Fuck yeah.
anime
Dragon Ball Z Kai Buu Arc Trailer 2
Dragon Ball Z Kai Buu Arc Trailer
GOKUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!
I wish we had a posting system that wasn’t total cock cheese. Honestly, if you can see this post it’s only because I pressed random things until it worked.
Anyway, if I can get it to work, I’ll blog this new arc of Kai. I also plan to review that fucking terrible Rebuild of Evangelion 3 once Funimation squeezes that out of its anus. You Can (Not) Believe Somebody Was Paid Money To Write That Shit.
Also, I might blog the new Tomino Gundam show, but I’m taking a cautious approach until I can get more information on it. With Tomino, it can either be amazing or go very, very wrong.
Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods Review
"Battle of Gods"
Spoiler-Free Synopsis: After a thirty-nine year sleep, Beerus, the God of Destruction, has awoken, and is seeking the "Super Saiyan God" he saw in his dream. He and his attendant Whis sense the remaining Saiyans, first questioning Son Goku as he trains on Kaio’s planet. Goku is soundly beaten in battle with Beerus, even at Super Saiyan 3 level, and the God of Destruction goes to Earth to inquire of Vegeta. On Earth, Bulma’s birthday party is interrupted by Beerus, Whis, and the Pilaf gang (who are looking to make money). Beerus is accomodated by Vegeta, but soon loses his temper when denied pudding from Buu, and a battle breaks out. When Goku himself is no match for the God of Destruction, what chance do the others have? Beerus demands the Super Saiyan God to appear or he’ll destroy the planet Earth!
Falling Snow (AMV)
Falling Snow (AMV) from mtpenguin on Vimeo.
Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica 3: Hangyaku no Monogatari – Explanations And Thoughts
(Note: This post contains HEAVY spoilers and is mostly intended for people who have seen the movie, especially those who are confused about it.)
When I first heard that the third Madoka movie was going to have "all five girls together for the first time" I got worried. Quite a bit worried, actually. See, the thing about Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica the show (and also the first two movies) was that it forewent many things you would expect to see in a magical girl franchise, most notably the main character as a magical girl. I was afraid that instead of trying to further explore the story they laid out (a task that I saw as nearly impossible, but more on that later) they would opt for a more standard narrative. Something like a separate timeline where all 5 girls are living happily together fighting witches or wraiths or something similar.
Capital Confusion – A Guide to Kyousougiga
(Note: This post contains spoilers from the 2011 and 2012 ONAs, as well as the current run of episodes 0, 1, and 2)
Kyousougiga (Capital Craze)started its life as a single ONA in 2011, followed by a series of five shorts in 2012. It was confusing and unclear, but had some terrific visual storytelling and art, and left people wanting more. Finally, Kyousougiga comes back as a full TV show, and incorporates parts of those previous ONAs to tell the story more coherently. However, there still seems to be a lot of confusion regarding the story and characters, especially since things are told very nonlinearly, and because there are many characters who share the same name (there is a reason for this). In my attempts to figure everything out I came up with a pretty good explanation of where things stand thus far, using those previous ONAs and the currently aired episodes – Episode 0, which is a slight rework of the original 2011 ONA, and episodes 1 and 2 of the new TV show.
Attack on Titan Part V (Episodes 23-25): Wrap Up
Titan, but since these posts were less about describing and commenting on the actual plot and more about my personal impressions, I figured I would attempt some sort of wrap up and general thoughts on the show.
First off, the final arc was actually pretty damned good (aside from containing one of the least surprising reveals in recent memory), and in most aspects it harkened back to the show’s first several episodes, which were probably the strongest. The level of drama and action really reached a crescendo at the end, which is a positive thing. You never want a show like this to peak too soon and then meander its way to the finish line. It started strong and ended strong, and I think that left a good final impression on people (myself included) and began the painstaking countdown to season 2, which, as manga readers have informed me, could take quite a while. Isayama’s manga doesn’t rush the story – which is also clearly evident by the pacing of the anime – so there simply isn’t enough source material at this point. The only problem is that the show’s massive popularity could lead to an anime that departs from the manga plot and proceeds down its own path. While this tactic could work, it often doesn’t, and the show has been so faithful to the original story that taking a different path could really change it in a fundamental way.
Attack on Titan Part IV (Episodes 14-22): Remember the Titans
It’s been a while since my last Attack on Titan post. I keep wanting to sit down and write something about it, but I found that I just didn’t have an awful lot to say.
In that sense it is a bit of a weird show. Most other shows I watch provide a certain amount of material to discuss each week, but Titan is a bit different. It’s almost universally agreed that the pacing of this show is glacial, and sometimes 2 or 3 weeks will pass before a certain even is resolved, which leaves very little to discuss in each individual episode. I hear the manga has this similar kind of pacing, which in my mind is like that of a soap opera (as I’ve mentioned before). However, recent episodes put me in mind of old time serials as well, where one storyline would be spread across many episodes so that each one would feel like a fragment of one storyline as opposed to a self-contained episode. "Join us again, same Titan hour, same Titan channel, kids!"
Attack on Titan Part III (Episodes 5-13): Attack on Tighten
Ironically, my previous Attack on Titan posts were long but dealt with short mini-arcs, while this post will probably be shorter but deals with the longest arc in the history of anime.
It’s just that I don’t have a ton of stuff to say about Defense of Trost. It had a couple of major plot twists and some terrific emotional moments, but it was really drawn out both in terms of plot and production values. By the time we hit episode 13 (which was the ninth episode of the Trost arc), the telltale signs of an unfinished product were readily apparent. 13 clearly went to air with several sequences unanimated and masked by cutting away to static scenery shots while still hearing the sounds of the battle (the audio post production is probably tracked to unfinished visuals so you could still hear the sounds of what they animated, but the animation itself was absent). On that front it feels a little weird to judge it now, because clearly the home release will be at least somewhat better. Strangely enough, this same sort of thing happened last year with Psycho Pass, even forcing the creators to issue a public apology for the quality of episode 18, but in the case of Titan, I didn’t really see that type of outrage.