Akira Toriyama, creator of manga like Dr. Slump, Dragon Ball, and Sand Land, sadly passed away on March 1, 2024. He left behind a legacy of colorful work, worlds of wonder that continues to impact people the world over. Since I review anime, and not manga, I wanted to pay tribute to Toriyama in a way that reflected his own personal efforts, so I chose a Dragon Ball Z movie that he actually had influence over, Battle of Gods, whose story he constructed. Of course, I also mentioned his work in video games.
Otaku Evoution
Otaku Evolution Episode 221 – Castle in the Sky
<meta itemprop="description" content="A boy named Pazu meets a girl named Sheeta when she floats down from the sky into his arms. Sheeta is being pursued by both greedy sky pirates and a dangerous military force for the secret to a hidden land in the clouds: Laputa. When it turns out that Pazu's father had once searched for it as well, the boy becomes determined to see the mythical sky island, even if it kills him trying to. It's a Hayao Miyazaki classic with adventure around every corner!
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This is, what, my sixth Miyazaki movie? I went years without covering one, now I’m averaging one per year. Am I getting lazy and leaning on an old standby for content? Possibly. I always feel like I’m cheating a little by picking a Miyazaki movie to review. But they are worth talking about. Miyazaki is a famous anime director for a reason, and is one of my favorites, so it really shouldn’t come as any great surprise.
As far as movies go, Castle in the Sky is pretty good, I enjoy the aesthetics a lot, but it’s not one of Miyazaki’s best. It’s not nearly as memorable or emotionally resonate as Nausicaa, and it’s not as well crafted narratively or character-wise as some of his later works, like Princess Mononoke or Spirited Away. It is a fun ride, though, and sometimes that’s all you really need in this weary world. So I’m happy to have covered it.
Otaku Evolution Episode 209 – Samurai Champloo
Ah, Samurai Champloo, Shinchiro Watanabe’s OTHER mash up of a genre (this time, samurai period piece) and a music type (hiphop). It lives in the shadow of Cowboy Bebop, but what doesn’t? It’s still a pretty solid show with colorful characters and great action. It doesn’t need to surpass Bebop to be good.
Since nobody’s watching these videos, anyway, I figured I might as well really kick in my storyline ideas, especially since we’re nearing the end of the year, and next year I’m doing less of it (and fewer videos, period). Here we have my unfortunately poor handling of the Lithos situation. We haven’t really seen me in action except in flashbacks. And frankly, we still won’t, because the Lithos are so much stronger than I am. I think you’ll see that my showing up will not help the situation at all.
Otaku Evolution Episode 121 – Case Closed: Captured in Her Eyes
Fuck TMS. Seriously. They’ve flagged this a several times already and I’ve had to re-edit and upload to see if I can beat the algorithm. They’re being more draconian than with Lupin videos. They’re just REVIEW VIDEOS! If this keeps up, I’ll have to move the video to Dailymotion or Bitchute or whatever. Otherwise the review will be about four minutes long and just have static screencaps, making it all the more the glorified slideshows my videos usually are.
Anyway, Case Closed (Detective Conan): Captured in Her Eyes is pretty standard Conan fare, not being especially stand out, but being pretty decent. It still has a number of flaws, though, and I’m more than willing and able to nitpick this thing for chuckles.