help.
Oh man, and there’s the piece of garbage that is Gunslinger Stratos. If it wasn’t for Ninjaslayer From Animation I would have given the award for worse animation to Gunslinger Stratos. No one should ever had to expose to those awful action scenes, and the brief moments it shows characters flying towards the camera. Everything about the anime is terrible, but when you apply the story, and characters it’s even worse. It becomes so convoluted it’s hard to follow. Exposition, upon exposition, delivered by characters who are one dimension without anything interesting about them culminated into an anime that went out of it way to take life away from my soul. Well, A-1 Pictures did animate Shinsekai Your/From The New World which is easily the best anime with A-1 Pictures name attached to it. I recommend seeing that anime from the studio, but everything else from A-1 Pictures I’ll say be cautious with.
Now with A-1 Pictures latest offering they have recycle ideas, and nothing much else. Expected this from the studio who for some reason, decided to be faithful to the manga of Fairy Tail even though every battle is won by the power of friendship. I have other issues with the writing of Fairy Tail, but seriously, the fact A-1 Picture didn’t bother changing the material into anything good demonstrates a lack confidence from them in understanding good writing, and good storytelling. The backgrounds seems like concept for an anime not the finalize version of them. While characters design are bland like the vanilla conversations revolving around a group of teenagers that have amnesia. Seriously, I would want to have amnesia so I could rewatch Death Note for the first time again, and be addicted to it to remind myself how immensely enjoyable anime can be.
Hai to Gensou no Grimgar First Impression: 3/10
As far as anime goes that’s about it from what I saw. I’m planning on seeing Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu, but likely won’t write about it. So what’s the other things in this blog entry? Well more impressions, and not anime related.
The Man In the High Castle
Length: 12 Episode
Duration: 60 Min.
Distributor: Amazon.com
Episodes Seen: 1 out of the 12 that aired
One thing about me that isn’t noticable online is my lack of viewing live action television series. The last live action tv series I followed was Breaking Bad. It was a tv series that had everything I wanted from a tv series that couldn’t be done in movie format. I was hooked from the first episode, and never once ever considered dropping it. For me, both Breaking Bad, and The Twilight Zone (1959 – 1964) provide some of the best pieces of writing on television that I don’t have feel an urge to see anything else on tv. They appeal to me on every level offering engaging characters, and contemplative storylines. No matter how acclaim any live action tv series I won’t see it unless I get recommend to see from a friend. And even then I probably won’t finish it for good reasons, or something arbitrary. For instance, despite friends, and families telling me to see Game of Thrones I don’t bother with it since I’m not really into the Fantasy genre.
Another example is me completely dropping The Walking Dead despite, yes, friends, and family insisting I continue to see it. I like season 1, but completely dropped it midway into season 2 because it was going to turn into every single zombie movie ever made. The reason I liked season 1, and the first season was because there was room for expansion for this tired story. Zombies stories are one of the least interesting type of stories for me. If anything has zombie it already loses my interest because of how disinterested I’m into these creatures. However, in the first season characters go to a place they think is safe, it get overrun by zombies, then have to look for a to place to live. It did this three times during season 1, and I was okay since zombies stories in general are secluded so I would welcome a change in scenery. Then came season 2 where literally nothing happened for like what, 6 VAN DAMME episodes. It was boring, slowly becoming more trite by its usage of zombie movies cliches, and then finally the violence is not enough for me to see anything zombie related anymore. I saw a movie called Dead Alive directed by Peter Jackson which is the bloodiest, and goriest movie ever made. It’s because of that movie blood, and gore is something zombie media can longer capture me with. They need a story, but with The Walking Dead it’s repetitive with season 2 showing characters will live temporarily in a safe area, then it’ll get overrun by zombies, and the characters have to look for a new place to live. I barely see zombie movies so what makes my offline friends, and family think I’ll dedicate my time to an entire tv series on zombie is beyond me.
Now, as for The Man In the High Castle I was very interested in seeing it. World war 2 is a subject, and a part of history I’m sucker for. Just the insane amount of events that occurred, and the larger than life figures during that time never made me bored relearning the same things in every history class in high school. So when I saw a tv series that depicted an alternate version of WW2 where Germany won I had to see it. I will give the pilot episode the credit that’s very cinematic, and the set design is fantastic. The world building is also excellent. My favorite moment being the main character wonders what’s falling from the sky, and the police that’s helping him tells him it’s the hospitals burning the unwanted. I’m not sure on the exact wording since I it back in November, but that was a good moment for me.
Everything else from the characters, and story was very underwhelming. It depicted the Naiz as simply being evil, and the people rising against as good guys. For something of this premise I was hoping for more grey in presentation of the characters. Hitler for instance is a grey area to talk about. Sure he killed dozen of Jews, but at the same time got Germany out of an economic pitfall. There’s other stuff too, but basically Hitler is difficult individual to put in one category if you take into account both the good, and bad he contributed to the world. So that one negative mark towards it.
Another thing I didn’t like was how much nothing the pilot episode was. It ends simply being two people thrown into this rebellion against the Nazis meeting up at a specific location. That’s some dull creativity right there. Everything in between was also disappointing. I did like the fact there was a Jewish character who had to hide his religion because of the world he lived in, but there was no hint of more complex feelings on the matter. Nothing like why he remained in the Jewish faith despite the world around him, or if he consider Hitler is possibly correct about the Jews. Now our main character is a simple guy who wants to fight against the Nazis since it’s the right thing to do I guess. There’s nothing wrong with that, but when I picture an alternate take if Germany won WW2 this isn’t what I expected.
The Man In the High Castle First Impression: 5/10
Gakistal (The Bridal Mask In English)
Length: 1 H.
Episodes: 28
How many have I seen: 1 out of 28 episodes
I went into Gakistal after receiving recommendation from a friend who’s a fan boy of this series. Now I should get across this isn’t my first time seeing a Korean television. I did see the 2011 Korean series named City Hunter back in 2012 on Netflix. I liked it. It had a great soundtrack, good action scenes, and a solid writing. One thing I didn’t like was the romance was the will they, or won’t they date variety which became tedious. That’s saying something when I tell you the series was only 20 episodes long. However, that’s about it for my experience in Korean television. I always considered seeing more Asian television series. One thing I don’t like much about Western television is there’s always a clear distinction between television action, and movie action produce material. It’s the budget, but Asia film industry aren’t as crazy as spending hundred of millions into a single film. So when they produce an action series for television you can’t really there’s much of a difference because the way Asian production manage money differently than US productions.
With that said, I was disappointed with the first episode. Not because it didn’t have any action, but because I was entirely bored seeing it. If we cut out the average fight scenes I’m left with a story that has boring characters, mixed up politics, and no clear direction in what it wants to be. Gakistal is set in an era where Korean is being oppress by the Japanese and forcing them to speak Japanese, yet all the characters speak the Korean language. The masked Gakistal vigilante isn’t our main character, but instead someone who has to capture him. So the series could be a cat, and mouse came with the main focus being the cat constantly failing to capture the mouse. I don’t know about you, but unless it’s Tom & Jerry I’ll probably get bored with this formula. Especially when taking into account there could possibly be 28 episodes of this. The acting, and set design was fine, but like with The Man In the High Castle it offered nothing for me to gravitate towards.
Gakistal First Impressions: 4/10
Japanese Spider Man
Length: 24 Min.
Episodes: 41
How many have I seen: 6 out of 41
The only television series in this blog post I would recommend you see. If you like power rangers, and cheesy storylines this is the series for you. It deviate heavily from the original source material probably all Westerner are accustomed too. In this version there’s no Peter Parker, but there is Planet Spider, and some nonsense about the main character father waiting on for around several centuries to give his son the power of Spider Man. Yeah it’s goofy, but at the same time that’s was charming about it. It has a retro feel to it that is undeniable from its presentation. I would say more on this series, but if you like Power Ranger you should enjoy this since they both have the same formula. Also, that theme song. Classic 70s cheese.
Japanese Spider Man First Impression Rating: 7/10
Phew! I think that’s about everything I wanted to give an impression on. I would rate my impression of recently becoming an uncle, but there’s scale to express how happy I am for my family. Plus, at 21, I’m already receiving old people jokes, and handed canes. Well, if you made it through, I’m impression of you is a 10/10. Until next time, something, something, something.
So 2015 has fly by, and it went by nothing like I expected. Besides losing some motivation during this year to post due to a terrible job, and a negative state of mind concerning film criticism. I didn’t emphasize creating content as much as I would have liked this year. At some point in the year I placed more focus in reviewing anime than I did attempting to balance it with movie reviews. In all honesty a good chunk of it had to do with burning myself out. I found it more engaging to go more in depth in a anime review than a plain old movie review. Granted I could apply the same amount of desired depth in a movie review, but when efforts are ignored it’s kinda of hard to convince myself to keep going. Letterboxd is a good indication of this as not only do some of my other friends have greater success than I do, but the fact some have gotten worse in reviewing, yet gaining a larger readership in a single review than I would in an entire month is demotivational.
There was a bright spot in my general negative viewpoint of film criticism this year. Some of the people that felt passionate on attacking me for calling Gravity a decent film simply seemed like they grew out of their passions of films. No longer do I feel the same drive from them to continue viewing movies like once before. I would hypothesis that is from the lack of openness those viewers have, and they aren’t willing to take any risk for any film. This kind of mentality is something I never wanted to be a part off. While there movies that I say to friends offline I would never see in my life I always keep an open mind. Seriously, it would be stupid of me not to write about the rich material from The Asylum films, and the slew of B movies available from around the world. Why limit myself to a specific quality of film. It would be like me saying I’m a sports fan, but only following around three of them. It’s a misleading label that generally plagues all kinds of fandom from films, video-games, and anime.
I’m hoping next year I get back into the mood of posting more frequently. New readers might not be able to tell it, but there was once a time where I used to post five movie reviews on weekdays. Now it feels like weeks before I actually post anything. That’s fine with me since I like improve myself, and never attempt to think that I peaked at some point. However, I’ll (and you) will have to wait to see how I perform as a writer next year. So far I don’t like my chances given my goal is to post at least 200 pieces of content (not counting updates, or rewriting old movie reviews of mine) in 2016. Most of it I’m hoping will be on movie reviews since compare to writing review on anime series since not a whole lot of films go pass three hours, or even match the length of a single, 12 episode season series.
Anime reviews will also be another aspect I’ll tackle, though the success rate of them depends to be honest. On myanimelist, the most successful review I posted was a negative review for Aldnoah.Zero first season which is currently the only review I posted that has triple digits in total votes. I’m proud of that review to be honest since I went above, and beyond to express my hatred for the series. It wasn’t all just an opinion as I provided evidence with what the anime gave me, and used that to negatively write about it. I’ll go over some things that impacted me this year. I would say it’s a collection of highlights, but I was inactive for a very long time so there’s not much to it.
Video-games
This year was the first time in years I went back into gaming. There wasn’t enough games on the PS4 that I wanted that justified me to buy an expensive console. So I did the next logical thing, and decided to seek out games on my backlog, and complete them. I finished more video-games this year than any other year I’ve been playing video-games. For starter, I finished the entire Kingdom Hearts 1.5, and most of 2.5 HD collection this year. I went through the playable entries on the HD collection which was allot of fun. In terms of writing the original Kingdom Heart was the best. It was simplistic sure, but the themes were explored, and the story was written in a self-contained way. Most importantly it made sense since it wouldn’t be until the sequels the lore got convoluted, and complicated. Unfortunately for me, while in the process of playing Kingdom Hearts 2 HD I went months without playing it since I went to Kansas to help my family out. I got a job at a bacon factory which was terrible, but my family needed my help, and at that moment I didn’t care how long I would be offline. When I did return to beat the rest of the Kingdom Hearts Collection I got confused by the storyline. It became more convoluted, and complicated to follow as the series developed.
This year also holds the record of me completing the most games I disliked in a single year. I played Watch Dogs since I wanted a third person shooter at the time. Unlike allot of gamers I wasn’t hype for the game when it was first announced. I liked the concept of being able to play as a hacker, but this was Ubisoft, and when it comes to their writing they generally suck at telling stories. Upon starting up Watch Dogs I knew I was in for a rough ride. For starter, there was no possible way to blind fire, even behind cover. This made the game design to be harder than it actually needed to be. This problem was amplified when in certain missions you have to chase a target in a car, but can’t shoot your guns while driving. I found this particularly laughable since the game allows me to slow down time, and the character I use is hacker, but apparently can’t shoot while driving. One defense against my criticism was it was trying to be realistic. Yeah, that why there is an ability where you can slow down time, and boss fights that care multiple shots to kill. That also why my character can multiple gunshots so long he stays behind cover to recover his health bar. Realism…sure.
Another thing I hated about Watch Dogs besides the gameplay was the writing. The protagonist had a story that was simply about revenge that was predictable. There were hacker terms like “Script Kiddie” that the average person wouldn’t know that aren’t explained in the story. The game was also badly design as I bought all costumes, and weapons before even completing five missions in the game, and before even getting close to finishing the third act. Characters were boring as well. I couldn’t even bother to remember their names. One was a hipster hacker, while another was a emo-punk girl hacker for the protagonist to creep on. It sucked pretty much.
Star Ocean 4: The Last Hope was another game I finished this year, and it was also much to my dislike. Unlike Watch Dogs, I actually enjoyed the gameplay of Star Ocean 4. However, allot of the game mechanics I didn’t bother using like a crafting system since I didn’t need it. It didn’t encourage me to use it either so I found no use to create weapons. Another thing I didn’t like were the characters. Besides the awful voice acting from some of the voice actors the cast was annoying. I ended up creating a team of characters I found most tolerable. That’s no joke unfortunately as the cast comprised of the childhood best friend, the young naive adventurer who seeks justice, a loli cat, an Angel who was ditzy, a Robot with a design of a action figure, an emo elf looking character who called himself the grim reaper, a widow who dresses for the way she does for the sake of fanservice, an annoying kid who repeats a catchphrase, and other “engaging” characters. The story….oh don’t even get me started. It became so convoluted to the point that a planet transformed into a dragon, a spaceship commander sacrifice himself to create a black hole to destroy the dragon, go to the center of that still standing planet, travel to the core, and destroy it by defeating a last minute villain who for inexplicable reasons was like the motherboard of the species despite the species operating competently without him.
There were also other games like Fuse that me, and my little brother suffer through together. It was a soulless third person shooter that really was a chore to get through. Our biggest issues being a cheap plane boss fight that could kill the player in a single hit. It doesn’t help matter when the plane also has a shield so if you get hit with the one-shot-kill attack you’re dead. Spec Ops: The Line I like for the story, but the gameplay was generic third person shooter action. I did like it in the end, but it wasn’t anything special in the genre. Other games I liked that played, and completed this year were The Evil Within, Tales of Xillia 2, and Rune Factory 3. There was also Lost Dimension that I ended up liking, but consider it average at best since allot of the ideas it has aren’t fully realized.
Out of all the games that came out this year that I played there was only Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker that I beat. Granted I do have my copy of Dragon Quest Heroes: The World Tree Woe and the Blight Below, and Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom for Christmas that I’ve yet to open, or play since I got no PS4 at the moment. As usual, I love me some SMT goodness, and Devil Survivor 2 delivered. The gameplay went mostly untouched, but what made it worth the purchase was there was around 100 hours of content in a single game playthrough of two story modes. Yes, I got that much content from beating the game two separate story mode once, and given the fact the game has multiple endings, and different events depending on your choices I haven’t stopped playing this game. My only issue with the game would be that it doesn’t do anything to take advantage of the poorly named New 3DS hardware to its advantage, but that’s more of a nitpick.
This was also a year where I just kept on piling to my backlog. So I have a dozen DS games I haven’t completed with virtually all being RPGS. So I have myself possibly over 300 hours of gaming I need to get to completing at some point. I still have one more game in the Metal Gear HD collection to get to, Final Fantasy 10-2 to beat, around 4 PS3 games I haven’t beat, and finally around six digital games on my PS3 I’ve yet to beat. So yeah, I went a bit overboard with my purchases during my enjoyment of gaming, though to be fair the most expensive game I bought cost me 50 dollars, and that was for the handheld port of Xenoblade Chronicles for the New 3DS. Aside from that, and three other 40 dollars most of the games I got were rather cheap. Still, given with what was announce for the PS4 PSN Store from Rogue Galaxy, and Dark Cloud that I’ve been wanting to try. As well as the dozens of games I want next year I got my work cut out for me in balancing between work, my reviewing commitment, social life, and personal enjoyment time.
Astoria, and Sukima Switch
Music is the most subjective out of any medium, including art. With Art there’s a clear distinction of which drawings are better drawn, or better express an idea. Art is still subjective, but not to the same extent as music. Like any medium there’s also a distinction between good, and bad music, but it’s not quite as easy to see as with other mediums. If a song catchy, I’ll listen to it. If I’m not in the mood to listen to Arcade Fire discussing problems with modern society you bet I’ll blast some Jesse Mccartney any day. Certain genre of music you can simply listen too at any given moment over others. For me, there’s only a couple of artists, songs, or albums that I feel like I can listen to in any situation whether it be something to listen too, or something that’ll make me think.
Another thing I should mention is I don’t listen to the radio. Whenever I do I don’t find anything I like playing on the radio. The only time I do listen to the radio is whenever who’s driving has it whatever station is on playing. So most of what I end up listening too I end up finding by accident. One of these accident was with the band Marianas Trench. My first exposure to the Canadian band Marianas Trench was when red head indie artist Annie Rose Robinson did a cover of Marianas Trench song Fallout. Now how I knew about an obscure artist like Annie Rose Robinson is a whole other tangent that involves the website ReverbNation which also leads to the time I got a lyric video removed from YouTube because the artist stole it. However, since YouTube updated whenever it did my private messages with that artist were deleted, and at the time didn’t know how to screen capture anything.
Either way, after listening to Annie Rose Robinson cover of Marianas Trench Fallout I looked up the original. At first, I wasn’t really into it. A couple weeks later when back to listen to Marianas Trench Fallout, and liked it more than I did the first time. I listened to it again, and decided to listen to Marianas Trench other music, and fell in love with them. I listen to Masterpiece Theater, and Ever After religiously, and I still do years later I’ve grown older. For me, the album’s Masterpiece Theaters, and Ever After are a great mix of easy listening, and thoughtful music. A Marianas Trench song can be catchy as well as very thoughtful on how it speaks about its subject. This year also marked the release of the band’s fourth album titled Astoria. Since it’s release I have yet to stop listening to it. I do listen to other music, but Astoria whenever I do I could do so for an hour on a single track. All the songs are rather good, but I have clear personal favorites on the album. The opening song, Astoria, always gets me pumped up whenever I listen to it.
Then there’s the self titled album from the Japanese band Sukima Switch which unexpectedly ended up being the second album I listened to the most. If you haven’t listened to it I highly recommended since it has the ability to put you in a good mood with its upbeat tracks, and joyful vocals. If you seen Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood than you probably heard the third opening track titled Golden Time Lover performed by the band. They mostly make jazz music so if you’re into that kind of genre check out their stuff.
Most Annoying Movie, and Anime I Haven’t Seen Yet
This year marked the release of Star Wars Episode 7, and One Punch Man. In all honesty I could care less about One Punch Man, but since it’s made by Madhouse I would have given it a shot eventually. Same thing with Star Wars Episode 7 which I wasn’t anticipating at all. When I saw the first teaser trailer I seriously wondered for a long time what was my favorite Sci-Fi anything in any form of media. I couldn’t think of anything from the top of my head immediately. At least with superheroes I could immediately name Spider Man 2 (my favorite superhero, and Marvel film), Iron Man, and Kick-Ass on the top of my head. For Sci-Fi I do like Star Wars, and Star Trek, but neither I would consider to be my favorite. I then thought about the first two Terminator movies, but I always them more in line with the action genre since it plays more on those traits than what I would associate with Sci-Fi. Like this passage, I went on a tangent about this until I landed on James Cameron’s Aliens being my favorite Sci-Fi film of all time.
The closer the day got to the release of One Punch Man, and Star Wars Episode 7 the more irritating it became. This also followed me offline since virtually even I know has seen Star Wars. No matter how many times I would talk to them the topic went back to Star Wars. I was fortunate enough not to have many friends who see anime, but men these issues were amplified online. Star Wars Episode 7, and One Punch Man were heavily discussed on the sites I went to. I go onto Facebook to see a feed of my friends voicing their excitement for it. I go onto Rotten Tomatoes to see if anything changed, and see something about Star Wars on there. I go onto YouTube to see if anyone I subscribed to posted anything, and once again I see Star Wars related content on there. So no matter where I went I couldn’t escape Star Wars. Now if it was only the fans being hype for the film I wouldn’t have gotten irritated by it. I have my moment of fanboyism whenever a new Shin Megami Tensei game is announced. Sadly I can’t voice my excitement much for that series since I’ve yet to meet anyone else who also tries the Shin Megami Tensei game series.
What eventually got to me was the backlash of those people who got irritated by the fanbase, but took it a step further by spoiling the movie. Now seeing Star Wars isn’t top on my list, and I too got annoyed by it, but calm down. It’ll blow over. However, the people who don’t understand this won’t let it go so they spread the word wherever it’s possible. It got bad enough a man threaten to shoot his friend if he spoiled Star Wars.
So you could imagine me not wanting to go on Letterboxd even just to post my reviews because of spoilers being everywhere. On myanimelist it’s another story entirely. When I go to the forum there will usually be one forum dedicated to discussing One Punch Man. Unlike most users on the site I actually bother checking the review feed on MAL to check out the great reviewer. If I consider it really good I usually a comment complementing the reviewer, even if the viewpoint on said anime is different. One Punch Man is currently a flood of reviews that don’t seem to stop coming in days after it ends. I see it becoming like Sword Art Online where regardless of how many wrote about it there will be one user who reviews it every day, if not everyday than a week. One Punch Man is currently like that, though what’s bother me is the general of lack of good reviews it inspires. There’s only a handful of positive, and negative review for the series, but plentiful of badly written ones regardless of position. Some users I see taking advantage of the climate, and using the opportunity to make a name for themselves in the MAL reviewer community. So far I’ve seen it failed for the ones trying establish themselves.
As for now, I got no label, nor am I actually known that well known in the reviewing community on MAL. I would be sad, but at the same time I don’t want to be known for a single label like “The guy who wrote that long, negative Aldnoah.Zero review”. If that’s the most I could amount to when writing about anime than I failed. Don’t even get me started on the possible discussions I’ll have with friends if I actually do see it. It will drive me insane. I already have a YouTube feed of anime channels that talk about it, even making multiple discussion videoes on it. Hell, it even managed to get into TheGamingPilgrimage Podcast (great Youtube gaming channel, and podcast you should check out) that I follow. What makes matter worse is I have a little brother who reads One Punch Man. Before the anime came out I had fun making fun of One Punch Man by replacing the lyrics to the Dead Wonderland opening theme, and making it about One Punch Man. I did it on the spot which me, and my little brother found funny. However, when it comes to the quality of anime we differentiate greatly. For example, from the moment the first episode ended I knew Steins;Gate would end up being average, and living up to its acclaim. My little brother on the other hand thought otherwise leading to many arguments. The closer we got to the end more he started to agree with me. So as you could tell, he’s not quite as experience in analyzation as I am.
What we like also differs at time. For instance, I did not like the anime Oreimo because the arguments, and the positions it presented them in were really weak. My little brother like the series because he could relate to it since he had a friend like the heroine of the story. Then there was also the One Punch Man incident where I saw the first episode, and the impression it left on me was a 5. It was an average first episode, and if it was meant to be a satire of the superhero genre than IT PLAYED THE ENTIRE DREAM SEQUENCE WITH A STRAIGHT FACE! WHAT COMMENTARY f@#KEN WAS THERE IN IT! What resulted from that dream sequence pretty much was a good action sequence never happened. For some reason my little brother got mad when I called it average. Seriously, the only time I absolutely hated anything that was popular that I reviewed was the movie Frozen because it was a bad movie. All the other times I either write that said movie is decent, or average someone gets angry at me, and leading to a long discussion where the oppose just assumes they win because they got the last say in the argument.
Wrap It Up:
So as you notice some of those segments end abruptly. I’ll leave you with a quick list of things I liked from this year, and probably expand on it once I see more from this year. For now, these are my favorites for the year.
Favorite Anime: 1. Mobile Suit Gundam: Origin 2. Parasyte: The Maxim
Favorite Movie: Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation Best Movie: Creed (as of now)
Hey yalls! Guess you didn’t expect my absent for about two or so weeks did you? Well around the holiday seasons, working at a store, and being a cashier goes hand in hand with…time consumption overload. There’s also my mother, and little brother having visited me recently. They live in Kansas so of course I opted to spend as much time as I could with them over seeing movies, anime, and writing while they were visiting.
Besides my movie review of the live action Attack On Titan film I really didn’t plan anything ahead. There’s also a promised random list on haunted roads that turned out awful to be honest. I still plan on posting it as something I scrapped. I mean, I did some research, and might as well post it. I also got some other promises to fulfill since I did after all announce them.
I’m currently redoing a year old review of Persona 3 The Movie: No. 1, Spring of Birth because I want to review the films, and I got inspired from viewing the myanimelist page for the movie seeing the lack of criticism from fans towards the film. I knew not everything I wanted, or everything that made the games great would fit together seamlessly in film format. However, I didn’t the films to not only be bad as stand alone films, but also make one of my favorite video game storyline so boring to see onscreen. Can’t really say when I’ll come back, and post stuff. It should soon, if customers don’t come attacking me during black Friday that is. I’ll wait and see.
Here’s some quick impressions on things I saw to let you know what I could possibly write a review on in the future.
Strike Back: Season 1 – It’s an okay series. On a scale, it would get a 6 since the characters don’t develop beyond the first two episodes. Some of the writing is standard action film formula from go foreign place to save someone, a rescue mission gone wrong, or go to prison in foreign prison to rescue an assassin. It’s formulaic in its first season, but the action scenes are surprisingly good for a tv series. So for an action junkie it’s satisfactory.
Rurouni Kenshin (2012 Live Action Movie) – I’ve never the seen the anime series, or read the manga of the same name. I went into this live action film completely blind, and got to say for someone who has no knowledge of the series it was a great film. It had a good pace, the writing was solid, and while it had too many characters, and unequal screen time they all felt purposeful. Not to forget the excellent score for the film is worth noting. The action scenes while in short supply are expertly filmed, and well choreographed. I got my money’s worth as a fan of Samurai films, and would suggest anyone to see it regardless of experience with the series. It’s final rating I can confirm is a 9/10.
Rurouni Kenshin Kyoto Inferno (2013) – I still haven’t gotten around to seeing the film in the trilogy, but so far this was the weakest film in the series. One thing that wasn’t addressed were the many characters that disappeared for large portions of the film. While the balancing is better than expected when the film piles up more characters there are still instances of characters disappearing, and reappearing out of nowhere. There were a couple, but one in particular goes out to help the protagonist in the first act, and in the climax finally appears again in the film. Characterization is excellent, as well as the acting, music, and fight choreography carry over from the previous film. I still don’t know what the final rating will be, but rest assured it’ll get a positive 7 or 8 once I collected my entire thoughts on it. Zero Hour – I only saw one episode of this docudrama series, and honestly don’t plan on reviewing it since my weakest point of writing is critically analyzing documentaries. However, I did see the episode that focus on Columbine, and I felt given the sensitive nature of the subject matter I felt the events portrayal of the event was done right. It gave me a good idea of what actually happened that day, and what I appreciated was there was no single reason for why the incident happen. Given the nature of news outlet I’m rather thankful the episode didn’t attempt to minimize a serious, and growing issue of school violence.
Owari of the End – It currently sitting at a 4, and nothing was special about this shounen series. It was repetitive in hammering the point the lead character lost his family. There’s also a large number of “just because” logic behind the writing, and lack of detail on a number of things regarding the world presented. We follow newbie recruits in the series, and yet, they are able to hold their own better than the experience Anti-Vamp Team (my name for them). Also, the intro of the series pretty much shows everything that happens in the first season. There is literally no progression of shown pass that in the series. The only way I kept making myself see this anime was pretending it wanted to be a Yaoi. With this mindset, it became more watchable since the writing unintentionally gives that impression, but doesn’t make the series any better. At least the music is good.
Knights of Sidonia Season 2 – Like the first season it would also a get a 2. The reason being it’s the most trite sci-fi series possibly ever written. It’s first season was entirely telegraphed, and predictable. That carried to season two, but made worse when lingering issues remained unsolved. There’s an episode showing a parasitic creature controlling a power person in Sidonia, and the series ends without addressing this issue. It goes unresolved. Then there’s a talking Bear who a nurse, and a cook that also never gets explained. One achievement this series will get from me is that it’s the first sci-fi, first anime, and first 3D animated series to ever make me fall asleep. That how bored I was seeing this series. I would rename it sci-fi since it has allot tropes associated with the genres without subversion.
Corpse Bride – It’s not as good as Tim Burton other animated films like The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Frankenweenie. It’s mostly because of its runtime being 78 minutes. So, things feel rushed, and there’s uneven length between musical numbers. I liked the animation, the story was okay, and the music was okay. The voice acting was adequate. I liked it, though on a rating scale it would probably fall into a 7 or 6.
Take care, and I’ll be back soon. As usuals, insert catchphrase here.
I wanted to let readers know on what to expect in the upcoming from November to December. Currently, I’m working on another Random List entry. This time researching haunted roads which I’m hoping to post on Halloween. At this moment I’m still doing research since some of these road since some do not have many stories for me to share with my readers. I’m also planning to post movie reviews for the Mission Impossible film franchise, an entirely new review for Cannibal Holocaust towards the end of October, and a review for the anime movie Expelled From Paradise very soon. Anime series reviews will take a bit longer than desired since series like Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei have so many issues to address my draft can go over 5000 words. Then, there’s also a review for the original 1979 Mobile Suit Gundam series I’m planning on getting finish before the end of the year. That’s not everything I’m planning, but the ones I know I will get started on, and eventually try to post here on Personafcation. Now onto to some random questions!
Q: Are you still transferring all your old content?
A: Yes I am. I still have like over 300 old movie reviews to transfer over. I also got some other blogs I want to post here too.
Q: Why are you reposting your old content instead of redoing them?
A: I want there to be a clear outline of where I started, and to where I am now. I think, in general, my old content is weak compared to what I write now. However, I’m still proud I created them. Most of my old content I believe hasn’t held up to the standards I wanted. Though, they’re are my writing, and want to share them with whoever wants to read them.
Q: Why don’t you have an “About Me” section currently?
A: I’m transferring over old content, and once I finished I want to make an easy to navigate page where you can find all the stuff that interests you. If you only read my anime reviews I want to make a page where you can easily find what specific review you want to read. I do have a menu right, but in the future I’m on it making it more precise.
Q: Will you share more about yourself?
A: I’m planning too for sure. I want to do blogs on like my favorite bands, favorite video games, and all sorts of other topics.
Q: Are you planning on writing about serious issues?
A: Depends on what I’m discussing. At the moment, I am planning on writing a list entry discussing unsolved missing, or dead babies cases. Depressing I know, but if possible, I want to spread awareness for a good cause. I’m also thinking about doing a “Digging For Truth” blog entry where I research a crime, and be as accurate as possible in presenting it since many sites, and bloggers fabricate the facts to their own liking. I’m doing it since I recently saw the film An American Crime, and do a piece detailing the crime for readers who want to find out more.
Q: Are you planning on promoting other wordpress sites, or content creator you enjoy?
A: I’ll be glad too, even if the other site administrator, content creator doesn’t do the same. I remember in my early days when I started reviewing on Rotten Tomatoes how a reader picked me up, and help me become more active in the community. I did the same for others, even encouraging or inspiring some to write blogs on different topics. If I could do the same here I don’t see why not.
Q: Why do you run the website yourself when you’re planning on creating various number of different content? Did you not ask anyone you know for help?
A: I did ask a friend of mine if he would be interested in writing on my site since he doesn’t post his various reviews on any site to my knowledge. He hasn’t responded to my offer. I have friends on MyAnimeList that I would like write with, but they’re either too busy with their personal life, or want to promote their own content.
Q: Final question, where did you come up with your site name, and tagline?
A: I came up with my site name from the game Persona, and also like the culture behind it. I simply spelled Personification with Persona which wasn’t taken. As for my tagline, I came up with it on the spot.
I plan on doing another Q & A to answer more random questions. Until next time fellow readers, insert catchphrase here.
Welcome to the first post of Personafication. A website, but more in line like a blog where I post my own content on just about anything I write about.
Why start a site/blog?
I’ve posted my movie reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, but ever since its redesigned several of my blogs got deleted (along with other users) and lost more than half of my audience due to the new design alienating readers from the writers. No longer is the interaction there on Rotten Tomatoes. I did prepare in advance by creating a Letterboxd account ahead of time. However, it has its shortcomings like the fact I can’t post blogs meaning less content I could post. It works fine for movie reviews, but limitation isn’t always a good thing for creativity.
What’s the focus of Personafication?
To be a placeholder of sort I guess for reviews I write. Not just for movies which will make up most of the content posted here, but sometimes on Japanese animated series for much needed variety. I’ll post blogs on random things as well as I’m no stranger to sharing stories from my personal life.
Why so late on doing this?
I didn’t expect Rotten Tomatoes to have such an alienating redesign and I didn’t expect to get out of the reviewing scene for as long as I have. It’s also due that it’s difficult to come up with names for websites that aren’t taken. Even the site name, Personafication, wasn’t meant to be the original name. If I had more options for domain names I would have gone with something that was more relevant to my intentions.
I follow you on Letterboxd/Rotten Tomatoes and Myanimelist. What will you offer here that you won’t on those two other sites?
I can do posting on music I listen that’s not related to movies or anime, first impressions on anything I feel like from trailers, to music, to video games, and possibly answering fan mail.
That will be all for now readers. The following months will have me posting over 300 of my old reviews onto Personafication with some minor touch up in the spelling department.
Personafication 