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Tiger & Bunny – Episode 14 Review – Love is Blind

Tiger & Bunny is an anime program current airing weekly in Japan and simulcast on Hulu and Viz Anime. Produced by Sunrise, it’s directed by Keiichi Satou (best known for his work on Big O). The series revolves around a couple of super heroes who fight crime while driving ad revenue via product placement for a hero themed television program.

Synopsis

After the chaos and near disaster brought on by Jake life for our heroes begins to settle down. Blue Rose is set to release a new hit single with Tiger and Barnaby playing backup. While Rose takes time to teach the two how to dance she finds herself falling in love with the Tiger despite his weird ways. Barnaby points out to her that, while his actions may seem disrespectful, he’s always thinking of those around himself first. read more

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Blue Exorcist (Ao no Exorcist) – 12 Episodes In

While some* may have received my earlier review as extraordinarily negative, I felt that it was pretty even handed and spot on. Since then I have been watching the series, minus a few episode here and there, weekly. I haven’t been disappointed.

The series has progressed pretty much as I had expected. Sure the story may just be sticking to its basic shonen premise but it does so well. The characters are likable and varied enough to avoid cluttering the stage. The series focuses mainly on Rin but doesn’t hesitate to focus on another, such as the heavily featured Shiemi. Shiemi, unlike some of the others, has received more back story and development. At first I thought I was going to dislike her character but she has developed past my initial fears. Meanwhile other classmates and teachers have thus far received enough time to either affirm their existence or promote their mysteriousness. read more

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Sacred Seven – Episode 1 Review – The Stone Awakens

Sacred Seven is a new mecha/fantasy series from Sunrise, directed by Yoshimitsu Ohashi (Galaxy Angel, Planetes, Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto), scripted by Shin Yoshida (Naruto Shippūden, Speed Grapher, Karas) and featuring suit designs by Ippei Gyōbu. The series will be streaming on Crunchyroll and Hulu (starting July 8th).

Synopsis

Sacred Seven is the story of Tandouji Arma, a solitary high school student living in Japan. He keeps to himself as most of his classmates fear him after, in an episode several years back, he put a handful of students in the hospital. He is approached by Ruri Aiba, CEO of the very wealthy Aiba Foundation and her butler Sugata Kagami. They’re supported by a stone demon(?) named Hellbrick. read more

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Layman’s Gunpla Guide – Hand Painting Tutorial

Hand painting is the traditional method of detailing up a kit. While it takes considerable patience, one can achieve the same great look as though the work was done with an air brush. It’s also the best way to touch up and detail kits. The Devil is in the details, or so they say.

Brushes

There are many different types of brushes out there, with many different bristle types. While they play an important part in conventional painting, I have yet to experience an issues when working on Gunpla. Instead, look for a size and hardness that suits your need. For small, detail work, a thin stiff head would be most appropriate. If you’re working on a larger area a wider, little softer brush, would probably suit your needs. Brushes can get fairly expensive, especially when purchased individually. Luckily many craft stores sell reasonably priced bundles with various shapes and sizes. With proper care a brush will last you a long time. read more

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Layman’s Gunpla Guide – Kit Photography Tutorial

After all that work, cutting, building, priming, painting, lining decals, weathering, and the top coat, you’re all done. Before you stands the latest addition to your collection. There’s only one thing left to do, and that’s show it off. Now you can’t exactly go traveling the country randomly presenting it to passing strangers (well, if you really wanted to…) so you whip out your camera and snap a few shots. While everyone does kits their own way I feel that getting proper photos should be important whether it’s a straight build or plethora of pla plate craftsmanship. Don’t let anyone fool you, a $80 point and shoot will perform just as admirably as a $2000 DSLR when it comes to this task. Here a are a few basic tips to get you started… read more

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Layman’s Gunpla Guide – Paint Space Prep

Before you start to paint, whether by hand or airbrush, it’s important to prepare your workspace before hand. Proper prep will help keep your space clean as the project proceeds and help facilitate cleanup when it’s all said and done.

Reusable & Washable Drop Cloth

I recommend getting some sort of reusable drop cloth to use while painting. I picked up a fairly large one from a home improvement store for a lot less than I would have thought. It’s protected my floors against unexpected paint drops and particulates (see below). The best part is that it’s washable, making it a lot easier to clean up than my carpet (which already has enough paint on it). read more

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Layman’s Gunpla Guide – Masking Tutorial

Masking is a very important step when it comes to detailed painting. Once you venture from painting whole pieces, you will find that great detail can come from treating different parts of the same piece differently. To do so, you’ll need to mask the pieces to avoid getting paint on the rest of the piece. While primarily used when applying paint via a can or airbrush, it can be used during hand painting to ensure a straight line.


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Tamiya v. Off the Shelf

When masking pieces, I highly recommend getting a hold of some Tamiya brand masking tape (the yellow roll in the above photo). While your average beige brand is effective in stopping paint I’ve had many issues with paint seeping in along the edges. As a result, I do all of my edges with Tamiya and cover the rest with the generic stuff (blue painters tape or otherwise). read more

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Gunpla Review – June 2011

Ah, it’s that time of month again. Gunpla Review is an attempt to share some projects, finished in the past month, which have caught my eye. I also wanted to highlight some ongoing WIPs worth following. If I missed any of your favorites please share them via the comments below! And no, these are not in any particular order. Okay, they’re alphabetical by how I named the pictures.

Featured Kits

 

Anazasi’s Mega Size RX-78-2 in Real Type Colors – Who doesn’t love this bad boy? read more

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Transformers: Dark of the Moon – It’s worse than we thought [Spoilers]

The reviews for Transformers: Dark of the Moon are slowly trickling in. With each day that goes by the Tomato Meter dips lower and lower. What follows is a post-screening rant by Bill Lehecka of This Website Stinks! 

Notice – This post contains heavy spoilers. Not that anyone is actually going for the story.

I received two free passes to see an advanced screening of this flick, and I can honestly say I paid too much. Now a typical Internet movie reviewer who is a fan of a series would go to the standard cliche lines… Things like "You stole my childhood! You have no respect for the characters, blah blah blah…" I have a rather pointed critique: Michael Bay set back filmmaking 50 years with the tripe he’s put out there. In fact, what Michael Bay did might be considered impossible: He almost destroyed my love of film. Now you could enjoy bad movies sometimes. You could even poke fun and laugh at them. There is a certain joy that comes with slamming a bad movie, but there’s none of that with Transformers 3. Bay even said he learned from the mistakes of Transformers 2 and was determined to make a better film. What he really meant was he wanted to give the audience a middle finger and layer on more of the shit people had a problem with from the second movie. The movie started off with promise: Tying in the Space Race of the 60s with the arrival of the Transformers. That works for me… However, it quickly devolved into one hot mess only Michael Bay can deliver. Sam’s out of college, riding a piece of shit car because Bumblebee is helping out the US government, and now has a new hot girlfriend (A fact that even his mother in the movie can’t believe). And because Michael Bay doesn’t take this movie seriously, he adds more comic relief moments that are juvenile and cater to the rubes out there to make them feel like the movie they’re watching is great. That shit is there to distract you from the hunk of shit this film is… He actually had a light-hearted moment at the end of this film after Chicago was destroyed and thousands murdered. I shit you not. You just went through hell on earth, and you can do a sitcom-like end tag to a film? Fuck you, Bay.

Sam’s girlfriend, meanwhile, works for Patrick Dempsey and he’s a real threat to Sam. Sam, on the other hand, is hired by John Malkovich’s character, and boy I hope he got paid a shit-ton to be in this movie. He becomes an overacting boob, only to be outdone by Ken Jeung’s character. Yes, Ken Jeung is in this movie, and he out-chews Malkovich. Hard to do, but he does it.

Meanwhile, Megatron is roaming the desert wearing a turban to cover his scarred face. Read that again: Megatron sports a turban. And this gets me to the other thing: Since when do Robots have hair? It seems like it was ILM’s mission to give the new robots hair. Most of the new ones had it. It was dumb.

Let me get back on track… So the Autobots find out there’s a ship on the Dark Side of the Moon that has the old leader of the Autobots, Sentinel Prime. He’s voiced by Leonard Nimoy. He had these pillars to build a space bridge, but wait, he struck a deal with Megatron because the only way to save Cybertron was to pull it through the space bridge and make it so it’s right near Earth. Earth and all the people would become slaves to the robots and provide Cybertron energon so it could live again. Never mind they could just harvest the energon on Earth and transport it via the space bridge. No, they had to pull Cybertron through…

So yeah, Sentinel turns… And kills Ironhide in the process. Poor Ironhide. But this brings me to how EASY it is to kill Transformers apparently. I’m about to write the most preposterous thing ever: Sam single-handedly kills Starscream. I say again: SHIA LABEOUF KILLS STARSCREAM WITHOUT THE AUTOBOTS’ HELP. This point of the movie, while the stuff leading up to it was pretty preposterous, made me hate this film unequivically. You mean to tell me a fucking punk kid with no military training takes out on of the most most powerful Decepticons ever? Really? Who’s buying this horseshit?

I have other problems too, like Leonard Nimoy reciting a line from Star Trek verbatim (Needs of many outweigh needs of the few) and Optimus Prime being a stone-cold killer who is TOO bad-ass. Prime is supposed to be pragmatic. He shouldn’t be taking guns to fallen robot’s heads and pulling the trigger. That’s what a bad guy does, not the most noble robot ever. Then there’s focus entirely too much on the humans and not the robots. Yeah, the humans should fight back, but I went into the movie to see a Transformers movie, not a humans fighting aliens movie.

You know what? I could go on, but why? It’s just going to give this asshole more credence. People are going to pay to see this and the art of filmmaking will get shittier and shittier. The only way to truly stop filmmaking like this is to just not see it. Resist the urge to pay to see a bad movie. If enough people just don’t patron this film, maybe, just maybe, films like this will never be made again to offend not only the eyes, but the ears as well.

Stay away from this movie at all costs, otherwise you too will feel my pain and wonder what happened to the real filmmakers that deserve the accolades Michael Bay currently has because he knows the right people.

Reposted with permission. The original can be found on Wackbag.

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