Hi I'm Dranzerstorm
You may remember me as a regular contestant on the caption battle contest.
Welcome to Retro Retrospective, my world dedicated to the old guard of the Otaku world; expect some reviews of the old & obscure, and in-depth geeky knowledge with the occasional top ten and I now have a logo.
Little info about me
Well I'm British and I'm in to all things animated and nostalgia.
I've grown up with every cartoon going and have watched hundreds of anime.
Oh and to answer a question I was asked once, no I don't wear glasses in real life, I would wear Loke's sunglasses though.
Review time and we look at a show that just finished, it's Regular Show.
A couple of weeks ago from time of writing, Regular Show ended it's run, the final episode closing on what has been the best cartoon I've watched in many years and I don't say that lightly.
The exploits of park keepers Mordecai and Rigby were a sight to be hold, one minute you're slacking off work, the next you battle an intergalactic space demon from an arcade machine or battling the very forces of the internet, anything they can come up with they did, heck the first episode featured a rock, paper, scissors game that nearly destroys the world.
What made this show work were three things.
1. No cartoon had really covered the in's and out's of a young twenty something adult.
2. The music and references as well as the throwbacks were more than enough to appeal to the gradually growing twenty something demograph.
3. When it did have to give a serious message it was spot on, most notably on Mordecai's tortured love life.
And that really helped this demograph blossom along with the help of Adventure Time and the My Little Pony reboot, all released after 2009 the darkest days of animation and Cartoon Network especially.
This cartoon isn't for everyone; a younger person won't get the references, some jokes are outdated while others outstay their welcome and as it was nearing the climax it was starting to show decay in the writing but all forgiven based on how the final episode went.
If there is one thing I can take away from Regular Show is this; the real test of life is done in your 20s not your final school days or in your College years or University, it's what you do after.
Your ideal job may elude you, the qualifications you get may go to waste, love isn't as simple as it was in school, there will be plenty of people to screw you over and nostalgia will feel like your only escape but you are not alone, the most perfect of diamonds still need to be mined in the cold dark ground and even the most awkward looking gems still have value and Regular Show despite it's penchant of going way over board with it's most weird and unusual concepts still had enough life lessons to survive the twenty something era.
Had I been born in a different era I wouldn't like this but as it arrived as my 20s were in full swing I embraced it as a cartoon I could really get behind and I doubt we'll see another one like this again, least not for a long time.
It's sad to see it go and I do wonder what Cartoon Network will do next now this show has ended and Adventure Time is drawing to it's conclusion but its got a tough act to follow.
That's Regular Show, it's anything but.
And as the late David Bowie sang as well as the song used in Regular Show's Final Episode.
"We can be heroes, just for one day"
From one movie to another, this time it's Captain Harlock but not a live action but a CGI version.
Captain Harlock is the broody captain of the Arcadia, a ship powered by Dark Matter, crewed by a ragtag band of space pirates, his mission is to steal all the detonators to use on certain planets to trigger what's known as the Genesis clock that would reset time and space in a bid to rid himself of the guilt of being the man responsible for reducing Earth to a Dark Matter wasteland, stopping them in their path is the Gaia Sanction who after a war over the Planet Earth forbid everyone to return to it hiding the fact that Captain Harlock already ruined it for everyone.
To try and stop this plan, a boy named Logan infiltrates the Arcadia only to start sympathizing with Harlock's cause.
Captain Harlock is a massive franchise, there are too many named anime series that he stars in for this movie to really make sense, so the story feels restricted to newbies and I find that to be a shame, Harlock himself is the embodiment of awesome, it's hard not to gush over one of the most infamous swashbucklers in all anime and he's well backed up by a decent performance by David Matranga in the dub which is of course Genjo Sanzo in the Saiyuki dub. However my reservations about this film are similar to that of Final Fantasy VII Advent Children, it's the CGI, it doesn't suit anime, while I can see the effort gone into it, it can make the characters feel wooden as a result as the over reliance on exaggerated facial expressions that anime is built on it makes them less angry character more angsty teenager, this not well backed up by the female pirate Mimay who basically the designers took one look at Samus Aran and said "copy her", surprised Nintendo didn't slap a lawsuit on it.
If there is something to take from it, it's that it looks incredible as a film and Captain Harlock is every bit as awesome in this film as he is in the anime, if not better, but I feel it needs a selection of notes to try and welcome the new fans in.
Final Verdict: Captain Harlock is worth gushing over in visuals and the title character himself but try and dissect the story and you'll get lost easily.
This review is a rarity and somewhat a litmus test into how well anime translates as live action, this is Yatterman.
It's a typical episode of Yatterman complete with Dorombo Gang vs Team Yatterman until they stumble upon a plot to steal the Skull Stones which are needed to control time, after a couple of battles it ends in a final showdown between Yatterman and the boss of Dorombo, Skullobey.
Yatterman as an anime is fine if a little formulaic, this imagining of it is strange, for one thing it's just wrong for any robot to be sexualized, poor decision on the director there, also a subplot about Doronjo falling for Gan is just as bad, not the concept but the execution, it really comes off as forced as a result and don't get me started on Gan himself, in the anime he's lazy, a little single minded but at least good hearted, in this film he's a jerkass and you wonder why his girlfriend Ai sticks around.
It's not entirely terrible, the villains are actually accurate to their anime depictions, a couple of clever moments during the fight scenes and a well played 4th wall joke about the villains actually seeing their original voice actors is very good but everything else is bad, thank god there's no dub but if it were a piss take dub it may have saved it.
So if you want anime to work live action this is not the one to show people.
Final Verdict: Cringeworthy at best, facepalm inducing at worst but not the most terrible live remake of an anime, that'll always be Dragonball Evolution but when you set the bar that low to begin with it doesn't take much to step over it and I felt Yatterman live action was looking at the low bar rather than the higher ones set by the likes of Death Note.
Now for a treat, this show is a rarity that comes only once a generation and were going to talk about it, presenting the Mr Hell Show.
Mr Hell originally started as a demotivational series of greeting cards about a painfully honest devil named Mr Hell, a collaboration between British and Canadian animators including Jeff "Swampy" Marsh of Phineas & Ferb fame back when he was working in Britain long before he made it big with Disney were involved in the creation of a late night adult cartoon for BBC2. Mr Hell voiced by the late Bob Monkhouse (his final role before his death) gives the title character some class while he goes about the various sketches with quick fire gags and sinful mayhem worthy of Saints Row. Among the many other characters with their own mini sketches are the Victorian Lady Detective who can't solve cases because of the sexist laws of 1888, Josh the reincarnation guy who starts a conversation about the subject only to be brutally killed and Serge the Seal of Death who wants revenge on the Fashion Industry for killing his parents (Surprised PETA don't use him as a mascot) yet when he gets close to finding allies he brutally kills everyone as his post traumatic stress disorder drives him to mass murder.
The writing was very clever, the jokes most of the time hit the mark and Mr Hell is such a devious bad ass that it's more than worthy of a second season but with Bob Monkhouse's death a year after broadcast and in house jokes hinting at the cost being too high to continue further, Mr Hell Show faded into the background but under the radar the DVD came out giving some of it's very small fanbase a chance to watch it all again.
This show is high on the animation rarity scale particularly in the UK and even more so in Canada and if your a fan of Bob Monkhouse it's a worthy piece of history to have.
Now onto the companion list of 10 live action shows, I already did an exclusive British list so lets do the others.
Honorable Mention
Sesame Street
I'm bound by my rules on Pre-School shows and the fact that this has alot of animation as well as live action doesn't really make it a candidate on this list, however I will never say a bad word against this show.
10. Pee-Wee's Playhouse
A bizarre world from the mind of actor Paul Reubens, Pee-Wee's playhouse was the madcap adventure that was designed for kids with ADHD.
9. Are You Afraid of the Dark?
A surprise Canadian hit which managed to really scare you and while the safety filter was on and most of the stories ended in safety, the occasional darker ones would really catch you out and of course many jumped on that opening sequence.
8. Bill Nye the Science Guy
If you want your science lessons to be insanely awesome then Bill Nye has you covered, a fast paced comedy show full of song parodies and endless amounts of science to make your brains work overtime after schools.
7. Fresh Prince of Bel Air
Bit of a grey area as it travels the fine line between kids show and adult but I watched a lot more of this when I was younger rather than older. Watch a young Will Smith live it up with his rich Aunty and Uncle in Bel-Air. Time to make you feel old now. Will Smith is now older than Uncle Phil was in the show. To be honest Will Smith just doesn't age anyway.
6. Saved by the Bell
Before Nickelodeon and Disney packed the world with nothing but Live Action Kids shows, Saved by the Bell was the show that pretty much started the whole trend, while suffering a bit from being in the Pink Cadillac era of tv (High School setting that feels like the 50s but with plenty of 90s trends) it still manages to be significant in this day and age but it does show it's age.
5. Sister Sister
Nickelodeon's breakthrough hit that gave way to others like it, Sister Sister showcases the lives of Tia and Tamara who get separated as infants but reunite as teens under unique single parents Fashion Designer Lisa and Limo Driver Ray. One of the few twin plots that doesn't go for the obvious tropes and occasionally played some powerful moments such as when they finally learn about their birth mother.
4. Sabrina the Teenage Witch
Melissa Joan Hart originally started with Clarissa Explains It All, my sister was obssessed with it and the brother and sister dynamic in that show really put me off but Sabrina, Hart's more famous work was a lot more entertaining and really gave the live action sitcom market a boost in what can be accomplished with technology at the time.
3. MIghty Morphin Power Rangers
Haim Saban is a genius, without him I think anime would be dead because he saw something in Hurricane Rangers that would make a fortune over in the west and it did. This was Power Rangers and while it has become a cheese fest it's a very entertaining cheese fest, welcome to the world of Japanese TV and all it's weirdness.
2. Kenan & Kel
A cult classic and one of the few that's remembered among all my friends. Kenan & Kel showcases comedian friends Kenan and Kel as they get into bizarre situations usually by dumb luck or poor judgement and made even more famous for the "Who Love's Orange Soda?" line. It's so well remembered Nickelodeon started doing reruns again. (Or maybe they are desperate to win back diminishing viewers for their channel)
1. Wishbone
Now for something adorable.
Wishbone was a story telling show as the title character would tell a story from the point of view of a dog obviously done by voiceover who would replace the story main character with Wishbone himself, these were famous literacy works that may even be taught at school, everything from Shakesphere's works to Dickens, from legends like Robin Hood to old folk tales like Journey to the West. Yes Wishbone covered Saiyuki.
It was charming and had a sense of whimsy and Soccer the Dog (Actual name) is so adorable!
