Reviews have been generally slow lately, it's just me struggling with a bad spell of writers block and some really bad moments of stress, but lets see if I can restore the balance with my review for No Game No Life.
Sora and his younger step sister Shiro are master gamers under the persona [Blank], they have dominated the world of games and are undefeated at everything they play. One day they defeat the God of Games at Chess who comes from an alternate world called Disboard where games decide pretty much everything as opposed to war. Seeing an opportunity to remain undefeated, Sora & Shiro attempt to defeat all 16 races of Disboard and beat god once and for all.
The concept of the story is interesting, as every game is played on a grand scale that relatively normal games get turned into epic battles of life and death, while that's nothing new to the genre the difference between this series and say Yu-Gi-Oh, is Sora & Shiro solve every game with the same sort of logic and process as Sherlock Holmes solving all his cases, the intelligence and lengths the characters go to in order to win is astonishing and makes for a great spectacle well backed up by the art style, it's not so much the victory it's how it's done especially when you think that nothing else has been tried or Sora & Shiro look like they can't win then they pull it off in such a remarkable fashion that you do feel smarter for watching it and the fact that it ends on 12 episodes just makes you want more.
There are some moments which make it seem too close to a harem series and you can kind of tell that some of the so called fan service is forced but it doesn't really take much away from the main spectacle. And while most characters are well made, I could do with seeing far less of Stephanie Dola, yes she's important to the story and yes she provides some of the most useful information to the protagonists but also spends a great deal of her screen time whining which compared to the other negative parts is more distracting. Also the fact that Sora & Shiro are Hikikomori (A shut in who doesn't socialize or even leave the house) doesn't seem to factor in the show some what and the fact that they are running a kingdom and taking on god under the observation of the whole world and not concerned about being the center of attention is rather jarring, but it's just a nit pick.
Dub is pretty good and can sometimes be a benefit to the series as some of the more intricate details are better explained rather than read.
Final Verdict: No Game No Life can make even the most mundane of games epic and you only hope they make more episodes to see where they take things next, I wouldn't say it's for everyone, there are moments that may not suit certain audiences and some character tolerances are needed but No Game No Life is an anime worth watching.
Now my second review tonight is a retro classic from 1995 it's Ruin Explorers.
Ruin Explorers does exactly what it says on the tin, they are Explorers of Ruins, and on today's cast of characters we have Fam & Ihrie, a catgirl wiccan sorceress known for spiritual based spells and an appropriately dressed female swordsman/sorceress. The rivals are Rasha & Miguel, another sorceress along with a swordsman who can actually backup his manly boasting. For good measure we have a greedy merchant named Galuff and his dog Gil, and for plot sake we have the lost Prince Lyle who hopes to slay the evil sorcerer Ruguduroll.
The plot itself isn't anything spectacular, Fam & Ihrie seek the Ultimate Power which should make their dreams comes true if they manage to find all the pieces relating to the secret including a mirror, a sword and a small statue that proves royalty, however they stumble along with their rivals onto Lyle's quest to slay Ruguduroll who is also after the ultimate power so the heroes decide to help out the Prince.
I won't pull any punches, the writing is lazy and having only four episodes to work with is no excuse, there are plenty of moments that made me cringe and question why certain plot points aren't used. There's a moment in the last two episodes where it's discovered that Ihrie's magic can actually harm Ruguduroll but isn't actually used to defeat him, so only really serves to highlight Ihrie's curse of turning into a mouse when she uses magic. In fact the only character who is used properly is Miguel, the rest are either underused or like Fam who is a pathetic excuse for a sorceress; Sylphiel from Slayers is more useful than her and she's the definition of dead weight party member.
The dub is tolerable to a certain extend so I would choose sub instead.
There's a lot of things which can be taken as positive, the character designs are good, the setting is good and the potential is endless but it's lazy writing refuses to take advantage of any of these and reduces this series to dead weight status.
Final Verdict: The anime is too lazily written to be any kind of success which is a pity because it had a lot to work with and it just chose to ignore it's own potential and just stuck with something that really comes across as weak for a fantasy show considering it's main rival is Slayers.
No I'm not lazy, I've been really ill lately, so the posts I've been wanting to do have been put back, but now I'm at least well enough to write one or two so I'll start with Maid Sama.
Something about this couple seems familiar to me
Seika High used to be an all male school with a rough reputation until it switched to a Co-ed school; running the school presidency is Misaki Ayuzawa, a girl with a hatred for men thanks to her father running off and leaving her family poor; Misaki has made it her mission to reform the school so that girls feel safe in the former all male environment but stalking her every step of the way is Takumi Usui, the school's most popular male whose very being is an annoyance to Misaki but gets even more complicated when Usui discovers that Misaki works in a Maid Cafe to support her family which would ruin her built up reputation if revealed to the school; rather than tell the whole world Usui keeps it to himself as he attempts to reveal the inner most emotions that make Misaki function with the possibility of love on the horizon.
This show has some clever writing and some intriguing romance twists; Misaki's hatred of men isn't focused on very much avoiding the obvious pitfalls that come with that character type, in fact it gets turned against her when the student council revolts when Misaki goes too far in insulting the male students.
In fact the main focus is exactly what you expect, the building of the romance between Usui and Misaki, any drive away from that is temporary and sometimes even serves to make Misaki or Usui better, the anime doesn't finish the story but it ended on a sweet note, so I'm not too disappointed.
Now the crap stuff.
Maid Sama has a tendency to abuse it's main instrumental theme which becomes an annoyance late on in the series.
The dub suffers with horrific sound issues in the first half of the series DVD sets making all the characters sound quiet which is ironic when you consider Monica Rial's portrayal of Misaki to be on a higher volume compared to the rest of the cast, while the dub is fine minus the issues, the sub is a better experience.
I can't stand Hinata Shintani, not that I have anything against the country bumpkin type it's just his appearance in the anime is an unnecessary distraction from the show's leads.
And finally, this was also echoed by twinkie88 who watched shortly after I did, it's too safe. There's enough moments in the series that warrants a higher age rating than what we actually get, not that I want this to be a hentai but it could've used more adult situations.
Other than that, what I got was enjoyable enough on its own.
Final Verdict: Maid Sama is a well written romance story that could use a little more adult situations and a better soundtrack, otherwise it's worth the time to watch.
I'm back from a convention that's why there's been a lack of posts lately but I plan to rectify that with a new review, this time it's Naruto's Last Movie.
Two years after the end of the Forth Shinobi World War the world is now at peace until the Moon starts descending towards Earth courtesy of movie villain Toneri who requires a Byakugan user to complete the ritual but after Hiashi Hyuuga barely escapes alive after refusing to join, Toneri kidnaps Hinata's sister Hanabi, meanwhile Naruto has become village hero and the icon of all the Leaf Village's girls, which leads to a very nervous Hinata attempting to make a scarf for Naruto in the hopes of confessing her feelings, but once Toneri kidnaps Hanabi. Naruto along with Sai, Shikamaru, Sakura and Hinata travel to save Hanabi but with Toneri's real target being Hinata it isn't long before she gets kidnapped. During the journey through flashbacks and hallucinations Naruto begins to realize that he's falling in love with Hinata and through their love stops the evil plan of Toneri and stop the Moon from destroying the world.
I normally have a love hate relationship with Naruto films, there have been plenty that have been bad while others have been decent, I put this under decent but it's not without it's problems. Essentially what we have is a very tortured love confession that takes a long time to payoff and relies almost entirely on flashbacks and that damn scarf that Hinata never finishes but on the other hand it manages to tie together a loose end of one of Anime's best couples and some of the battles are nice to watch and it's always a pleasure to watch Hinata be a bad ass.
Dub is decent as to be expected with Naruto which finishes with one of the most touching endings to a film and considering the last film I reviewed it made up for a lot of disappointments.
Final Verdict: The film was very enjoyable despite it's over reliance on used footage and left quite an impression on me.
Extra: Let me speak seriously for a moment. I normally give Naruto a hard time but only because I know how much potential it has but when it does something well it really shows. I didn't really get to speak much on the ending last time and I thought I bring up the Naruto, Hinata couple in particular; a line that sticks with me in particular from the film is when Naruto says that love is like making a scarf, it takes time and effort to create, and he's exactly right; the one you love the most is always the one you make the most effort to build in terms of relationship and Hinata and Naruto is a good example of this relationship
Now for another film, this time Tales of Vesperia First Strike.
For those already familiar, this is the prequel to the game of the same name featuring the origins or partial origins of the two characters Yuri Lowell and Flynn Scifo.
We start in a small town that's experiencing trouble in a nearby forest as monsters begin to gather as a result of an unnatural phenomenon of aer, a substance used to power blastia a crystal catalyst used to modernize the world in various ways, call it electricity with the same properties as magic. Anyway the Niren Corps are charged with defending the town from this unusual phenomenon, however it's stand out characters don't really get along as Yuri and Flynn constantly fight much to the annoyance of the twins Hisca and Chastel as well as their captain Niren Fedrok.
As the situation deepens and help seemingly non existent, the Niren Corps track the source down to some ruins in order to confront the cause of the phenomenon with mixed results.
This film is a bit meh, I'm sorry I can't use a more constructive description for this film, there's nothing really wrong with it, it plays things very safe, the additional characters are welcomed to break up the mostly male cast, the plot twist was done okay and overall it's not that bad of a film it just didn't leave that much of an impression on me and there are a number of reasons why that is.
1. For a game so colorful, the film is very dark with it's color palette.
2. While the dub is okay much of the cast over acts, Flynn, Hisca and Chastel especially.
3. Flynn is a jerk when I expected him not to be.
4. The main theme music is over played.
5. It doesn't get me pumped up to play the game.
Overall I don't think it needed to be a film, as a DLC in the game maybe or even a TV special or part of an anime episode but not a film, it's not good enough to be a film.
Final Verdict: It's okay but it didn't leave me with much of an impression, mostly blamed on overacting and the fact that Flynn is an unlikable jerk.
