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Sep 16, 2026
Koukaku Kidoutai (TV)
(Anime)
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Mixed Feelings Spoiler
Ghost in the Shell is an important anime franchise for me since Standalone Complex and 90s movie caused "phase 2" of me being an anime fan. With that said, everything past Standalone Complex 2nd Gig and Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence feels like they are just making new entries into this franchise because there's some contractual obligation to make a new one every few years. Now, the latest attempt involves emulating the art style and tone of the original manga which just tells me they are running out of ideas in a franchise that has already rehased ideas before. I already knew that outside
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Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jul 23, 2026
Death Note
(Anime)
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Death Note along with the 2003 adaptation of Full Metal Alchemist were some of the earliest examples of me being exposed to anime to "darker" and more "mature" and that anime itself can be more than just shows like Dragon Ball and Yugioh. I've seen Death Note multiple times over the years, this being my 4th. I was expecting it to be a usual run in the mil watch of, "it's a very fun thriller that is a popcorn story at heart". What surprised me this time around is just how bizarrely fascinating the narrative subversions are this time. DN still is a popcorn narrative
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and doesn't raise that many philosophical questions but there are so many interesting things that I never noticed before. With that said, I'll still be promoting the popular narrative that the first 26 episodes are DN at it's best and watching the last 11 episodes was such a massive slog. If it weren't for the latter, I'd just stay quiet and enjoy the show. Death Note both has really good and terrible writing in the same series.
The big example is the protagonist Light Yagami himself. When the story starts, he lives the most boring life a fictional character could ever have. He never experienced any tradegy, he's well liked in school both in terms of grades and his social life, he never annoys anyone, everyone in his life either loves, thinks he is cool or is indiffernet towards him. His life is so perfect and uneventful that Light himself points it out. This is where the interesting subversion comes in: What if that fictional character who lived the most boring, ordinary, and uneventful life who faced no hardships was given absolute power? With that absolute power manifests a god complex where he deems anyone who doesn't follow his idea of an ideal person in society must be punished? He's better at using a supernatural notebook of death better than it's owner. Oh, that owner is a god of death that he isn't even close to being afraid of. When viewed on a surface level, Light almost comes off as the much dreaded "gary stu" but due to these narrative choices he could almost come off as a deconstruction of one. Before I considered Light to be just "an entertaining over the top character" but noticing these things now makes me appreciate him in a way. Then there is his rival "L" who can certainly be the "hero" of the story. He's not really one in a traditional sense but in less overt ways. He's an introvert who hardly ever shows his face and his real name is unknown. He has a bizarre eating habbit of only eating sweets. Speaks very quickly, has a strange way of standing and sitting. Then there is unconventional hair style. There's also the more immoral things he does like kidnapping, hiring criminals and using unsanctioned wiretaps. When you pit these characters against each other in a game of cat and mouse game of wits and this where much of Death Note's tension and conflict comes from. Light would be a very boring character without L and the story even pokes fun at it too. Add in some great background music during a show that is more talking than action that really immerses the viewer into the various scenes and can also be intense when it wants to be. Also Ryuk being both a natural way to give exposition and an audience surrogate at the same time. It really does feel like DN nailed mostly everything and I would just write it off as a very good and entertaining show. Unfortunately...I have to talk about the last 11 episodes. I said before how I appreciate Light more than I originally. That goes triple for L. Watching these episodes made me realize how much I appreciate him as a character. He brought the best out of Light and in turn the best out of the series. He rounded Light as a character since he was the one could challenge him in a game of wits. Then comes the much dreaded Near and Mellow arc. I will preface by saying that I'm aware that Madhouse for the anime cut out significent parts of this arc in the manga. Entire scenes were removed, sub plots were gone, characters are barely fleshed out, and had their personalites quirks gone. It was a gutted adaptation to say the least. With that said, I'd argue a faithful Near and Mellow arc wouldn't save everything since the mere existence of this whole storyline wouldn't mitigate the arc fatigue that it brings. DN was about Light overcoming the greatest challenge he ever face with L. It wasn't so much about the former becoming a "god" of the new world but the challenge he had to overcome to get it. Near and Mellow get established out of nowhere and it turns into an elongated trek to the finish line. The writing also goes downhill too with the ridiculouse lapses in logic too. There's far too many but to keep it short I'll name two. Mellow gets apprehended and Souichirou Yagami is about to write his name in the Death Note. Out of nowhere it's established that the latter never killed anyone...even though the story never alluded to this or am I really supposed to buy that a senior police officer never taken a life. On top of that, he previously kindnapped his daughter, got her trumatized and even made him comtemplate suicide. Why would he even hesistate to kill him? This is only here because Mellow needs to live in order for him to help Near bust Light at the end. Speaking of Near, there is a scene later in the story where his taskforce the SPK gets outed and there are Kira cultists who want to see him dead. Yet some he had money to hire police to fend them off, had his own money thrown out in the air and SOMEHOW manages to go to another similar building through the crowd despite getting outed by the president beforehand. The whole idea of the US president surrending to Kira never goes anywhere interesting. Add to Near and Mellow's scenes and personality traits being gutted combined with the lapses in logic and how ridiculous it gets in general that Death Note goes from, "this show is really enjoyable" to "this is insufferable make this end already". Overall, watching the DN anime is a fascinating case of me liking the good parts more than ever but me also disliking the terrible parts more than I did before too. It was a strange double edged sword to say the least.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jun 25, 2026
Uchuu Senkan Yamato 2199
(Anime)
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Mixed Feelings
I watched this series almost 10 years ago because I heard so much positive word of mouth. It was even considered one of the best "remakes" ever. I got to eventually watching it and ended up being very disappointed by it. I decided to watch it again many years later being completely divorced from the positive word of mouth. My updated thoughts now is that the show is by no means something I consider "terrible" but at the same I also consider it to be painfully average. It's about as average as average can get. It's not a show where I find the episodes
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revolvting to watch but when I do sit through them I consider, "eh guess I'm done". I really wanted my thoughts this time around to be different but instead I'm starting to realize younger me and me now aren't too dissimilar in terms of thought process.
After that long intro what makes me so lukewarm on it? To put it simpily, this anime FEELS like the longest "popcorn flick" ever. If this was a movie rather than a 26 episode show, I would just chock it up to, "that was fun time with some thought provoking moments here and there". Instead it's an action movie that overstays it's welcome. The early episodes were interesting and it did good job at establishing the stakes and establishing humanity as the underdog and there are some interesting episodes here and there like the one with Analyzer and Altar and alien "witch" using genjutsu to see the characters past but then the pacing just meanders for a while. It leads me to my biggest problem with the show and that's it's characters. They are by no means "terrible" but considering the show is 26 episodes, I'm amazed that no one really "pops" at me. It almost gives me James Cameron's Avatar vibes in how there's not a character in the cast that makes me go like, "damn that character is so quotable" or "he's so thought provoking in his actions". They just feel like characters you'd find in an action thriller film but no one is charismatic enough to keep my eyes glued. Okita from the main cast maybe comes the cloest to breaking out but he never really breaks out of being the "rational and level headed leader". There's never really a moment in the story where he breaks out that that archetype. There is the whole delimma with the Wave Motion Gun being this devasting weapon that can cause massive destruction and how it should only be used for "defense". This could allow for the story to put him and the Yamato crew in situations where it could raise interesting moral questions but it never happens. Moments where it's tempting to use a weapon like that but he has to resist or forced to against his own will. Other than a late story plot twist, it's surprising not as prevelant in the story as it should be. Kodai is supposed to be an upcoming promising commander but he's never really forced to make overly tough calls and he's mainly defined by how awesome his brother is and his love for Yuki Mori. His "YUKKIII" screams annoy me in both english and japanese. Yuki Mori is mainly just a typical damsel with a mysterious past who gets kidnapped more than contributing to the plot. You got the villain Deslar who never really amounts to much of anything or do anything memorable in the story. Early episodes seems it is hinting towards this but an interesting action with him never happens until around maybe the last 2 or 3 episodes. Then there is that whole irony with his canon that would've been funnier if the story did a better job at making me dislike him. There was that one honrable commander character who also might've stood out but also seems rather typical. I also could bring up how I really hate the female character designs in how young and overly sexual they look especially in a story that is trying to be taken seriously but that could arguably a personal nitpick. Overall, so many of my criticisms could be retracted if the series was either a movie or did a better job with it's characters and themes in the 26 episodes that it had. Also doesn't help that the ending was ultimately just a cliffhanger. I geniunely wanted to this rewatch to be me turning face on the show but instead I'm just lukewarm rather than apathetic.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Apr 25, 2026
Sousou no Frieren 2nd Season
(Anime)
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Mixed Feelings Spoiler
So what exactly happened this season? I'm also starting to lose the plot too or is there even one? That's basically my thoughts on Frieren as a whole. It's an interesting premise with some interesting characters in a story that I have a hard time telling what it even is.
Is it a fantasy slice of life with the gimmick that it stars a slowly aging protagonist with the main bad guy already beaten as soon as the story starts or is it a fantasy fighting shonen? I can't even tell. I do like the slice of life episodes and the whole group dynamic between ... Frieren, Stark and Fern but it's just rethreading what season 1 already did. The group dynamic, visuals and music does do much of the heavy lifting. This time around I'm wondering if there is any sense of urgency in what the "journey" in Frieren even is. The crew also haven't even reuinted with the priest they tried to recruit but then parted ways with in the last season. They've went on multiple odd jobs and there is no sense of progression at all. It almost feels like this whole season is a filler. It's ultimately just there to introduce the plot points and main antagonist of the next season. This now leads me to my next big issue. The villains or I should the very uninteresting and boring villains. I'm not a fan of the demons and no, it has nothing to do with my political views. They are just completely devoid of any kind of intrigue. They aren't fun to hate villains, they have no sense of warped ideology, nor do they have any interesting motivations, they are just generic by the numbers bad guys whose main characteristics is that they make, "humans are weak" monologues before dying in two episodes. It was like this in the previous season and S2 has done little to improve upon it. This leads to my next two complains which work in tandem as to why I always feel confused when watching this series. The overpowered protagonist and the aforementioned limbo of being stuck between two genres. Frieren from episode 1 establishes that the titular character's party of heroes defeated the ultimate evil at the start of the series. So by all intents and purposes, there shouldn't really be any villains or the very least they should have the forces weakened or there should be a power vaccum but is there? The demons are still running around and are often viewed just as threatning as ever or the audience is told that whenever they pop up. There also multiple demon captains running around too. So Himmel is being immortalized for wiping out an evil that isn't really gone or extinct? Frieren being so overpowered doesn't help this case either. I like her quirky personality and her playing off other characters or just how inept she can be despite living for so long. However she is like an actor who isn't very good when it comes to showing off her fighting her fighting prowess. The using stunt men or relying on quick cuts and editing kind. In S1, she can already beat the demons easily but in S2? She can just watch from afar and doesn't even have to get involved in order to win. It's almost impossible to feel any kind of wonder when she fights because nothing the anime has shown can even have her break a sweat or slow her down for more than 3 minutes. It often involves Fern and Stark fighting for their lives and the story trying to make sure Frieren isn't involved for there to be tension. It subverts the trope of "old mentor who is very powerful but is slowed down greatly due to age" but not in a very compelling way due to the aforementioned issues. Next season is supposedly her fighting one of the demon lords? Hard for me to care considering his kind are just pushovers with elongated health bars. This ultimately leads to what I'm talking about this whole time. Is this a slice of life story where it's about a slowly aging protagonist teaching a new generation of apprentices the meaning of life and all it's wonders or is it just a fantasy fighting shonen? If it was the latter, I would've just dropped a while ago but the premise keeps me hanging on. I question who this story is for. The slice of life people will dislike the action episodes and the action people will dislike the slice of life episodes plus there are so many other stories like Attack on Titan and Naruto that already do what the action episodes does. I'll check out the next season, if I'm as lukewarm as I've been thus far, I'll stop sinking the cost into this fallacy.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Oct 6, 2025 Not Recommended Spoiler
Recently I decided to rewatch Fate/Zero again for the first time in over 10 years out of sheer curosity. I recall loving the series when I first watched it and a part of me thought if I were to watch it again in such a long time, it wouldn't hold up. Much to my surprise, Fate Zero still held up after all these years. It's still a well made show even now. It is easily one of my favorite prequels in all of fiction. This now leads me to the Ufotable's remake of Fate/stay night. When I first watched it, I was appalled by how
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bizarre and terrible the writing was in comparison to Fate Zero so much so that I question if I was crazy for liking the latter since after all, Fate Zero was supposed to lead into this remake of Fate stay night to the point where it's marketed as a sequel. It has now happened again 10 years later, I still don't like if not outright loathe this series. This could be all chocked up to UBW 2014 being a "bad adaptation" but the prior adaptation made by Studio Deen was also not considered a good adaptation. Ufotable was supposed to get "right" what Deen got wrong, they made Fate Zero after all. I'm covering all the seasons including the prologue. If Fate Zero wasn't a prequel, I wouldn't even touch a story like this, this whole show was a sunk cost fallacy because I was curious what exactly was that series setting up.
Right at the offset, UBW starts off with a teenagers instead of the adult cast from Fate Zero, this is okay since both Rin and Shirou were characters set up by Fate Zero. The prologue episode is "fine" probably some of the best writing in this series which is already really telling on how much I dislike it. Rin and Archer's dyanmics and interactions are fun and amusing with Archer stealing much of the show with how casual he can be. Rin Toosaka as a character is at her best since she's driving the story and isn't playing a game of waiting around while getting googley eyed with Shirou. Then the series actually starts and right away things feel off. Fate Zero had a wide array of characters of different ages, skills and backgrounds and while it did take place in one city, there was a feeling of anything could happen at anywhere at any time. Fate stay night on the other hand, most of the Grail War participants all are located in this one high school Shirou and Rin attends, this already lowers the amount of tension or dynamic encounters these two characters could already be in. It starts to get really silly when even one of the school's faculty is a participant in this war. There is a decent number pointless side characters(most likely going to a girl) that add nothing to the story. Characters like Fujimura, Himuro, Mitsuzuri, Sakura don't add much of anything to the story and disappear from the story when the 2nd half starts rolling in. There is also characters like Issei and then there is Shinji Moto who is a character so pathetically awful, I'd almost mistaken him for David Blake from Highlander 2 for much of weasel and coward he is. Shinji is one of the few who do reoccur throughout out the show and he won't provide anything of geniune value. He lasts so long you wonder if he is just favored by the plot. He survives to the end of the story where Kirei Kotomine a few episodes before the end of the 2nd half gets killed off. Shirou isn't really anything more than a generic typical nice guy. His inner monolgoues in the VN is supposed to give him depth but hearing his inner monologues just makes it an easy tool to increase my chances of liking him since by that point I'm just being psychic. He's supposed to be a "traditional shonen protagonist" but I don't see it. He's more like a teenage Vash the Stampede without the exaggerated humor and hair with copying aspecting of Sasuke's sharringaan ability. On paper, maybe this isn't so bad but it drops the ball in that remember how Fate Zero is supposedly a prequel? This series does nothing with that. A big example of this is when Saber shows up. Considering how both Shirou and Kiritsugu both have "Emiya" in their full names and former's group mentions the latter on multiple occasions, Saber would be apprehensive towards Shirou since Kiritsugu in the last Grail War never spoke to her unless if it helping him to get an advantage, lied to her, and robbed her out of her wish from the Grail at the end of Fate Zero. This on paper should make for an interesting dynamic. Saber doesn't want to be Shirou's servant due to guilt by association but throughout the series she warms up to the latter and comes to accept that the man who fought along side her in the previous Grail War might've mellowed out and became a different person. Speaking of Kiritsugu, the one or two scenes he has in the first half is one of the few things about UBW 2014 I like since it's bittersweet that after all the screw ups he did, he managed to do one decent thing about saving Shirou. I was a little bummed he disppears from the story after the 1st half but considering how Kirei gets character assassinated, the former disappearing is like Abe Sapien not being in Hellboy 2019 or Clearence Boddicker, Dick Jones and The Old Man not being in Robocop 2014. Saber seemingly has a mind wipe like R2-D2 and C-3PO at the end of Star Wars Revenge of the Sith which already ruins what good writing there could be. It doesn't help that her personality is rewritten and she's esstentially nothing more than an obdient plaything for Shirou. Any crediblity Saber could have is even furthur destroyed when towards the end of the 1st half and the start of the 2nd, Saber is tied up wearing these fetished bondage clothes. If this was a movie, I would've walked out of the theater. I would've stopped there but I pressed on due to curosity. This leads to the next few issues that work in tandem to make this remake/sequel such a mess to watch. Shirou and Rin never drive the story in any meaningful way. Most of the time, enemy mages will come to them then they planning something themsleves. Illya for example is the one to make the first move on the two characters. The school gets attacked and Shinji makes the first move and the attack wasn't even stopped because Rin and Shirou. When they attack Kuzuki, the latter overpowers them both that it never amounts to anything. When they go to Illya's castle, Gilgamesh and Shinji are the first ones to get there and the former is the one that does the major damage. I got to wonder what the purpose of these characters even were. Surely the villains can carry this story right? Well unforunately that is a massive NOPE. Shinji Moto has already been discussed. There is the aforementioned Illyasviel von Einzbern. This character on paper should be interesting in spite of the fact that she is a underaged girl who speaks like a psycho but hey she's on the side of evil. Plus she has a lot of connections to Fate Zero with both Kiritsugu and Irvisveil both did in everything in their power to make sure she would have a normal life. She's Shirou's half brother. There is some room for drama here, right? Not really. She shows up in the first episodes of UBW 2014 and then gets killed off quickly and easily by Gilgamesh in the 2nd half. She barely has much of a presence and gets killed off at around her 3rd appreance. To top it all off, it even shows her backstory with Berserker right before she is about to die which only angered me. Illya's servants? Leysritt and Sella? They die in their 2nd appearence. The worst of the villain writing has yet to come. There is Kuzuki who is really nothing more than a dull pawn who is a puppet for Caster. Speaking of Caster, she might be the closest thing this series has to an interesting villain. Her plan of harvesting innocent people for energy while morally apprehesible, she does at the very least have some kind of strategy to win the Grail War. Her gathering enough energy to take on Berserker and Illya sells you on the latter two characters' crediblity more than their actions do. She doesn't amount to much since she doesn't even fight Berserker and she gets humliated by the end pretty epicly in spite of her probably being the most interesting character in the cast which isn't saying much. Assassin is basically just a guard dog and nothing more. He's stuck in one location and in both his scenes fights Saber and that's it. Gilgamesh while interesting in Fate Zero, it was mainly that way because he was the catalyst for Kirei's arc and development and highlighting how dull of a person Tokiomi is. On his own, he's just a one note overpowered villain. Him being OP is all he really has going for him since his motivation of wanting to using the Grail to kill millions of people just makes him come as a narcisstic idiot. He doesn't do much outside of act superior to others and think he's awesome. The worst of all UBW 2014's version of Kirei Kotomine. The term "character assassination" gets thrown around with reckless abandon on the internet but this version of Kirei is the biggest downgrade ever from the one from Fate Zero. In that show he slowly went through an arc of being evil and inflicting suffering on to others. He ruins the lives of innocent people and kills people who showed nothing but kindness towards him like Tokiomi. He kept Kariya alive just to prolong his suffering some more. He also has no problem framing that series' version of Rider if it means getting what he wanted showing off his cunning and deception. What does UBW 2014 do? He barely has any screen time, does anything of geniune note with that time has and when he revealed to Rin that he killed Tokiomi which SHOULD be a scene that destroys Rin to her foundations(plus almost getting inapprioately touched by Shinji Moto) and it gets brushed off fast and Kirei dies in the very scene this gets revealed in. You think Kirei might come back or the very least have a battle with Rin in the show's final few episodes but no, she's trying to save Shinji, the guy who tried to grope her. This was the moment I gave up and stopped caring, the final link to Fate Zero is gone and in an anticlimatic way. From here on out I stopped caring about Shirou and his past selves and all that convoluted stuff about time travel or any conflict in the story. I just stopped being invested and wanted it all to end. So I fast forwarded the pen ultimate episode and watched at 2x speed for the last episode and ended it. I just wanted to sinking my time into this. Overall, I loved Fate Zero and UBW 2014 just proves the saying "curosity killed the cat". I was smart for dropping at the first half back 10 years ago since time hasn't made me kinder on this series. Shows like this are proof that amazing animation and well animated fight scenes can't carry bad writing especially writing that is monumentally terrible as this. I don't try to finish anime I don't like anymore but my love for Fate Zero wanted to see what it was building up to. At this point, I just wished that series was just it's own story and has no connection to this. I could maybe look up a playthrough of the VN but UBW 2014 fails miserably as a commerical for that.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Jul 5, 2025 Mixed Feelings
I found Lazarus to be a a good show and most of the episodes were very entertaining in the moment. It did a pretty good job at being an animated action thriller.
Lazarus' first episode does make a strong first impression, the opening and end credits animation is great, the background music is really good and the action with Chad Stahelski contributing is well made stuff even though Schinchiro Watanabe shows always did deliver in the action department. I also did enjoy how the cast played off each other and each member of Lazarus had their own reason for being on the team as well having ... their own backstory before joining. There's a decent number of down time episodes in between the action too which helps flesh the characters out. Just seeing the over the top wacky hinjinks each episode had with the world ending stakes makes each episode a game of the characters finding a clue of where Skinnker could be and if they could pull it off. I also enjoyed that there's new pairings with each of the Lazarus members in every episode so it gives the show new character dynamics to work with. There is just one big problem is that while Lazarus is fun to watch in the moment, each episode ends with the titular group barely being any closer to finding the "big bad" that is Skinner. This leads to the ending and the last episode in particular was just awful. It felt like an asspull, a deus ex machina, crazy contrived conincidents and also feels like a case where the writer bailing the characters out of a tough jam. It's one of those endings so bad that it manages to undermine all the episodes leading up to it. When I got to the penultimate episode, a big part of me was like, "there is no way they are going to wrap this up in a neat and tidy package" and unsurprisingly, it didn't. There is this whole saying that is popular in the anime community years back saying, "ending is paramount". I can sort of see that and how the ending of this series could ruin the story for many. I tend to think of that scene from Adaptation where Robert McKee tells Charlie Kaufman, "you can have issues, you can have flaws but wow them in the end". Lazarus is certainly one of those stories that does not follow this rule. It's weird, just how important an ending is even if I enjoyed everything leading up to it. I was certainly going to give this series a 7 but thinking about that ending almost wants me to lower it to a 6. I try not to value endings in fiction since there's a lot of stories out there especially those that aren't movies that don't even have a proper ending but when it's badly executed, it's just hard not to think about. I'd still probably give the series a 7, I do have some other issues like how the series takes place over the course of 30 days but it just skips by quickly but I just view it as apart of it's whole "no nonsense" pacing and it's a testament to the show how the characters and to a lesser extent the setting feel moderately fleshed out for a run time of 11 episodes basically everything before the last 2 which "wraps up" the plot. Overall, I enjoyed my time with Lazarus especially everything before that final episode. It's nice seeing an action thriller story in the form of an anime especially a mainstream one so it's worth watching just for that. It also has a big name like Chad Stahelski contributing to the action which also helps sells it. It's an enjoyable time for 13 episodes if you ignore the bad ending.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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May 3, 2025
Versailles no Bara (Movie)
(Anime)
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Rose of the Versailles is a show along with Ashita No Joe and Mobile Suit Gundam made me appreciate anime more than I already did before, it was really awesome to me how TV shows from the 70s were able to tell serialized stories with a complete begginning, middle and end. It was something I wished more people gave anime credit for, now I don't really care but that's besides the point. Lady Oscar is also one of my favorite female characters in anime and in fiction which is why I'm writing this at all. They announced movie months back and I didn't enjoy it
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but I won't call it overly repulsive either.
The fact that they decided to condense the manga and anime into a two hour movie is what I don't get for the life of me. This should've been a movie trilogy like the original Mobile Suit Gundam series. I originally thought this was going to be a side story or some kind of original story set in the universe of the manga and anime like Dragon Ball Battle of Gods or Cowboy Bebop Knockin on Heaven's door but it wasn't when I learned it was Rose of Versailles with musical numbers I am like, "what, this just sounds dumb". I wanted to be proven wrong and maybe this could be good but it wasn't. I might even prefer the Berserk Golden Age arc movies over this at least that was a trilogy and the opening sequences with Aria were amazing. I am not sure if this really annoyed me when I watched but I did start to get bored and zoned out for so much the more it went on. Sequences in the anime I really enjoyed were just me zoning out in the movie. When the Oscar and French guards sections which was 10 episodes in the anime was reduced to barely 30 minutes in the movie, I am like, "yeah, I don't care". That was my favorite part of the anime and the French Guards and Oscar had maybe 3 scenes together tops and Oscar quickly won them over. In the anime Oscar had to earn it. Oscar's father, Andre among other characters were also underdeveloped due to this cliffnotes approach. When there was a weird dream sequence after Oscar's death, it just head scratching, felt out of place in a grounded story like this, something in a children's animated movie. Pretty much me and this movie in general, nothing is allowed to breath and it's a cliffnotes version of the story, the whole thing just felt like a highlight reel with weird musical numbers thrown in. It's almost like a weird movie tie in game or some of those anime game adaptations were just jump to the most dramatic parts the various Dragon Ball Z games that got made. The animation was fine I guess and I liked the english dub but those are the only positives I can say towards the movie. Not sure if this movie gets me annoyed upon the mere mention of it's name but it's like it's been around 50 years since the original anime series came out, surely can you do better than THIS. If you enjoyed the movie, I say if you can get past the animation and art, watch that instead and have a better apprieciation for the story.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Jan 1, 2025
Trigun: Badlands Rumble
(Anime)
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Not Recommended Spoiler
I'm not the biggest Trigun fan in the world and even back when I was a fan of it, I always remembered this movie being boring and dull. I decided to watch it again for a 3rd time to see if that opinion of mine still held water and yes, it still does. Anime movies based on TV series tends to be a hit or miss but Trigun Badlands Rumble feels like it got made because Madhouse wanted a quick buck. Compared this movie to Cowboy Bebop Knockin on Heaven's Door and everything about the former feels like a bad unfunny joke. I'm not the
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biggest fan of Cowboy Bebop either but Knockin on Heaven's Door was solid. Badlands Rumble isn't.
First of all, I'm just wondering how this movie is even for this if you never watched Trigun, the movie never goes over enough of the bare minimum to understand the characters and the world. At least Dragon Ball Z movies pre Battle of Gods was just a small diet version of what you find in the DBZ show and even movies like Full Metal Alchemist the Conquer of Shamballa and Ghost in the Shell Standalone Complex Solid State Society were extended epilogues of their own series. As Trigun fans, Badlands Rumble offers barely any interesting fights, villains or even new plot relevations that weren't in the show. It almost feels like an anime filler episode with a budget. I already dislike Vash as a character and this movie made me question his philosophy in life even more. In the series, it was questionable that the only reason he has pacifist morals is because a woman long dead told him to do so but in the movie, I just question what on earth does Vash gain by not even at the very least neutralizing his enemies. Vash thinks by not inflicting pain on top of not killing prevents possible slippery slopes from occuring but that is some questionable logic, and Vash ultimately proves that his ideals don't always work since he ends up shooting a guy in the hand and neutralizing Gasback anyway. At the start of the movie, Vash not only lets a bank get robbed, he doesn't even neutralize Gasback from possibly ruining the lives of other people. To add insult to injury, Vash always had the ability to beat Gasback with geniune ease but chooses not to because of some lousy and questionable sense of righteousness that still causes slippery slopes to happen. Speaking of Gasback, he's sort of okay due to his english voice actor, but the only reason he's even a threat at all is because Vash refuses to take action in stopping him, he's pathetically weak otherwise. It also doesn't help that Vash gets a clean win over him in less than 5 minutes towards the end of the movie which is also their first and only fight they have even the most forgettable of DBZ movie villains put more of a fight than Gasback does. The action is pretty forgettable and so are the characters. Wolfwood is nothing more than a hired gun, has no unique subplot of his own and we learn nothing new about him. Ameila is just dull and boring since her relationship with Vash is the latter trying and failing to hook up with her and the movie doesn't even do a good job at establishing that Amelia is good with guns or why she hates men so much. Meryl Strife and Millie Thompson are just there too. Overall, I disliked this movie when I watched it and I dislike the movie now. I'm only writing this review at all so I can just bury the hatchet it with this series and honestly, I'm not even sure if I have the energy in me to watch the 2nd cour of Trigun Stampede due to how much I can't stand Vash. I'd honestly rather watch stuff like Yugioh the Pyramid of Light over stuff like this, however I can't say it angers me as much as Saint Seiya Heaven's Overture does but that is saying very little.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Dec 29, 2024 Mixed Feelings Spoiler
Trigun was one of the anime I first remember watching back when I got into checking out anime again back in 2012, what I especially remember about it since I went in blind was that the show had the coolest opening ever(and it's still awesome now) where Vash is portrayed as this most badass dude ever who seemed to be this really competent gunslinger and the first episode happens and he's like the opposite of how he is portrayed in the opening, I remember that aspect hooking me, I also remember the rest of the show being pretty good and having one really good villain
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through Lagato Bluesummers. However, watching it now, especially the more the show goes on, I start questioning what I even found appealing about the 2nd half to begin with. It made me realize I was overly harsh on Stampede and while I don't think that show is good, it at least seemed more skillfully written than 90s Trigun. What should've been a fun trip down memory lane just got me more and more aggrevated while watching causing me to write this review in the first place. I have experienced so much fiction whether it'd be anime or other mediums that does what this show does but better.
Before I start going into what made me so apathetic towards the show as a whole, I will praise the first couple of episodes of the series. These episodes are pretty entertaining stuff, it's like if a series like Slayers were to take place in a pseudo wild west setting rather than fantasy, it's dumb over the top slapstick fun. Vash is as a protagonist is at his most tolerable here since the tone is lighthearted and silly and the episodes basically have that sitcom approach and anticipation of how will a moron like Vash get out of this wacky situation. There is a moral at the end of the episode like many of those kinds of shows, but these episodes made me realize that Trigun is really at it's best when it's more of a goofy comedy than as a serious story about morality. These episodes prevent from calling Trigun an "awful show". The character of Nicolas D. Wolfwood also carried me through the later episodes too, much like Stampede, he was the character I often rooted for over Vash, and if he wasn't in the later episodes of 90s Trigun, I doubt I would be able to get through even if his death was underwhelming. Then Lagato Bluesummers show up and while the writing heads into sort of questionable terrority with how Vash's no kill rule causes more problems than it solves, it doesn't get extremely insufferable...yet. Where Trigun does start to lose me is in the flashback episode with Vash and Knives in space. Apparently Vash has an evil twin brother named Knives and he was barely alluded to and didn't even make an on screen appreance beforehand, when Knives popped up in this flashback episode, if I didn't watch the series previously, I'd be like, "how the hell is this guy?" I'm also asking other questions like why is the whole idea of humanity looking for a new planet to live on suddenly being mentioned now? This is where I say Trigun Stampede is improvement because at least with that series, Rem, Knives and Vash and humanity is shown at the very first episode so you know this is a thing where in 90s Trigun, it comes so out of left field. This is pretty much where 90s Trigun starts to annoy me more the show goes on. A serial plot gets introduced and it just feels incredibly half baked in almost every aspect to to me. On top of all this, it can all feel bizarre and out of place too. If you were one of those people who liked the show for the goofy episode comedic portions, the sudden appreance of a darker serial plot can feel out of place. At least in a story like Ghost in the Shell Standalone Complex, the police case nature of the show had it's episodic crime drama feel more natural within the story since the Laughing Man case often had dead ends and the titular character himself would hide and reappear after a couple of episodes. Samurai Champloo is about over the top wacky hijinks with occasional serious episodes with a loose excuse plot about looking for the Sunflower Samurai. This leads me to my next issue, the pacing is absolutely dreadful from episodes 18-23. Knives gets spotted in some abandoned town and it's established that he is Vash's archnemesis and he has to stop him but it takes at least 5 episodes to actually get to the town where Knives is spotted, this wouldn't be so bad if the show was episodic but this is the writers' attempt at a serial story and as a result, you could go to episode 18 and skip all the way up to episode 23 and nothing of geniune value would be lost, at the most all you have to do is just fast forward and skip to when Meryl and Millie meet Vash again and that's it. Wolfwood even knew where Knives' true location was the whole time which makes these episodes even more pointless. Next isssue are Trigun's villains and I remember particularly Lagato being well written and after watching the show again now, I'm not so sure. His introduction and his conclusion are good but everything inbetween is just dull and boring. All he does is send in Gung Ho Gun members after Vash and that's about it. Speaking of the Gung Ho Guns, they graudated from the Metal Gear Solid 3 school of villain characterization where they have over the top names and looks but often don't survive more than one encounter against the heroes and don't have much in the way of characterization other than they are evil and they in the way of Vash and Wolfwood. The only Gung Ho Gun who actually amounts to anything is Wolfwood's teacher since he killed the guy but he gets killed off in the first few minutes after the Wolfwood death episode, you think he might be important but no. This is where I propose that Lagato should've been cut out of the story entirely and should've been Knives doing all the dirty work the former was going. The backstory of Lagato and the Gung Ho Guns are never explained or even how Knives' doomsday plan or goals of wiping out humanity was going to work or what plants even are? If Knives was the one giving the orders to Gung Ho Guns, was the one who killed Wolfwood, and was the guy making Vash's life a living hell instead of Lagato, it would make him a much more memorable villain. Stampede even does this to varying degrees where Knives in that show destroys towns and is more of a geniune nuisance to Vash and did more outside of killing Rem. Sure, the part where Vash has to make the decision to take a life would a little harder to do since Vash does need to fight Knives at the end but you could have a new villain introduced where he antagonizes Vash for a while and almost kills Vash's friends and he is so powerful that Vash has to take his life. It's a little weird but considering how little Lagato does after his intro, nothing of much value would be lost. Knives being the one who killed Wolfwood would make the latter cross weapon getting the win for Vash that much more poetic. The biggest issue I have with the serialized episodes of Trigun if Vash himself especially now that the story takes itself more seriously. I'm not a big fan of pacifist characters in fiction but Vash is a sub standard one even within the context of those kinds of characters. Everything about Vash's morals and everything he knew was because he got brainwashed by Rem, not because he geniunely came to those conclusions. Every time he comtemplates anything, it's often what, Rem would do not what he would do. It's hard to take a character seriously when they got brainwashed by a woman who has been dead for so long. Compare this to characters like Kenshin Himura and Thorfinn, they both killed many people and often have to struggle with the horrible things they have done but eventually when they choose the life of a pacifist, it isn't because someone told them to do it, the conclusion was because of their struggles. The biggest problem with Vash however is just how much his actions geniunely doesn't lead to anything beneficial especially in the long term. He spares the villain or takes too long to neutralize them and many innocents die. The worst of this is when he destroyed the lives of the people on the Flying Ship and even caused Brad's death, or how not killing the Gung Ho Gun attacking the plant destroyed the ship. It's never even explained what happened to those people but the show just keeps doing this. Every time Vash shows compassion, it either leads to even more undesirable outcomes and humanity hating him even more. The show ultimately proves that Knives was right but not because of his actions but because Vash's idealism gets him nowhere. It rarely if ever gets to anything desirable. Compare this to other stories like Dragon Ball where Goku sparing Piccolo and Vegeta actually turns out to be a positive in the long run and turns out to be very valuable allies. In superhero hero stories like Superman, Spider-Man and Batman, in many of the versions of these characters, the respective cities for these characters come to accept these characters. The DCEU has Superman initially be mistrusting of humanity, but throughout Man of Steel, he gets the respect of Lois and the military and by the Synder Cut of Justice League, humanity embraces Superman as a symbol of hope. Does Vash really get any of this? My issue is that a lot of what Vash does never leads to anything long term, Meryl and Millie respect him, some villagers do but at the end of the day, most of humanity fears and hates Vash even by the end of Trigun, not much has changed. This leads to my final issue, the ending is just awful. Not much has changed and that promised land that Vash was telling Wolfwood about and took the moral high ground on him over never even happened. Did Knives realize the error of his ways or was his crippled so hard that he can't move anymore? If it's the former, then the face turn is too sudden and if it's the latter then Knives probably prefers to be dead than live with Vash. The whole thing felt like the animators ran out of money. Overall, I wanted 90s Trigun to be a fun trip down memory lane but all it did was make me question what teenage me saw in the show. The comedic episodes are fun but the show stops doing them and introduced a seralized plot that is just half baked and poorly executed that if it weren't for the sunk cost fallacy and Nicolas Wolfwood, I would've dropped a while ago. I wouldn't call Trigun a terrible show since I enjoy parts of it but I do not want to watch it again.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Dec 1, 2024 Mixed Feelings Spoiler
Bleach is a show that is complicated to talk about for me. Back when I first watched the series, I was watching it around the time where they were airing the Soul Society arc on TV and that was like starting the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and you start with the Two Towers and as a result, the previously established world building and context was lost on me and I was kind of just "eh" if not borderline apathetic towards the show among other reasons. I would catch Bleach again on TV later on, and the funny thing about it is that I watched
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the series at least 3 depressing points in my life. After me saying all this, it sounds like Bleach should be an anime I very much enjoy and that I should be singing nothing but praises for it but I can't. I recently watched it again because of all the hype surronding the 1000 Year Blood War arc adaptation and it made me curious if me dropping the series around the Arancar arc 10 years ago was a wise decision or if I was just impatient, turns out me disliking Bleach post Soul Society arc was very much me not being impatient. Bleach is a show with a good framwork but the execution is strongly lacking.
Before I start criticizing Bleach, I will be positive about it for a few paragraphs. When it comes to the openings, style, and especially the music of the series, the show is great, the OST is fantastic stuff, it's up there with anime like Ghost in the Shell Standalone Complex, Death Note, .hack//sign, and Full Metal Alchemist 2003 in how the music is both atmospheric, immersing you into the scenes, and being great songs in their own right, some Bleach songs I still listen to this day. The Tensa Zangetsu Bankai theme or "soft strums" is one of my favorite anime songs of all time and "nothing can be explained" is pretty much my brooding music. Bleach's characters can be very well written and charismatic, not all of them since it has far too many for the show to handle, but I do very much enjoy the members of the the Soul Society with characters like Byakuya Kuchiki, Kenpachi Zaraki, Mayuri Kurotsuchi, among many others. These 3 characters I mentioned can often be borderline like villains than heroes. Kenpachi is a bloodthirsty battle driven psycho, Mayuri in some ways is basically if the X-Men villain, Mr. Sinister was on the side of good, and even Byakuya can be a little too much on the smug side even Genryu Yamamato's powers seemingly fits the powers of a villain more so than a hero. Rukia and Renji's backstories are pretty interesting and the Gungrave fan in me really did enjoy drawing the parallels between with them and Brandon Heat and Harry MacDowell. However, Bleach does have characters who aren't very good good at all and at times get more focus than the characters I mentioned like Orihime Inonue and Yatsura Sado. Uryu Ishida can be a decent character but that's the problem with Bleach, most of it's interesting and good characters are almost never given anything interesting to do or fight villains who are one note, and barely has any personal connections with. Ichigo on paper is a pretty interesting character, sure it can sound a little corny with how he how much he loves to emphasize that he protects friends and family but I do find him interesting in how he kind of thinks like a mobster where if you mess with anyone in social circle, you directly mess with him. He talks like he is selfless when you can argue it's more out selfishness. There is a lot you can take a character like this but Bleach doesn't really do this more on that later. The first 60 something or so episodes of Bleach, I'd say are solid stuff, Ichigo's backstory on how he blames himself for his mother's death I find to be compelling since it gives a good enough reason for his hero complex to be a thing and why he has such an obessesion with protecting those he loves. It also explains why he is so serious all the time. Sure it may sound a little too similar to Yu Yu Hakusho but I'd argue Bleach does a good job at being different like how Ichigo chose to be a Soul Reaper out of reluctance where Yusuke had to find out after dying that people cared for him. The Soul Society arc is basically Saint Seiya meets the Green Lantern mythos. Speaking of the Soul Society arc, it's generally good stuff, Rukia is pretty compelling in how she is conflicted on whether or not she deserves to live or die and her backstory of being a street urchin who blames herself for the death of the only person who cared for outside of Renji is compelling stuff. The part where the aforementioned "soft strums" song when Ichigo saved her from the execution admittedly got me teary eyed. Byakuya is built up very well as an antagonist, where it might be Bleach's best and only good use of the Worf Effect, where the power gaps between him and Ichigo is slowly closing but it at the same time, kind of far, and the latter needing to learn Bankai fast really adds urgency to the story. This will also be the only time I praise Sosuke Aizen as a villain here since in the Soul Society arc, he is kind of compelling in that Momo geniunely wants to believe he is a good person and the story in turns does a good job making you buy that Aizen could be that but ultimately, he was nothing more than a two faced liar, it's all foreshadowed very well since Toshiro is the guy doubting Aizen's "true" intentions. His plans get a little silly but compared to what happens later, this is just least of the how dumb it gets. There are some issues with the arc, like how it begins with Ichigo's and his friends, the latter pretty much disppears for a lot of the arc but I'm willing to overlook this. The later two filler arcs of Bleach like Zanpakuto Rebellion and Gotei 13 Invasion are solid and are far better than the later canon arcs post Soul Society like the Arancar and Fullbring. The characters introduced in the Soul Society are given more interesting villains to fight with the former being their own swords and the latter being clones of themselves. And the Gotei 13 Invasion arc in general was the one time where I was like, "you know Bleach can be cool" back when I watched it on TV. These two arcs prevent me from giving Bleach a 4 and instead raises my score to a 5. I won't go too much into detail here since these are filler arcs and I doubt many will even watch them since they have no bearing on the overall canon, but if you are like me, and you want to see some of the better characters in Bleach given interesting stuff to do then it is worth watching, if you like Byakuya Kuchki like I do then I say Zanpakuto Rebellion is a must watch since he has a very epic fight with Koga and it adds a lot of depth to his character, only problem is, this isn't apart of Bleach's canon so it's up to you. This already tells you a lot, if Bleach's most well written stories post Soul Society are later filler arcs and not the canon then that tells you everything, the supposed me being "positive" for a few paragraphs might've went on longer than it did but I still stanby that everything related to Bleach's canon post Soul Society is a huge mess. The Arancar arc might be something I will use as proof that characters can't carry a dull and boring plot. It starts off okay with me even respecting Ikkau for beating his enemy without a random powerup but once the Heuco Mundo portions of the show begin, everything and I mean everything starts falling apart. Orhime was already nothing more than a quirky airhead and now there is an entire arc focused on rescuing her, at least Rukia was interesting. What's worse is that Orihime's "kidnapping" doesn't amount to anything, she never comes close to destroying Hogyoko, Aizen never needed her to invade Karakura Town and she gets kidnapped again for no reason after Ichigo spent multiple episodes fight Aizen's minions and Grimmjow, and Kenpachi also fighting one of Aizen's henchmen that he has no personal connection with. It doesn't end there either, this arc barely has much of a plot, character development, or learning anything new about the characters, it's esstentially just one and I mean LONG fight scene. Sure this is shonen this what you watch these stories for but to describe the Arancar arc of Bleach is this: What if the Dragon Ball Z's Namek Saga had Vegeta fight characters like Cui, Zarban, Dadoria, and the Ginyus for 20-30 episodes and every fight was as long as the final battle with Freiza? You get this. I stopped watching Bleach in 2015 because nothing happened for multiple episodes on end, and it turned out me and seemingly many other people were smart in dropping it around this arc. The only good villains in the Arancar arc I had any attechment towards with were Grimmjow and Yammy since they actually did some villainous stuff like antagonizing Ichigo's friends and showing how powerful they are, seeing Grimmjow finally get beaten was nice especially considering this is the only rivalry in the Arancar arc that got buildup and payoff. None of the other Espadas are even on this level since they show up, have a long fight and then have a lengthy flashback revealing their backstories right before they are about to die. However all the good I can say comes back with more negatives, remember how I said, I liked Byakuya, Kenpachi and Mayuri? They pretty much become benchwarmers in Heuco Mundo when the real fighting starts happening in Fake Karakura Town and that is after them fighting boring and one note villains they have no personal connection with. Ichigo as a character I stopped taking seriously too since his win against Uliquorra was completely unearned and he pretty much got a powerup out of nowhere to beat him. It was already questionable that Ichigo was able to use his Hollow Powers without completing his Vizard training but I can argue that was just him learning as he is going but this is just nonsense since it's pretty obvious that Ichigo needs to win but he hasn't learned anything besides Hollowfying and Getsuga Tensho and on a side note, you know how in shonen where the protagonist trains and learns new moves? Ichigo just has his Bankai, Getsuga Tensho and Hollowfying(this eventually gets taken away too), so have fun watching the same repetitive fights with him. Then there is Aizen, I don't even know where to get started with Aizen post Soul Society, he's like the kind of guy who claims he is really good at video games but can't play without cheat codes or assist options. There is his motivation that he wants to kill the Soul King but the thing is multiple episodes will go by and not much is revealed about the Soul King or even getting much insight into Aizen's motivations...until the very end of the arc where Kisuke does his whole sealing thing on him but by that point Aizen is almost beaten you had hundreds of episodes to explain this, too little too late. There is extremely overpowered abilties in which if you see his shikai, you are under his hyponsis, you can't break out of it, and there is no way to fight back, this makes every fight with him boring as all hell since it's hard to tell if the heroes even know they are under his hyponosis and every fight with Aizen up until his final battle with Ichigo is him effortlessly winning. Frieza and Cell at the very least had their moment of vunerability while also being dominant where Aizen doesn't show his vunerablity until the end which by that point, I stopped caring. Another issue is what even was the point of the Espadas? Aizen during the Fake Karakura Town fight effortlessly beats the Vizards and Soul Society with only Yamamato being the only one who could lay a dent on him. All Aizen had to do was make Wonder Weiss and that was it. He was apparently afraid of Kenpachi, Mayuri and Byakuya but why? Were they immune to his hyponosis, but you need to touch his shikai in order to hurt him so could Kenpachi hurt him? Never made clear. Of course then there is the whole him planning Ichigo's entire life and the entire series up until he fought Aizen again, many have criticized this reveal but what I find silly about all this all is nothing more than Kubo giving Ichigo a personal stake to defeat Aizen since the former is given no real stake in having the latter get beaten. Aizen was basically a Soul Society matter and outside of Ichigo and him having that one fight in the Soul Society arc, Aizen has done nothing to Ichigo. This retcon just feels like a laughable attempt at giving them a personal connection considering how silly and ridiculous for Sosuke to somehow have every win and loss Ichigo had go according to plan, this is what I mean when he feels like someone who says he's good at video games but needs to cheat to win. After all of this, the Arancar arc is already a poorly written mess I've written multiple paragraphs about it but the Fullbring arc? It's also bad and poorly written, XCUTION is even more dull and one note than the Espadas since once the Soul Society shows up towards the end, they get beaten extremely easily despite them apparently being important characters to the story. At least the Espadas put up an actual fight. Ginjo is a poor man's Sensui even if that has been said many times. There is so little shown about Ginjo's past as a former Substitute Soul Reaper and there is yet another retcon regarding Ukitake giving them combat passes for survalliance but why or for what reason? Who knows. The arc ends before Ichigo can question Ukitake and he shockingly forgives him very easily too. On top of giving Ginjo a proper burial after all the stuff he put Ichigo through. Then there is other awful things about the arc like how Ichigo's Fullbring training was ultimately pointless since his actual Soul Reaper powers come back not too long after the former was taken and why did Rukia and the Soul Society keep it a secret from him? To throw off Ginjo and XCUTION? What's even the point in that? They pretty much stood no chance to begin with. Other issues include how Orihime, Chad and Uryu might become important again to the story after not providing much of anything to the story as a whole but that is ultimately a red herring since the first two get hypotonized and Uryu outside of revealing Ginjo being a villain doesn't provide much. One good thing about the arc was how Ichigo's friends and family were used against him since it's nice to see the thing Ichigo fights for being put on it's head. However no one of geniune importance even dies. This leads to my final issue with Bleach, is there any long term progression for anything? Sure the characters are slightly older by the Fullbring arc but that's about it. No one major even dies, there's barely any long term character development and the show by the end of the Fullbring arc is barely that different to when it started. Is there any more information revealed on the Soul King? No. Does Ichigo or anyone's character fundamentally changes? No. You can criticize Dragon Ball for not having death be permanent but at least there is SOME plot progression. Kami and Piccolo fuse, Gohan grows older and gets married, Vegeta and Bulma hook up, Dende becomes the new guardian of earth and Vegeta learns humlity and Mr. Satan even starts to become a geniune ally. Naruto even had the Shinobi world end in some form of peace by the end of Shippuden. Yu Yu Hakusho even attempted to give Yusuke a character of arc of slowly becoming more like a demon which could've been great if the 3 Kings arc was better. Bleach has none of this and this makes me question why I got to end of the anime's original run at all. I might watch the 1000 Year Blood War arc when it ends next year but I'm find it hard to care now, Tite Kubo just isn't a good writer. Bleach had a solid framework but the execution is just severly lacking on all fronts to even reccomend to anyone at all if they don't have a previously established nostalgic connection to it like I did.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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(Anime)
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Rose of the Versailles is a show along with Ashita No Joe and Mobile Suit Gundam made me appreciate anime more than I already did before, it was really awesome to me how TV shows from the 70s were able to tell serialized stories with a complete begginning, middle and end. It was something I wished more people gave anime credit for, now I don't really care but that's besides the point. Lady Oscar is also one of my favorite female characters in anime and in fiction which is why I'm writing this at all. They announced movie months back and I didn't enjoy it
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Jan 1, 2025
Trigun: Badlands Rumble
(Anime)
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I'm not the biggest Trigun fan in the world and even back when I was a fan of it, I always remembered this movie being boring and dull. I decided to watch it again for a 3rd time to see if that opinion of mine still held water and yes, it still does. Anime movies based on TV series tends to be a hit or miss but Trigun Badlands Rumble feels like it got made because Madhouse wanted a quick buck. Compared this movie to Cowboy Bebop Knockin on Heaven's Door and everything about the former feels like a bad unfunny joke. I'm not the
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Dec 29, 2024
Trigun was one of the anime I first remember watching back when I got into checking out anime again back in 2012, what I especially remember about it since I went in blind was that the show had the coolest opening ever(and it's still awesome now) where Vash is portrayed as this most badass dude ever who seemed to be this really competent gunslinger and the first episode happens and he's like the opposite of how he is portrayed in the opening, I remember that aspect hooking me, I also remember the rest of the show being pretty good and having one really good villain
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Dec 1, 2024
Bleach is a show that is complicated to talk about for me. Back when I first watched the series, I was watching it around the time where they were airing the Soul Society arc on TV and that was like starting the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and you start with the Two Towers and as a result, the previously established world building and context was lost on me and I was kind of just "eh" if not borderline apathetic towards the show among other reasons. I would catch Bleach again on TV later on, and the funny thing about it is that I watched
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