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Captain X
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Cosmo Warrior Zero
(15 episode OVA) In some ways I'm still trying to decide what to make of this OVA as I write this. It's mostly a fairly typical space opera, espousing the principles of getting along with one another despite differences, living by a code of strong principles, and so on – everything one would expect from something of this genre. It was also mostly fluff, with a lot of comedy relief; too much comedy relief to really be taken seriously. The thing is, the series tended to bounce back and forth between having a serious storyline with some actual drama and being a comedy that happily makes fun of space operas. So that's why I'm having some trouble making up my mind about this OVA. It doesn't help things that Crispin Freeman is playing the lead role as Captain Warrius Zero, because for those who don't know, he also played the title character in The Irresponsible Captain Tyler, which pretty much was just entirely about making fun of space operas. It also took place on a crappy old space ship and was crewed by a bunch of misfits who had to learn how to work together as a team. Then again, Crispin Freeman wasn't using his buffoon voice for Captain Zero like he was for Captain Tyler, so there's yet another thing that only adds to the question of if this series was supposed to be taken all that seriously or not. I'm leaning toward "not", though. That's actually a little disappointing, because there were some elements about this series that could have made for a pretty good, seriously played science fiction story. The background of this story is that cylo- I mean "machine men" have just gotten done kicking humanity's ass, but rather than wiping humanity out completely, they stopped and agreed to a tenuous peace treaty. This treaty is then put at risk when the pirate Captain Harlock (now called rather than Herlock) and his green ship Deathshadow (rather than Arcadia though it looks about the same) start attacking ships, stations and colonies of machine men. That could make for something pretty interesting, especially given how dedicated Captain Zero is to treating machine men as friends and equals worthy of his protection even though his entire family was killed by them during the war. And that doesn't even matter if the machine men were aliens, originally created by humans as a slave race, or as in this OVA, humans who have somehow become machines and given up their humanity for various reasons of their own. But, this show doesn't really go there, and what it basically amounts to is a grudge match between Zero and Harlock, though the two of them apparently decide that they respect one another. As an aside, I have to say that casting Steven Blum of Spike Spiegel fame as Captain Harlock was very fitting. In any case, there is the typical big bad who is behind the scenes plotting some evil scheme, which as it turns out doesn't make much sense when he could have just used brute force all along, given his uber-ship's capabilities and how he just ends up doing that anyway. The show tries to change things up by adding a villain who is apparently supposed to be worse, but nothing ever comes of it. And then there's the "special", which basically adds two more episodes to the OVA. Most of the characters from the rest of the series aren't present, and Harlock and Zero both insist on fighting despite Zero already learning that his assignment to hunt Harlock down was a sham and that Harlock had been in the right all along. It's like everything leading up to and culminating in the reveal of the evil secret plan at the end of the series proper never happened. It's mostly played for laughs, and the tone set in the special was definitely lighter than the rest of the OVA. Oh, veering off the track for a bit, I have to say that I can't understand at all why so many shows like this insist on doing a romantic pairing with the captain and the first officer of a ship. Fraternization regulations aside, it just really irks me that there are rarely any shows that show a male and female in these roles simply being friends and maintaining their professional relationship. It's like there's this expectation that men and women can't be adults and work together like grown-ups, and I find that ludicrous. Don't get me wrong, this was an okay show, maybe worth a watch if you aren't looking for anything that's really serious. It's definitely not the kind of show Endless Odyssey was, which was way more philosophical and serious. It definitely had its moments, both positive and negative. Trying to decide which it had more of is a little difficult, but I don't think I can really rank this higher than a 6/10. |
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Captain X
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Cowboy Bebop
(26 episode series + 1 movie) This is the kind of anime that even non-anime fans might get into, provided that they are either sci-fi fans, or could get into a show that could in some ways be considered a western. It is essentially a space western, and chances are if you like Firefly, you'll probably like this show, too. And as an added bonus, it lasted a lot longer and wasn't screwed by its network. Now for a little background on the setting, humanity has developed something of a means for traveling faster than light using these large gates. This allows rapid travel throughout the system and makes the establishment of colonies on the various planets and large moons much more practical. Note that this is one of the similarities to Firefly in that there are so many terrestrial bodies within one system that have been terraformed and have colonies on them, even if technically this wouldn't be all that practical due to low gravity, low light from the sun, or various other reasons. The main point, though, is that an accident with this FTL system resulted in an explosion which took a good-sized chunk out of Earth's moon, pelting the surface with the debris and making it generally difficult to live there. As a result, most of humanity has spread throughout the system to these various colonies, with Mars essentially becoming the new home world. The series follows a rag-tag group of bounty hunters, here called "cowboys," as they struggle to hunt down their next bounty so they can have a decent meal, keep the Bebop and their other smaller ships running, and in Faye's case so she can gamble it all away in an attempt to get rich quick. At first we are only introduced to the main characters Spike Spiegle, and his partner as well as owner of the Bebop, Jet Black. As the show progresses, we are introduced to more and more of the characters who will end up joining the crew. Ironically, one of the first of these is Ein (as in Einstein), a genetically engineered Corgi dog. Pretty much all of the characters have something special or otherwise unusual about them, which contrasts them with Spike and Jet, who are both pretty laid back guys. Fay Valentine is a victim of some past accident who was put into cryo-stasis and recently thawed out by a group of con artists, and "Radical" Edward Wong Hau Pepulu Tivruskii IV is a young girl with a horrible case of ADHD, who also happens to be a genius hacker. All of them bring something to the table, and by that I mean both to the ship and its band of bounty hunters as well as the show. Which is actually why I started out by introducing them rather than with the story like I usually do. Of course with Cowboy Bebop, it's somewhat difficult to describe what the story is other than an exploration of the characters, who are all very interesting and who all end up developing through the show and discovering something about who they are. The series does have a main plotline, it's just that it doesn't make itself all that readily apparent, and very few of the series' episodes actually deal with it. Spike is really the main character of the series, simply by virtue of the main plot focusing on him and his story. He wasn't always the laid back bounty hunter that he is in the show, and it turns out that he was originally a hit-man for an organized crime syndicate called the Red Dragons. He fell in love with a woman named Julia and decided to leave the syndicate because of his love for her. In doing so, he became a hunted man and he lost Julia. So basically his cause in life other than putting food in his mouth is to find Julia again. This is an especially touching story, and I can't heap enough praise on it even if it is a bit clichéd. Maybe even more than a bit clichéd. Learning about Spike and his past is one of the main draws of the series, or at least it was for me. This is also something that happens with pretty much all the characters except maybe for Ein, who is explained right off the bat as to what the deal was with him. Jet also has a lost love who he finds and has to deal with the reality that she has moved on even if he hasn't, and his reunion with her is also bittersweet. Faye, who suffers from amnesia for most of the series, finally discovers her identity and remembers her past, but she is also denied a happy ending. Not to mention that it's kind of obvious that she has feelings for Spike, and he can't reciprocate. I actually felt a lot of sympathy for her toward the end of the series, even if she generally is the kind of manipulative, selfish character that you just kind of love to hate. Even Ed has something of a bittersweet ending, having finally found her father and learned what her real name is, but ultimately decides not only not to rejoin her father, but to leave Bebop and strike it out on her own, with Ein tagging along to keep her company. So while technically the vast majority of the episodes are filler, they tend not to feel like it. Either they are fun adventures, or dramatic journeys into the lives of the characters. I can't really think of any particularly bad episodes. Some of them can be slow moving, but none of them are really boring in my opinion. Of course it has been a while since I watched the series, so I could just be forgetting something or otherwise missing something while viewing it through my nostalgia glasses. After all, this was one of my first animes, and is just as responsible for getting me into anime as the Ghost in the Shell series is. The series goes through a number of shifts in mood, but the pacing is very good, and nothing ever really feels like an unnatural shift, or mood swing. It just kind of flows naturally as the show progresses, following the crew through good times and bad. The bad tends to accumulate towards the end of the series, especially as the crew breaks up and goes their separate ways again. This is also where the excellent soundtrack really shines, and when Ed leaves, the ship, the song playing in the background actually had me pretty misty-eyed. Now, I'd be neglectful if I didn't also mention the movie, Knockin' on Heaven's Door. Normally I'd give it its own separate review, but as excellent as this movie is, it is essentially just a feature-length episode of the series, fitting in somewhere between some of the last episodes, before Ed and Ein leave the ship. It takes place on Mars and features a plot about a terrorist who is releasing a deadly virus and generally making a huge nuisance of himself. Naturally, he gets a bounty on his head, and this is where our crew comes in. It is a very good movie and addition to the series. In fact, it was so good that even my dad, who didn't really care for the series or anime in general, liked this movie. So while I can't really say much more about this movie than I already did about the series, I can't recommend that you see it more. It makes an excellent addition to the series, and even if you haven't seen the series yet, you could probably still get into it even if you won't know who the characters really are or why there's a colony on Mars. I highly recommend this series and its movie. Cowboy Bebop is currently in my number 2 spot of my favorite animes, so that should tell you something even if my review doesn't convey just how awesome this series is. Seriously, just buy it if you get the chance, it is worth it. Is it perfect? You know what, it's pretty damn close. I'm not saying that it is completely without flaws, but it doesn't have any major ones I can think of. And while Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex is still my favorite, Cowboy Bebop completely avoids the face-palm worthy pitfalls that GitS:SAC had thanks to someone at Production I.G having an axe to grind. Cowboy Bebop has no axe to grind, it simply wants to introduce you to some interesting characters and tell you their stories. So based on merit alone, I actually rank Cowboy Bebop higher than my current personal favorite, giving it one of the few if not the only 10/10 rankings that I will ever give. |
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Captain X
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Coyote Ragtime Show
(12 episode OVA) This was actually a pretty good anime; fun to watch, with a good pace, entertaining storyline, and interesting characters. This show reminded me a lot of Firefly, or at least aspects of it did - a sci-fi action following a small ship and its crew of misfits looking for the next big payoff. In other ways, it reminded me of Chiko, both in how there was one under-aged girl traveling around with a band of thieves and acting as their cook (you know, since she's a girl). This show wasn't good in the normal sense –it wasn't some deep, thoughtful drama or anything- but what it had was a lot of over the top action and never bothered to take itself all that seriously. Basically this is the kind of show you'd want to watch for some mindless entertainment. There is a lot going on, and it's one wild ride, but while it would have been easy for this show to get bogged down with politics or some other kind of message, that was mostly averted. There was some, but it wasn't as in your face as in other animes I've seen, and it thankfully wasn't the focus or even integral to the story. Otherwise, this show has a lot to enjoy and laugh at, like say the killer androids that look like cutesy anime girls dressed in Victorian goth style clothing, laughing gleefully as they slaughter people by the dozen. There's also plenty to keep gun geeks entertained, as the people who made this probably crammed as many as they thought possible into this short series. There's also a certain romanticism of piracy present in this show, which is what the name "coyote" is supposed to be standing in for, given the context. That makes it a little more amusing considering the people who are actually called coyotes tend to actually be pretty bad people. The pirate theme is still played through pretty thoroughly, including a scene in a pirate-themed bar, with pirate music playing in the background before the big bar fight breaks out. Then there were the bad guys, who looked like more modern versions of the soldiers in Jin-Roh, yet somehow made me still think of the faceless Cobra mooks from G.I. Joe. Despite absurdities being present, it was pretty much all acknowledged in a kind of tongue-in-cheek manner and played for laughs from what I could tell. About the only things I didn't much care for was the female inspector, Angelica, constantly chasing the coyote simply referred to as Mister, the protagonist of the show. She did add a little to the show, but naturally she ended up being played as secretly being in love with the over-the-top pirate. She also was played as a voracious eater, which I guess is supposed to be funny, but really wasn't. Also not funny was her partner, Chelsea, who while supposedly being a police officer, was actually so stupid she couldn't read much above a grade-schooler's level. Those are the only real down-sides to this show, and it was mostly just fun. I'm definitely adding this to my list of favorites. 8/10. |
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Captain X
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Cromartie High School
(26 episode series) It isn't very often that I get to finish an entire series in a single day, even if it's one of my days off. Of course it helps when each episode is only about 10 minutes long. I'm not really sure how to describe this series, other than that it goes out of its way to be as over the top as possible, and that it's both hilarious and awesome because of it. A lot of shows will make fun of themselves or other shows like them, so in that way this series isn't any different with them, but it's still pretty good. It touches on a lot of subjects, including the anime fandom, the manga vs. anime argument(s), and stupid things like getting into arguments on the internet. There are also times the show actually gets thoughtful and discusses things somewhat seriously, usually to comedic effect. In a way, it's kind of like South Park ... but not really, that's just the closest comparison I can make. Other than that, I can't really describe why this show is awesome and hilarious, so I suggest you watch it for yourself if you want to know why. I'm going to give this an A/Z. |
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Captain X
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Cybersix
(12 episode series) This was actually more like 12 episodes of disappointment. I'd read some things about this series that made it sound promising (you mean you can't believe everything you read on the internet?), and the opening sequence even made it look like it was in the same vein as Batman, only with a cybernetic chick in a stripperiffic costume. Even the first episode made it look more interesting than that, because the "hero" of the show was actually going around hunting the bad guy's Frankenstein-looking henchmen so she could feed on them (sort of) in order to survive. So really there was potential there for a kind of anti-hero who wasn't fighting crime, but was instead only incidentally foiling the plans of the bad guy through her interference. Unfortunately all of this potential for awesomeness vanished before the first episode was even over, and it quickly became apparent that this show was aimed at an even younger age group than Batman, the Animated Series. Oh, sure, there's some humor derived from that, given that the Cybersix is basically a Clark Kent, only instead of just glasses, she also brushes her hair slightly differently, and dresses up like a nerdy high school literature teacher (though the high school looks more like a stereotypical university). There's also the humorously stereotypical way some Japanese characters were drawn, especially as this series was animated by a Japanese company. Yes, there are those things, but it wasn't enough to make me overcome the boredom I felt watching this series, and since most of the humor is the type you would find in an American Saturday morning cartoon aimed at the kiddies, well, if anything this show is actually slightly bad instead of just staying safely within "meh" territory. If anything, the more mature elements that were apparently left in from the source comic book series seem to be more like artifacts from that source, or maybe a parental bonus at best. Not really worth it to watch, and frankly, I'm surprised I put up with it for the six episodes I did watch. 2/10. |
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Captain X
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Cyborg 009: Legend of the Super Galaxy
(1980 movie) You know all those stereotypes about anime and sci-fi (especially the two mixed together) everyone loves to make fun of? This movie has pretty much all of them: a horribly bad English dub with laughable dialog, a retardedly stupid plot that's just full of holes, characters that know everything despite just encountering something or someone or leaping to conclusions that happen to be right, and a really dated appearance and soundtrack. Speaking of appearance, it was made by the same people who made 009-1, so it has about the same character design, which is a bit cartoonish and looks like something from the '70s. Of course in this case it pretty much was from the '70s. As for the plot, well, some big bad wants to conquer the universe, and it's up to our plucky group of cyborgs and their alien friend to stop him. Along the way, a lot of time is made for the cyborgs to angst about being war machines despite wanting to live peaceful lives, and other such clumsy attempts at drama. Oh, and one of the cyborgs is an infant who can levitate, talk, and has telepathy. As you can tell by my lack of any real effort on this review, I don't really want to waste much time writing it, which should tell you that you don't want to waste time watching this movie. It might be good to watch to make fun of, and it would probably be improved with a Rifftrax, but other than that, it pretty much just sucks. 0/10. |
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Captain X
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Well, I see this one being pimped now, and I can't help but lament the fact that a show like this would get a dub ahead of shows like The Daughter of Twenty Faces and Higurashi Season 2. But hey, there are tits (never fully uncovered) and panty shots, so I'm sure they figure something like this will sell, and the sad thing is that they're probably right.
High School of the Dead (12 episode series) Ever wonder what it'd be like if Japan did its own version of a zombie movie? Well, this is pretty much it. Like most modern zombie shows, it constantly refers to zombie movies and has fun with the fourth wall. But then, it never really does seem to take itself all that seriously, and a lot of that has to do with the massive amount of fan service the show has. Not only do all of the women who end up surviving have large breasts, but at least once every few minutes we see them bounce around in an exaggerated fashion and/or a panty shot of some kind. So shots like this are very common, right from the first few minutes of the show. 
Even the occasional zombie gets this treatment. Other than that, the only real difference from most zombie shows is the flashy way in which zombies are dealt with, and how quickly people who are bitten die and become zombies themselves. There also seems to be a mix between the classic shamblers and the more modern sprinting variety. There's also the way the world apparently isn't satisfied with how quickly the world is ending, so a bunch of world powers decide to nuke each other. Other than that, it's a fairly typical story about how our main characters have to balance hardening themselves so they can survive without becoming completely inhuman themselves, contrasting this with other survivors. Believe it or not, that story was actually somewhat interesting, enough so that I actually marathonned this overnight when I had only intended to watch an episode or two before turning in for the night. The only real disappointment there was that the story didn't really end, and it's doubtful it ever will get an ending, at least in anime form from what I hear. It takes getting past all the blatant fan service and the harem aspect of this series to really enjoy it, but the show doesn't make that easy. In the first few episodes, it goes as far as to use silly cartoon sound effects for the busty nurse's various parts as they bounce around. The opening titles also let you know what the show's real focus is, so it's easy to tell that the show isn't really taking itself seriously the way most other zombie shows do. At first it made me laugh, but after a while it just made me roll my eyes, and this is coming from someone who actually kind of likes fan service. Still, I couldn't help but be reminded of Divergence Eve, which had a sci-fi plot that might have otherwise been taken somewhat seriously, but instead focuses on fan service. As for the characters, there isn't a whole lot to say about them. The leader of the group and the protagonist of the show is Takashi Komuro. He's the "average" high school student with the typical drama issues when the zombie apocalypse first arrives at his school. He's also the apparent romantic interest of pretty much every female survivor in his group, except for the token loli they rescue along the way. In fact, the only other dude in the group is a gun nerd, who's there to make gun nerds feel good about how useful their knowledge would be during a situation like this, and to help the show pander its other form of fan service – guns. Other than that, there isn't much interesting about the characters specifically, aside from the one who apparently gets turned on by violence. Yes, at one point while slaughtering zombies, they actually have her inform the audience that she's wet. At some points the characters are somewhat sympathetic because of everything that's going on, but at others the characters, in particular the female characters, are just bitchy and annoying. If you like fan service and you like zombie movies, you'll probably like this series. If not, you'll probably just find this show every bit as obnoxious as it is. 5/10. |
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Captain X
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Cyborg 009: The Cyborg Soldier
(51 episode series) Probably the most notable thing about this series is that it does a fairly decent job of blending the old character designs with a more modern visual direction. A "darker and edgier" reboot, I'm afraid I don't have any real basis for comparison other than the 1980 movie I reviewed not that long ago. Compared to that, there is quite a bit of difference, first and foremost that there aren't any aliens or secret evil plans to conquer the entire universe. Instead, a secret evil mercenary group plots to keep the world at war with itself so it can make money and because it just gets off on that kind of thing. The big bad of this series also bears a striking resemblance to Darth Vader, albeit actually somewhat more comical in appearance (almost friendly-looking, if it wasn't for the ruthless killing part). As I tried to watch this, giving it the requisite 3 episodes to sort itself out, I couldn't help but feel that this series was aimed at a younger age group due to the abundance of some rather immature humor. I tried to get into this series, I guess because I was hoping that it was at least as good as 009-1 or Casshern Sins, but while those series weren't much above okay, they did have something to keep me just interested enough to keep watching. This series, however, lacked any real draw that I could get into. I might not have been as quick to give up on it if it had been shorter, but I'm just not willing to sit through 50+ episodes that might all be just as boring as the first 3 episodes. So I guess I'll pass on this one, but throw it a bone for at least trying to do something: 1/10. |
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Captain X
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Dante's Inferno
(2010 movie) This was a pretty good movie with a coherent if basic plot, considering that it was made using quite a few different animation studios. I've seen this kind of work before with Halo Legends and Gotham Knight, but this is the first time I've seen all of the different segments edited together as one story – the others were collections of shorts each animation studio produced. So this movie is impressive in that way. Story-wise, it was a pretty basic premise of a crusading knight going quite literally to hell in order to save the soul of the woman he loved. So basically it was a visually impressive hack n' slash, without much depth. Famous names were dropped and ancient Greek myths were shoe-horned into the Christian view of hell. Yeah, you could say I was a bit turned off by the viewpoint being presented. The movie did try to make up for this by pointing out that the Crusaders were a bunch of hypocrites, and that the holier-than-thou protagonist was one of the worst sinners in hell, but it was still selling a viewpoint on religion I just really can't agree with. As for the characters, the fall-back to a lack of a story, well, not much depth here either, but I didn't really expect that much from an action-oriented movie. There were some occasional tales of woe and attempts at drama, but I didn't really get into it. Don't get me wrong, though, I'm not coming down all that hard on this movie. I didn't like it, but I didn't exactly dislike it either. Confused? Well, I like it as a kind of guilty pleasure, because it's full of action-packed ass-kicking. It might be worth a watch if blood and gore and the like aren't going to upset you, because this movie seems to go out of its way to gross you out. But if you want some mindless action and don't expect much out of this movie, I'd say go for it. 4/10. |
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Captain X
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Daphne in the Brilliant Blue
(26 episode series) It was clear from the title sequence that this series was pretty much just about fan service. Basically it's a lot like Burn Up Excess – a group of women fighting crime for money while wearing as little as possible. There's even a loud mouth, violent, lazy blonde who's perpetually in debt. That might mean I'd actually like it, except that it actually tends to be a bit boring to watch, and what comedy there is just isn't really all that funny. I'm a little surprised to say this, but for all the fan service, I just don't find much interesting about this series, at least not enough to watch the whole series. Hell, I was getting so bored watching this series, I started doing some other writing as I let it play in the background. At first I thought it might be something akin to a space opera, only underwater with the elite ocean agency the main character was trying to get into in the first episode. But as it turned out it was basically just another girl cop show like every other one I've seen. By now I guess I'm just bored with them. 3/10. |
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Captain X
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Dead Leaves
(2004 movie) As I write this, I'm still trying to figure out just what the hell it is that I watched. No, really, I have no idea. Considering what I've come to expect from Production I.G, the visual direction was very abstract, and well, I really don't understand what the plot was supposed to be about. Basically it has the same kind of gross-out humor as Super Jail (and vague memories of Cool World), with the kind of "what the frak am I watching?" style of FLCL's storytelling. I think the movie was poking fun, but I'm not sure what at exactly. There are guns and explosions, a hot chick, a dude with a TV for a head, and a guy with a giant drill penis all trapped in a prison in the tattered remains of the moon. I really don't know how else to explain the movie. I mean, honestly, as messed up and confusing as it was, FLCL still made more sense than this movie. Don't get me wrong, it does have a kind of appeal, as in something to laugh hysterically at that doesn't make any real sense. I bet watching it drunk would be even more fun. In any case, I can't really rate this movie higher than a 4/10. |
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Captain X
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Dead Space: Aftermath
(2011 movie) I'm afraid I have to start this out by saying that even though the "so okay it's average" nature of the first Dead Space movie made me not really expect all that much out of this movie, I still came away disappointed. And it's not even that this movie sucks so much as there is basically nothing of substance to it. We start the movie by seeing some random military ship dock with a derelict ship named the USG O'Bannon, which is in orbit of what's left of the planet we saw the USG Ishimura carve up in the first movie in order to recover some odd alien artifact they call "the marker" which makes most of the crew go batshit insane and kill most of their fellow crew members so some flying sting ray can turn them into alien zombies. The O'Bannon, as we soon see, suffers much the same fate, having been disabled when the planet went all Genesis on them and it failed to get away, lacking the ability to jump to warp like a certain Klingon Bird of Prey. No one can blame them, though, because there was just no Kirk or Scotty to be found, even though the captain was himself Scottish. The somewhat amusing aspect to this opening sequence is that the faceless marines that board the O'Bannon actually seem to be somewhat concerned for the loss of life they see around them, and it actually looks like they're there to rescue the four survivors they find, right before one of them kills their supposed would-be rescuers. I find this amusing, because Dead Space is all about some vast conspiracy between a cultish religion, the government, a large mining corporation, and military which wants to get the alien marker so it can basically end the world, so sayith the church's scriptures. This is easily Dead Space's greatest weakness, mainly because it's so clichéd that it makes me roll my eyes, since it essentially comes off as cheap pot shots at whoever made this franchise sees as evil, namely religion, corporations, the government, and the military. Where this movie is concerned, the amusing aspect comes from the fact that these few faceless marines who genuinely seem to care about the people they rescued for the most part must be the only ones on board who aren't part of the evil conspiracy, and they probably got sucked out into space when the most insane of the survivors thought he'd just go outside and join the hallucination of his dead daughter. SyFy recently replayed Dead Space: Downfall to celebrate the release of Dead Space 2 along with this hour-long ad for it. Naturally there was plenty of praise for both by the people who made them, but one thing that was supposed to be so awesome about this movie was that it was made up of four different stories as told by the four different survivors. Naturally they showed off some short clips of the show in order to convince people to watch, and what can I say, it worked. Of course what I thought I was getting into was a decently animated mystery movie, because those four stories were said to be treated like witnesses' testimony that had to be deciphered by the rescue team so they could figure out what actually happened. That actually sounded kinda interesting, but the actual movie wasn't what the man on the TV said it would be. I know, shocking. What actually happened was that the four survivors were tortured one by one for their "testimony", which was actually just to determine if the survivor they were questioning had come into direct contact with a shard of the marker the Ishimura had found. I was also fooled into believing that this was a completely animated film, and well, technically it is, it's just that the framing sequences all the torture takes place in is computer generated, and looks about on par with the cut scenes in StarCraft, as in the first one. It really made me understand why the only clips they showed of this movie were from the traditionally animated flashback sequences, which all looked okay, I guess. The part about four different stories is actually true, though. We see most of the movie as flashback scenes during each survivor's interrogation, and as is the case with eye witness testimony, the parts where the stories overlap aren't all the same. Just to over-emphasis this, each sequence has a different animation style, which is marked by completely different character and art design – the characters, the clothes they are wearing, and the sets all look completely different in each sequence. This bothered me, but not nearly as much as how everything was a completely predictable story leading up to where the movie started. The last survivor that was interrogated even finished everything off with the clichéd, "you know the rest." The story is a lackluster rush job with lackluster characters that can't come even close to rescuing this movie by being even remotely interesting – the movie never gives them a chance to be. While the first movie actually moved a bit on the slow side to the point of being somewhat boring, this movie ties to make up for that by moving so fast that the characters are never really delved into beyond bare minimum needed to keep forcing the movie forward. As a result, there is never any reason to feel anything more than apathy toward them, or their fates. As you might guess, the evil overseer (yes, he's actually called "the overseer") sees to it that all of the survivors are either killed or meet a worse fate. One apparently shows up in the second game and ends up in a cryo-tube right next to the game's protagonist, Isaac Clarke. The other, who pulled double duty as the movie's fan service, was lobotomized and brainwashed into being the scapegoat to explain the loss of two ships and a mining colony. Cue evil cackling and the establishing shot of where the game this is a prequel of is going to take place. So as you can tell, I don't like this movie, and while it's not horrible, it definitely isn't good either. No, not even the tits it threw at me in a last desperate attempt to make me interested in it helped in the least. Despite its much too fast pacing, this movie still managed to be boring, and actually felt much longer than the hour it took to watch it. It was just another shallow zombie movie, and while I know both this and the last movie were just ads for their respective games, that doesn't excuse them from their many flaws since they're still supposed to pretend to be movies. I'm really only throwing this movie a bone because it had an interesting premise that it simply failed to live up to, and another because of the quality of the voice acting, which was an improvement over the first movie. It looks like there was some anime voice talent there, but the one I recognized the most was Christopher Judge, who you might know as Teal'c from Stargate SG-1. Here he played Nick Kuttner, a large scary black man, and the nucking futs survivor who spaced himself. It's a shame such good talent was wasted on such a bad movie. Don’t bother watching this movie – it'll leave you wishing that you had an hour of you life back. 2/10. |
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Captain X
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DearS
(13 episode series) You know, it's hard at times to separate crap that I just can't get into, and crap that I can. On the surface, this series was pretty much like Chobits or Ah! My Goddess, but whereas I hated Chobits and was barely able to keep watching Goddess, I actually liked DearS, just probably not the way one was expected to. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty on the shit list, like the whole slavery fetish, and the female protagonist/love interest being back of the short bus special, and it did annoy the hell out of me, but there was way more for me to laugh at. The humor written into it could have its moments, but really, what I was laughing at most of the time was all the stereotypical stuff I like to make fun of about anime. I mean, there was even a catgirl who constantly said "nyah". You know, the kind of stuff you would probably just think was weird if you didn't know anything at all about anime. There's just so much there, I was cracking up quite a bit. Hell, they even threw in a couple of stereotypical "cool dudes" with the lamest come-ons and innuendos I've ever heard just for fun. Of course they also threw in weird kinky S&M sex tidbits, and some of that even involved minors, and that was just so very wrong. And I never got into the whole romance plot either, even though that's basically what the whole plot was, played for laughs with the usual "shy, nerdy dude has hot chick foisted on him" stuff that's in basically every show like this. And hey, if you’re into that kind of thing, here you go. But even if you aren't, then there's plenty here to make fun of without being bored out of you mind while you wait for it. 4/10. |
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Captain X
Posts: 253 |
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Demon Fighter Kocho
(Single episode OVA) Since this OVA is pretty much all about the fan service, I wasn't expecting a whole lot out of it, and that's pretty much what I got. The story is told mostly from Kosaku's perspective, a young male college student. There is a teaser opener that plays out like pretty much every teen slasher movie you've ever seen, where a young promiscuous couple end up having bad things happen to them. We're told right afterwards that they're in the hospital and weren't actually killed, but we never see them again so it's not like it really matters. The whole rest of the story is mostly devoted to seeing Kocho naked so both Kosaku and the old man acting as their Astrology club advisor/teacher can drool over her (and subsequently get beat up by her). Just to make that angle even more fun, even though it's really obvious that Kosaku and Kocho want to hook up and the nutty professor just wants to watch, Kocho's sister shows up and literally throws herself at Kosaku. The "love triangle" bit of Kocho and her sister competing for Kosaku was obviously meant to be funny, but mostly it came off as the tiresome teenaged male fantasy that it was. Not that seeing animated boobs and camel toe doesn't just brighten up my day or anything, but the humor pretty much fell flat. Probably the only thing that got much of a chuckle out of me was when the professor had a magical girl transformation scene, complete with a black dot to cover his bits. Oh, there was also a plot going on that had something to do with the ghosts of some young master (who turns out to be really young) and his servants haunting the community college this OVA takes place at. Kocho kicks one of them in the nuts, they swing some katanas around, and that's about it. While anybody who knows me knows that I don't mind fan service at all, or a show not having much of a plot as long as it's funny, I have to admit that this OVA was kind of ... "meh". It was okay-ish, and that's about all I can sum it up as. Burn-Up W and GoldenBoy were both a lot more entertaining and had a lot more laughs despite not having much of a plot and consisting almost entirely of fan service. Demon Fighter Kocho just lacked jokes that worked very well, or characters that I could really like, even as a lovable buffoon. I'll throw it a bone though for trying and give it a 3/10. It didn't completely suck, but I wouldn't really recommend it to anyone. I guess if you do want to bother watching it, it only wastes about a half-hour of your time, so that's something. |
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Captain X
Posts: 253 |
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Desert Punk
(24 episode series) Though it is set in a post-apocalyptic future in which humanity has devastated itself and its planet, this series is in fact a comedy. An awesome, raunchy comedy. Following the exploits of Desert Punk, aka the Demon of the Desert, aka Kanta Mizuno, this series doesn't really take itself seriously, at least not until the end. Punk is shown to be competent at being a mercenary, at least at first, so much so that there are rumors that he is actually a demon and supernatural. The series starts with what have been another successful job, but thanks to his obsession and weakness for large breasted women, he slips up and lets himself get beaten by Junko Asagiri, who will turn into a recurring foil for him for the majority of the series. This is something of a turning point for Punk, as none of the rest of his jobs go well for him, and we get to watch and laugh at the results. The series itself is very episodic until the last few, with Punk and some of his fellow mercenaries being hired to do random jobs, sometimes on the same side, and sometimes on opposite sides. While the series does have its serious moments, and it doesn't rely all that much on absurdity, it still manages to be very funny. Most of this humor tends to be sexual or toilet humor, though there's also some dark humor thrown in for fun. This is also the area where the dub especially excels, because the cast really does well, and the humor is definitely more fitting for an English-speaking audience. Eric Vale is the star of the show, and for me this is the role I will always remember him for, because he is so awesome as the perverted, smug Desert Punk. Along the way, Punk picks up an apprentice named Kosuna, a young teen-aged girl who wants to become the desert's number one power babe (her words). At first Punk doesn't want to go for it, but Kosuna manages to talk him into it by showing him a picture of a busty bikini-clad woman she claims is her mother. Punk, being the pervert he is, agrees to take her on as an apprentice in what is apparently a long-term goal of getting laid by a busty babe like he's always wanted. As much as the series focuses on comedy, the episodes are all interesting in and of themselves. In some of the later episodes this actually involves learning a bit more about what happened prior to the apocalypse that created the massive desert the series takes place in. Unfortunately this also marks a turn in the series toward a more serious tone. The last few episodes in particular lose pretty much all of their humor and focus on a storyline that involves the reawakening of old weapons of mass destruction and the possibility that humanity might be finished off for good instead of just severely reduced in number like the last time it happened. Or at the very least one of the four governments existing in the desert world will get sole control over these weapons and devastate anyone who doesn't do what they want them to. So, much like Burn-Up W and Burn-Up Excess, this series is somewhat spoiled by getting a serious ending. Other than that, though, it's very good. The characters are part of what makes this series so great, too. I already mentioned what a pervert Desert Punk is, but he's also pretty believable as an expert mercenary, too. Kosuna isn't nearly as perverted, but she definitely has her moments, too, especially when it comes to hating on Junko. She also makes a pretty good apprentice, and when she ends up on her own, she does fairly well for herself as another Desert Punk with an apprentice of her own. Junko, despite being very much the Ms. Fanservice of the show is also very intelligent and uses her body and sexuality to her full advantage, but she doesn't depend on them. She makes a great foil for Desert Punk, because despite being continually fooled by her, he still sets himself up for another one of her schemes, even if he tries to take precautions against it. Plus there are some hints that she might actually like him a little. Another great foil for the Punk is Rain Spider, a fellow pervert and also an expert mercenary with a reputation for being good at what he does. Both he and Desert Punk play well off of each other. And last but not least are the Machine Gun Brothers, three of Desert Punks friends from when they were all kids and also fellow mercenaries. They aren't nearly as good as the others, but they still prove their worth from time to time. They also add a lot to the humor, and not just from being somewhat stupid. Now I have to admit, I'm somewhat at a loss for being able to describe just why I like this series or what makes it so great, so all I can do is show you this clip, which is a compilation of some of the best lines from the show at its best. I just cannot express the awesome that is this show. Just go watch it, trust me. 9/10. Oh, and have blooper reel as an added bonus. 
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