Or I read it for the plot.
The Illuminatus Trilogy- now almost always printed in an omnibus edition- are three shorter novels (The Eye of the Pyramid, The Golden Apple, and Leviathan) split into five further subdivisions of "Books" that represent the five stages of Discordian time (Which is an actual religion, who knew?), and the chapters are split into the ten sephirot.
Or known as complete nonsense wrapped up in enigma about a conspiracy with nix.
The novel is a very metafictional thing with there being shifts in tone, genre, narrator, and long diatribes about spiritualism, the Beat Generation, sexually deviant acts, and puns. A whole ton of puns.
Amid a drug fueled narrative about the island of Fernando Poo and the idea the the immanitizing the eschaton- a.k.a in layman's terms- ending the world sets up the overarching plot. It also takes on the ideas of Atlantis, the Illuminati, the Conan the Barbarian stories, the whole idea of the occult (with both the Necronomicon being a real book- along with my favorite fake university of Miskatonic and H.P. Lovecraft having a cameo of two pages.) Also the band H.P. Lovecraft does make a small appearance in one of our characters POV parts. And the JFK assassination, John Dillinger, and a cabal of Nazis that plan on using the death energy to become zombie supermen and conquer the world.
Really trying to explain this book makes me sound insane.
And James Joyce, the numbers 2,3,5, 8, 17, and 23 make a lot of appearances as well in regards to it being a book that parodies the idea of a conspiracy that has taken over the world and is so convoluted in the world structure that the leaders of the world might be tools for the Illuminati. (And possibly the same kind of person since the same paragraph was used three different times to describe the leaders of the U.S, Russia, and China.
But it begins with a bombing at a newspaper it soon devolves into science fiction, erotica, spy thriller (with a James Bond expy) a mythological farce, gangster film, art house film, and overall postmodern parody that makes its very non-segmented story both insane and dense to follow.
Very much like what House of Leaves- another favorite of mine did with the idea of footnotes and the meaning of fiction versus reality of the setting.
Just this book was written three decades before that.
The book makes Game of Thrones' sex scenes look like Kindergarten scrawls since the time period of the late 60's-70's were full of counterculture reactionary books against the older generation, so a description of a sex scene that takes two pages? Repeat that a lot. Makes sense since the writers were at one point, part of Playboy magazine. Ok. A book set ostensibly in a month time frame yet with most jumps happening whenever else? Sex scenes that happen a lot- like almost near constantly while other stories are bleeding into the narrative? Okay.
Its also about the greatest new band in the world- the American Medical Association. a sea captain/lawyer with a ship rivaling the Nautilus, fnords and whatnot.
A very weird book taking a whole long look at conspiracy and magic mystical fights against good and evil, order and balance, etc.
So what do I give this rambling book? I give it a good old 1970s/10 or the reminder that cell phones and email did not exist then.
In all semi-seriousness though, I give it a 8/10 in regards to it meeting most of my occult and storytelling interests, with a very small turn off for the Author Tracts against government and pro drug culture.
So read it maybe it you are intrigued. Its something all right.
Friday, July 18, 2014
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Connected Anime Review- Gunbuster (1988-1989) and Diebuster(2004-2006)
Now I just finished watching the most amazingly manly thing related to Studio Gainax- and it isn't Tengan Toppa Gurren Lagann. Its the two interrelated OVA specials Gunbuster the OG Gainax robot series and Diebuster its spiritual (and actual) sequel thanks yet again to time dilation in regards to lightspeed travel) Note: I have not seen the anime film Gunbuster vs. Diebuster but I believe that I do not have to- both series ended on a bittersweet note that blew my mind how GAR they were.
Note 2: Thanks to Urbandictionary's first result (as of June 24,2014) GAR is "A term used towards male characters and individuals who are so overwhelmingly manly that your own masculinity is absolutely *buried*, leaving you naught but a whimpering, swooning girl-child before them." Now that sounds sexist- because series do not need to have many- if at all male main characters and it still can be awesome.
Now going into the original Gunbuster I had literally no idea what I was going in for besides the fact that it was the directorial debut of my personal anime director hero Hideaki Anno. (As seen with my constant extolling Neon Genesis Evangelion with Pacific Rim for example- though the anime was my first real foray into actual anime that wasn't Sailor Moon or DBZ) And that there was the first recorded instance of the "Gainax Bounce" or Gainaxing where the animating of certain parts of the female anatomy got particularly bouncy. Which really got the fanservice genre going with bouncy fun for decades to come. I still think this is the best though since it is reasonable size and isn't the complete utter focus of the show.
What I didn't know- The protagonist of Aim For The Top! Gunbuster! (The actual full title of the OVA) seemed to combine the early Gundam series- which I plan on watching next- Macross, and surprisingly sports/highschool anime and Top Gun.
Cause when you have Top Gun with young females and giant freaking robots- and uncensored nudity (which actually surprised me a little since not many anime shows of the current generation get away with that- since ever relegated to Original Video Animations (OVAs- since they go straight to video for the most part and anime big screen movies because of the ratings system- most animes don't touch complete nudity with the actual anatomical upper half of females.
So episode 2's extended naked bathing scene was unexpected in regards to current standards in anime.
And surprisingly I found parallels to both Neon Genesis Evangelion and Gurren Lagann. Here me out on this. The main character, who is a female, is in my eyes- an early version of Neon Genesis Evangelion's Shinji Ikari- her facial structure, general brown haired-ness, and first general inexperience with robot maneuvering is classic Shinji- and there are psychological breakdown moments with Noriko and her partner in piloting Gunbuster- Kazumi. But here's the kicker- the awesome battles that Gunbuster is known for (ironically Gunbuster is known as a ridiculous powerhouse in terms of kill count and yet the eponymous robot doesn't show up until episode 4 of the 6 part series) That's like saying that the Gundams in Gundam don't show up until episode 30 in their series. And yet it makes sense- the dang power of the thing and size of 250m (at the time, one of, of not the largest robot in the Super Robot Genre and ease of kills- shooting a ridiculous amount of lasers and cutting swathes of enemies down. Also it is proto Gurren Lagann since the trainer "Coach" Ohta (voiced by Norio Wakamoto- of such roles as the voice of Cell and Charles vi Britannia- and who's been in the voice acting business so long that he's pretty iconic in Japan for Chuck Norris Levels of general awesomeness- I am not kidding.) constantly goes with statements that seem to reind me of Kamina's speeches in Gurren. Also the later episodes of Gunbuster have such beautiful moments as stopping billions of monsters by shooting a ridiculous number of lasers and having Earth send a ginormous black hole bomb made from the entirety of Jupiter condensed down.
They use a black hole bomb and Gunbuster is created by combining two robots- not original since that had started to catch on in the genre- but yeah- Gurren Lagann type stuff here. And surprisingly most of the anime is nowhere near this amazing since a lot of it sets up the world building aspect.
Alsi there's an early version of Asuka Langley Sorhyu/ Shikinami thanks to those Rebuild of Evangelion films- in the character of Jung Freud- that is her name. And she has the red hair, different nationality (Soviet Russian- even though the series is set in 2015-2050s for the most part- instead of German and her attitude is cocksure and 'genius.'
And unlike Eva, the length of the series (6 episodes instead of 26) the budget is spend overall much better than the later series that is much more well known, The piece de resistance in that regard is the final episode, which outside of the time skip in the last few minutes, is animated in complete black and white and filmed on color film- which makes it possible for the end switch to color. This was actually really jarring to me because while I do love Eva- it's last two episodes are some of my least favorite. And yet Gunbuster was beautifully animated there.
So should you watch it? Depends- if you don't like nudity and 1980's versions of common tropes with the animation style of the late 80's- might not be for you. But I give it the OG seal of approval in regards to Gainax's other works in the genre and give in a 8.8/10- mainly because of themes of time dilation and coping with that fact and giant manly robots piloted by females.
Now on to the sequel- Diebuster- set 12 thousand years after most of the events of the first Gunbuster (the two OVAs do entwine in the last few minutes of this film.) Now update Gainax's crazy into the new millennium and make it right around the time that FLCL came out and before Gurren Lagann and that pile of crazy.
Pretty much its FLCL meets Gurren Lagann- which is not entirely a bad thing- with how the main characters Lar'C (spelling is up for debate) and Nono are our replacements and similar characters from Gunbuster.
So the setting is all FLCL- weird goofy looking monsters, desert like Mars. Shout Outs to FLCL (Vespa, the entire plot about losing powers when you hit puberty) Gurren Lagann gives the giant robots (Nono is actually the Solar System defense system put in a robot body. And she's Diebuster- though that is her large form. And she can create mini black holes, teleport, and pretty much wreck any enemy's day- except this development got the Gunbuster treatment and this fact didn't come out much until episode 4. And she's really goofy.
Actually a whole lot of the plot happens in the later half of the series. I do have to give the special props for colors and overall amazing battle scenes. Except for one thing: the Conspicuous CG that plagues the series (Gunbuster was all animated and I prefer the completely animated style because in a way it doesn't date itself- CG looks bad after a decade or two when looking back in hindsight.
And pretty much Diebuster is Gunbuster for the modern anime viewer- we get thrown into action, sadly there is a short attempted rape scene which came out of nowhere and blindsided me in episode 5- Nono gets almost raped by a now useless member of Topless- the mental power users (There is a reference to the original where the especially awesome moments with robots had the MC rip her shirt and not wear a bra because the robot followed all of their movements. That happens twice (Episode 1 and 6)
And the super huge monster that they fight by throwing Titan at it- didn't work- spamming mini black holes, and trying to ram the Earth into the monster- to name a few ridiculous moments in the show. Said monster uses the scream that Ramiel uses in the Rebuild of Evangelion movies.
Is Diebuster as good as Gunbuster? Yes and no- I love the characters of Lar'C and Nono- but I was never a huge fan of either FLCL or Gurren Lagann- Gurren Lagann's too one upmanship on themselves and FLCL is really confusing without much of a plot that makes sense outside of maybe an abstract thought on adolescence. In Diebuster, I found the perfect medium of crazy modern Gainax and a nice, quiet show in terms of hype level- Diebuster is not well known (none of my friends seem to know it) and Gunbuster is one of the studio's first works as a professional studio. I give Diebuster a 7.2/10- mainly because the CG was a bit dated and a lot of the technology was never explained- and until the last few minutes of the final episode- there was little chance of connection to how this fit into Gunbuster's 12,000 year timeline due to the time dilation. And it felt too much like FLCL for my liking.
Note 2: Thanks to Urbandictionary's first result (as of June 24,2014) GAR is "A term used towards male characters and individuals who are so overwhelmingly manly that your own masculinity is absolutely *buried*, leaving you naught but a whimpering, swooning girl-child before them." Now that sounds sexist- because series do not need to have many- if at all male main characters and it still can be awesome.
Now going into the original Gunbuster I had literally no idea what I was going in for besides the fact that it was the directorial debut of my personal anime director hero Hideaki Anno. (As seen with my constant extolling Neon Genesis Evangelion with Pacific Rim for example- though the anime was my first real foray into actual anime that wasn't Sailor Moon or DBZ) And that there was the first recorded instance of the "Gainax Bounce" or Gainaxing where the animating of certain parts of the female anatomy got particularly bouncy. Which really got the fanservice genre going with bouncy fun for decades to come. I still think this is the best though since it is reasonable size and isn't the complete utter focus of the show.
What I didn't know- The protagonist of Aim For The Top! Gunbuster! (The actual full title of the OVA) seemed to combine the early Gundam series- which I plan on watching next- Macross, and surprisingly sports/highschool anime and Top Gun.
Cause when you have Top Gun with young females and giant freaking robots- and uncensored nudity (which actually surprised me a little since not many anime shows of the current generation get away with that- since ever relegated to Original Video Animations (OVAs- since they go straight to video for the most part and anime big screen movies because of the ratings system- most animes don't touch complete nudity with the actual anatomical upper half of females.
So episode 2's extended naked bathing scene was unexpected in regards to current standards in anime.
And surprisingly I found parallels to both Neon Genesis Evangelion and Gurren Lagann. Here me out on this. The main character, who is a female, is in my eyes- an early version of Neon Genesis Evangelion's Shinji Ikari- her facial structure, general brown haired-ness, and first general inexperience with robot maneuvering is classic Shinji- and there are psychological breakdown moments with Noriko and her partner in piloting Gunbuster- Kazumi. But here's the kicker- the awesome battles that Gunbuster is known for (ironically Gunbuster is known as a ridiculous powerhouse in terms of kill count and yet the eponymous robot doesn't show up until episode 4 of the 6 part series) That's like saying that the Gundams in Gundam don't show up until episode 30 in their series. And yet it makes sense- the dang power of the thing and size of 250m (at the time, one of, of not the largest robot in the Super Robot Genre and ease of kills- shooting a ridiculous amount of lasers and cutting swathes of enemies down. Also it is proto Gurren Lagann since the trainer "Coach" Ohta (voiced by Norio Wakamoto- of such roles as the voice of Cell and Charles vi Britannia- and who's been in the voice acting business so long that he's pretty iconic in Japan for Chuck Norris Levels of general awesomeness- I am not kidding.) constantly goes with statements that seem to reind me of Kamina's speeches in Gurren. Also the later episodes of Gunbuster have such beautiful moments as stopping billions of monsters by shooting a ridiculous number of lasers and having Earth send a ginormous black hole bomb made from the entirety of Jupiter condensed down.
They use a black hole bomb and Gunbuster is created by combining two robots- not original since that had started to catch on in the genre- but yeah- Gurren Lagann type stuff here. And surprisingly most of the anime is nowhere near this amazing since a lot of it sets up the world building aspect.
Alsi there's an early version of Asuka Langley Sorhyu/ Shikinami thanks to those Rebuild of Evangelion films- in the character of Jung Freud- that is her name. And she has the red hair, different nationality (Soviet Russian- even though the series is set in 2015-2050s for the most part- instead of German and her attitude is cocksure and 'genius.'
And unlike Eva, the length of the series (6 episodes instead of 26) the budget is spend overall much better than the later series that is much more well known, The piece de resistance in that regard is the final episode, which outside of the time skip in the last few minutes, is animated in complete black and white and filmed on color film- which makes it possible for the end switch to color. This was actually really jarring to me because while I do love Eva- it's last two episodes are some of my least favorite. And yet Gunbuster was beautifully animated there.
So should you watch it? Depends- if you don't like nudity and 1980's versions of common tropes with the animation style of the late 80's- might not be for you. But I give it the OG seal of approval in regards to Gainax's other works in the genre and give in a 8.8/10- mainly because of themes of time dilation and coping with that fact and giant manly robots piloted by females.
Now on to the sequel- Diebuster- set 12 thousand years after most of the events of the first Gunbuster (the two OVAs do entwine in the last few minutes of this film.) Now update Gainax's crazy into the new millennium and make it right around the time that FLCL came out and before Gurren Lagann and that pile of crazy.
Pretty much its FLCL meets Gurren Lagann- which is not entirely a bad thing- with how the main characters Lar'C (spelling is up for debate) and Nono are our replacements and similar characters from Gunbuster.
So the setting is all FLCL- weird goofy looking monsters, desert like Mars. Shout Outs to FLCL (Vespa, the entire plot about losing powers when you hit puberty) Gurren Lagann gives the giant robots (Nono is actually the Solar System defense system put in a robot body. And she's Diebuster- though that is her large form. And she can create mini black holes, teleport, and pretty much wreck any enemy's day- except this development got the Gunbuster treatment and this fact didn't come out much until episode 4. And she's really goofy.
Actually a whole lot of the plot happens in the later half of the series. I do have to give the special props for colors and overall amazing battle scenes. Except for one thing: the Conspicuous CG that plagues the series (Gunbuster was all animated and I prefer the completely animated style because in a way it doesn't date itself- CG looks bad after a decade or two when looking back in hindsight.
And pretty much Diebuster is Gunbuster for the modern anime viewer- we get thrown into action, sadly there is a short attempted rape scene which came out of nowhere and blindsided me in episode 5- Nono gets almost raped by a now useless member of Topless- the mental power users (There is a reference to the original where the especially awesome moments with robots had the MC rip her shirt and not wear a bra because the robot followed all of their movements. That happens twice (Episode 1 and 6)
And the super huge monster that they fight by throwing Titan at it- didn't work- spamming mini black holes, and trying to ram the Earth into the monster- to name a few ridiculous moments in the show. Said monster uses the scream that Ramiel uses in the Rebuild of Evangelion movies.
Is Diebuster as good as Gunbuster? Yes and no- I love the characters of Lar'C and Nono- but I was never a huge fan of either FLCL or Gurren Lagann- Gurren Lagann's too one upmanship on themselves and FLCL is really confusing without much of a plot that makes sense outside of maybe an abstract thought on adolescence. In Diebuster, I found the perfect medium of crazy modern Gainax and a nice, quiet show in terms of hype level- Diebuster is not well known (none of my friends seem to know it) and Gunbuster is one of the studio's first works as a professional studio. I give Diebuster a 7.2/10- mainly because the CG was a bit dated and a lot of the technology was never explained- and until the last few minutes of the final episode- there was little chance of connection to how this fit into Gunbuster's 12,000 year timeline due to the time dilation. And it felt too much like FLCL for my liking.
Saturday, June 21, 2014
Just watched Pupa- I am livid. Literally the worst let down I have even seen in an anime.
So I do like the horror/ gore genres a lot. Crazy I know.
So I would think that an adaptation of a horror/ gore manga would be radical. And I am more disappointed in this anime than when I watched the Fire Emblem anime. And I thought that was bad- not because of how much I love Fire Emblem- but because it was left unfinished and never completed and was actually good.
And this anime adaptation was the most infuriating thing I have even seen- I sometimes have awful taste in anime- but this is just. . .pitiful. Said anime adaptation was one of my "hype" lists of the past anime cycle (Winter/Spring? 2014) and this anime was rated awesome because of that NC-17 rating it had. But it was full of let down.
Let me explain. The plot (from the anime) is that somehow this sister and brother pair get infected with a virus from red butterflies (maybe? never explained) that turns her into a cool demon monster thing and him into super healing man and her food source (I would say either Deadpool or Wolverine- even Sabertooth because of their healing factor but that would make me hate myself for equating good characterization with whatever Pupa got.) Oh and said brother and sister seem to have a romantic interest in each other since an entire 4 minute episode is dedicated to the sister eating the brother. And sadly it probably is secretly sexual since repeated times they say how pleasurable it is to be eaten by their sibling and episode 11 ended with an inner monologue about how cute and adult the little sister was after she did her latest feeding- and how they didn't need anyone else. I watched an incest anime covered in terrible mockery of gore. Well *^&$. Also I think it is an allegory about how menstruation is super violent or something- the monster is terrifying and entirely blood red and explodes painfully from female protagonists uterus area- also it would explain some of the more creepy lines of the anime and fake out sexual sounding situations.
So she kills her brother and goes back to being a cute anime girl- with weird psychological problems since as far as I could tell from this jumbled mess of a twelve episode series- she might not have been human from birth and has a strange healing factor as well and she was creepy as a baby- score one for creepy children.
And we also have a creepy scarred female researcher who looks kinda like that cat wizard from Soul Eater- so that was different and she has no morals seeing everything as her test tube. Cue episode 7? 8? where she becomes the surrogate mother to the two protagonists love child that they do not know exists and is never brought up again- because the now very pregnant researcher is never seen in the show again.
And there's this shadow medical subplot and a ridiculous amount of teddy bears- yeah for some reason most of the time when we see into the main characters heads- they see themselves as creepy teeth having, talking, almost insane teddy bears. I think there's a message somewhere about how innocence can be perverted by abuse or something. And the girls monster form which burst out of her chest was refreshing and freaked me out a bit- we get to see it for maybe for mostly the first three episodes if that and a kinda transformation that gives said almost adorable anime girl red spindle stabby things out of her back to own on episode 10. So I thought that was cool. The first three episodes are sadly the best. Outside of maybe episode 5- where the backstory on the birth of the protagonists are shown- albeit quickly.
This anime is incomprehensible- besides the three characters we get- there's the abusive father and maybe insane mother (though when you pull a Richard the Third and give birth to a baby who has all its teeth, strange wanting to kill you, and inability to die- at one point the mom tries to kill her daughter with a box cutter- to not much effect- you would go nuts. There's also the researchers aides, a crazy guy that beats the protagonists to see their powers, the medical conspiracy guys who perform a autopsy of the boy while alive because of his healing powers, and random filler people that show for the sake of the plot of episode 12- I am not kidding. Episode 12 is pointless. Literally it has no connection to episode 11- therefore ending waste of time anime with a cliff hanger and no explanation of major plot points and. Episode 12 is a vignette about how the two protagonists got similar looking hair clips. And it is just infuriating because it just makes no sense in context- Why do we need to know that? Was the brother's entire reason to risk being eaten in Episode 3 because
This anime should have been good, cool premise, decent animation, supposedly gory premise and actual nudity- though short lived and nowhere near that bad of nudity, cool opening theme and ending themes- so beside its near incomprehensible sound bite story that is told out of order to where I can't follow and asked constantly "What's going on? Who's that guy? What the infection?"
Its because of two major things: First, the series is like a mature 4koma anime- not in intent because there is a plot somewhere and not just skits that kinda make sense in order- but because of the length of the episodes.
Said 12 episode anime took me an hour to watch- and most of that was because the site I was watching it on was down for ten minutes. Each episode in total is a four minute mess- and a good quarter of that is the opening and ending themes.
Most animes are 25ish minutes an episode.
Next is that the studio probably was a ick to the animation budget- multiple animes are created every year and sometimes the piles of money go somewhere nicer looking. And Studio Deen **** all over this by literally censoring the NC-17 material by the worst censor job I've ever seen. Sometimes on the gory or incest pervy shots- its visually incomprehensible because it looks like some censor took a paintbush in either black or white and just swiped over the offending gore. Or did an animation lens flare. And other times (like in Episode 10 for example) there is no major censoring- though the gore is laughable- intestines look like a mess of purple squiggles and blood looks completely utterly fake.
Score: 2/10- the cool couple of episodes save this incomprehensible mess. This anime had no room to breathe and just felt unfinished and an insult to the manga- which I looked at a few pages and it makes was more sense- and I jumped around as much as the anime did. Suggestion: Read the manga- probably make more sense and be less ****.
Recommendations for similar violent NC-17ish, or more adult themed anime- the Blood the Last Vampire series (includes Blood+ and Blood-C series), anything Hellsing, Elfen Lied- even that makes more sense-, Witchblade anime for nudity and a way better story-romance- and one of the few times that a Western property was adapted (before the Marvel comics animes of course) etc.
Similar manga in themes- Read Pupa of course, for an extremely disturbing take on what amount of body horror and gore I wanted- read Junji Ito's mangas- though I am warning you its not for the faint hearted. Also Soul Eater because of similar mad scientist tropes.
When I give you multiple ways to not watch this abomination- I am saying DO NOT watch this pile of crap.
So I would think that an adaptation of a horror/ gore manga would be radical. And I am more disappointed in this anime than when I watched the Fire Emblem anime. And I thought that was bad- not because of how much I love Fire Emblem- but because it was left unfinished and never completed and was actually good.
And this anime adaptation was the most infuriating thing I have even seen- I sometimes have awful taste in anime- but this is just. . .pitiful. Said anime adaptation was one of my "hype" lists of the past anime cycle (Winter/Spring? 2014) and this anime was rated awesome because of that NC-17 rating it had. But it was full of let down.
Let me explain. The plot (from the anime) is that somehow this sister and brother pair get infected with a virus from red butterflies (maybe? never explained) that turns her into a cool demon monster thing and him into super healing man and her food source (I would say either Deadpool or Wolverine- even Sabertooth because of their healing factor but that would make me hate myself for equating good characterization with whatever Pupa got.) Oh and said brother and sister seem to have a romantic interest in each other since an entire 4 minute episode is dedicated to the sister eating the brother. And sadly it probably is secretly sexual since repeated times they say how pleasurable it is to be eaten by their sibling and episode 11 ended with an inner monologue about how cute and adult the little sister was after she did her latest feeding- and how they didn't need anyone else. I watched an incest anime covered in terrible mockery of gore. Well *^&$. Also I think it is an allegory about how menstruation is super violent or something- the monster is terrifying and entirely blood red and explodes painfully from female protagonists uterus area- also it would explain some of the more creepy lines of the anime and fake out sexual sounding situations.
So she kills her brother and goes back to being a cute anime girl- with weird psychological problems since as far as I could tell from this jumbled mess of a twelve episode series- she might not have been human from birth and has a strange healing factor as well and she was creepy as a baby- score one for creepy children.
And we also have a creepy scarred female researcher who looks kinda like that cat wizard from Soul Eater- so that was different and she has no morals seeing everything as her test tube. Cue episode 7? 8? where she becomes the surrogate mother to the two protagonists love child that they do not know exists and is never brought up again- because the now very pregnant researcher is never seen in the show again.
And there's this shadow medical subplot and a ridiculous amount of teddy bears- yeah for some reason most of the time when we see into the main characters heads- they see themselves as creepy teeth having, talking, almost insane teddy bears. I think there's a message somewhere about how innocence can be perverted by abuse or something. And the girls monster form which burst out of her chest was refreshing and freaked me out a bit- we get to see it for maybe for mostly the first three episodes if that and a kinda transformation that gives said almost adorable anime girl red spindle stabby things out of her back to own on episode 10. So I thought that was cool. The first three episodes are sadly the best. Outside of maybe episode 5- where the backstory on the birth of the protagonists are shown- albeit quickly.
This anime is incomprehensible- besides the three characters we get- there's the abusive father and maybe insane mother (though when you pull a Richard the Third and give birth to a baby who has all its teeth, strange wanting to kill you, and inability to die- at one point the mom tries to kill her daughter with a box cutter- to not much effect- you would go nuts. There's also the researchers aides, a crazy guy that beats the protagonists to see their powers, the medical conspiracy guys who perform a autopsy of the boy while alive because of his healing powers, and random filler people that show for the sake of the plot of episode 12- I am not kidding. Episode 12 is pointless. Literally it has no connection to episode 11- therefore ending waste of time anime with a cliff hanger and no explanation of major plot points and. Episode 12 is a vignette about how the two protagonists got similar looking hair clips. And it is just infuriating because it just makes no sense in context- Why do we need to know that? Was the brother's entire reason to risk being eaten in Episode 3 because
This anime should have been good, cool premise, decent animation, supposedly gory premise and actual nudity- though short lived and nowhere near that bad of nudity, cool opening theme and ending themes- so beside its near incomprehensible sound bite story that is told out of order to where I can't follow and asked constantly "What's going on? Who's that guy? What the infection?"
Its because of two major things: First, the series is like a mature 4koma anime- not in intent because there is a plot somewhere and not just skits that kinda make sense in order- but because of the length of the episodes.
Said 12 episode anime took me an hour to watch- and most of that was because the site I was watching it on was down for ten minutes. Each episode in total is a four minute mess- and a good quarter of that is the opening and ending themes.
Most animes are 25ish minutes an episode.
Next is that the studio probably was a ick to the animation budget- multiple animes are created every year and sometimes the piles of money go somewhere nicer looking. And Studio Deen **** all over this by literally censoring the NC-17 material by the worst censor job I've ever seen. Sometimes on the gory or incest pervy shots- its visually incomprehensible because it looks like some censor took a paintbush in either black or white and just swiped over the offending gore. Or did an animation lens flare. And other times (like in Episode 10 for example) there is no major censoring- though the gore is laughable- intestines look like a mess of purple squiggles and blood looks completely utterly fake.
Score: 2/10- the cool couple of episodes save this incomprehensible mess. This anime had no room to breathe and just felt unfinished and an insult to the manga- which I looked at a few pages and it makes was more sense- and I jumped around as much as the anime did. Suggestion: Read the manga- probably make more sense and be less ****.
Recommendations for similar violent NC-17ish, or more adult themed anime- the Blood the Last Vampire series (includes Blood+ and Blood-C series), anything Hellsing, Elfen Lied- even that makes more sense-, Witchblade anime for nudity and a way better story-romance- and one of the few times that a Western property was adapted (before the Marvel comics animes of course) etc.
Similar manga in themes- Read Pupa of course, for an extremely disturbing take on what amount of body horror and gore I wanted- read Junji Ito's mangas- though I am warning you its not for the faint hearted. Also Soul Eater because of similar mad scientist tropes.
When I give you multiple ways to not watch this abomination- I am saying DO NOT watch this pile of crap.
Friday, June 20, 2014
Anime Review: Voices of a Distant Star
So sorry for the radio silence- life happened and updating this took a back seat for a while.
But in true fashion, I rise like the phoenix with yet another anime review. This time its something that made me outright sob for the entirety of the 25 minute "movie/original video animation thing" and also for a good ten minutes or more afterwards.
The cursed ending song plague hits me in the feels again. (Yet another time that somehow anime makes me react more than western media when it comes to most anything- except horror. The West likes some jump scares. I personally do not. Only other time I reacted for this long was the end of Samurai 7 which hit me for a few days of sad and still gets the tears a going.
So "Voices of a Distant Star" is a bit dated. The plot is set in the late 2040s and 2050s (thanks to light speed travel- will explain. And yet it has phone technology that is right in the early 2000s (This was made in 2002.) And the mech CGI is showing its age, never been a fan of CGI because of the hindsight of something like this.
So plot- pretty standard one episode fare. Girl likes guy, girl goes away on a scouting mission into deep space to protect the world from aliens, romance, sad unresolved ending. Now after some searching- there is a manga that resolves it a bit better- but not much. It is still left semi-unresolved on their reunion or not.
But this isn't that kind of story. It has a nice arc of trying to explain long distance relationships and the guy has a ridiculous love for our heroine. (I would put their names but unless you are an anime lover- some people don't care. While this was praised- probably due to its story potential for the ime restraint- it isn't a well known anime. I had to slowly search for it and even I was blindsided about what it was all about.)
I do have to say that having aliens vs. humans isn't not an original trope- Burrough's Barsoom novels, H.G Well's War of the Worlds, Martian Successor Nadesico, The Cthulhu Mythos, Evangelion, Gundam, Super Sentai, Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, Mars Attacks!, It, et al. use this trope.
But even with that- I do have to say that the themes of romance- long distance at that, and surprisingly well-written emotion tugging content are nice. I am never one to say to listen to the subbed version of an anime (though that has changed just a little with how much I loved the Garden of Sinners anime movies- tangent of course) but watch this on subbed- I couldn't find it dubbed and thought it was actually good- and when there was random English sentences- they didn't have engrish stuff happen and butcher it with Japanese pronunciation- so I think it was a good thing.
Score: 8.9/10- only due to the shortness of the OVA and now dated CGI effects of some of the foreground space sequences- but when it is good, it's dang good.
Other things by this director/creator (who I will continue to check out)- The Place Promised in Our Early Days, 5 Centimeters Per Second, Children Who Chase Lost Voices, and The Garden of Words. He reminds me a little bit- a little- of Hayao Miyazaki in his vision- cause even in Voices of a Distant Star, there was some very good emotional moments. Also he pretty much did Voices mostly by himself with little input or help from anyone else- cue why it was only 25 minutes and is probably on of his shortest works.
But yeah check this out a bit if you like some feels. Or romance because for what it had to work with- it was well put together.
But in true fashion, I rise like the phoenix with yet another anime review. This time its something that made me outright sob for the entirety of the 25 minute "movie/original video animation thing" and also for a good ten minutes or more afterwards.
The cursed ending song plague hits me in the feels again. (Yet another time that somehow anime makes me react more than western media when it comes to most anything- except horror. The West likes some jump scares. I personally do not. Only other time I reacted for this long was the end of Samurai 7 which hit me for a few days of sad and still gets the tears a going.
So "Voices of a Distant Star" is a bit dated. The plot is set in the late 2040s and 2050s (thanks to light speed travel- will explain. And yet it has phone technology that is right in the early 2000s (This was made in 2002.) And the mech CGI is showing its age, never been a fan of CGI because of the hindsight of something like this.
So plot- pretty standard one episode fare. Girl likes guy, girl goes away on a scouting mission into deep space to protect the world from aliens, romance, sad unresolved ending. Now after some searching- there is a manga that resolves it a bit better- but not much. It is still left semi-unresolved on their reunion or not.
But this isn't that kind of story. It has a nice arc of trying to explain long distance relationships and the guy has a ridiculous love for our heroine. (I would put their names but unless you are an anime lover- some people don't care. While this was praised- probably due to its story potential for the ime restraint- it isn't a well known anime. I had to slowly search for it and even I was blindsided about what it was all about.)
I do have to say that having aliens vs. humans isn't not an original trope- Burrough's Barsoom novels, H.G Well's War of the Worlds, Martian Successor Nadesico, The Cthulhu Mythos, Evangelion, Gundam, Super Sentai, Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, Mars Attacks!, It, et al. use this trope.
But even with that- I do have to say that the themes of romance- long distance at that, and surprisingly well-written emotion tugging content are nice. I am never one to say to listen to the subbed version of an anime (though that has changed just a little with how much I loved the Garden of Sinners anime movies- tangent of course) but watch this on subbed- I couldn't find it dubbed and thought it was actually good- and when there was random English sentences- they didn't have engrish stuff happen and butcher it with Japanese pronunciation- so I think it was a good thing.
Score: 8.9/10- only due to the shortness of the OVA and now dated CGI effects of some of the foreground space sequences- but when it is good, it's dang good.
Other things by this director/creator (who I will continue to check out)- The Place Promised in Our Early Days, 5 Centimeters Per Second, Children Who Chase Lost Voices, and The Garden of Words. He reminds me a little bit- a little- of Hayao Miyazaki in his vision- cause even in Voices of a Distant Star, there was some very good emotional moments. Also he pretty much did Voices mostly by himself with little input or help from anyone else- cue why it was only 25 minutes and is probably on of his shortest works.
But yeah check this out a bit if you like some feels. Or romance because for what it had to work with- it was well put together.
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
List of fanfiction I plan on writing sooner or later.
Why hello again.
As the title says- Fanfiction is my jam (I have a lot of ideas and I really have no place to keep them all- so this'll do) And most of them are crossovers- and 97 percent are My Little Pony based (the 10 percent is anime/ video game stuff) so that is a thing. Crossovers- automatic way to hit on both the fans of one thing and fans of another and profit. Blame me for liking things and crossing them over. Also blame me for never updating junk- time restraints can suck.
Unnamed Power Rangers x My Little Pony Xover
Unnamed Neon Genesis Evangelion x My Little Pony Xover
Finish my X'amd Lost memories x MLP Xover
Continue Animation Corps: Entropy- MLP x 29 other things
MLP unnamed adventure shipfic (Fluttershy x Rainbow Dash with Celestia x Discord and set in the Changeling homeland- this has fallen way to the wayside
MLP slice of life shipfics (Applejack x Luna; possibly Applejack x Cadance)
Some kind of story involving dragons
Finally continue that Cheerilee x Pinkie story that went on hiatus when I had my surgery.
Some Scootaloo story focused on pegasi
Continue/ Finish my Steven King x MLP Xovers
M&M Characters in Equestria (I try to write comedy sometimes. . .)
The Hangover x MLP
Green Lantern x MLP Xover (Or maybe a Power Ponies story- MLP Avengers?)
Full Metal Alchemist x MLP Xover
House of Leaves x MLP Xover
Burn Notice x MLP Xover
Sad shipfic (Rarity x Applejack)
Studio Gainax x other anime x MLP Xover
MLP x zombies
Gangster Madoka Magica
Fire Emblem x Pokemon
Sailor Moon x Neon Genesis Evangelion x other
I think that's it for now.
As the title says- Fanfiction is my jam (I have a lot of ideas and I really have no place to keep them all- so this'll do) And most of them are crossovers- and 97 percent are My Little Pony based (the 10 percent is anime/ video game stuff) so that is a thing. Crossovers- automatic way to hit on both the fans of one thing and fans of another and profit. Blame me for liking things and crossing them over. Also blame me for never updating junk- time restraints can suck.
Unnamed Power Rangers x My Little Pony Xover
Unnamed Neon Genesis Evangelion x My Little Pony Xover
Finish my X'amd Lost memories x MLP Xover
Continue Animation Corps: Entropy- MLP x 29 other things
MLP unnamed adventure shipfic (Fluttershy x Rainbow Dash with Celestia x Discord and set in the Changeling homeland- this has fallen way to the wayside
MLP slice of life shipfics (Applejack x Luna; possibly Applejack x Cadance)
Some kind of story involving dragons
Finally continue that Cheerilee x Pinkie story that went on hiatus when I had my surgery.
Some Scootaloo story focused on pegasi
Continue/ Finish my Steven King x MLP Xovers
M&M Characters in Equestria (I try to write comedy sometimes. . .)
The Hangover x MLP
Green Lantern x MLP Xover (Or maybe a Power Ponies story- MLP Avengers?)
Full Metal Alchemist x MLP Xover
House of Leaves x MLP Xover
Burn Notice x MLP Xover
Sad shipfic (Rarity x Applejack)
Studio Gainax x other anime x MLP Xover
MLP x zombies
Gangster Madoka Magica
Fire Emblem x Pokemon
Sailor Moon x Neon Genesis Evangelion x other
I think that's it for now.
Monday, February 3, 2014
Anime Movie Review: Red Line
Just watched this movie and I have to say I liked it a lot. So Red Line. Imagine if Space Dandy, Speed Racer, Wacky Races, and a Quentin Tarentino movie totally combined. It sounds ridiculous. It is. And by the way, this is probably an awful description on the how the movie plays out. The characters swear out the wazoo and there is like two scenes where the female protagonist is seen lounging around in the comfort of her home topless. So that is a thing, it passes quickly like a minute in total- but I don't want people to be all huffy when the boobs come out. Cause those people exist and I always feel like putting a disclaimer on anime that contain such scenes for those people. (Cause not all anime is made for kids. . .)
So it is basically a racing movie (the final racing competition is called Red Line.) and our main protagonist is so happy go lucky guy that has the worst odds of winning a competition. (His parts provider owes a ridiculous amount of money to the mafia.) and he wants to meet back up with a girl who began his passion for racing. Its also set in space, so the aliens that inhabit the worlds look pretty alien and fanciful- not colorful cause the movie is good with staying in these darker browns and grays for a good portion of stuff. I also never thought I would say that in a racing movie set in space- there is an entire civilization based around magic. Even after the sentient robots bases were covered, they threw in magical girls. Said magic users wear ridiculous outfits that woudn't be out of place in a PG-13/R rated movie. Oh wait. . .
Our Wacky Racers- a robot, green haired female lead, bounty hunters, mechanics turned racers, the magic users, a dirty cop, annoying comedy relief, and main character in that order from top-left to bottom right,
The first 12 minutes is an amazing scene of racing beautifully animated by Studio Madhouse (I really think Madhouse is climbing up that studio tier list I have cause this is a work of art- sort of light on plot in some areas- heavy in others, but a trip to watch. I had to do some research, but everything- and I do mean everything was hand drawn in this movie. You ever wonder how long seven years is? Look at this movie. It took the studio SEVEN years to draw it. So what if the plot is just another racing movie? Its animation makes me cry tears of joy.
Here's the trailer for an example of fluidity in motion.
In regards to the musical tracks that are in this movie. They are all pretty good at creating a mood and are actually catchy for being mainly electronica/techno based. Some stand out more than others but they do hold up overall with this thread of unabashed manliness that pervades the film. Want to see explosions? Got it. The closest thing that I have in Western media in terms of explosions per minute is Michael Bay's movies. And at least this is beautifully animated and doesn't have Shia LeBeouf screaming for a decent amount of time. (And yes there is going to be Transformers 4. . .with Mark Wahlberg?) So yeah, rating.
I'd say that it is a solid 9.5/10 from me (if the Evangelion Rebuilds weren't my faves currently because I love that show- this would be up there with Akira- which was made 30 years ago- with how pretty it is.) with recommendations to at least watch it somehow. Really only the gripe with the seconday plot petering out- with a battle against the entire planet of the robots- is what's dragging it down. But I only took off half a point because this is more personal taste. (I recommend looking on Youtube first. If necessary, use google to search for it. I just put in "Redline movie anime" in google search and it was the first video.
Friday, January 31, 2014
Why I love writing fanfiction.
Now this may not conform to most people's depictions of me, but I do love writing. Now there is a reason why some people don't know this. I differentiate between writing assignments and writing for fun. Writing assignments are not that fun (cue all of highschool and some of college.) Writing papers is necessary to get ahead in life.
But I am talking about writing about thinks you are fanatic about, fanfiction. Now I do know that fanfiction gets a bad rap for plenty of reasons. (using an already established world as your starting point seems unoriginal to some, the rabid shippers- or people who enjoy making romfantic pairings probably seems creepy to others, and the just sheer amount of awful, awful messed up fanfics turns off a lot of people.
But I love writing it.
It all began when I was the ripe old age of nine and I found this game called Fire Emblem on the Game Boy Advance. I loved that game. It had dragons and plot and magic and strategy, etc. It was a realized world and just a different experience than what I had been playing at the time. (Pokemon.) And I liked the world so much that I wanted to try my hand at writing something that would be so glorious that my eyes would melt because of reading it.
I only got a few pages in before I got bored of it. (Blame my shorter attention span and desire to go outside. I was nine. Outside was fun.) So I let it down. Then my computer got fried and it was corrupted so I couldn't continue it ever. It was a sad day.
Fast forward nearly a decade to May 2012. I had just graduated high school and I was hating being bored. I had nothing to do. I almost didn't want to go to college because I thought my life was over (which seems to be a very pervasive and constant feeling- but I digress) and I just sat waiting for something to change.
Now I had become a fan of My Little Pony a few months back and had read some fan works. And I enjoyed them immensely and I wanted to throw my hat in the ring. So I did on that May something or other. I wrote and I submitted the first chapter to a story, that in all reality, was average to good quality and I got good feedback and even got a few followers out of the deal. People actually wanted to read what I wrote, my life actually held meaning to someone outside of my general family and friends.
It actually made me happy.
So I've been writing away on fanfics involving pastel colored equines in a land that rivals Strawberry Shortcake with the sweet and cute names of the characters. And the puns. (Which I personally find ways to get around because I despise puns with all the power of ten thousand suns.) And I liked it until one day when I thought that I could branch out and not limit myself to just one thing . And while I do still adore My Little Pony, the overall fandom really does get old, seeing stories get hyped that are just distasteful and just copy and pasted multiple times and called 'creative.' So I've drifted from the fandom- so that means I have pretty much stopped writing for that (except one story- you always need a magnum opus for a last hurrah.)
Does this mean I am done with writing fanfics? No- since they are one of the few things that keep me happy enough to not hate myself completely. It just means I shifted towards other things.
I mean I just started a Pokemon/ Fire Emblem crossover this week and plan on a Sailor Moon/ Neon Genesis Evangelion crossover for this summer if not earlier. I need something to make my life suck less to my eyes and hold some sort of intrinsic value.
But I am talking about writing about thinks you are fanatic about, fanfiction. Now I do know that fanfiction gets a bad rap for plenty of reasons. (using an already established world as your starting point seems unoriginal to some, the rabid shippers- or people who enjoy making romfantic pairings probably seems creepy to others, and the just sheer amount of awful, awful messed up fanfics turns off a lot of people.
But I love writing it.
It all began when I was the ripe old age of nine and I found this game called Fire Emblem on the Game Boy Advance. I loved that game. It had dragons and plot and magic and strategy, etc. It was a realized world and just a different experience than what I had been playing at the time. (Pokemon.) And I liked the world so much that I wanted to try my hand at writing something that would be so glorious that my eyes would melt because of reading it.
I only got a few pages in before I got bored of it. (Blame my shorter attention span and desire to go outside. I was nine. Outside was fun.) So I let it down. Then my computer got fried and it was corrupted so I couldn't continue it ever. It was a sad day.
Fast forward nearly a decade to May 2012. I had just graduated high school and I was hating being bored. I had nothing to do. I almost didn't want to go to college because I thought my life was over (which seems to be a very pervasive and constant feeling- but I digress) and I just sat waiting for something to change.
Now I had become a fan of My Little Pony a few months back and had read some fan works. And I enjoyed them immensely and I wanted to throw my hat in the ring. So I did on that May something or other. I wrote and I submitted the first chapter to a story, that in all reality, was average to good quality and I got good feedback and even got a few followers out of the deal. People actually wanted to read what I wrote, my life actually held meaning to someone outside of my general family and friends.
It actually made me happy.
So I've been writing away on fanfics involving pastel colored equines in a land that rivals Strawberry Shortcake with the sweet and cute names of the characters. And the puns. (Which I personally find ways to get around because I despise puns with all the power of ten thousand suns.) And I liked it until one day when I thought that I could branch out and not limit myself to just one thing . And while I do still adore My Little Pony, the overall fandom really does get old, seeing stories get hyped that are just distasteful and just copy and pasted multiple times and called 'creative.' So I've drifted from the fandom- so that means I have pretty much stopped writing for that (except one story- you always need a magnum opus for a last hurrah.)
Does this mean I am done with writing fanfics? No- since they are one of the few things that keep me happy enough to not hate myself completely. It just means I shifted towards other things.
I mean I just started a Pokemon/ Fire Emblem crossover this week and plan on a Sailor Moon/ Neon Genesis Evangelion crossover for this summer if not earlier. I need something to make my life suck less to my eyes and hold some sort of intrinsic value.
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Space Dandy episode 3
Space Dandy episode 3 Review-
Finally figured out what they use as currency: don't judge me- when there is so much going on that the last thing on my mind is "what do they use for money?" it's something. So Wulongs are their currency. So that means that Cowboy Bebop and Space Dandy share the same currency. The more you know.
Plot: The Aloha Oe crash lands on an unknown planet after their warp drive is misused (again) because Dandy wanted to eat free at Boobies. And they find a "defenseless" girl in a wasteland full of bones being chased by aliens.
I really think that that this show is enjoying it's TV-14 rating. Cause that monster transformation actually surprised me (I almost did a spit-take.) with how close it got to an adult rating. Cause for a moment I was close to wondering how they got this one scene on tv- even on Adult Swim. Japan yeah- America and their censorship with the morals that we purport to keep completely sacred for the kids? Iffy. (I do know that Japan has some sort of similar system- but it's Japan. They are weird sometimes. And finally we get my favorite "trope" per se- the "oh god- our cute girl we are totes trying to save is an alien monster that would kill the heroes in two seconds."
"I told you! She's a monster! (And our ship can turn into a robot without warning.)
Got me some vibes of Spongebob the Movie and the Angler fish scene- except the monster is not an old lady and the episode parodies the whole save the damsel and the "reward" that we've accepted. Cause being the hero rocks. And there had to be so people who enjoyed that transformation scene- I didn't. Scared the bejeesus out of me. But we do live in a Post- Gainax world (clarification: by Post-Gainax, I mean that anime fans have become more used to weird anime that throw logic or common decency in terms of episode endings or even rude characters with character flaws- even fanservice for the sake of fanservice has become less shocking. Favorite anime studio (along with Studio Trigger? And I have way too many examples as to why. . .) Yeah- but that a true blog post for another time. (Read: When I have time to look up examples and not make me sound like a fangirl *cough* Evangelion *cough*
Oh and Doctor Gel running away from the planet with his entire fleet because the insatiable eating machine of a monster is on the planet- even with Dandy on the planet and nearly defenseless. Confirmation: Dandy is an awful, awful marksman. And I totally think that he is secretly holding a secret power like Vash the Stampede (which on that note, I need to finish Trigun.) or is related to the Jirol empire or something. Cause he is a coward through and through and couldn't hit a broadside of a barn if it hit him in the face.
Still didn't think Studio Bones had it in them. Especially after they did both Full Metal Alchemist series and my favorite underrated series X'amd: Lost Memories.
So they are totally trying to find ways to kill off the main characters. Cause Meow the Space Cat is eaten by the monster. So the tropes of both Back from the dead and Unexplained recovery are totally in this series.
Next episode: Space zombies? Maybe, maybe not. I've been wrong before with this show. But it looks like space zombies.
Space Dandy Episode 2
Review of Space Dandy episode 2-
I actually am starting to like this series. I have come to terms that it parodies excessive fanservice in anime (cue rant about how ridiculous the uniform at Space Hooters is- actually in Space Dandy the restaurant chain is called Boobies. . .good lord I can't believe how stupid that is. But when you are parodying Hooters, I guess that is the draw of Hooters.
To get off this one-note track- my point about how pretty the show is still stands. Whenever they warp to a new location- this time to an alternate dimension as the crew of the Aloha Oe (Farewell to Thee in Hawaiian- according to Wikipedia so take with a grain of salt- as they search for the perfect bowl of ramen.
And yes that is the main plot. Short, simple, to the point.
I do have to say that the music, while no Cowboy Bebop, has a style that I enjoy. The music seems very electronic combined with funk. It is actually a nice thing to listen to and the opening song is nice.
And it seems that there might be a recurring female character, Scarlet. Now she was only in the show for like 2 minutes and most of that was a fight scene. But I hope to see more of her cause she reminds me a little, personality wise, to Faye Valentine in Cowboy Bebop- and its nice to not have a female fanservice character in the show.
Side Note- Dandy reminds me a lot in mannerisms to Johnny Bravo. Mannerisms, speech pattern, woman chasing, and hairstyle all match in some way. But I might just like Johnny Bravo and just noticing similarities between the two.
I have to say I like Meow the Beetlegeusian. A talking space cat? Awesome. And the comedic things that Dandy did to Meow in this episode made this episode.
The whole second plot of the episode was caused by Meow. With the crew going on a quest to find the out of this world ramen. Because Meow ate Dandy's food stash. So Dandy forces him out an airlock- except that Meow has info on where to find this glorious food. So they go. While Meow continually gives away their position to the Gogol Empire through Twitter.
And in a very funny sentence, the Gogol Empire uses Gogol Galaxy Street view (a Google Street view joke.) And I can't take seriously a gorilla wearing an outfit that wouldn't look out of place in a blaxspoitation film.
I am very worried about next week's episode because the episode preview was just closeups of boobs and saying that it will be a fanservice episode. I hope it will not go as planned. Cause fanservice for the sake of fanservice is awful in my eyes. At least make it somewhat comedic. Parody it for goodness sake.
Saturday, January 25, 2014
Thoughts on the New Powerpuff Girls episode.
Pros: New Episode, same voice cast
Cons: Animation style takes some getting used to (especially lighting and shadow definitions), the episode pacing is very quick and modern- unlike the old show.
The fun- "Soul Hoedown" a mix of Soul Train and Hee Haw, Dance "Pants" Revolution, a crunk reference- not to mention other references.
Overall a 7.7/ 10 (I think pacing is very important.)
Cons: Animation style takes some getting used to (especially lighting and shadow definitions), the episode pacing is very quick and modern- unlike the old show.
The fun- "Soul Hoedown" a mix of Soul Train and Hee Haw, Dance "Pants" Revolution, a crunk reference- not to mention other references.
Overall a 7.7/ 10 (I think pacing is very important.)
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Space Dandy Episode 1
Non-serious review of Space Dandy: Episode 1
Now background- I love the idea of space. The virtual emptiness where you can see in all the ranges of motion and all you can see is inky blackness punctuated by the light of heavenly bodies full of hydrogen. The idea that in such a large and foreboding tableau of sheer quiet- that true introspection can occur. Beautiful vistas full of harsh and alien landscapes with the welcome arms of the earthen ground. And what is separating you from a quick and exceeding painful death of your blood boiling? A spacesuit of your very own.
Now I waxed poetic. And so with heavy heart I say. . . is Space Dandy for real? Like was Shinichiro Watanabe serious? I mean I loved Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, and I plan on watching Kids on the Slope. So with me listing things he's personally directed. . .I still have doubts on if I liked it. It was visually stunning and then the first half started and I facepalmed. Hard.
Welcome to Space!
I can't take Space Dandy seriously. I may be one for complete parody and that retro feel. (Cause the idea of a "dandy man in space" sounds in theory like the retro space feelings of writers like Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke.. But what was nearly half the episode? Think of Hooters. . .in Space. And the main character who I am supposed to root for has a monologue about boobs. Sweet baby Moses I hope this is a parody of those perverted characters in anime, cause I hate the main dude right now. I knew that TV-14 rating was for a reason. If I wanted flashbacks to when I went to Hooters- nope just nope. Some things are just too stupid to remember. Come on I thought that the restaurant at the end of the universe would look different. At least the alien designs were cool. And there had to be translation choices that the translators did. I mean "I will follow him to infinity and beyond." "Robots can't get depressed. . .even outdated ones."
Really? The original script had a Toy Story line in a sentence and a jab at Marvin the Paranoid Android? Color me impressed. Sarcasm! I mean some people are a little miffed that the translations seems so phoned into American tastes. Just search for answers in the message boards. I am ambivalent either way.
Now we get to the latter half of the episode where our alien hunters go to a planet and go through warp drive. This part I liked. I am a fan of older science fiction and so this got the kind of plucky hero goes into an unfamiliar alien planet and does some pretty heroic things. And the visuals were actually quick paced and trippy, very Saturday morning cartoon fare, and retro future kinda stuff. The alien monsters were just imaginative. And that bored out of his mind narrator. Loved that. Oh there's totally a war going on. Yeah should have mentioned that. Look at all these cool aliens that we have no time to name. . .etc, etc.
Our Main Characters
But it has a perverted Space Cat! So yay?
It is something. Does anybody know how many episodes this might have in total when its done. (Edit: looks like 13.) Cause my desire to finish an anime- no matter how stupid and ridiculous the premise- is wanting me to finish it. And I want to finish this weird younger brother of Cowboy Bebop.
Gonna stick with it out of masochism and a need to just realize that pilots are always kinda whack. So I'm going with my "Five episode" plan and if it doesn't hook me then; I am going to have a bumpy ride with this.
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Anime Reviews that I wrote. (Written originally between the week of January 5-11, 2014.)
Now here's what happens when I am bored. I watch anime. Then I have always wanted to write little blurb reviews about the series and my thoughts in question. All of these are found on my Facebook- and since I do know a few people that might get a kick out of reviewer mode- and more importantly are not friends via FB. . . I thought that they should see what happens when I "take a break" from story writing. (Note: I won't fill this post with pictures to appease the people who like not reading a wall of text. Not everything can be pictures and short descriptions. These were originally FB posts. I never put pics on my FB. Unless I am feeling really bored.)
And I plan to finish this large list of series (possibly another blog post for said list.) by 2015 thereabouts- or 2016 and beyond with how new series are jumping onto my list like hotcakes.
The first contender was Paprika!
Thoughts on Paprika! Or a short description of what anime stuff I've finished off my LIST!!!!!
So I made this little list of mine and I've always heard from the anime message boards that Satoshi Kon (before his untimely death) was actually a good anime movie director. And so I plan to watch all his movies like how I want to watch all of Miyazaki's works. So I just watched Paprika! and it was. . .different to say the least. I mean- I liked it but sometimes- Japan you can be one crazy place. I never thought I would see Inception in an anime form. I think Christopher Nolan really liked it cause the thing was like Inception on acid. Or something. I dunno how to describe it but. . .maybe I might watch something less mental. To all those anime fans out there this might be the trippiest movie I've seen in a while. Like some next level stuff. Now I'm nervicited for Satoshi Kon's other works. Pokemon Origins is next. I need to cool my jets with normal stuff.
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That was just a week ago. I would have given a more detailed review and- as you see later in my anime posts- an actual score out of ten to give people reasons to either go watch the new experience or go away. The next post is a reply to a FB friend that told me to watch Ghost in the Shell. I rewatched it. And still liked it. I have issues with this review because of awful Facebook comment auto formatting awfulness.
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Finally finished the movie- I mean I had already seen it but that was a few months ago so if I had even attempted to explain what I enjoyed about it; it would be just a quick thought and I would have got it mostly wrong. Would have finished this sooner if my internet wasn't having problems because of the weather when I was originally attempting to watch it. So I did like the soundtrack (for what their was in the movie) and the animation was actually really good for a film that is nearly as old as I am. (I know they released an updated version- 2.0 in 2008 which uses better graphics but is just the original spruced up so I personally don't care for it. Though I do understand why they did update the graphics/ sound.) It terms of the original though- I like the movie. I mainly got into the film a few months back because people said that it "influenced" The Matrix Trilogy and I can see hints of it. But the whole setting is different- in Ghost it is the real world while in the Matrix, it is a created world because of the machines. Personally I enjoyed the first 8 and a half minutes the most because opening credit sequence is just pretty and the repeated musical "theme" I just like. I also like the rest of the movie- but the first minutes just always stand out. Now I could say that the increased computerization of the 90's could have influnced the general technology where the characters just "jack in" to the computer systems and the Puppetmaster is just Skynet given a body. (Though I would be remiss if I didn't see that his use of humans that had cybernetics and wiping them just creating a "shell" of themselves and using them as pawns because he couldn't get into the real world, was reminiscent of Agent Smith and how he multiplied in the Matrix.) And surprisingly enough I had a small hint of Paprika! with how in a scene a wiped human was having issues distinguishing between reality and an implanted lie. Now of course it was less insane than said movie. . . And the whole thought of cyborgs don't have rights and the whole elevator scene where the Major discussed if she was truly human is a really good scene because of the second half when the Puppetmaster goes on his "What is a human but a program of DNA." And the whole idea that because of the increased cybernetics that the Section that they work for in the government owns their bodies. And while the bible quote kinda came off weird, I can see what they were going for at the end. The end was a little fast for my taste (though understandable since the manga was unfinished at the time the movie was realeased in Japan.) TL;DR: Seen it before really good movie. It had a slow start but it was pretty decent over all storywise. Doesn't always stand up in it's graphics (see the use of green in the brain scans and just it bothered me for some reason. but for a mid nineties film, it does still hold up. Rating 8.5/10. Or about as high as I can safely rate something without seeming biased. This a good "review" for you?
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While long winded and winding it did get to a point- the point that I liked the movie enough to watch again. And finalized any review I would do later.
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In between this and the next serious post- I did watch Pokemon Origins and I liked it a lot that so I didn't touch it, Didn't rate it and just enjoyed it. (Looking back- I would rate it a 7.7/10, good- not fantastic. Nice for the fans of the series. Except they touched some parts of the story and quickly finished other parts quickly. But a 4 episode series can only do so much. Better than a series that continually does the same things over and over.
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Probably gonna watch Trigun very soon. Very quick thoughts over both Cowboy Bebop and Colorful. Bebop- amazing soundtrack, good characters, anime version of Firefly that ended with a full run. What I didn't like- the ending was just okay. Sorry- my opinion- but it was no episode 5. I loved episode 5 "maybe it was just the backing vocals" cause In the Rain was fantastic. Oh and my absolute favorite character walks off to somewhere at the end of episode 24. I am miffed that Ed was just gone. She was my favorite one of the crew. Still a 9/10 from me. Even though there were certain episodes that just screamed filler. (Episodes 4 and 12 hit me the hardest on this front) Thankfully they were mainly in the first half. The characters were good, the music was killer, the plot was decent. Besides the episodes that were leaning more towards, there were no real "recap" episodes.
Now Colorful- It was actually pretty good. Slow start and at times I wanted to wreck the main character for being an absolute tool to his family. And we have yet another anime series/ movie that revolves around the Japanese school system and the pressure to get into a good school. It really seems as if, in Japan, that once you graduate high school you die. Oh and the entire premise was "kid commits suicide, soul goes into body and tries to fix the kid's life and figure out what caused him to do it." Yeah that was a dark premise for what we got and at times I was just like. . .okay so this movie is trying to make a point but what's with the title? Comes back in the end to wrap it up nicely. (I was golf clapping for the ending. . . what? I finished it at like 12:30. Give me a bone here.) Rating- 7.5/10. Probably wouldn't watch again. At least it looked nice. So ehh?
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I thought that would be the worst rated anime thing I would rate. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. I watched an anime series a few days later that I hated quite a bit more. But I watched Summer Wars first.
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Watched Summer Wars. Now I actually remember watching Digimon the Movie when it came out in 2000 or so. Which now I'm starting to feel old. I mean I know that I'm gonna be 20 in nine days but wow where does the time go?
Ahem. Onto the review. Before I got all nostalgic I was saying that this movie has a very similar idea to Digimon the Movie. Now that is a definite connection because the director of SW has worked on Digimon the Movie (the section in question- America wise- is the middle of the Digimon movie that was released theatrically in 2000. . .which of course was an amalgamation of THREE separate movies that are barely connected to one another and just strung together in the American release- though my distaste for movies like that is just personal preference.
So with that in mind- the middle of the Digimon movie is very similar to Summer Wars. Of course the overall beauty of SW is better than Digimon the movie but that may be more to the fact that different studios animated the two films and that ten years had passed between Digimovie and Summer Wars. Yet through quick searches- people have commented how very similar the plots are. And compared screencaps nearly shot for shot. So does that mean that he was a lazy director? Maybe- though I am more of the camp that maybe he just had more to say- just without Digimon- and I can't blame him. Sometimes DtM seemed lackluster at points and I do enjoy the Matrix- so I'm always up for technology animes and movies. Heck I love giant robot shows which are pretty much giant computers that walk around and fight stuff.
Major differences are also that in Summer Wars- while the characters look similar to Digimon- they are actually avatars carefully chosen by the player. Also the world is different- Summer Wars is much more interconnected in scope. Since the creation of "Oz"- the Facebook/Twitter/Workspace/Marketplace/ etc. of their world everybody has an avatar. And because of their interconnected lifestyle with computers and such, the hijacking of an avatar actually gives hackers real world power. But Oz is supposed to be 100% secure because of the difficulty of breaking into the controls. So that totally happens because an AI breaks in.
Of course there is a reason, but I would feel awful if I gave that away.
So characters. I can see why people could complain about character development in this. I mean the movie has probably 40 characters (ish) and nearly 95% of them are related. And besides the main male character who is amazingly good at math, the love interest who drags him to her family reunion, and her grandma- there wasn't much in character development. Sure there is a black sheep of the family and a younger boy who is well known in Oz. . .but in terms of character staying power- I don't rate it highly.
And yet it isn't about 40 characters in a way. You could condense the other characters into one "character". The familial unit. And this is where it shined. The story is both about the rogue AI that wants to destroy the world because it deems it as fun and the family who is surprisingly well known throughout the world. And both plots combine together in the end because of how large the family is. And in the end, the movie is about the sheer insanity of family- from the multiple aunts, the uncles, the children. the black sheep, and the boyfriends and girlfriends that try to get in on the action.
Lesson? That even though you may dislike your family- because of reasons- they are still your family and should not be given up on. Now of course, in reality, the moral could be bent or broken depending on situation but it still stands.
Overall rating- Because of the better presentation than Digimon the Movie, (and without that weird beginning that plagued them because of Fox Kids' stupidity.), the weird card game that I have no idea how to play because it is Japanese and sounds completely bonkers, and the stupid name of the AI- I would give Summer Wars a 8.2/10. And I would totally watch again.
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Then I got hit by the anime. The anime of a Fire Emblem series- which if done well would have brought the entire franchise to the U.S. almost six years earlier than the Smash Bros series did. It didn't? I wonder the heck why. . . oh yeah- production abruptly ended so only two episodes were EVER made. (But my fanatic appreciation and knowledge over Fire Emblem is something for another day.
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Finished the Fire Emblem anime. Now you might think that it wouldn't take me less than an hour to finish it. In this case you would be dead wrong.
Because it is only 2 episodes.
Clap, clap, clap. Now there are some issues with it besides it being two episodes and ending when they reached their objective. With nothing completed and finished. It ended right when it was going to start getting good. The last line killed me with how it set up another episode. . .and it ended- without resolution and where the party of characters got mostly collected. The reasoning I found was that, for some unknown reason, the people that were making the show just stopped production. And that is just sad because if it was completed it would have actually been decent and I would have enjoyed it immensely. Without this, it just is a cool thing that fans of the Fire Emblem series would appreciate.
The only things that got me was that since this was released to no recognition in 1997 on VHS!- to no acclaim, and it was the first Fire Emblem related product in America- five-six years before an actual full game of Fire Emblem- that there was no official translation of Prince Marth's name. So they named him Mars Lowell- which goes against the games since he never had a last name.
Oh and Spike Spencer voiced him. So there was a moment where I had to stop the episode for a moment and check. Yeah- the guy who voices Shinji Ikari in Neon Genesis Evangelion voiced Marth in the English dub of this series.
Now I could go on and on, about how the original six games, before 2003's Fire Emblem (FE7) was released in America, that the fantastic series was just not exported. And without the inclusion of Marth in the Smash Bros series- that it probably never would have been released.
No Fire Emblem 7, Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance, Awakening, none of those would have made it (and Fire Emblem might have died out as a series without Western gamers.)
I really wished it was a completed series (for even though it was made in 1996- the animation holds up - even though for such a game that includes war and death as giant plot points and takes it to a continental scale with lives hanging in the balance- there was surprisingly almost no blood. (I could count the drops of blood on one hand.) Small nitpick- but a noticeable one.
And sadly this was a anime that follows the third game (which along with the games 2,4,5, and 6. . .have never actually been released outside of Japan. The remake of the original game did- then the remake of the third stayed in Japan. So yay?
Sad because Marth is my favorite swordman in Super Smash Brothers.
Rating of the unfinished anime is a 6.5/10- not because it was bad per se (because I always had this kind of vision for how a Fire Emblem game would look (for 10 years- sadly I lost my attempt at a fanfic of FE7 that I started writing when I was eight, maybe Awakening will get me write something in this fandom. . . ) if you were actually a part of it. And it looked similar to that.) but because, outside of actual fans who know what's going on, the anime's appeal is very low. And even then it gets your hopes up for more and doesn't deliver- if I love the endings of series. They can save a series. This had no enjoyable ending, with how it just ended. — feeling meh.
So now besides the blogs on Space Dandy that I'll put up later tonight, and a blog over Attack on Titan that I need to write cause I just finished it. You are going to see more pictures in those blogs and more blogs. New stuff is now coming. (mainly cause they'll be over one show so choosing at least one pic won't be difficult.) So if blogs just start appearing regularly. That's why.
And I plan to finish this large list of series (possibly another blog post for said list.) by 2015 thereabouts- or 2016 and beyond with how new series are jumping onto my list like hotcakes.
The first contender was Paprika!
Thoughts on Paprika! Or a short description of what anime stuff I've finished off my LIST!!!!!
So I made this little list of mine and I've always heard from the anime message boards that Satoshi Kon (before his untimely death) was actually a good anime movie director. And so I plan to watch all his movies like how I want to watch all of Miyazaki's works. So I just watched Paprika! and it was. . .different to say the least. I mean- I liked it but sometimes- Japan you can be one crazy place. I never thought I would see Inception in an anime form. I think Christopher Nolan really liked it cause the thing was like Inception on acid. Or something. I dunno how to describe it but. . .maybe I might watch something less mental. To all those anime fans out there this might be the trippiest movie I've seen in a while. Like some next level stuff. Now I'm nervicited for Satoshi Kon's other works. Pokemon Origins is next. I need to cool my jets with normal stuff.
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That was just a week ago. I would have given a more detailed review and- as you see later in my anime posts- an actual score out of ten to give people reasons to either go watch the new experience or go away. The next post is a reply to a FB friend that told me to watch Ghost in the Shell. I rewatched it. And still liked it. I have issues with this review because of awful Facebook comment auto formatting awfulness.
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Finally finished the movie- I mean I had already seen it but that was a few months ago so if I had even attempted to explain what I enjoyed about it; it would be just a quick thought and I would have got it mostly wrong. Would have finished this sooner if my internet wasn't having problems because of the weather when I was originally attempting to watch it. So I did like the soundtrack (for what their was in the movie) and the animation was actually really good for a film that is nearly as old as I am. (I know they released an updated version- 2.0 in 2008 which uses better graphics but is just the original spruced up so I personally don't care for it. Though I do understand why they did update the graphics/ sound.) It terms of the original though- I like the movie. I mainly got into the film a few months back because people said that it "influenced" The Matrix Trilogy and I can see hints of it. But the whole setting is different- in Ghost it is the real world while in the Matrix, it is a created world because of the machines. Personally I enjoyed the first 8 and a half minutes the most because opening credit sequence is just pretty and the repeated musical "theme" I just like. I also like the rest of the movie- but the first minutes just always stand out. Now I could say that the increased computerization of the 90's could have influnced the general technology where the characters just "jack in" to the computer systems and the Puppetmaster is just Skynet given a body. (Though I would be remiss if I didn't see that his use of humans that had cybernetics and wiping them just creating a "shell" of themselves and using them as pawns because he couldn't get into the real world, was reminiscent of Agent Smith and how he multiplied in the Matrix.) And surprisingly enough I had a small hint of Paprika! with how in a scene a wiped human was having issues distinguishing between reality and an implanted lie. Now of course it was less insane than said movie. . . And the whole thought of cyborgs don't have rights and the whole elevator scene where the Major discussed if she was truly human is a really good scene because of the second half when the Puppetmaster goes on his "What is a human but a program of DNA." And the whole idea that because of the increased cybernetics that the Section that they work for in the government owns their bodies. And while the bible quote kinda came off weird, I can see what they were going for at the end. The end was a little fast for my taste (though understandable since the manga was unfinished at the time the movie was realeased in Japan.) TL;DR: Seen it before really good movie. It had a slow start but it was pretty decent over all storywise. Doesn't always stand up in it's graphics (see the use of green in the brain scans and just it bothered me for some reason. but for a mid nineties film, it does still hold up. Rating 8.5/10. Or about as high as I can safely rate something without seeming biased. This a good "review" for you?
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While long winded and winding it did get to a point- the point that I liked the movie enough to watch again. And finalized any review I would do later.
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In between this and the next serious post- I did watch Pokemon Origins and I liked it a lot that so I didn't touch it, Didn't rate it and just enjoyed it. (Looking back- I would rate it a 7.7/10, good- not fantastic. Nice for the fans of the series. Except they touched some parts of the story and quickly finished other parts quickly. But a 4 episode series can only do so much. Better than a series that continually does the same things over and over.
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Probably gonna watch Trigun very soon. Very quick thoughts over both Cowboy Bebop and Colorful. Bebop- amazing soundtrack, good characters, anime version of Firefly that ended with a full run. What I didn't like- the ending was just okay. Sorry- my opinion- but it was no episode 5. I loved episode 5 "maybe it was just the backing vocals" cause In the Rain was fantastic. Oh and my absolute favorite character walks off to somewhere at the end of episode 24. I am miffed that Ed was just gone. She was my favorite one of the crew. Still a 9/10 from me. Even though there were certain episodes that just screamed filler. (Episodes 4 and 12 hit me the hardest on this front) Thankfully they were mainly in the first half. The characters were good, the music was killer, the plot was decent. Besides the episodes that were leaning more towards, there were no real "recap" episodes.
Now Colorful- It was actually pretty good. Slow start and at times I wanted to wreck the main character for being an absolute tool to his family. And we have yet another anime series/ movie that revolves around the Japanese school system and the pressure to get into a good school. It really seems as if, in Japan, that once you graduate high school you die. Oh and the entire premise was "kid commits suicide, soul goes into body and tries to fix the kid's life and figure out what caused him to do it." Yeah that was a dark premise for what we got and at times I was just like. . .okay so this movie is trying to make a point but what's with the title? Comes back in the end to wrap it up nicely. (I was golf clapping for the ending. . . what? I finished it at like 12:30. Give me a bone here.) Rating- 7.5/10. Probably wouldn't watch again. At least it looked nice. So ehh?
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I thought that would be the worst rated anime thing I would rate. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. I watched an anime series a few days later that I hated quite a bit more. But I watched Summer Wars first.
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Watched Summer Wars. Now I actually remember watching Digimon the Movie when it came out in 2000 or so. Which now I'm starting to feel old. I mean I know that I'm gonna be 20 in nine days but wow where does the time go?
Ahem. Onto the review. Before I got all nostalgic I was saying that this movie has a very similar idea to Digimon the Movie. Now that is a definite connection because the director of SW has worked on Digimon the Movie (the section in question- America wise- is the middle of the Digimon movie that was released theatrically in 2000. . .which of course was an amalgamation of THREE separate movies that are barely connected to one another and just strung together in the American release- though my distaste for movies like that is just personal preference.
So with that in mind- the middle of the Digimon movie is very similar to Summer Wars. Of course the overall beauty of SW is better than Digimon the movie but that may be more to the fact that different studios animated the two films and that ten years had passed between Digimovie and Summer Wars. Yet through quick searches- people have commented how very similar the plots are. And compared screencaps nearly shot for shot. So does that mean that he was a lazy director? Maybe- though I am more of the camp that maybe he just had more to say- just without Digimon- and I can't blame him. Sometimes DtM seemed lackluster at points and I do enjoy the Matrix- so I'm always up for technology animes and movies. Heck I love giant robot shows which are pretty much giant computers that walk around and fight stuff.
Major differences are also that in Summer Wars- while the characters look similar to Digimon- they are actually avatars carefully chosen by the player. Also the world is different- Summer Wars is much more interconnected in scope. Since the creation of "Oz"- the Facebook/Twitter/Workspace/Marketplace/ etc. of their world everybody has an avatar. And because of their interconnected lifestyle with computers and such, the hijacking of an avatar actually gives hackers real world power. But Oz is supposed to be 100% secure because of the difficulty of breaking into the controls. So that totally happens because an AI breaks in.
Of course there is a reason, but I would feel awful if I gave that away.
So characters. I can see why people could complain about character development in this. I mean the movie has probably 40 characters (ish) and nearly 95% of them are related. And besides the main male character who is amazingly good at math, the love interest who drags him to her family reunion, and her grandma- there wasn't much in character development. Sure there is a black sheep of the family and a younger boy who is well known in Oz. . .but in terms of character staying power- I don't rate it highly.
And yet it isn't about 40 characters in a way. You could condense the other characters into one "character". The familial unit. And this is where it shined. The story is both about the rogue AI that wants to destroy the world because it deems it as fun and the family who is surprisingly well known throughout the world. And both plots combine together in the end because of how large the family is. And in the end, the movie is about the sheer insanity of family- from the multiple aunts, the uncles, the children. the black sheep, and the boyfriends and girlfriends that try to get in on the action.
Lesson? That even though you may dislike your family- because of reasons- they are still your family and should not be given up on. Now of course, in reality, the moral could be bent or broken depending on situation but it still stands.
Overall rating- Because of the better presentation than Digimon the Movie, (and without that weird beginning that plagued them because of Fox Kids' stupidity.), the weird card game that I have no idea how to play because it is Japanese and sounds completely bonkers, and the stupid name of the AI- I would give Summer Wars a 8.2/10. And I would totally watch again.
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Then I got hit by the anime. The anime of a Fire Emblem series- which if done well would have brought the entire franchise to the U.S. almost six years earlier than the Smash Bros series did. It didn't? I wonder the heck why. . . oh yeah- production abruptly ended so only two episodes were EVER made. (But my fanatic appreciation and knowledge over Fire Emblem is something for another day.
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Finished the Fire Emblem anime. Now you might think that it wouldn't take me less than an hour to finish it. In this case you would be dead wrong.
Because it is only 2 episodes.
Clap, clap, clap. Now there are some issues with it besides it being two episodes and ending when they reached their objective. With nothing completed and finished. It ended right when it was going to start getting good. The last line killed me with how it set up another episode. . .and it ended- without resolution and where the party of characters got mostly collected. The reasoning I found was that, for some unknown reason, the people that were making the show just stopped production. And that is just sad because if it was completed it would have actually been decent and I would have enjoyed it immensely. Without this, it just is a cool thing that fans of the Fire Emblem series would appreciate.
The only things that got me was that since this was released to no recognition in 1997 on VHS!- to no acclaim, and it was the first Fire Emblem related product in America- five-six years before an actual full game of Fire Emblem- that there was no official translation of Prince Marth's name. So they named him Mars Lowell- which goes against the games since he never had a last name.
Oh and Spike Spencer voiced him. So there was a moment where I had to stop the episode for a moment and check. Yeah- the guy who voices Shinji Ikari in Neon Genesis Evangelion voiced Marth in the English dub of this series.
Now I could go on and on, about how the original six games, before 2003's Fire Emblem (FE7) was released in America, that the fantastic series was just not exported. And without the inclusion of Marth in the Smash Bros series- that it probably never would have been released.
No Fire Emblem 7, Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance, Awakening, none of those would have made it (and Fire Emblem might have died out as a series without Western gamers.)
I really wished it was a completed series (for even though it was made in 1996- the animation holds up - even though for such a game that includes war and death as giant plot points and takes it to a continental scale with lives hanging in the balance- there was surprisingly almost no blood. (I could count the drops of blood on one hand.) Small nitpick- but a noticeable one.
And sadly this was a anime that follows the third game (which along with the games 2,4,5, and 6. . .have never actually been released outside of Japan. The remake of the original game did- then the remake of the third stayed in Japan. So yay?
Sad because Marth is my favorite swordman in Super Smash Brothers.
Rating of the unfinished anime is a 6.5/10- not because it was bad per se (because I always had this kind of vision for how a Fire Emblem game would look (for 10 years- sadly I lost my attempt at a fanfic of FE7 that I started writing when I was eight, maybe Awakening will get me write something in this fandom. . . ) if you were actually a part of it. And it looked similar to that.) but because, outside of actual fans who know what's going on, the anime's appeal is very low. And even then it gets your hopes up for more and doesn't deliver- if I love the endings of series. They can save a series. This had no enjoyable ending, with how it just ended. — feeling meh.
So now besides the blogs on Space Dandy that I'll put up later tonight, and a blog over Attack on Titan that I need to write cause I just finished it. You are going to see more pictures in those blogs and more blogs. New stuff is now coming. (mainly cause they'll be over one show so choosing at least one pic won't be difficult.) So if blogs just start appearing regularly. That's why.
Sunday, January 19, 2014
My one and only song I ever wrote (4/9/12)
Yeah. Yeah, stop this spam posting of these blogs. I know. (Don't worry I will. I just have one long one on anime reviews I've done that aren't episode by episode reviews and then another three spaced out every other day or so about Space Dandy.
So yeah. I now review anime on my spare time. Let me just add that to the stuff I juggle.
Hmm. School, Friends, Papers, Writing, Reading, Planning, Fanfiction, Anime Reviews, Game Reviews as well, Sleep, Eat, Youtube Videos, and Poetry.
Yeah Renaissance Man.
So song. (Looking back, it's more poetry set to music- not rap (since at this point I was still extremely new to the rap genre of music so I couldn't get the more powerful turns of phrase. And I was still strictly stuck in a stalwart tempo of consistent rhyme scheme. This was written
during my "School Daze" period (that one poem was written and fixed multiple times.)
Butterfly
Verse: C major, G major add 2, A minor 7, F major 7
Chorus: D minor 7, E minor, A minor
I see you when I’m walking down the street,
I see your reflection in the sea,
You want me to join your world,
I want you to be my girl
But you know what you are.
A pretty, little butterfly
One that dances in the sky
You fly so high above me
I am stuck here on the ground
Looking up when feeling down
Chorus
I want to be a butterfly
flying in the sky,
but when I try,
I’m scared to die
Maybe I am not a butterfly
I watch you get up early
when I’m walking in my lawn
I go to school surly
but you brighten my day
And this is what I say
Oh butterfly walk on by,
Let my heart flutter by.
I may be shy,
But if I try to tell you
how I feel, how and why
Maybe you will see I can be
a part of the butterfly
Chorus:
Oh, I want to be a butterfly
flying in the the blue sky
but when I try
I’m scared to die
Maybe I am not a butterfly.
That Feel. . .
I've been playing a lot of Pokemon Y lately. And it just so happened that I played it at midnight today (the first minutes of today)
That feeling when a video game says Happy Birthday to you before anybody else.
I also thought it was frozen because I wasn't playing with the sound on.
But still.nice, and even Google was all like Happy Birthday.
It's the small things that count.
That feeling when a video game says Happy Birthday to you before anybody else.
I also thought it was frozen because I wasn't playing with the sound on.
But still.nice, and even Google was all like Happy Birthday.
It's the small things that count.
Old Poetry
(Note: I write poetry when I am attempting to define myself in the world or my experiences in it. So any strange wordings is just my mind trying to understand my present. And I don't remember even writing the last poem. . . so I have no idea what that even represents. Gotta say I was very hesitant on including it.) Dates are included to show relative age of the piece. I don't often write poetry- but when I do I try to make it rhyme as long as possible.
Hannibal MO (12/1/13)
In Hannibal Missouri where Twain did grow,
the windows are are shuttered and nobody doth go.
The businesses are hit with a general depression
because the country's up in a great recession.
The tugboats are no longer in their own domain
only husks and masses hulking upon a smaller plain,
time passed and the causeways quieted-
but the people have not forgotten the past unrequited.
In Hannibal, Missouri where Twain did grow
the town shudders in its final death throes.
The Gods We Idolize (12/1/13)
Hannibal MO (12/1/13)
In Hannibal Missouri where Twain did grow,
the windows are are shuttered and nobody doth go.
The businesses are hit with a general depression
because the country's up in a great recession.
The tugboats are no longer in their own domain
only husks and masses hulking upon a smaller plain,
time passed and the causeways quieted-
but the people have not forgotten the past unrequited.
In Hannibal, Missouri where Twain did grow
the town shudders in its final death throes.
The Gods We Idolize (12/1/13)
A Creator said Let There Be/ Light of every kind/ from the UV to the visible and all to either side/ to let my creations see the Gods they idolize/ so time passed and the world was made anew/ the God did see that what he made grew and grew/ and civilization came to Earth’s rocky shore/ and the God was firm and mighty and was seen no more.
So the humans worked alone/ on their cosmic ark/ and each and every one had their special part/ but some grew weary and turned their eyes/ towards the starry skies/ and thought of their beginnings and the Gods We Idolize./ So creation was abounding in the stories and the cries/ of prehistoric peoples reaching for the sky.
From the Rainbow Serpent/ to the chaos we despise,/ myths abounded of the time past idle eyes/ and great people came and went/ through time’s ebb and flow/ and some must have reached the shore where all great heroes go./ From the Ur of the Chaldees/ and other cities great/ did the poets memorialize the dates/ of every single God we idolize/ and turn their heads towards the starry skies.
Choose a tankard/ of any shape or size/ from the horns of the unicorn/ or the sea’s own crashing tides/ and quaff the Norse ale and turn the battle’s sides/ and pray towards the Gods we idolize./ Thoughts of weapons clashing/ and the burning of the pyres/ did make the warriors happy with the songs of ice and fire./ For when the berserker fights/ he takes no glory higher/ than dying in the battle towards the end of his desire.
From the early to the modern/ the Gods we Idolize/ did change their guise/ now we worship something different/ and yet the same/ each took a nicer form and a pretty name/ Psychology some worship/ because of prophet’s eyes/ from Freud to Jung/ and others come/ to read the Delphic sighs./ Architecture made the golems/ of Pygmalion design/ the arches and the sky scapes/ the make the skies/ less foreign and Godlike/ time echoes by,/ War becomes a God itself/ in how people cry/ against the use of such weapons/ that mortals’ can’t describe/ from the missiles and the bombs that take a sacred life.
The opiates/ and drugs that come upon the masses/ fight their own battles/ and hallowed passes/ upon the pantheon that shines forevermore/ into the void beyond the walls of sleep that count the score/ four score and seven years before/ the land burned ever bright/ the fantastic creatures did fright/ the children that burn the torches on each Judgement Day/ For if I had possession- each person would stay/ in biers of marble casing that protected from the tithes/ of the Kraken’s righteous fury upon the false Gods we Idolize.
The God was disappointed in creation’s starry sky/ He did know what Gods they idolized-/ The crawl of time/ and death was what kind they sanctified/ but even death may die upon a breach of rhyme/ and now people did pass the the time with idle eyes/ for what does a sigh perceive/ upon a golden shore/ but land to conquer and deceive/ upon a killing floor.
Woe Is Reality aka School Daze Parts 1 and 2 (Written January 17, 2012)
When I was ten I read the Bible from cover to cover
What did I discover?
There was a part of me I had to cover
My best dream I had was where I was the Antichrist
full of hatred discord and strife
I wonder if what I read impacted what I found out
God hates me as much as I hate myself
Girl you did three things that impacted me
have you made inquiries? I sure have
You said I was a creep so I watch you from the shadows
I don’t need a weather vane to see the wind blow
Sure I’m no knight in shining armor but my armor-
the armor is busted and rusted and full of holes
I put you on a pedestal but you fell off it when
you stayed with what used to be my best friend
I’m curious why you made a decision
so spurious. It makes me feel sick knowing my dark secret
entwined secret. When I told it to you at first you didn’t believe it
then you said I better keep it. What is this? My scarlet letter
is not making me feel any better but alas poor me I’m stuck playing Yorick
My mind wanders, time does not make the memory grow fonder
Why do I not have a girlfriend? to paraphrase my mind ”Why are you so queer?”
For I fear that the idols I despised I have became
I don’t know why for I do not have a name
From 12 to 17 I looked forward to every
teenage boy’s dream but my friend got you
while I got bored,
More and more fun became work
when I feared what lurked at the edge of my mind.
My walls have crumbled and fallen
Please take pot shots at me before the doctor comes calling
Outside I’m happy inside I’m crying
All's fair in love and war they were just lying,
To you I’m just a happy school boy smoking a cigarette
That’s a wordplay lets see what you get
I may be a guy but I am effete
This is a puzzle, I have the whole set.
Write me off, shut me out
Nothing is a war zone, a rout.
Time is nothing but a relative brother to me
See the lines reach the sea
The rainbows are blacker than normal
It must be cause I’m traveling in a worm hole
To get back to days that nostalgia hits
Days of happiness, joy and better wit.
Thought that you look better now
Than later, hatin on making a cow
Jump over the moon like in stories
What lies beneath the morning glories
The dawn bringing in hues of color
My mind becomes my closest dollar
A sign that days gone by are not lost
What is the cost?
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Small Update Post
With my return to college- and subsequent renewal of the monotony that is not monotonous- I am going to be posting less on this with new content per se.
Now I've seen that this blog has become full of nerdy stuff. When you as a blogger find Pokemon, Fire Emblem, anime, and Lovecraftian horror cool enough that you want to blog about them. Then you know that in your own right (because nerdyness does come in every shap, size, credo, sexual orientation, and I.Q. level. Everybody is special and nerdy in their own awesome way. Do not believe that your limitations define you, but that awesomeness is inside you- just wanting to shine.
Now that I got the pep talk out of the way- I going to be uploading some different stuff.
Music lyrics that I wrote, poems, anime reviews, and fanfiction progress (now that means that for some people- this would be the most awful and boring thing ever. Well when you have this spark that had been building for years and just it comes out. Side Note- I'm noticing I want to branch out in fanfics. I don't want to be constrained to just one fandom. I think I might be drifting away from the thing that gave me the spark, not that the fandom is bad but that I am noticing more and more that no show is without faults. Combine that with show direction and I just miss the past- but am hopeful for the future. On that note- my classes are only on Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays giving me Tuesdays and Thursdays to catch up with writing stuff for anybody who cares (and by this point you know who you might be. ;) )
So until I say that the posts of "new" material actually are NEW in like capital letters or something. . .you get to see older material. Call it nostalgia and just a way to kick off another decade of life, maybe just I look at it tinged with sentimentality.
Now I've seen that this blog has become full of nerdy stuff. When you as a blogger find Pokemon, Fire Emblem, anime, and Lovecraftian horror cool enough that you want to blog about them. Then you know that in your own right (because nerdyness does come in every shap, size, credo, sexual orientation, and I.Q. level. Everybody is special and nerdy in their own awesome way. Do not believe that your limitations define you, but that awesomeness is inside you- just wanting to shine.
Now that I got the pep talk out of the way- I going to be uploading some different stuff.
Music lyrics that I wrote, poems, anime reviews, and fanfiction progress (now that means that for some people- this would be the most awful and boring thing ever. Well when you have this spark that had been building for years and just it comes out. Side Note- I'm noticing I want to branch out in fanfics. I don't want to be constrained to just one fandom. I think I might be drifting away from the thing that gave me the spark, not that the fandom is bad but that I am noticing more and more that no show is without faults. Combine that with show direction and I just miss the past- but am hopeful for the future. On that note- my classes are only on Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays giving me Tuesdays and Thursdays to catch up with writing stuff for anybody who cares (and by this point you know who you might be. ;) )
My Favorite Pokemon Types
I've been on and off playing Pokemon Y- stupidly restarted because I din't know there was 3 Pokemon centers in Lumiose City and with that stupid Looker Ticket mission that broke my will to play for a week- well I've been trying to actually get back to the Elite Four. And with the continued confusion that connecting to the Online features of Pokemon X and Y hyped up a lot. I want to Wonder Trade but I can't figure out how to connect. Oh well.
Now on to my favorite types of Pokemon. 17-1. (For this list I do not count the ??? typing since no Pokemon actually kept the typing (Arceus glitched into the games with this typing doesn't count since the developers added in that code so if somebody did glitch it in- the game wouldn't break. And since the Eggs and the move Curse were the only things that used it for any generational span of time. . .and that Game Freak retired the type- I don't count it.
And these are my personal picks so if there is a difference in opinion- that's why. And all of these types do have merits and this is just how I rank them in terms of sheer staying power in my six man band.
So Number 17- Ice Type This is my least used type and for good reason. It's one of the rarest types around. They are weak to Fire, Fighting, Rock, and Steel (which are very common in both powerful moves/ secondary type combinations in double-typed Pokemon. And finding/ catching some of the forms were stupidly hard. I just don't like how easily Ice types can be taken out by nearly any Pokemon type. They only resist the Frozen status ailment (which is barely used by anybody.) and they are only really good against Dragon types- even though water types can easily kill Dragons because of the easily taught Ice Beam TM. Now there are a few Ice types I do use on my team (through six generations of Pokemon.) I love the Vanillite/ Vanillish/ Vanilluxe even though many players call it the stupid ice cream cone. (Do they forget Geodude, Voltorb, Electrode, Muk, Gastly. etc. which are all blobs of goo, floating spirit balls, rocks with arms, and possessed Poke Balls?) So I came to terms that it looks stupid. Actually I like it because it looks cute and harmless. And then it kills you. I also have an Amaura which is one of Gen 6's Fossil Pokemon and it's been doing well for me too- I haven't used it much because for 95% of the game I don't need an Ice Type Pokemon because there is no real Dragon type threat. And with the Exp All- I barely need my other Pokemon. So while Ice moves are fairly powerful- I just never need them because of how most Ice type Pokemon are found mid to late game. Combine that with how, with my three favorites, Frostlass, Weavile, and Mamoswine that you have to do a special evolutionary thing to make them evolve and sometimes it can be frustrating- especially with Frostlass to evolve them.
Number 16 is the Bug Type. Now here's one of the first types you encounter in the games.Outside of the Flying type and your starter of course. I always see them as that one Gym which isn't all that difficult and just is annoying if your starter's a Grass type (because the Grass starters can be underwhelming.) And offensively they can have good moves (X-Scissor, Megahorn, Bug Bite, Infestation) and status causing moves (Stun Spore, Sleep Powder, etc.) yet they just don't usually have good Attack or Defense to take hits. Not to mention that quite a few of the members of this type evolve early and lose that staying power that is so crucial late game. Add in the weaknesses to fire, and the common second typings of poison or flying and both Psychic and Electric moves slaughter these things. Personally I almost never use Bug moves or Bug type Pokemon. Gen 5 never hooked me like the others did so I never got Larvesta or Volcarona (which is sad because I really liked their type combo and design.) Outside of Heracross, Scyther (not Scizor because I had no friends to trade- Trade Evolution the true test of a Forever Alone Gamer.), the Anorith Line which I loved late game because it slaughtered everything, and Forretress which served me well in every game I had it in (which was every game that had it and I did use walkthroughs to find Pineco- I love Forretress.) I don't touch the type often.
Number 15 is surprising- the Flying Type. I love the Flying type legendaries. Yvetal is now my favorite legendary beside Ho-oh. But that doesn't mean I like their power. A lot are found early game (Pidgey, Pidove, Tailow etc.) and can get hit hard by Rock and Electric types while slaughtering Grass and Fighting types. But here is where I have an issue. I do not usually need a Flying type Pokemon because my starter usually is so high leveled mid game- that unless I get hit by a one hit Knockout move I can take a beating. And I almost always have a Psychic type on my team, which easily handles Fighting Types and Grass types usually are weak defensively so necessity just doesn't call. And then I always have to have a spot with a Flying type just so I can use Fly, the addition of Sky Battles threw this type further down the list because the Pokemon that can Sky Battle is just counter intuitive sometimes. I do personally love Crobat, Gyrados, Noctow;, Togekiss (when I can get a Togepi without Trading- again a pain), Ho-oh, and Yvetal. Still they can be easily killed by secondary type weaknesses, Electric, and Rock types. So they have their own issues,
Number 14- Normal Type, the type that doesn't resist anything and just has a lot of overall health. So this type is only at this spot in my list because of the amount of moves that some Pokemon can learn. They can learn quite a few powerful moves that make them versatile in battle. But what they are well known for are HM slaves. An HM Slave is that one Pokemon that can learn a lot of HMs- which are nearly impossible to forget and in some people's eyes just wastes a good and ready move slot with its necessary evil to progress on the journey. Notable HM Slaves are Zigzagoon, Patrat, and Bidoof- which are found early in the game, thankfully evolve, and are able to be taught 3-6 HM moves. And Normal types that learn Fly can also be useful as well. Thankfully Gen 4 seemed to have the worst amount of HM moves with eight and they were all necessary and awful. So thanks to the lessening of HMs and the moving around of old HMs into Technical machines that can be taught over and over against to different and not just a single use- the Normal Type isn't at number 17. I also like the least Pokemon with this type- with the shuffling around that the addition of the Fairy type did to Pokemon- many Normal types I like have been moved to being Fairy types. So with that in mind, the Pokemon that are still Normal types that I like are Eevee (because of it's ridiculous number of evolutions), Snorlax, and Porygon Z (which was nearly impossible for me to get so when I got one I was ecstatic. And it was really overpowered. I took down Giratina with a Porygon Z with Signal Beam. . .)
Number 13- Ground Type This is a very powerful type with some of the most powerful Pokemon on this list. The problem is that a lot of Pokemon can hurt it with how type coverage can be. Many Pokemon nowadays can learn Water, Grass, and Ice moves and so the typing does have some flaws but offensively the Ground type kills. But with the Flying type being immune to Ground types and the Ability of Levitate which also make Pokemon immune to Ground- it has the most resistances. There aren't many Pokemon that I keep on my team consistently- Outside of Claydol in Gen 3, Golurk, and finally after 10 years of not being able to evolve Onix and never having the Gen 4 remakes- Steelix which is my favorite Ground type. Still think that Steelix should have got a Mega Evolution in the Kalos region.
Number 12- The Fighting type- I almost never use these Pokemon because I just never have the need to. A few need Trade Evolution to get to their final forms, the Fire- Fighting type combination is overdone with half of the starter Fire types evolving to have a secondary fighting type- so that is overdone, and their only being so many other secondary types in the whole set that it just seems boring. Now the whole set is pretty strong and useful- but outside of Lucario, Gallade, Blaziken, and Breloom I haven't used much in the way of Fighting types. My team is more focused on Special Attackers so Fighting types just don't fit in my team building activities.
Number 11- Water Type This is where I start having issues with ordering the types. I love the Water starters (especially Blastoise, Empoleon, and Greninja.) but much of the other Pokemon I don't care much about- except for the Fossils that are partially water (because I love the Fossil Pokemon) I never like the water type gyms- I had to restart Pokemon Platinum because I never got a grass or electric type Pokemon that could handle Gym 5. So I see this type as "that one Gym" outside of Whitney's Normal type gym that I hated in Gen 2 and the remakes. And other than Normal type ones- the Water type has the most HM moves making many a Water type an HM slave for water routes- Dive, Surf, Waterfall and Whirlpool have all been HMs and while Surf and Waterfall have been the most constant- that still means that a Water type could still have two spots filled with HMs and that doesn't count any others it could be able to learn. Personally my favorite water types are Gyrados, Blasttoise, the fossil Pokemon that are part water, Greninja, Empoleon, and Feraligatr. So I don't mind the type its more of what I am forced to sometimes teach my team to get further in my journey.
Number 10- The Rock Type This type has every fossil Pokemon from every generation and since I love the fossil Pokemon I love this type. It has a decent amount of Pokemon that are secondary typed to be a Powerful thing to fight against. They also have very good attack and defense and can be hard to take down without super effective moves- with the secondary types that give them their weaknesses. They are all either weak to Grass and/or Water and have some bad Special Defense to actually make up for the death that comes usually in one hit. What sometimes make up for that is the Ability Sturdy that many Pokemon of this type have to alleviate the issue of One Hit Knockouts. Personal favorites of mine of this type are the Fossil Pokemon,Tyranitar, and Aggron. Pure power all of the time.
Number 9- Fire Type This is mainly because of the easily killed Pokemon because of weaknesses to Ground, Rock, and Water which are all common types in playthroughs. The type make up for this with powerful special attack and some heavy hitters in Attack as well so they can sweep through their weaknesses. What brings this type down to this level is that many Fire Type starters (your most used Pokemon and the one you have to stare at the most) had been for half of the games- part Fighting type- piling on more weaknesses that just made it less fun to play with and just boring when guessing the new types of the Starter Pokemon. In Generations 3-5 I played more with Water Types because of how boring and unsurprising the final evolution was for so many Fire Types- combine that with some problems with how slow some Fire types were and they just weren't as useful in previous years. Favorites include Arcanine, Magmortar, Ho-oh, Delphox, Chandelure, and Volcarona- most of these are two-types and not part fighting types so they are less boring to me and just more cool looking.
Number 9- Dark, one of the two types introduced Generation 2. I like the type because of how cool the designs usually are. I almost never use the type because of their weakness to Fighting (and now Fairy) types and how common that type is in play throughs- not to mention competitive play. They aren't always the most powerful Pokemon but they can pack a punch if you want them to. Not much to say about them except that they are just fun to play with- and that outside of the Elite Four and the evil Teams- no Pokemon Gym has specialized in Dark Types- I wish they would because even the Fairy type has a Gym. Really? No Dark Gym when you have so many cool Pokemon to choose from and the Fairy type has a Gym in its first appearance? The Pokemon I like of this type are Umbreon, Sableye, Weavile, Bisharp, Hydreigon, Malamar, and Yvetal \
Number 8- Ghost This type is hard to find (like the Ice, and Fairy types) and aren't that strong physically. I never liked the Ghost type until Gen 5 so this is a recent development. I also don't like Trade Evolutions so while I want Gengar, Trevenant, and Phantump I can't because issues with internet. And have not many friends that had the game and could locally trade. This has personally formed my favorites of the Ghost type because of that. My favorites all evolve either by leveling up- or more commonly Evolutionary Stones. So it'd be common to see me have Banette instead of Gengar and a Frostlass, Chandelure, or Aegislash because I like their designs and I personally love Evolutionary stones.
Number 7- Dragon types Now I love dragons in literature and movies but with the mythical beasts inhabiting the world of Pokemoon I am disappoint. This is a very powerful type and (besides Fairy, Ice, or Dragon) not many moves are super effective against these things. Now that would make it very nice-except it has 5 of the 7 pseudo legendary pokemon which is unfair/ okay- and nearlt all the rest are true legendary Pokemon that are hard to catch and ridiculously powerful. So I don't like using them often because they just seem overpowered. My personal favorites are Goodra and Salamence.
Number 6- Electric This type has a lot of advantages- it is powerful against flying and water, and is only weak against ground types- not counting if they have two types and so some Pokemon of this type could have more weaknesses. I have always had (or very nearly had) a Pikachu on every team in every game that had a Pikachu- I have never completed Pokemon Yellow for one reason only- I don't like Pikachu. What Pokemon I love is Raichu. I very nearly despise Pikachu but it evolves into one of my favorites through a Thunderstone- which fulfills the evolve via an Evolutionary stone which I love. Add to this that Electic types are usually high Speed and Special Attack can take out whole teams of Pokemon easily without breaking a sweat. My favorites are Raichu, Electivire, Ampharos, Dedenne, and Gavantula who all helped me finish each game that they appeared in.
Now my Top 5 Pokemon types are what I would call "Gym Leader" types as in if I wanted to I would be totally fine of running an entire Gym with just that type of Pokemon. Which limiting- it is also freeing with the idea that you choose weakness covering moves and type matchups that give your team a defensive boost and a idea of control. Or if I wanted to I could totally goof around with friends and play competitively for fun with a team I raised with loving care. Also known as "I thought long and hard on how a team comprised of one type would run." And this is where I can barely decide on what my favorite Pokemon are- as we go go more towards number 1 I have longer and longer lists of Favorites because I can't choose between anything when they all have reasons to be amazing.
Number 5 Steel- also introduced Gen 2 Like the Rock and Ground types, Steel is Pure Power (Special Attack can also be high as well, defense is stellar.) I love this type mainly because I loved the Steel gym in Generation 2- mainly because your only opponent was Jasmine who has taken on this status as a traveler because she's been in the remakes , Sinnoh Gen4, and Gen 5's Pokemon World tournament. And with that introduction to the Steel type, it's in my top 5. Favorite Pokemon- Steelix, Mawile, Aggron, Metagross, Aegislash, Forretress, Empoleon, Lucario, Ferrothorn, and Bisharp.
Number 4- Psychic This type is very powerful with Special Attack and S.Defense This was also the type that caused Dark and Steel to enter in Gen 2 because Psychic types used to be super broken with how Bug and Ghost Moves were weak and how most of the Pokemon of said types were part Poison type which made them weak to Psychic types. I've loved this type since it was fixed in Gen 2 (I've played Gen 1 game mechanics and its a little bit more difficult. And the amount of usable moves throughout the 1st and 2nd Gens of Pokemon is tiny.)And yet they've been a crucial part of my team ever since them. Favorite Pokemon- Espeon, Grumpig, Gothitelle, Reuniclus, Mr. Mime, Gardevoir (which like Forretress I've had in every team that I could), Swoobat, Claydol, Metagross, Delphox, and Malamar. So I really know my Psychic types.
Number 3- and if not the fact that there is almost no Pokemon in this typing, it would totally be number 1- Fairy. Yes this type that just showed up in Gen 6 and threw a wrench some people's teams is one of my favorites. It would be number one if not for the fact that there is only 34 Pokemon in the Group (which ties it with Ghost as the rarest type) These things are ridiculous to kill with it being very strong and defensively decent with enough resistances to be good. Also everything that they are weak against are weak against Ground types so a Fairy type knowing Earthquake and things are deader than dead. Its one of those types that (unlike Ice) is not bogged down by Speed deficiencies and don't have gimmick Pokemon- I'm looking at you Smeargle, Delibird, Shuckle, etc- and with its resistances to popular types suich as Steel, Bug, and Dark , and a complete immunity to Dragon which makes them terrifying- they jumped into my top 5 and almost top spot if not for the fact that the next two types that I like more have more Pokemon- and therefore- more type combinations. Favorite Pokemon- Togekiss (yet again it is not in X and Y without possibly Friend Safari or trading via a Gen 5 game. And with Pokebank down because of an awful launch and issues with hacked Pokemon that could never happen legally, and my reluctance to pay for a monthly service that is not necessary- I have to learn to not mind not having a Togekiss- unless I figure out how to get on PSS and Wonder Trade some stuff I collected/ breeded.), Florges (which is a terifying thing), Aromatisse and Slurpuff- which both are Trade Evos with held items, Sylveon, Xerneas-if I had X Version or traded, Mr. Mime, Azumarill, Gardevoir,Mawile, Whimsicott, Dedenne, Carbink, Klefki- and outside of a few that I din't say - I just named all the Fairy types and they are all fantastic- especially the Psychic/Fairy Combo which resists Dark type moves making Gardevoir and Mr. Mime relevant again- not to mention Mega Gardevoir.
Number 2- Poison It isn't the best offensively but it isn't half bad defensively. And it resists Poison status effects which I love because I always lose a Pokemon to Poison- especially before it was changed in Gen 4 to where Pison stopped working on the overworld when your Pkemon with Poison was a 1 Hit Point. Add to the fact that the Poison effect can be annoying, if not deadly to other Pokemon and the types of surprising moves that Poison types can learn via TMs can mitigate some of their weaknesses and can surprise some people. My Favorite Pokemon- Arbok, Muk, Swalot, Garbodor, Crobat, Skuntank, Nidoking, Nidoqueen, Drapion, Dragalge (and since it is in Pokemon Y- I can catch it's pre-evolution.), Venusaur, Vileplume, Ariados, Dustox, Roserade, Scolipede, Toxicroak
Number 1- Grass While I absolutely dislike the starter Pokemon with how slow they usually are and that they are weak against so many things I love the type nonetheless. They are affected by weather conditions and outside of Normal and Grass type moves- can't learn much via leveling up. Now I still love the Grass types because they are so diverse- similar to the Earth with things that look like animals, plants, Evolve via Evlutionary stones, Evolve via a Moss Rock, etc. altogether it is a cool evolution filled place. And as I've said before, I mainly use Special Attack Sweepers in my team so Grass with such a focus on either strong Normal type Physical attacks, Special Attack focused Grass moves, and the array of HM and, more importantly, TMs that give type coverage against Grass type Pokemon's weaknesses. Altogether they are one of my favorite types to use. Favorite Pokemon- Venusaur, Meganium, Bellossom, Leafeon, Simisage, Lilligant (sadly I don't have a Gen 5 game so I can't get Lilligant but if I could I would throw it on my team so hard it would break the sound barrier and because I love it's design and it was so deadly in Gen 5.), Vileplume, Jumpluff, Roserade, Whimsicott, Ferrothorn.
So Number 17- Ice Type This is my least used type and for good reason. It's one of the rarest types around. They are weak to Fire, Fighting, Rock, and Steel (which are very common in both powerful moves/ secondary type combinations in double-typed Pokemon. And finding/ catching some of the forms were stupidly hard. I just don't like how easily Ice types can be taken out by nearly any Pokemon type. They only resist the Frozen status ailment (which is barely used by anybody.) and they are only really good against Dragon types- even though water types can easily kill Dragons because of the easily taught Ice Beam TM. Now there are a few Ice types I do use on my team (through six generations of Pokemon.) I love the Vanillite/ Vanillish/ Vanilluxe even though many players call it the stupid ice cream cone. (Do they forget Geodude, Voltorb, Electrode, Muk, Gastly. etc. which are all blobs of goo, floating spirit balls, rocks with arms, and possessed Poke Balls?) So I came to terms that it looks stupid. Actually I like it because it looks cute and harmless. And then it kills you. I also have an Amaura which is one of Gen 6's Fossil Pokemon and it's been doing well for me too- I haven't used it much because for 95% of the game I don't need an Ice Type Pokemon because there is no real Dragon type threat. And with the Exp All- I barely need my other Pokemon. So while Ice moves are fairly powerful- I just never need them because of how most Ice type Pokemon are found mid to late game. Combine that with how, with my three favorites, Frostlass, Weavile, and Mamoswine that you have to do a special evolutionary thing to make them evolve and sometimes it can be frustrating- especially with Frostlass to evolve them.
Number 16 is the Bug Type. Now here's one of the first types you encounter in the games.Outside of the Flying type and your starter of course. I always see them as that one Gym which isn't all that difficult and just is annoying if your starter's a Grass type (because the Grass starters can be underwhelming.) And offensively they can have good moves (X-Scissor, Megahorn, Bug Bite, Infestation) and status causing moves (Stun Spore, Sleep Powder, etc.) yet they just don't usually have good Attack or Defense to take hits. Not to mention that quite a few of the members of this type evolve early and lose that staying power that is so crucial late game. Add in the weaknesses to fire, and the common second typings of poison or flying and both Psychic and Electric moves slaughter these things. Personally I almost never use Bug moves or Bug type Pokemon. Gen 5 never hooked me like the others did so I never got Larvesta or Volcarona (which is sad because I really liked their type combo and design.) Outside of Heracross, Scyther (not Scizor because I had no friends to trade- Trade Evolution the true test of a Forever Alone Gamer.), the Anorith Line which I loved late game because it slaughtered everything, and Forretress which served me well in every game I had it in (which was every game that had it and I did use walkthroughs to find Pineco- I love Forretress.) I don't touch the type often.
Number 15 is surprising- the Flying Type. I love the Flying type legendaries. Yvetal is now my favorite legendary beside Ho-oh. But that doesn't mean I like their power. A lot are found early game (Pidgey, Pidove, Tailow etc.) and can get hit hard by Rock and Electric types while slaughtering Grass and Fighting types. But here is where I have an issue. I do not usually need a Flying type Pokemon because my starter usually is so high leveled mid game- that unless I get hit by a one hit Knockout move I can take a beating. And I almost always have a Psychic type on my team, which easily handles Fighting Types and Grass types usually are weak defensively so necessity just doesn't call. And then I always have to have a spot with a Flying type just so I can use Fly, the addition of Sky Battles threw this type further down the list because the Pokemon that can Sky Battle is just counter intuitive sometimes. I do personally love Crobat, Gyrados, Noctow;, Togekiss (when I can get a Togepi without Trading- again a pain), Ho-oh, and Yvetal. Still they can be easily killed by secondary type weaknesses, Electric, and Rock types. So they have their own issues,
Number 14- Normal Type, the type that doesn't resist anything and just has a lot of overall health. So this type is only at this spot in my list because of the amount of moves that some Pokemon can learn. They can learn quite a few powerful moves that make them versatile in battle. But what they are well known for are HM slaves. An HM Slave is that one Pokemon that can learn a lot of HMs- which are nearly impossible to forget and in some people's eyes just wastes a good and ready move slot with its necessary evil to progress on the journey. Notable HM Slaves are Zigzagoon, Patrat, and Bidoof- which are found early in the game, thankfully evolve, and are able to be taught 3-6 HM moves. And Normal types that learn Fly can also be useful as well. Thankfully Gen 4 seemed to have the worst amount of HM moves with eight and they were all necessary and awful. So thanks to the lessening of HMs and the moving around of old HMs into Technical machines that can be taught over and over against to different and not just a single use- the Normal Type isn't at number 17. I also like the least Pokemon with this type- with the shuffling around that the addition of the Fairy type did to Pokemon- many Normal types I like have been moved to being Fairy types. So with that in mind, the Pokemon that are still Normal types that I like are Eevee (because of it's ridiculous number of evolutions), Snorlax, and Porygon Z (which was nearly impossible for me to get so when I got one I was ecstatic. And it was really overpowered. I took down Giratina with a Porygon Z with Signal Beam. . .)
Number 13- Ground Type This is a very powerful type with some of the most powerful Pokemon on this list. The problem is that a lot of Pokemon can hurt it with how type coverage can be. Many Pokemon nowadays can learn Water, Grass, and Ice moves and so the typing does have some flaws but offensively the Ground type kills. But with the Flying type being immune to Ground types and the Ability of Levitate which also make Pokemon immune to Ground- it has the most resistances. There aren't many Pokemon that I keep on my team consistently- Outside of Claydol in Gen 3, Golurk, and finally after 10 years of not being able to evolve Onix and never having the Gen 4 remakes- Steelix which is my favorite Ground type. Still think that Steelix should have got a Mega Evolution in the Kalos region.
Number 12- The Fighting type- I almost never use these Pokemon because I just never have the need to. A few need Trade Evolution to get to their final forms, the Fire- Fighting type combination is overdone with half of the starter Fire types evolving to have a secondary fighting type- so that is overdone, and their only being so many other secondary types in the whole set that it just seems boring. Now the whole set is pretty strong and useful- but outside of Lucario, Gallade, Blaziken, and Breloom I haven't used much in the way of Fighting types. My team is more focused on Special Attackers so Fighting types just don't fit in my team building activities.
Number 11- Water Type This is where I start having issues with ordering the types. I love the Water starters (especially Blastoise, Empoleon, and Greninja.) but much of the other Pokemon I don't care much about- except for the Fossils that are partially water (because I love the Fossil Pokemon) I never like the water type gyms- I had to restart Pokemon Platinum because I never got a grass or electric type Pokemon that could handle Gym 5. So I see this type as "that one Gym" outside of Whitney's Normal type gym that I hated in Gen 2 and the remakes. And other than Normal type ones- the Water type has the most HM moves making many a Water type an HM slave for water routes- Dive, Surf, Waterfall and Whirlpool have all been HMs and while Surf and Waterfall have been the most constant- that still means that a Water type could still have two spots filled with HMs and that doesn't count any others it could be able to learn. Personally my favorite water types are Gyrados, Blasttoise, the fossil Pokemon that are part water, Greninja, Empoleon, and Feraligatr. So I don't mind the type its more of what I am forced to sometimes teach my team to get further in my journey.
Number 10- The Rock Type This type has every fossil Pokemon from every generation and since I love the fossil Pokemon I love this type. It has a decent amount of Pokemon that are secondary typed to be a Powerful thing to fight against. They also have very good attack and defense and can be hard to take down without super effective moves- with the secondary types that give them their weaknesses. They are all either weak to Grass and/or Water and have some bad Special Defense to actually make up for the death that comes usually in one hit. What sometimes make up for that is the Ability Sturdy that many Pokemon of this type have to alleviate the issue of One Hit Knockouts. Personal favorites of mine of this type are the Fossil Pokemon,Tyranitar, and Aggron. Pure power all of the time.
Number 9- Fire Type This is mainly because of the easily killed Pokemon because of weaknesses to Ground, Rock, and Water which are all common types in playthroughs. The type make up for this with powerful special attack and some heavy hitters in Attack as well so they can sweep through their weaknesses. What brings this type down to this level is that many Fire Type starters (your most used Pokemon and the one you have to stare at the most) had been for half of the games- part Fighting type- piling on more weaknesses that just made it less fun to play with and just boring when guessing the new types of the Starter Pokemon. In Generations 3-5 I played more with Water Types because of how boring and unsurprising the final evolution was for so many Fire Types- combine that with some problems with how slow some Fire types were and they just weren't as useful in previous years. Favorites include Arcanine, Magmortar, Ho-oh, Delphox, Chandelure, and Volcarona- most of these are two-types and not part fighting types so they are less boring to me and just more cool looking.
Number 9- Dark, one of the two types introduced Generation 2. I like the type because of how cool the designs usually are. I almost never use the type because of their weakness to Fighting (and now Fairy) types and how common that type is in play throughs- not to mention competitive play. They aren't always the most powerful Pokemon but they can pack a punch if you want them to. Not much to say about them except that they are just fun to play with- and that outside of the Elite Four and the evil Teams- no Pokemon Gym has specialized in Dark Types- I wish they would because even the Fairy type has a Gym. Really? No Dark Gym when you have so many cool Pokemon to choose from and the Fairy type has a Gym in its first appearance? The Pokemon I like of this type are Umbreon, Sableye, Weavile, Bisharp, Hydreigon, Malamar, and Yvetal \
Number 8- Ghost This type is hard to find (like the Ice, and Fairy types) and aren't that strong physically. I never liked the Ghost type until Gen 5 so this is a recent development. I also don't like Trade Evolutions so while I want Gengar, Trevenant, and Phantump I can't because issues with internet. And have not many friends that had the game and could locally trade. This has personally formed my favorites of the Ghost type because of that. My favorites all evolve either by leveling up- or more commonly Evolutionary Stones. So it'd be common to see me have Banette instead of Gengar and a Frostlass, Chandelure, or Aegislash because I like their designs and I personally love Evolutionary stones.
Number 7- Dragon types Now I love dragons in literature and movies but with the mythical beasts inhabiting the world of Pokemoon I am disappoint. This is a very powerful type and (besides Fairy, Ice, or Dragon) not many moves are super effective against these things. Now that would make it very nice-except it has 5 of the 7 pseudo legendary pokemon which is unfair/ okay- and nearlt all the rest are true legendary Pokemon that are hard to catch and ridiculously powerful. So I don't like using them often because they just seem overpowered. My personal favorites are Goodra and Salamence.
Number 6- Electric This type has a lot of advantages- it is powerful against flying and water, and is only weak against ground types- not counting if they have two types and so some Pokemon of this type could have more weaknesses. I have always had (or very nearly had) a Pikachu on every team in every game that had a Pikachu- I have never completed Pokemon Yellow for one reason only- I don't like Pikachu. What Pokemon I love is Raichu. I very nearly despise Pikachu but it evolves into one of my favorites through a Thunderstone- which fulfills the evolve via an Evolutionary stone which I love. Add to this that Electic types are usually high Speed and Special Attack can take out whole teams of Pokemon easily without breaking a sweat. My favorites are Raichu, Electivire, Ampharos, Dedenne, and Gavantula who all helped me finish each game that they appeared in.
Now my Top 5 Pokemon types are what I would call "Gym Leader" types as in if I wanted to I would be totally fine of running an entire Gym with just that type of Pokemon. Which limiting- it is also freeing with the idea that you choose weakness covering moves and type matchups that give your team a defensive boost and a idea of control. Or if I wanted to I could totally goof around with friends and play competitively for fun with a team I raised with loving care. Also known as "I thought long and hard on how a team comprised of one type would run." And this is where I can barely decide on what my favorite Pokemon are- as we go go more towards number 1 I have longer and longer lists of Favorites because I can't choose between anything when they all have reasons to be amazing.
Number 5 Steel- also introduced Gen 2 Like the Rock and Ground types, Steel is Pure Power (Special Attack can also be high as well, defense is stellar.) I love this type mainly because I loved the Steel gym in Generation 2- mainly because your only opponent was Jasmine who has taken on this status as a traveler because she's been in the remakes , Sinnoh Gen4, and Gen 5's Pokemon World tournament. And with that introduction to the Steel type, it's in my top 5. Favorite Pokemon- Steelix, Mawile, Aggron, Metagross, Aegislash, Forretress, Empoleon, Lucario, Ferrothorn, and Bisharp.
Number 4- Psychic This type is very powerful with Special Attack and S.Defense This was also the type that caused Dark and Steel to enter in Gen 2 because Psychic types used to be super broken with how Bug and Ghost Moves were weak and how most of the Pokemon of said types were part Poison type which made them weak to Psychic types. I've loved this type since it was fixed in Gen 2 (I've played Gen 1 game mechanics and its a little bit more difficult. And the amount of usable moves throughout the 1st and 2nd Gens of Pokemon is tiny.)And yet they've been a crucial part of my team ever since them. Favorite Pokemon- Espeon, Grumpig, Gothitelle, Reuniclus, Mr. Mime, Gardevoir (which like Forretress I've had in every team that I could), Swoobat, Claydol, Metagross, Delphox, and Malamar. So I really know my Psychic types.
Number 3- and if not the fact that there is almost no Pokemon in this typing, it would totally be number 1- Fairy. Yes this type that just showed up in Gen 6 and threw a wrench some people's teams is one of my favorites. It would be number one if not for the fact that there is only 34 Pokemon in the Group (which ties it with Ghost as the rarest type) These things are ridiculous to kill with it being very strong and defensively decent with enough resistances to be good. Also everything that they are weak against are weak against Ground types so a Fairy type knowing Earthquake and things are deader than dead. Its one of those types that (unlike Ice) is not bogged down by Speed deficiencies and don't have gimmick Pokemon- I'm looking at you Smeargle, Delibird, Shuckle, etc- and with its resistances to popular types suich as Steel, Bug, and Dark , and a complete immunity to Dragon which makes them terrifying- they jumped into my top 5 and almost top spot if not for the fact that the next two types that I like more have more Pokemon- and therefore- more type combinations. Favorite Pokemon- Togekiss (yet again it is not in X and Y without possibly Friend Safari or trading via a Gen 5 game. And with Pokebank down because of an awful launch and issues with hacked Pokemon that could never happen legally, and my reluctance to pay for a monthly service that is not necessary- I have to learn to not mind not having a Togekiss- unless I figure out how to get on PSS and Wonder Trade some stuff I collected/ breeded.), Florges (which is a terifying thing), Aromatisse and Slurpuff- which both are Trade Evos with held items, Sylveon, Xerneas-if I had X Version or traded, Mr. Mime, Azumarill, Gardevoir,Mawile, Whimsicott, Dedenne, Carbink, Klefki- and outside of a few that I din't say - I just named all the Fairy types and they are all fantastic- especially the Psychic/Fairy Combo which resists Dark type moves making Gardevoir and Mr. Mime relevant again- not to mention Mega Gardevoir.
Number 2- Poison It isn't the best offensively but it isn't half bad defensively. And it resists Poison status effects which I love because I always lose a Pokemon to Poison- especially before it was changed in Gen 4 to where Pison stopped working on the overworld when your Pkemon with Poison was a 1 Hit Point. Add to the fact that the Poison effect can be annoying, if not deadly to other Pokemon and the types of surprising moves that Poison types can learn via TMs can mitigate some of their weaknesses and can surprise some people. My Favorite Pokemon- Arbok, Muk, Swalot, Garbodor, Crobat, Skuntank, Nidoking, Nidoqueen, Drapion, Dragalge (and since it is in Pokemon Y- I can catch it's pre-evolution.), Venusaur, Vileplume, Ariados, Dustox, Roserade, Scolipede, Toxicroak
Number 1- Grass While I absolutely dislike the starter Pokemon with how slow they usually are and that they are weak against so many things I love the type nonetheless. They are affected by weather conditions and outside of Normal and Grass type moves- can't learn much via leveling up. Now I still love the Grass types because they are so diverse- similar to the Earth with things that look like animals, plants, Evolve via Evlutionary stones, Evolve via a Moss Rock, etc. altogether it is a cool evolution filled place. And as I've said before, I mainly use Special Attack Sweepers in my team so Grass with such a focus on either strong Normal type Physical attacks, Special Attack focused Grass moves, and the array of HM and, more importantly, TMs that give type coverage against Grass type Pokemon's weaknesses. Altogether they are one of my favorite types to use. Favorite Pokemon- Venusaur, Meganium, Bellossom, Leafeon, Simisage, Lilligant (sadly I don't have a Gen 5 game so I can't get Lilligant but if I could I would throw it on my team so hard it would break the sound barrier and because I love it's design and it was so deadly in Gen 5.), Vileplume, Jumpluff, Roserade, Whimsicott, Ferrothorn.
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