Jeoffrey

So there is now a third Kuiba movie up on YouTube, and to be honest, I think it is a touch worse than the previous movie Kuiba II. There are more confrontations and fight scenes, plus quite interesting tension playing with the notion of friend/enemy, and although occasionally it is a visually very interesting movie, it is all rather disappointing. The narrative is once again very long-winded, and there are scenes and storylines that strike me as just outlandish rather than interesting. I also did not like the CGI animation because although sometimes it looked quite good (the scenes about the journey through the depths of the sea), at other times it was quite awful, especially the way the characters moved, and the CGI characters look incongruous against the hand-drawn background. The pulse beasts in this movie almost made me feel like I was watching Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and their Dinozords... If it keeps going like this, I might loose my interest in the whole Kuiba universe with the next movie... This one was just a bit better than average. 5.5/10.

I could not find a copy of the second movie with English subtitles for a really long time, and then I was surprised to find it has been available on YouTube for some years now - for free...I really like this series of movies, they are based on some pretty solid ideas and I am still on tenterhooks as to when it is all going to blow up, and what is going to happen in the next installment. I found the first movie to be a great introduction to this well-crafted and action-packed heroic fantasy series, and as such, I have to admit that I was not as blown away by the second movie. The second installment was a bit long-winded, and seemed to contain a higher amount of obvious clichés... So, I was not as impressed as I was with the first movie although I still think this movie is above-average so I am awarding it 7/10.

I thought this movie did not really bring anything new to the world of Goblin Slayer. It was yet again an adventure involving the killing of goblins and finding out that they adapt quite well to all sorts of situations. Of course, there is always some massive fucker out there that is more powerful, smarter, and deadlier, and deserves, like all the other goblins (although this one perhaps a bit more), to die! To be honest, I had expected something more epic, more profound, and more interesting from this movie. I was disappointed that the animation looked the same as in the Goblin Slayer anime series - it should have been better with a bigger budget and movie format. What cheered me up was the fact that before this adventure began, there was The Priestess's Log, a special episode that is a 25-minute summary of the first season of the Goblin Slayer anime series so everyone could catch up on the plot (like a kind of movie preview). So my feelings about this movie? They are about the same as the feeling I have about the anime series. 6/10. 

This is emotionally deeper and more impactful than the entirety of The Ancient Magus' Bride, and it is only ten minutes long... 7.5/10

I came, I saw, I left. I could not help it because there was nothing interesting or original about this show, it was just another generic, dumbed-down, ecchi comedy anime series. It has an extremely pathetic and annoying main male protagonist a I hate him despite the fact, that the sceenwriters tries to convince me, that he is actually a nice guy, and all the girls flock around him... Fairy tales about how some sexy princess will one day really understand you, pull you out of your shell, and make you a man which is aimed at nerdy, geeky teenagers (who see themself in the main protagonist) amused me until I was about twenty-five. After that I realized that it was a stupid fantasy and most of my friends who are still single in their thirties, are exactly the same as the protagonist, they have lots of girl-friends, are happy to help any girl in need, and yet always go home alone unfulfilled… There is no bright future ahead for pathetic, nice, complacent, incompetent guys because as the clitoris in South Park said - "chicks love confidence"! So, this is why I do not like this fairy tale, because I think what they are trying to convey is such outrageous bullshit... Moreover, if you have already seen this type of anime series with a similar male protagonist before, then you are going to find it all predictable, boring, and ridiculous, just like the fact that I know that despite all the ecchi interludes the main protagonist will remain a virgin for the rest of the season even though he is a normal twenty-year-old man with a healthy interest in women and sex. These are not even spoilers, because this must have been obvious to everyone after the first episode. The male protagonist is of course going to get close to having sex a few times, so the sweaty young men in the audience can wrestle their one-eyed snake, and if not, at least fantasize about it… So how and with whom does the main protagonist end up? That is quite obvious, right? More importantly - do I really need to talk about that in this review? Stop, that is quite enough, if I want to see something like this, I am going to watch Shrek again because at least its main protagonist is undeniably endearing... I am giving up on this after the second episode and am leaving other reviewers to rate it because I could be wrong and this could be pure gold - a profound work that will destroy all the rom-com rivals in its path, or maybe introduce an innovative and original concept to the world of ecchi! I actually do not believe that of course, even though anything is possible…

The original review is from 12/28/2019 - Fire Force is really a hodgepodge throwing all the possible concepts and storylines the shonen genre has to offer into quite a surprisingly well-rounded show. My first impressions after a few episodes were summed up thusly: “The manga author behind Soul Eater clearly wanted to create his own Blue Exorcist”. The resemblance to that show, with all the references to "The Devil", the fact that one of the female characters looks an awful lot like Rin Okumura when she is using her powers (apart from the fact her tails, ears, and claws are red), the battles with a multitude of Infernals, plus a deeper backstory storyline is apparent. The fact that it is by the manga author behind Soul Eater is also quite obvious. This is clear when you see the character design - for example, the main male protagonist has sharp pointy teeth, and of course there is the obligatory reference to Arthurian legend with Excalibur... As you start getting into it, you slowly realize there are more and more similarities with other shonen anime series. There are (fire) forces with very charismatic commanders which is something we saw in Bleach. Then it is immediately revealed that the main protagonist has two main motivations: On the one hand to become the greatest hero (a typical shonen trope - The Hokage, the King of the Pirates, etc.), and on the other hand to save his family, a classic storyline which can be done in a reasonably respectable and logical way (like Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba did). So while this show is nothing we have not seen before, what makes this anime stand out from the rest? Unfortunately, there is not much except a bunch of peculiarities and strange things that got me thinking as it went on. The biggest mystery is the simple fact that everything the manga author threw in holds together. You can see, for example, that in producing this work he took a lot of liberties with world-building and the rules of that world. An intriguing and mysterious history is subtly unpacked through religious quotes, revealing that something very bad must have happened to this Earth of ours. There is also a strange and malevolent organization, unnatural phenomena, suspicion about the origin of all their powers, and even doubts about everything their scriptures tell them. In other words, the lore is really brilliantly crafted and the anime series keeps wringing more and more surprises out of it all the way throughout the season. As for the characters, they are at least interesting even if they are not that original. For example, erotica is incorporated into the narrative as a curse on one of the girls - well that sounds pretty crazy, right? It looks pretty freaky too! Other peculiarities I found include, for example, the protagonist’s main "competition" who provides the most comic relief (the legendary King Arthur meets the hapless Don Quixote). What about the others? Some characters, such as the commanders and some of Shinra's colleagues are quite endearing, and the rest are either forgettable or boring... What else? Fire Force is first and foremost a classic shonen anime series with pretty good fight scenes that have a good vibe and are dynamic, plus they go for a certain cool aesthetic (sometimes the main protagonist’s style almost looks like he is breakdancing or practicing Capoeira). The animation is sometimes very good, and sometimes not so good. It has an excellent soundtrack and both the two openings and even the music underscoring the fight scenes are very good. All in all, this anime series is not going to set the world on fire, yet the world it is set in is quite sophisticated, and I found that and its mysteries and potential intriguing enough. So, because some episodes are quite entertaining, I ended up awarding it 6.66/10 after finishing the first season (because of The Devil).

Scrapped Princess is exactly this - a high fantasy anime series version of The Matrix, yet somehow not as sophisticated and even less interesting than (the sci-fi fantasy) Utawarerumono, although I found it more enjoyable than Guin Saga, which I saw only last week. What is good about this show in my opinion is that the setting is quite charming, the characters are quite endearing (although the main female protagonist can be quite a brat...), it has a good atmosphere, and the soundtrack is nice too... What I think is wrong with it is that it seems to me that they laid their cards on the table too early and made a fairly enjoyable fantasy anime series into a confusing, though still pretty respectable sci-fi, albeit one that stops in the middle of the season for a long-winded break to unpack everything and kills the initial mood they had built up... They manage to pull it back a bit by wrapping everything up neatly with the ending, however, was there any surprise at all? I binged the whole season in one weekend and enjoyed it, although the second half of the season was not really my cup of tea, and I was not very impressed by the revelations regarding the world it is set in... 6.6/10.

I was about eight years old when the first two arcade game machines were brought into our local shop. One had a racing game on it and the other had Street Fighter II. My two cousins and I, who were of a similar age, were helping out like mad at home to earn some pocket money so we could go and play this game... I remember that I was the best at being Blanka, because I could spam my opponents with the Electric Thunder attack just at the right moment, although unfortunately my opponents then adapted quite quickly and I still remember one of my biggest losses as a kid, when one of my cousins just used Guile to spam attacks from a distance so Blanka could not reach him with his Electric Thunder attack... We had a lot of wonderful experiences during the era of arcade game machines, which actually only lasted only a few months before one of my cousins got an Atari console and the other got an Intel 486 computer, and Street Fighter II was abandoned for Mortal Kombat... When I was older, I discovered there had been a Street Fighter movie starring Jean-Claude Van Damme which was so bad I did not get to the end of it, and I decided then to leave that universe behind... Well, I made a mistake, because this anime adaptation is really quite good. It has most of the characters from the game, they have a lot of the major attacks, and even the fight scenes have some spunk and substance. Sure, it is irritating that my favorite character Blanka is only in it for a minute along with Zangief, and Dhalsim is only in it for about five minutes. I could go on, although you have to remember they do have a lot of characters in the game… This anime series is rather average plot-wise, there is nothing too epic, surprising, or challenging going on. But if you have ever played the game, there is a high possibility, that you will enjoy the movie a bit more and because of it give it some extra points... 7/10.

This is the second movie from the My Hero Academia universe, and as with the first movie My Hero Academia: Two Heroes I found some aspects of this movie did not work very well. For example, the way the characters gets in all the troubles, or the fact that the movie recycles some of the same proven narrative tropes as the anime series like A) to make the audience emotional, putting kids in danger works best, B) obligatory emphasis on teamwork, C) Deku has to use 100% of his power, and D) there must be a cheasy way of dealing with the consequences of Deku's use of his full power... However, there are many more things that can help me forget these negative aspects and I can announce that I enjoyed the hell out of it! I was pleased to see that there is no main protagonist but rather protagonists, plural. Deku gets just as much screen time as Bakugo, and to be honest, I think Bakugo is more appealing and interesting because he seems “cooler”. The action scenes are absolutely magnificent, just sheer dynamite, and the final fight animation made me wonder if I was watching a really good adaptation of a part of the Dragon Ball universe. Bones animation studio has once again convinced me of their mastery at producing action that is fierce, colorful, and full of fluid movements... Story-wise it is a classic, as someone who knows the anime series and what to expect, yet many of those proven narrative tropes still worked for me, and so during certain scenes I felt compassion and concern for the characters, and was on the edge of my seat during the fight scenes, barely pausing for breath due to the suspense. I think this is a really good movie and personally, I found it insanely impactful. 8.8/10.

In my opinion, Tamayura is definitely a cut above within the slice of life genre. The atmosphere of the show is really masterfully done (I enjoyed the use of Dvorak’s Humoresque, more than when it was used in the commercials for Hera spreadable vegetable fat in the 90s). It is set in a delightful and picturesque environment (there are some interesting photos), and a healthy dose of cuteness, amusement, and poeticism thanks to things like candy, photography, and the search for Tamayura. It just felt like a nice glimpse into a lovable world of friendly characters and it just flew by. This OVA series really inspired me to continue with Tamajura: Hitotose, and due to its various little quirks and originality, like the ones mentioned above there is a pretty good chance I am going to remember this anime fondly for a long time to come. 7/10.