Chrono Crusade Review

**This is an old review that I'm cataloging and does not fully represent my Current thoughts on the matter**

Okay so I know I said I was going to review Trigun (and that is still on my agenda), but I just sat down and watched all of Chrono Crusade in two days, so I’m going to talk about that first. This is about the anime only by the way, as I haven’t read the manga and while I know it differs greatly from its anime counterpart, I don’t actually know in detail how or at what points. Also, SPOILERS, because I need to vent.

Okay, so for anyone who doesn’t know, Chrono Crusade is a story that takes place in America during the 1920s after the first world war. After the war, demons started coming out of the shadows and wrecking havoc and stuff. Now a girl named Rosette, a nun serving the Order of Magdalene (a church that battles demons and is a sort of religious army), is battling demons despite having contracted with a demon named Chrono while trying to find her missing younger brother Joshua. Eventually, they find out Joshua went crazy after receiving Chrono’s demon horns from a different, much nastier demon named Aion, and is currently working for Aion despite being mentally and physically unstable.

From the get-go, I really liked both our main protagonists; Rosette as the feisty, short-tempered, gun-slinging exorcist, and Chrono as the even-tempered, gentle demon side-kick. Throughout the whole series I really loved both of them, Rosette was kick-butt and kind-hearted and generally a really awesome character, and Chrono was sweet but with a complicated past and was an awesome friend to Rosette.

The other two main characters were Azmaria and Satella. Azmaria was a young girl who lived a dangerous, lonely life due to her powers of being an Apostle before being taken in by Rosette (and the church in general). She really grew on me, she was just so innocent and kind and basically was the actual definition of “cinnamon roll too pure for this world”.

Satella was an older (by older I mean actually an adult, she still looked pretty young) wealthy lady who could control demon-esque things that were within these gemstones. She had her family murdered by demons when she was younger except for her older sister, who was now missing. While a fan-service character by design (which generally annoys me a great deal), she had an interesting personality and backstory as well as solid character development, so I actually ended up liking her a fair amount too.

So all in all, the show did a GREAT job with main protagonists. My main complaint character-wise for this show is that they just HAD to have a Pervy Old Man character. He wasn’t there all the time or anything, but he was still annoying in almost every scene he was in. I don’t get Japan’s obsession with this trope, IT ISN’T FUNNY, and it’s overdone. But I was willing to ignore him for the other protagonists.

As for the plot itself, that went all over the place, both in what was happening and how invested it had me in it. At first it’s fairly straightforward; Rosette and Chrono fight off demons that cause trouble, Rosette is a crazy driver, and she argues with her boss a lot. Things got crazier with the introduction of Azmaria, because then we knew Aion was trying to capture the seven Apostles for his Evil Plan. There was a bunch of action stuff that went down, Joshua turned out to be an Apostle, and that was all pretty fun. And there was a bunch of cute friendship bonding along the way.

The point where I started feeling less interested is when Rosette was basically broken by Aion’s crazy “Atonement Ritual” and kidnapped and brainwashed by him for like, the bulk of the climax. Like, for five or six episodes our MAIN CHARACTER wasn’t doing anything aside from blindly starting riots under Aion’s control. And then I dunno there was a lot of failing on the good guy’s part, also Aion is THE BIGGEST CREEPER, I really hated him, he made out with almost every female character (usually against their wishes) and I just really wanted to see him go down. (plus he was, you know, a ruthless murderer who wanted chaos and all that) But it wasn’t until nearly the very end of the show when Chrono finally wips out his Full Demon Power and destroys him with a couple of blows? It was incredibly anti-climactic, especially since Rosette didn’t get to do anything in the final battle despite being the main protagonist with tons of gun and exorcism training.

And then the ending. At first, it was just INCREDIBLY SAD. IT HONESTLY MADE ME KIND OF EMOTIONAL. But then. After over half the cast of good guys were dead, at the very end, we find out AION WAS STILL ALIVE. HE GOT TO LIVE WHILE THE OTHERS DIDN’T. THAT HEARTLESS CREEPER SURVIVED. And everyone was getting ready for the second world war to start because of some prophecy, and just. I was really angry. WHAT THE HECK SHOW. WHY WOULD YOU EVEN DO THAT. All I wanted was for Rosette to ruthlessly murder Aion and then I dunno some sort of happier ending than we got (and I’m not usually huge on Happy Endings, but I wanted there to be at least SOME joy). And they denied me that. >:(

So, in short, it was mostly a really good show. It was fun, had mostly lovable characters, and a relatively interesting plot. Also the animation and music score was GORGEOUS. But it did fall into several annoying fan-service tropes at times, and the ending, while not 100% terrible, kind of failed to be satisfying and left me rather bitter. I say 7/10. Now I have to add yet another manga series to my “must read for retribution against the anime” list.

Ouran High School Host Club Review

**This is an old review I am cataloging and may not reflect my Current thoughts on the matter**

(Disclaimer: This is about the anime ONLY, I have not read the manga yet)

I’m going to be honest: I went into this show expecting not to like it. I knew 99.9% of anime fandom loved it, but more often then not I am baffled by what shows become popular, and its premise didn’t help; I already have a very hard time getting into slice-of-life and romance anime, and a show about a host club just sounded stupid and unpleasant to me. But I wanted to give it a try.

At first, all I could really say for the show was that it had good animation, some funny moments, and a cool protagonist. But I wasn’t very interested, and all the guy characters seemed annoyingly class-ist and kind of just…stereotypical. And I just have a short attention span for non-plotty shows sometimes. But I kept watching, and I found the show to be less and less burdensome to watch as I went on, and I was growing increasingly fond of Tamaki (I of course continued to love Haruhi). By the end, I was having a lot of fun watching it and genuinely cared about all of the characters and their relationships and general well-being. I’m not sure specifically when my reaction started changing from “-_- + o_O” to “:D”, or what exactly caused it, but it did.

Now to get into a more detailed analysis (probably SPOILERS, you have been forewarned). First I’ll start off with what I DID like, and what I thought worked pretty well. The animation was lovely. Like, really lovely; it was so bright and shiny and smooth (plus it reminded me of Cardcaptor Sakura, which can only be a good thing). I liked the music, it was fun and fit the show really well. But what really made the show work were the characters. I wasn’t actually sure at first if I was going to be able to like anyone other than Haruhi at first, but everytime I got to an episode going over one of the main characters past/ outside-of-the-host-club issues I ended up liking them more and more, especially Tamaki, though I ended up liking Kyouya and the twins a fair amount later on. There various friendships and crushes were actually pretty adorable to watch develop, particularly once I got to know the characters better. Tamaki’s crush on Haruhi I expected to be really annoying, but it ended up being funny and cute instead, which was a big plus for me. I also really liked that they did give the twins individual personalities and issues, even if they were only apparent in the episodes focusing on them. And later on there were just so many cute episodes, like Hikaru’s date with Haruhi, the episode with Kasanoda, and kind of all the episodes focusing on Tamaki and Kyouya.

But while the show was mostly a ton of fun, it wasn’t by any means flawless. The fact that it took so long to get going is in itself a flaw, a show shouldn’t take 8-10 episodes before becoming properly entertaining. Early on the show felt more clichéd and with more one-dimensional characters then it did later. It took WAY too long to get basic information about our main characters, which made the pacing feel weird. And while I liked that the friendships were kind of slow-burn development-wise, it did feel odd that no one had really resolved their romantic feelings by the end of the series. Actually, in general the show didn’t resolve a lot of things, even if I did basically enjoy the ending. Like what about Hikaru and Kaoru’s struggle to become more accepting and independent? Did Tamaki ever catch onto the fact his feelings for Haruhi were romantic and not fatherly like he seemed convinced of? Was the show trying to say Haruhi had subtle romantic feelings for Tamaki or not? The show just felt like it needed a second season to wrap up all the loose ends but didn’t get one. Also, while most of the characters had story-archs dealing with their issues outside of their host-personas, I feel like we never really got to know Mori and Honey? Like yeah we learned Honey had a little brother that he had a strained relationship with, this didn’t reallly reveal anything new about Honey himself; he remained the “cute, child-like one” with martial art skills the entire show. And that was it. Mori had the “stoic but kind” thing going, which while fun, doesn’t tell me much about him as a person. So I wish those two had been developed as fully as the other characters were.

Long story short, Ouran High School Host Club WAS a very fun, cute show that I actually ended up enjoying quite a lot. It had lovable characters, good humor, and great voice acting and animation. But it took too long to get going, didn’t resolve a lot of issues that were brought up, and some of the main characters failed to have any meaningful development. Final Rating: 8/10

Babylon 5 Series Review

**This is an old review I am cataloging and may not reflect my Current thoughts on the matter**

So, I just finished watching Babylon 5, and I figured I’d review the series as a whole before eventually rewatching it and reviewing it season by season. Since it’s a fairly long series and I have a lot of thoughts about it, far too many to put into a single review, I’m going to split my review into several categories, each one with two sub categories: what I liked, and what I didn’t like. The main categories will be: Characterization/Relationships, Story/Plot, Music/Visuals, and and then Summarizing Thoughts. This will be a spoiler-free review. Alright, here we go!

Characterization/Relationships

Overall Rating: 9/10

What I Liked: I have to say that characterization was probably one of the strongest points in the show. I absolutely LOVE every main character. Each one is very different from all the other characters, very unique, and each has a layered, multifaceted personality that is greatly explored throughout the show (well, except for the characters who were only main characters for a single season, but even they are at least likeable and interesting enough for what they’re given). This show is wonderful at writing friendships, they all feel so genuine and believable, and for the most part the challenges and strains put on those friendships are well-written as well. The show is amazing at capturing motivation, change, and conflict in its characters and it rarely glazes over the character’s flaws and personal problems. All the characters who are in it from beginning to end change and develop dramatically, but believably so that you can clearly see how they got from how they started to how they ended up. And this show is just really good at making you feel strongly attatched to every main character introduced; I wound up caring aboubt every single one to the point the point that when they were sad, I was sad, and when they were stressed out, I WAS FLAT OUT PANICKING. This series may be a plotty series, but what it really focuses on is how the characters affect, and are affected by, the situations they find themselves a part of.

What I Didn’t Like: While most of the time I was happy with how characters were written on this show, there were definitely still some flaws in that area. First off, this show is, in my opinion, terrible at writing romance. There were exactly two couples I actually enjoyed and cared about, one because it got four seasons worth of proper development, and one because both characters involved were main characters and were COMPLETELY AWESOME AND FABULOUS both seperate and together. All the others range from completely cringe worthy to simply boring. And the show dabbles in romance pretty often, so that was a recurring annoyance for me. My only other complaints are mainly a list of particular moments I found out of character or poorly developed, usually minor ones. The only two big complaints I have about characterization that I can discuss without spoilers are that in Season 5, the character Lyta had very vague motivations that weren’t explored enough to feel in character; and the character Lennier just…was out of character and largely absent, which was terrible because he was completely awesome in the first four seasons. :(

Story/Plot

Overall Rating: 8/10

What I Liked: This is a plotty series. Season 1 acts as a foundation building season, dropping plot points without the viewer even noticing it most of the time, and then seasons 2, 3, and 4 are basically non-stop, constant plot with little to no one-shots or filler. The show does a great job at keeping track of its many plot points, connecting them all in interesting and believable ways. You’re constantly wondering what’s going to happening next and the series rarely fails to impress and amaze you with what it puts together. What I like most about the plot from season 2 to season 4 is that it is exciting - the first six episodes of season 4 were some of the most anxiety inducing, warped, and fascinating episodes of the whole show for me. So it gets a lot of points for keeping me interested and making me feel genuine emotions.

What I Didn’t Like: Season 5. Okay, not all of season 5 was bad; I actually liked a lot of the episodes in it because of their great character moments. But plot wise, I feel it’s the weakest season. The whole series had been focusing on and off about how cruel and derranged the orginization of Psi Corps, which forcibly takes in and trains human telepaths, really is, and the fifth season gave some (poorly written) focus on how many telepaths wanted to be free of them. But it’s never resolved or addressed in any way that’s satisfying. They completely dropped one of the most interesting and complex plot points for no reason. We’re just supposed to accept that…everything is better? Except not really because Psi Corps is still at large? I don’t even know what happened there because it was never explained. And the ending to the series is extremely unsatisfying, the last two episodes are basically just eighty minutes of melodramatic sadness rather than trying to address or explain all of the many plot points that I, as a viewer, really wanted to see more of. Season 4 had some struggles with plot in the sense that the show thought it might be cancelled so it rushed some things, but still did a better job at tying things together than season 5 did. Actually, season 5 had the reverse problem; it knew it was going to end, the show was never planned to have more than five seasons, yet they still introduced plot-points too complex to fully complete with only one season. In short, season 5 had no idea what it was doing or how to end the series, although that mostly became a problem in the later part of it; the early part was actually pretty fun.

Music/Visuals

Overall Rating: 8.5/10

What I Liked: This show has a very nice soundtrack. It fits each moment well, and really adds to the feeling of each scene. It definitely has a very sci-fi feel to it, and also suceeds in sounding very emotional, which is fitting because there are a lot of emotions in this show. I particularly like the first two opening songs and the sad soundtrack, for it really makes those gut-wrenching scens all the more tragic. Visually, I really liked their filming of the space battles between ships; they were surprisingly fun and had much more going on then I’m used to seeing from sci-fi shows. Also they had very pretty looking death leasers and explosions, it made the fight scenes more interesting to look at when the ships weren’t doing a whole lot of manuevering.

What I Din’t Like: Um, I didn’t really have too many complaints about it visually. Sometimes they would make odd camera choices, and it’s pretty fond of surreal visions and dream sequences, but that didn’t usually bother me except for when it felt out of place or poorly explained. Oh, and season 1 struggled with props and costuming, it just…did. Everything looks so much more polished after season 1. Everything.

Summarizing Thoughts

Average Rating: 8.5

I really liked this show. It was fun, it was exciting, it was impactful, and it was mostly well plotted with extremely lovable, memorable characters. Yes, it had many flaws and a somewhat terrible ending, but everything leading up to that was so entertaining and well-done that it almost makes up for it. Even with its many problems, it is still a show that made me deeply care about every main character involved and had me genuinely invested in the plot, which more than I can say about a lot of series. So overall, I would recommend it to anyone looking for a good sci-fi show to watch. It balances hilarity and tragedy well (though tragidy is the more prominent element) and, with only a few exceptions, writes character motivation and personality extremely well, and writes some very beautiful friendships even if it struggles with romance (and even then I can still vouch for those two specific couples, which were actually quite lovely in their own, different ways). That being said, I’m looking forward to when I get the chance to rewatch it and review it season by season (which will contain way more spoilers, just as a forewarning).

Black Cat Anime Review

**This is an old review I am cataloging and may not reflect my Current thoughts on the matter**

Quick Disclaimer: This is a review for the ANIME ONLY, I have not read the manga and have no idea how it differs from the anime, though my general assumption with anime is that the manga is pretty different/usually better.

With that out of the way, I had a fairly mixed reaction towards Black Cat. When I first started watching it, I thought it was going to be a dark, edgy anime about a morally grey vigilante (Sven) and a ruthless assassin slowly learning to have something resembling morals (Train). I thought Train converted to Saya’s style of thinking WAY too quickly - they hung out like what, five times that we saw? I just don’t think that would be enough to counteract YEARS of violent training and trauma. I was also really annoyed they killed Saya just so Train would have a reason to be pissed off/leave Chronos, she seemed like she could have been interesting. But what really got me was that as soon as Train joined Sven and Eve, THERE WAS A TIME SKIP. And suddenly Train is a smiley, reckless shounen protagonist? Why would they skip all of that character development!?

So basically I didn’t get Train. At all. I mean, I thoroughly enjoyed him as a character, but I didn’t understand how he got from point A to point B. Also, the tonal shift in the show was extremely jarring; I thought it was going to be dark and edgy, but it wound up being more of lighthearted action series where the good guys are clearly good, they conquer over evil, and a lot of the villains see the error of their ways and become good guys.

I did really love Eve and Sven as characters. Eve was interesting, fun, and could kick a ton of butt. I loved her deadpan sass, her love of books and fireworks, and her strong sense of morality. Usually kid characters amongst an adult cast are a little annoying (or at least there’s that tendency), but Eve was awesome and managed to be both realistically a kid/young teenager (I don’t actually know her age, but by the end of the series she looked 12-14 to me) and intelligent, capable, and entertaining. Honestly she’s my favorite, and after her Sven because he’s super entertaining and lovable, though I do wish we’d learned more about his past.

The animation was really crisp and pretty, but the camera work was terrible. I never had any idea what was happening during the fight scenes, so much of the violence was off screen or implied through confusing, surreal animation sequences. The scene transitions were also very confusing, and the plot didn’t seem to have much direction. At first I think they wanted to take down Chronos? Or I guess just live on the road as bounty hunters? They never really talked about personal goals outside of their job as sweepers, and they lost their opportunity to do so once they had to stop Creed and his minions.

Also, about Creed. I found him EXTREMELY entertaining, and enjoyed him as a villain, but the anime barely explored his motives at all. I didn’t really understand what his idea of ‘utopia’ was, and while he was obviously obsessed with Train, we never get any flashbacks or explanations as the root of this obsession or any idea of what Train thought about Creed before he killed Saya. And all we got on his backstory were a few brief, confusing flashback sequences without much context. So he came off more like a ‘villain is evil because EVIL’ type of character rather than a complex, emotionally sympathetic but still raving mad and evil type of villain, which was upsetting because he was SO CLOSE to being one, but the writers instead prioritised action and confusing plot over character development.

Oh, and what was the point of Rinslet? I didn’t dislike her by any means, she was fun and seemed smart, but she didn’t really seem to serve any purpose to the plot and didn’t have any meaningful impact on the other main characters. Sure, she was their boss, but she only really seemed to show up every now and then to give a mission or do some computer hacking, and that was it. Actually, in general there were WAY too many characters, especially since only three of them got enough screentime and development to feel like main characters, I just ended forgetting all of their names.

In short, I had a lot of fun watching Black Cat, but I found it very confusing and aimless, and it didn’t do nearly enough with the wonderful characters it had. I think there was a lot of potential there, they just didn’t take all the opportunities for greatness they had. I dunno I’m gonna say it was 7/10, maybe 6.5/10. I’m hoping the manga resolves some of these issues.

Attack on Titan Anime Review

**This is an old review I am cataloging and may not reflect my Current thoughts on the matter**

So I finally decided to watch Attack on Titan, and wound up binge watching all of it in about two days. Keep in mind please that I have not read the manga or watched the OVAs, this is a review purely on the anime itself.

So first I’ll start with what I liked about the anime. The animation, for starters, was BEAUTIFUL, especially the landscapes they were just SO GORGEOUS. I also thought the ost was brilliant and really fit the mood of the anime well. But what I liked most about the anime was that it was EXCITING. It was chock full of extremely well done action, watching the characters whiz through air with their gear and hacking up titans on some sort of crazed rage-filled mission was SERIOUSLY FUN. Like for real I loved how exciting and technical and fast paced the fight scenes were. The drama was pretty good too, especially at certain parts, but it could have been improved upon as well.

Which leads me to the next part of my review: what I didn’t like so much about the anime. First off, I didn’t feel like I really got to know any of the characters, which kind of subdued a lot of the emotional impact of the series for me. All I know about Eren, the MAIN PROTAGONIST, is that he is angry, determined, and traumatized and cares about his friends. That’s not a lot to go off of and can be applied to most action anime protagonists. Mikasa, while her fight scenes were often my favorites, was mostly just really kick-butt and slightly obsessed with Eren (there was some depth with her back-story that I liked but even that doesn’t tell you a ton about her as a person). Armin was probably my favorite, even if he mainly just went from ‘the nice smart guy’ to ‘the rational kick-butt strategist’, I just really liked him. I know everyone loves Levi, but from just the anime alone I don’t really get why; once I stopped being angry at his unpunished jerkitude, I definitely found him intriguing, but nothing was ever really learned about him. Because the action was so non-stop, there wasn’t time for the characters to just breathe and be themselves, which made the drama, in my opinion, less effective. Annies betrayal had almost no emotional impact on me because she was barely in the show before that, and even though we’re TOLD she and the other recruits had bonded during their years of training, we never SEE her interacting with others, or at least not very much.

My other main problem with the anime is that NOTHING ABOUT THE PLOT GETS RESOLVED. We don’t learn about what the titans are or where they come from, or what Eren’s dad was experimenting with that gave Eren titan powers, or why anyone else managed to have titan powers, Eren never reclaimed Wall Maria and got to the basement let alone actually accomplish his goal of killing all the titans. Basically NONE OF MY QUESTION WERE ANSWERED AND IT WAS VERY FRUSTRATING.

So, overall, I can say it was extremely fun anime to binge watch and had SO MUCH POTENTIAL to have awesome characters if we’d gotten to know them better and the plot was intriguing but totally unexplained and unresolved. The animation, ost, and fight scenes really were a lot of fun though, so I’m giving it a 6/10.

I turn now to the manga for answers and retribution.

Tsubasa World Chronicle: Nirai Kanai Hen Review

**This is an old review I am cataloging and may not reflect my Current thoughts on the matter**

So I finally finished reading Tsubasa World Chronicle: Nirai Kanai Hen. It…was much shorter than I though it was going to be. I figured it would a long continuation, though I’m still hoping for a second arc (maybe one that focuses on Kurogane, Fai, or Sakura since this one was very Syaoran centric). But for now, I’ll just review Nirai Kanai as if it is its own singular thing. Also bear in mind I haven’t caught up on Holic Rei yet, so this is just about what we see in TWC.

Nirai Kanai was, no doubt, a very fun arc to read. You got dual dimensions, a mysterious underworld, a magic tree, and a violent, tragic showdown. And you get to see all our favorite characters again, see how much they’ve grown since the beginning of TRC, which was fantastic. And the art was absolutely INCREDIBLE. I liked seeing Fai actually use his magic freely, Sakura and Watanuki bonding and doing Dream Stuff together, Kurogane being protective and grumpy but increasingly affectionate (seriously he has mellowed out SO MUCH since TRC), and Mokona being Mokona again. And Syaoran was as innocent and Determined as ever.

That being said, the actual composition of the story was, in my opinion, poorly done. The pacing was too quick, the chapters far too short, and when really analyzed it becomes apparent that not much actually happened in it. In TRC, each individual world gave the feeling of leading up to something else and had a decent focus on all of the main characters. With Nirai Kanai, Sakura isn’t even travelling with and spends the majority of the arc worrying in Dreamland with Watanuki or Hana (okay she technically did do stuff with Hana, but it was convoluted and poorly explained so that felt more like a cheap, easy fix to Syaoran’s problem rather than her actually doing challenging magic and maybe having some sort of character development connected to that like it could have been), and Kurogane and Fai didn’t really do anything other than worry about and support Syaoran either, I mean yeah Kurogane got to be awesome with his sword and apparently swimming skills at the end and Fai did some magic stuff, but nothing that happened had any affect on them other than “gee, now I’m even MORE worried about Syaoran”. There wasn’t even really anything hinting at potential development in future arcs. And I know Syaoran is the main characters, but in TRC the others still had character arcs that didn’t revolve completely around Syaoran.

The ending, while it had its incredibly sweet scenes, and I give the story credit in general for making feel emotional and eager to know what was going to happen next, didn’t make a ton of sense, felt entirely forced, and largely wasn’t satisfying. Yes now we know with more certainty (sort of) that the Clones CAN be brought back, but that doesn’t really bring us much farther along plot wise than we were at the end of the TRC epilogue.

Also the Utaki’s logic didn’t make an ounce of sense and I didn’t really understand the purpose of Ghost Girl being there except to give a bit of exposition and then follow Syaoran around. Plus, they brought up a bunch of potential plot points and then didn’t do anything with them. They mention the Nirai Kanai of the Dead has a blond princess goddess but then we never meet her and she doesn’t do anything. Touya and Yukito talk about the group meeting the dead, which Syaoran technically does when he sees Clone Syaoran, but the others don’t get to do anything like that. Kujaku is supposedly the Sasu/Guide but doesn’t much other than give cryptic advice. And there are probably other instances I could think of as well.

All in all, I think I would rate the series 7/10. It had a lot of problems story-telling wise, but I really enjoyed all the character interactions, Sakura and Watanuki bonding was beautiful to see, the art was gorgeous, and was in general a pretty fun, sort of nostalgic read. Also I LOVED seeing Kujaku again even if he didn’t do much because I loved him in RG Veda and HE DESERVED BETTER (*glares teary daggers at RG VEDA). Hopefully we get more World Chronicle (I think it would be strange to call it WORLD chronicles and then only give us one world), but if not then at least this serves as a relatively entertaining tribute to the original series.

Star Trek: The Next Generation Review (Spoiler Free)

**This is an old review I am cataloging and may not reflect my Current thoughts on the matter**

I did it. I DID IT. I finally finished watching all seven seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation. And I loved it. I’ve always liked Star Trek, and would often see episodes of The Original Series, Next Generation, and Voyager here and there, enough to be basically familiar with the characters and structure of the shows, so a while back I actually started watching Next Generation in consecutive order (after watching nearly all of The Original Series). And having now seen all of it, I can officially say it is an amazing awesome wonderful series that everyone should try. Since this is the first series I’ve reviewed that doesn’t have an over arching plot, I’m going to go with a more free-style review in contrast to my previous, well-organized reviews.

First off, I might as well talk a little bit about the overall structure of the show before I start rambling incoherently about how fabulous everything about it is. It is an extremely character driven show, more focused on exploring philosophical questions, human morality/psychology, and the personal development of the main cast rather than telling one big multi-season story. Some people may be put off by the show’s episodic nature, but I personally found it very enjoyable; even though nearly every episode could be watched by itself without any prior knowledge of what had happened before it, the show has enough fluid continuity and subtle character development that watching it in order adds a special meaning and understanding of just how the characters think and react to different situations, and episodes do often reference previous episodes and events, so even if there technically isn’t an over arching story, it manages to feel almost as if is there is one through recurring themes, episode continuity, and character development.

The show does a good job at keeping the one-shots interesting (some more than others, but that’s inevitable in series that long), and brings up interesting and challenging ideas/questions for the cast to face each episode. The episodes range from being absolutely hilarious, to emotionally engaging/heartbreaking/FULL OF FEELS, to downright weird, but regardless of what type of episode it is, you can always count on there being at least a few good scenes or ideas, and more often than not they’re extremely interesting.

Season 1 was, admittedly, a very rocky season; the writers were clearly still trying to figure out the rules of their universe and the subtler workings of all the characters and generally only sort of seemed to know what they were doing. Even so, there are a lot of great scenes in that season and I still found it pretty enjoyable, and it definitely serves as a good foundation season for the show’s character development and introducing various recurring plot points and themes.

But that’s enough about structure. Now to talk about what really makes the show stand out as endlessly fabulous, spectacular, and extremely re-watchable: the characters. The entire main cast is ridiculously endearing and entertaining, each one decidedly unique, interesting, and fun to watch on screen. So many of the characters, when I first saw them in Season 1, I felt uncertain about, yet intrigued; and then each one evolved and become monumentally important and lovable and endured so many varying trials that developed their characters over time AND I JUST REALLY HAVE A LOT OF RESPECT FOR EVERY SINGE ONE OF THEM OKAY. I liked Geordi and Data instantly (they’re still my faves), they both have such wonderful personalities and their friendship IS THE ACTUAL BEST THING to watch on screen and gives me immense joy. Dr. Crusher and Deanna Troi are also superbly fabulous characters who are ridiculously admirable and entertaining. And the three characters I was most uncertain about when I first started watching the show, Captain Picard, Riker, and Worf, all developed into supremely awesome and respectable characters that I love intensely. Not to mention all the side/recurring characters are great too, to the point where you seriously wish at times they had more screen time. Just… they all grow so much over the series and feel so multi-faceted and realistic that it’s practically impossible not to love admire all of them.

Also, the last two episodes manage to tie in SO WELL to the first two episodes, which is something that almost never happens with a series this long. I seriously enjoyed that ending A TON, only now I have to go watch the movies and hunt down as many of the published books as possible because IT STILL WASN’T ENOUGH. GIVE ME ALL THE STAR TREK TNG. ALL OF IT. Actually, I’m about to finally go and start Deep Space Nine, so really just give me all the Star Trek in general.

To summarize, this show was awesome, and I strongly recommend it to everyone. No, it isn’t a perfect show, it has a rocky entire first season, some episodes aren’t as good as others, and there are moments/scenes/turn of events I have some issues with, but the overall greatness of the show and in particular the endearing quality of its characters make the not-good moments/episodes worthwhile in my opinion.

Nabari no Ou Review (Without Spoilers)

**This is an old review I am cataloging and may not reflect my Current thoughts on the matter**

SO. I finished reading Nabari no Ou after first watching the entire anime. And I can officially say I LOVE this series. But for now I’m going to write a spolier-free review to help organize my thoughts in preparation for the spoilery review. Like my previous review, I’m going to simplify things for myself by seperating things into different categories: Characters/Relationships, Story/Plot, Visuals, and Summarizing Thoughts.

Characters/Relationships

Overall Rating: 9.5/10

This series is WONDERFUL at character writing. I LOVE ALL OF THEM. None of the caracters are what they initially seem, they all get beautiful character development, the side characters get attention and are important too, and every scene focusing on the relationship between a pair of characters is kind of perfect. And usually leaves you a SOBBING WRECK INSIDE.

It deals with depression and emotional struggles really well, but has enough light and uplifting moments so that the crushing sadness doesn’t feel overdone or pointless. Nabari no Ou is a very character driven story, so it’s fitting that the characters, even side ones, get a great deal of attention and keep managing to surprise you. I could spend a long time just ranting about how wonderful and lovely and well written every character is, but I can’t really say too much more without either going into spoiler territory or becoming reduntant. So basically, THE CHARACTERS ARE AMAZING AND WILL PROBABLY SHATTER YOUR SOUL BECAUSE THIS SERIES REALLY KNOWS WHAT IT’S DOING IN THAT REGARD.

Story/Plot

Overall Rating: 9/10

The premise of the story is fairly simple; Miharu, an apathetic teenager, discovers he has the sacred ninja power of infinite ability called the Shinrabansho in him and has to try to stay alive until it can be removed from him, since every ninja wants it to grant their wish. Yet despite its initial simplicity, it manages to remain exciting and interesting from start to finish, throwing plot twists at you every now and again whenever you start feeling like you understand things. I really like the pacing of the story, it’s a little fast at the start but feels very natural from there on, it never draws out plot points unnecessarily or abandons them. The ending I had mixed feelings towards, because while it wraps up everything in a believable manner, it just…wasn’t what I was expecting. I don’t actually know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t what I got. But all things considered, I think it handled things pretty well. (Although there were those two moments when I’m convinced a character SHOULD have died but didn’t which was…kind of confusing. But oh well.)

Visuals

Overall Rating: 8/10

The anime had extremely pretty animation and backgrounds. The characters looked lovely, and the backgrounds, which looked as if they were paintings, worked surprisingly well for the series as well as looking very pretty. The manga, however, was more of a mixed bag. The art was much sketchier at the beginning of the manga, which is pretty common with most mangas since the author hasn’t fully developed their style and decided what they want the characters to look like. Then there was the middle section of the manga, which was BEAUTIFUL and gave us some amazing backgrounds and chapter art. Then later, the art started looking like a combination of the sketchy early art and the smoother, middle art. I’m not entirely sure why that happened, but it did, which was slightly off putting.

So while I can’t say the art was ever bad, in fact sometimes it was really amazing, there was the fact that it seemed somewhat inconsistent. It didn’t really take away from the enjoyment of the series, but it was something I found odd about the series.

Summarizing Thoughts

Average Rating: 8.8

This is a really good manga. It has AMAZING characters, and exciting plot, and decent-to-awesome art. It is extremely impactful emotionally and keeps you wanting to know what’s going to happen the entire time you’re reading. It is fun, interesting, traumatic, and most of all, memorable. It deserves far more attention than it gets, and I strongly recommend it to anyone interested in reading a character driven, actiony, somewhat short (14 volumes) manga.

Castlevania: Lament of Innocence Review

**This is an old review I am cataloging and may not reflect my Current thoughts on the matter**

So I’ve been playing Castlevania: Lament of Innocence a lot lately, trying to get that one hundred percent completion and finish my new Joachim and Crazy files. So I thought I’d write all my thoughts on the game so far in a post that is partially a proper, intelligent review and partially just me ranting incoherently about my experiences/feelings with it. For the review part, I’m going to split things into sections so as to be somewhat organized and easy to follow.

Thoughts on Plot:

The plot of the game is, quite frankly, incredibly simple and cliche. Every character fits a certain anime trope both visually and personality-wise, and the entire premise is just “Leon was a rich knight. Leon’s fiance was kidnapped by a vampire. Leon goes to scary mansion to save fiance.”. Also Leon did NOT have the personality I was expecting, he was practically your standard shounen protagonist with the way he was so naive, impulsive, and border-line stupid (he just…ran into a cursed forest with no weapon, trusted the first old dude he came across, and somehow had no idea what a whip was???). I did like that game gave him some subtle character development, even if it wasn’t really the focus of the game. He went from Standard Shounen Protagonist to Traumatized, Brooding, and Questionably Obsessed, which was a fitting arch for such a dark game. Walter was just kind of ridiculous, he was pretty much the definition of a stereotypical anime villain. And… that’s all I really have to say on the plot.

Visuals:

I personally LOVED the visuals. The amount of long, empty corridors was sometimes tiresome, but the graphics and level design was BEAUTIFUL. I just really love that smooth, dimly lit, gothic-style architecture. The lighting was so pretty and the backgrounds and level-design really made the eerie atmosphere for me. I also liked that each level looked reasonably different from each other (they’re all part of the same mansion so of course there’s some similarities). And I liked the names of the levels, they were poetic even if a bit over-the-top, and usually described the level pretty well.

Music:

LOVE. SO MUCH LOVE. Seriously, the soundtrack is one of the best parts of the game. You have to spend a LOT of time in each level, especially if you get stuck or overlook something, so it was crucial that the music be at least tolerable. But it went way beyond tolerable and made FANTASTIC pieces of music that fit each level really well, and gave certain areas of each level a different music piece to keep things varied. Even when I’m not playing the game I like to listen to its ost, it’s that good. I just really enjoy it, well except maybe the pieces that give me anxiety to listen to for too long, but even those get credit for inspiring such a strong reaction from me in the first place. Basically I just think it’s super amazing and and fun and impactful and everyone should listen to it regardless of whether or not you play the game.

Gameplay:

This game is FUN. The camera doesn’t have any significant problems, there’s enough combos and attacks to keep the regular battles entertaining without them ever becoming too complicated, and I absolutely LOVED being able to flip through the air with the whip. It just felt fancy. There’s a double jump feature, which is just a game mechanic I’m kind of always in love with. And finding out all the different sub weapon combinations that can be made with the different orbs and relics is fun too. The bosses are all decently challenging since they all have two giant health bars, and instead of having an obvious weak spot to hit (well aside from the first boss) you have to get really good at dodging and timing your attacks. And speaking of which, give me a game that has fancy backflips, sideflips, and somersaults as a way of dodging and I WILL BE HAPPY. The only downside to the gameplay is sometimes all the extensive backtracking gets a little boring and exhaustive, also while I have a lot of fun playing Joachim I feel like they could have done more with his moveset and play style. But basically, I really, REALLY enjoyed playing this game.

Overall Rating: 8.5/10

Personal Comments/Rant Section

I really like playing through the Garden Forgotten by Time and House of Sacred Remains levels, but I kind of hate the Dark Palace of Waterfalls. Sure, it looks great and has awesome music, but it has a confusing and annoying map and hords of enemies fill nearly every hall. The whole things just screams “Water Temple”. I somehow managed to miss like half of the relics, though I kind of love the Little Hammer and the Wolf’s Foot. The staircase leading to Walter’s should really have music, I never wanted to climb it cause it meant I couldn’t keep jamming to Leon’s Theme. Right now I’m trying to beat the Forgotten One, that Unlock Jewel was a right PAIN to find and now I keep getting killed by it’s angry fist because my timing is apparently terrible. They didn’t lie about hard mode being hard, I died at the freaking TUTORIAL, although that was partially because I wasn’t accustomed to not having all my combos or my dodging ability and kept trying to do them anyways. At any rate, it’s a fun game and I would recommend it. I’ll probably keep you guys updated on my continuing playthrough for the simple fact that I like ranting, so I’ll just leave this as is for now.

Captain America: Civil War Review

**This is an old review I am cataloging and may not reflect my Current thoughts on the matter**

Having just finished the third Captain America film (which…really did feel like an Avengers film), I have a variety of thoughts on it.

I found the movie enjoyable, the action was of course very fun to watch, and it had a good, dark vibe to it. But I kind of feel like the structure of plot as whole kind of…failed. I didn’t really get why anyone chose the sides they did aside from Tony and Steve, I didn’t get why Clint randomly retired and then randomly came back, Vision didn’t really do anything, they pretty much dropped the whole “we gotta stop all this collateral damage” thing, and I was pretty confused as to what the villain’s plan even was? Like I know he was angry at Cap and Iron Man for all the accidental deaths, but his actual PLAN was lost on me. Maybe it’s just because my tablet has the weakest speakers ever so I could barely hear what everyone was saying, but all I got was “I’ll make them kill each other and then I’ll kill the other Winter Soldiers >:D”, which…isn’t much of a plan.

Also Black Widow seemed a little too…kind, supportive, and moral???? Like I don’t think she’s supposed to be a jerk or anything, but given her past and how it affected her personality, you think she would have been just a little colder, or maybe a little more rebellious? Or if she was all “I want to support my gov now to prove I changed” then she should have been more openly passionate about that? I still really liked her, but there were moments that just felt…too sentimental. Like she was the main person going around being all like “I’m so sorry, are you okay?” which just seemed weird to me. And then Wanda was on lock down the whole time just because??? Yeah having that guy blow up in the sky broke that building and probably killed some of the people in it, but if she hadn’t the guy, Cap, and everyone surrounding them would have exploded? It was a tense, last-second decision and she honestly did her best? It wasn’t a perfect solution by any means but I don’t think it was enough to lock her up at HQ. (Especially when they regularly, you know, let the Hulk run free….)

I do want to point out that the movie wasn’t without it’s up-sides. Spiderman was a lot of fun and very in-character I thought even if he didn’t have enough scenes, I kind of just really like Falcon and Rhody, and I really enjoyed Steve and Bucky’s interactions (although I kind of feel like Bucky didn’t get to do enough talking, but whatever). That’s why I still enjoyed it. But it definitely had its flaws, especially in regard to plot structure, and then kind of nothing was resolved at the end? Basically I think it could have been great if it had done things differently.

Doctor Strange Film Review

**This is an old review I am cataloging and may not reflect my Current thoughts on the matter**

So, after saying I’d write a review for this film for ACTUAL AGES, I’ve finally decided to actually sit down and WRITE IT. O_O So without further ado, here we go!

I guess I’ll start with what I did like about the film, just for positivity’s sake. The acting was very well done, for one; since I’ve watched quite a lot of BBC Sherlock I worried I’d have a hard time seeing Benedict Cumberbatch as anything other than “American Sorcery-Wielding Sherlock Holmes”, and at first there was a little of that just because of shared personality traits between the two characters. But as the film went on Strange really started feeling like his own character, and Cumberbatch did a great job in portraying that. But he wasn’t the only good acting performance, all of the supporting cast did a great job with what they were given and made the characters enjoyable.

Another thing I liked was the atmosphere and music. The atmosphere felt a lot darker than the other MCU films, partially just because of the lighting and camera work, but also because while there was still a fair share of MCU-style humor, most instances to me felt like a small, brief lightening of an otherwise dark mood for everyone, which I personally really liked. And the soundtrack was AMAZING, honestly I’ve never enjoyed waiting through the credits in an MCU film as much as I did for Doctor Strange, the music was SO GOOD. So that’s a definite plus.

The effects, just like everyone says, were AMAZING. But they were particularly enjoyable to me because they were used in conjuction with two of my favorite things: MAGIC SWIRLIES OF DESTRUCTION and ACTION SEQUENCES. One of my main complaints (or, well, one of them) for the MCU is there has not been enough utilization of sorcery - Loki has been in 3 FILMS and GODS are just accepted as existing yet there has been a serious deficiency of magical battles, which is WHAT I’M HERE FOR. So I was extremely glad with how thoroughly Doctor Strange delivered on this front, which in turn made the action way more exciting to me (it was also well choregraphed/directed I thought).
I also just really liked Stephen Strange himself. I though his character development was well-paced and believable, that it wasn’t just “he knows magic now so he’s cured of his arrogance and self-centered way of thinking”, but you could see him making progress throughout the film until finally, only by the end is has he reached a point where he’s willing to make the selfless choice and let himself be killed repeatedly forever to keep humanity safe. There a multiple points throughout the film where he thinks he’s changed, he’s better, only to have it pointed out that while he’s made progress, he still has elements of his old way of thinking left over and hasn’t FULLY changed into a Real Hero yet, which I really liked because the MCU has a tendency to rush redemption arcs for main characters (ie Thor, and to a lesser extent Iron Man).

Finally, I actually liked the villain. Yes, he didn’t much in the way of backstory or even dialouge, but unlike the other MCU villains that share those traits Kaecillius had a freaking AWESOME presence that I just liked.

But all that being said, the movies wasn’t without its flaws. As much as I loved Stephen Strange’s character arch, he’s the only character in the whole movie that I can say that about. Every other character felt like a background character, sure the Ancient One was an important mentor and a little bit of depth and Kaecilius was important plot-wise, but none of them really got the same attention as Strange did. And yeah, okay, Strange is the titular character, but other superhero films give their secondary main characters more depth and development, this one could have managed that too. Plus, Mordo’s character development made NO SENSE and was just awkwardly handled. How do you go from “Oh no, my mentor betrayed me and was somewhat bad” to “LET’S KILL ALL THE SORCERERS, AHAHA.”???? It just wasn’t explained very well. And Stephen’s girlfriend, while she seemed nice, had very little presence and almost no impact on the plot.
Which leads me to my other critique: there was pretty much no important female characters that lived. I mean the MCU is know for mainly having muscly dude protagonists but even the other films have female characters doing more than Christine got to. (I don’t actually hate Christine, she was a capable nurse and seemed cool but got heavily sidelined by everything else). The Ancient One was actually pretty awesome, but she died to further the plot. Which, given that she had the Mentor role wasn’t really surprising, but they could have included an interesting female sorceress that got to live too.

And actually those…were my main critiques. Pretty notable critiques, but overall I’d say I had a mostly positive reaction to the film (oh and I like the after-cred scene with Thor because I just like Thor and am super hyped for Thor 3). So I’d give it an 8/10.