Animation maybe my first love but my second love is cars, so this time we have a special run of the top 25 vehicles of anime; rules this time are, all entries must have a real life counterpart and must be one car per series.
Updated with an honorable mention
Honorable Mention: Ford Sierra Cosworth from Goddamn!
This one off OVA has a number of big name rally cars most notable a 1986 Ford Sierra Cosworth driven by the main character.
25. Optimus Prime from Transformers
Rated low for being a hybrid American/Japanese cartoon. Most early carnations of optimus depict his disguise as a Peterbilt Truck.
24. Officer Jenny's Bike from Pokemon
For a series that glorifies walking & cycling, only the police force can hold onto such wheels in the form of a Harley Davidson Road Glide.
23. Seta's Van from Love Hina
A vehicle Ace Ventura himself would be proud of, a Subaru Sambar Campervan built for durability. Ken Akamatsu himself owned one.
22. Jeep from Saiyuki
Beats walking to India and you don't need to park it as it comes complete with cute dragon form.
21. 6-Wheel Tyrrell F1 from Moldiver
As part of the storyline of celebrating the 20th Century this one off race car becomes the centerpiece of one of the episodes.
20. T-74 Tank from Those Who Hunt Elves
The only way to travel an elven world is a Japanese Military tank possessed by a cat spirit.
19. Ban's Car from Getbackers
A cheapskate car for a cheapskate team, saying that this Subaru 360 has done decent mileage.
18. Hermes from Kino's Journey
A talking bike based on an early 20th century Brough Superior, the engine sounds beautiful.
17. See-Through from Panty & Stocking
The oddly named Hummer driven by the Anarchy Sisters, in true Barbie pink.
16. Lisa's Car from Ponyo
For a little Mitsubishi Minica it does the job when attacked by a Ponyo Storm.
15. Yui's Subaru Vivio from Lucky Star
The most epic scene you'll ever see on the road & she still managed to keep to the speed limit.
14. Lupin's car from Castle of Cagliostro
A Fiat 500 that has no trouble climbing cliffs.
13. Police Cars from You're Under Arrest
For just mere Honda Today, they certainly see a lot of action, although you can only brake with your feet in some of them.
12. Mach 5 from Speed Racer
Borrows many design traits from old Le Mans sports cars most notably the Ferrari 250 Testarossa. Replicas already exist.
11. Karts from Capeta
The most over dramatic scenes of turning a corner you'll ever see.
10. Road Buster from Riding Bean
A hybrid of a Porsche 959 & Corvette Stingray, some other sports cars may have even taken inspiration from it. See Gunsmith Cats Review for a picture.
9. Lorna Endou's Lotus Europa from Ex-Driver
In a world where A.I. drive every car, a team of drivers stops them from going rogue in style. The image near the top is a Caterham Super 7 from the same show.
8. Reiko's Motorcycle from Goldenboy
A sexy looking Bimota Tesi driven by an equally sexy lady, beaten by a pervert on a bicycle.
7. Misato's Car from Evangelion
A Renault Alpine A310 built to withstand the onslaught of angel attacks, still looks like a trash heap though.
6. Toyota Trueno from Initial D
Pity I don't rate the series but everyone will agree that the Trueno is the standout car from all the other cars in this show.
5. Rally's Shelby Cobra from Gunsmith Cats
Loved so much it even made the opening title sequence, admire this piece of American Automotive genius.
4. Celty's Bike from Durarara
A hybrid of a Yamaha V-Max and a Honda RCB, comes complete with dark aura, headless rider and horse noises.
3. Kaneda's Bike from Akira
It looks unreal but one officially approved by the author is doing the rounds in Japan for charity.
2. Haruko's Vespa from FLCL
For an Italian scooter it looks so much more awesome in the hands of guitar wielding Haruko.
1. Yukari-Mobile from Azumanga Daioh
But no car has ever been so terrifying than this one, a beat up Toyota Corolla E120 that has traumatized it's passengers to breaking point whenever it's mentioned. Stay away from this car.
Post 21 and we look into today's cartoons with Elena of Avalor
Elena is a Princess of a far off Latin Kingdom who ends up trapped in an amulet which saves her from death at the hands of a soceress for many years; after being set free by Sofia the First (Long story) Elena must learn how to rule her Kingdom using the tools left to her by her late parents along with her many friends around her.
Pretty simple premise but how does it stack up?
Basically if you've seen Sofia the First this is basically the same with an age upgrade, not really surprising as it's the same universe, same creator and Sofia is even responsible for setting the plot in motion so it's all set in stone, in fact it may as well be an older Sofia learning how to be a ruler but I digress; Elena is at least more interesting in personality and the characters around her are endearing enough to not be too distracting, on the other hand I also feel that this is.
1. Been done before.
2. An obvious post Elsa character that tries to deliver the notion that women are strong independent characters.
and 3. Proves once and for all that the main core Disney Channel is for girls.
Some people may disagree with statement 3 but looking at this kind of show makes it hard to ignore considering it's other programs are Miraculous Ladybug and copious amounts of teen sitcoms that are not worth the script their written on and only girls actually like them.
Because of my rules on pre-school shows, Sofia the First is exempt from review as the target audience are too young to defend it but seeing as this doesn't really deviate much from it, I'd say this review pretty much sums up both shows which in my opinion is that they are okay shows that don't really bring anything new to the table, hey at least Elena's music is better.
Post 18 and the delay in posting has been caused by yet another cold, so once again I try and recover with this one off pilot.
Defenders of Dynatron City started as a Nes game by Lucasfilm Games, best remembered for its notorious difficulty affected by poor game mechanics, not one I want to bring up on Cartridge Diaries, but to try and gather some popularity a pilot cartoon was made, so lets see what happens.
Dr Mayhem created Proto Cola in order to cause chaos by mutating everyone in the city but this backfires massively when it turns into the greatest innovation of human evolution as no one seems to bat an eyelid at the idea of mutating. Angered by this, Dr Mayhem decides that the best way to spread fear is to use a robot army, but a group of maintenance workers discover Mayhem's plan and by a series of events get mutated into superheroes with the help of Monkey Kid, the Doctors reluctant assistant.
To rate the heroes by practicality
Ms Megawatt:- Useful
Jet Headstrong: - Useless
Buzzsaw Girl: - Not useless but highly impractical
Radium Dog: - Not useless but I can't quite work out his power
Toolbox: - Best character of the lot
So yeah a mixed bag of practical and impractical, in all honesty the cartoon and game would be stronger if it were just the Toolbox because he is the best character hands down.
The story itself is very much stuck in the Saturday Morning Cartoons Category, it's non offensive and it barely has any plot other than heroes appear at the right place at the right time to save the day; ironically this is the type of world that Magneto from X-Men would want to create, yet it feels like a 50s World of Tomorrow cartoon rather than an utopian world.
Like Battletoads and Bubsy this franchise was stillborn, not helped by the game's poor mechanics and equally not helped by a cartoon that had very little to offer besides a really cool Toolbox who could probably do this franchise alone.
Post 17 and we now take a look at the 2nd Bleach Movie Diamond Dust Rebellion.
The 10th Division of the Soul Society has been assigned to guard a sacred artifact until an unknown Soul Reaper steals it from under them but Toshiro Hitsugaya seems troubled by the assailant and goes off after him only to cause a great deal of commotion among the Soul Society as Rangiku and the rest of the 10th Division are stripped of their duty as Hitsugaya has broken the laws of the Soul Society but it soon becomes even more serious when Rukia and a small group of Soul Reapers start working out that the assailant is Hitsugaya's old friend Sojiro Kusaka who was killed because only one person can wield the Zanpakuto Hyorinmaru and by mistake there was two created and the Soul Society are just ass holes who can't see past their stupid traditions and rules.
Anyway Ichigo gets dragged into the scenario by finding Hitsugaya injured but Hitsugaya starts acting emo and saying "it doesn't involve you" but soon gets even more into trouble when he attacks a number of Soul Reapers trying to catch him which just makes him guilty of conspiring to steal the sacred artifact since another attack featured the exact same Zanpakuto.
Once Hitsugaya comes to his senses the whole Soul Society confront Kusaka who uses the artifact to warp reality and make himself all powerful and then the final battle begins.
This film is a poorly edited cut and paste hack job. Bleach is meant to be an action anime, a Shonen Jump action anime and it refused to show any action at all instead having flashes of characters using powers that would've been nice to see in full action. Ichigo's friends fight Kusaka's minions but we never see how; Hitsugaya fights a number of Soul Reapers but we don't see the finishing blow, same goes for Kusaka vs Kyoraku, we never see how the fight ended and to top off the madness they chose Hitsugaya as the focus of this 95 minute film, the least interesting character in the whole of Bleach and I've said before that Bleach does have interesting characters but refuses to use them and that's a real waste, the story itself is okay if done before but as a film it wouldn't really connect to the main series as canon nor does it make Hitsugaya's emoness anymore justified.
Dubbing is top quality but doesn't make the film any better.
20 minutes longer and actually showing us action would've saved this film.
Final Verdict: A horrific mess of poorly strung together scenes and a lack of anything action orientated in what's meant to be a Shonen Jump series made worse when you realize how far the franchise fell afterwards.
Post 16 and I'm back to normal service following my research into pink, time for a major player in Final Fantasy VII Advent Children.
Now I've mentioned before that my relationship with Final Fantasy is very much love/hate, with no consistency so I'll do my best with this review to make it fair.
Advent Children takes place two years after the events of the game and Cloud has become even more emo as he continues to blame himself for Aeris' death, then a group of Sephiroth wannabes show up constantly looking for mother which we discover later as Jenova although if you played the games it's a simple plot to work out.
Where the children element comes in, Kadaj the leader of this group have abducted children carrying an unknown illness known as Geostigma, I don't know, this part is pretty pointless, they were made to drink something which gave them weird eyes but we don't actually know why this actually happens but it doesn't really do much for the plot anyway.
After a failed attempt to rescue the children, Cloud does some soul searching before returning for the final battle where his team defeat Bahamut SIN and Cloud gets a rematch against Sephiroth who is revived thanks to Kadaj absorbing the remains of Jenova. After claiming victory once again, Cloud cures all the children of the Geostigma as well as himself, afterwards the credits roll and were treated to a beautiful scene of Cloud riding through the hills on his awesome motorcycle.
The first half of this film didn't need to exist at all and at one point I even considered stopping the film and writing it off but the second half made up for it even if it boiled down to Square Enix saying "Were sorry that the final battle in Final Fantasy VII was so underwhelming so here's the fight we wanted to do" and it's actually a pretty good climax.
Dubbing was good for the most part but the villains were dreadful, the art style boiled down to how much black leather the characters can get away with without it being a funeral, again the first half of the film was pointless and pretty terrible, but on the other hand I can get invested in Cloud's team and the fighting was really good.
What that leaves you is basically half a film so here's how I rate it.
Final Verdict: If you were disappointed by Final Fantasy VII's climax then this film will make up for that. If your a fan of Final Fantasy in general this isn't really going to add anything to your experience but it's at least good in general. If you don't like Final Fantasy then you'll hate this. I can't really break it down any simpler than that; my verdict is that it was okay and I'm not a fan of Final Fantasy.
