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Showing posts with the label manga

ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL - REVIEW

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Review available on the new website .

BIG HERO 6 - REVIEW

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Based on the Marvel comics, Big Hero 6 was a 2014 CG-animated Disney film about a young inventor who befriends an inoffensive robot called Baymax before training it to become a fighting machine. 14 year-old genius Hiro Hamada is introduced to us participating in illegal robot fights and conning others with his misleadingly unassuming creations. His brother, in the hope of steering Hiro towards a better path, encourages him to apply for a university with an impressive research lab in which a team of quirky inventors get to be as creative as they can. After an unexpected accident, a mysterious villain shows up using one of Hiro's inventions on a dangerous scale so he and his friends, along with inflatable healthcare robot Baymax, decide to fight back and unmask their powerful enemy. Similar to how the marketing for Pixar's The Incredibles relied heavily on an out-of-shape Mr. Incredible trying to fit into his old superhero suit, Big Hero 6 was sold mostly through the ball

EDGE OF TOMORROW - REVIEW

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Tom Cruise is finally back in yet another sci-fi blockbuster fighting nasty aliens and saving the world except, this time, he's got some temporal obstacles to face as well. Based on the novel and graphic novels gloriously entitled "All You Need Is Kill", Edge Of Tomorrow sees officer William Cage (Cruise) refuse to be sent to war against the aliens in question, a super-smart squid-like bunch known as "Mimics", before getting thrown into battle against his will. He dies soon enough (in a surprisingly horrible way, might I add) but suddenly wakes up the day before and soon realises that he is resetting the entire day somehow every time he dies. His plan is to figure out what's going on with the help of badass soldier Rita (Emily Blunt), aka "Full Metal Bitch", but the idea soon becomes to try and take down the Mimics using their own sneaky tricks. Rita trains the not-exactly-combat-ready Cage and, eventually, armed with mech-suits, giant swords

ANIME MONTH - ALL REVIEWS

Well, Anime Month (and a half) finally draws to a close so here's a list of all the anime-related reviews we've had over the past month (and a half). A couple more will be written before Christmas, anime series will be reviewed over the next year (sorry I couldn't get around to those) and live-action anime Vlogs will become a regular thing and will be posted on our Youtube channel every so often so stay tuned! Thanks again for all your support ;) Spirited Away Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade Howl's Moving Castle Millennium Actress Battle Royale My Neighbor Totoro Dr Slump Arale: Ncha! Bycha (Game Review) Tokyo Godfathers Origin: Spirits Of The Past Devilman City Hunter (Game Review) Golgo 13: The Professional Guyver: Dark Hero Porco Rosso Ponyo Casshern R.O.D: Read Or Die Sailor Moon (Game Review) Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind Speed Racer Psychic Wars Fist Of The North Star (Game R

SPIRITED AWAY - VLOG 16/12/13

JIN-ROH: THE WOLF BRIGADE - REVIEW

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Based on a manga by Mamoru Oshii ( Ghost In The Shell , Patlabor ), Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade is set in an alternate universe Japan where Germany has conquered the country and things look bleak to say the least: the cops are scary as hell, women and children have turned to suicide bombing... It's not looking good. The film opens on a little girl nicknamed "Little Red Riding Hood", some member of a guerilla group called The Sect, who is running through the sewers trying to escape the Panzer Cops, a bunch of armed cops with elephant-style gas masks. One of them, Kazuki, finds himself facing the little girl who reveals a bomb strapped to her chest. He is ordered to shoot her but doesn't and she sets off the bomb. He somehow survives but an enquiry is made into why he didn't carry out his orders and he is made to go back to training. After visiting the little girl's grave, he meets her sister Kei and develops a sort of friendship/relationship with her. The

MILLENNIUM ACTRESS - REVIEW

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From the makers of Perfect Blue and Tokyo Godfathers comes Millennium Actress , the story of an ageing actress telling her life story for a TV interviewer and his cameraman as the latter two imagine everything she went through by transporting themselves into her stories. It's a cute idea in that it links the present with the past without having to resort to constant flashback and forths or one long drawn-out voice-over. This is a much more slow-burning film than Satoshi Kon's aforementioned works, which makes sense when you realise it's essentially a melodrama. Similarly to how Perfect Blue merged real life with the world of film, Chiyoko's story dips into her various acting jobs without transition so every so often we end up with her on the Moon, in medieval times or surrounded by geishas in the middle of a certain scene before we realise we've followed her into that world. The interviewer and his camera guy act as both comic relief and as a link to the pres

BATTLE ROYALE - REVIEW

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With The Hunger Games becoming a popular franchise and all, it's only fair that I should re-watch and review the movie which first introduced us to the concept of kids going ape shit and killing each other for no particular reason. Let's talk Battle Royale . Directed by the late, great Kinji Fukasaku, Battle Royale is set in a troubled dystopian version of Japan where, every so often, a high school class is picked for an elaborate, deadly game where everyone is sent to a deserted island and made to kill each other until only one remains. A chilling yet always likeable Takeshi Kitano teaches them the rules of the game, they are then given weapons, necklaces rigged to explode, maps, a list of danger zones to avoid and a time limit before being sent out into the wild. You'd think that it would take longer for these kids to kill one another but the action starts straight away and the kills are always completely satisfying in how gory and bloody they are. It's a sadi

GRENDIZER: FRENCH INTROS

Growing up in France, where I discovered anime, I was introduced to Grendizer under the name Goldorak and it was all kinds of badass. The show boasted not one, not two but FOUR different intros. The first one, sung by Enrique, was a direct adaptation of the original Japanese intro and, apparently, it ended up being censored because the word "race" was used in the lyrics even if it was referring to big-ass robots: The second intro, by Noam, was much more light-hearted and kid-friendly. Also much more boring: The third intro was another version of Enrique's first intro, this time sung by The Goldies and improved slightly: French anime theme go-to guy back in the day, Bernard Minet, then gave us this intro which, weirdly, ended up being my favourite of the bunch: Hope you enjoyed this little trip down memory lane, here's the original Grendizer theme which is, of course, just as epic as it always was:

DR SLUMP ARALE: NCHA! BYCHA - GAME REVIEW

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Check out my review of Tiger Electronics game Dr Slump Arale: Ncha! Bycha , based on the Dr Slump anime series, over at retro gaming super-site  1MoreCastle !

TOKYO GODFATHERS - REVIEW

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I honestly wasn't sure what to expect from this movie before watching it. Was it a comedy? Was it a tear-jerker? From Satoshi Kon, the director of Millenium Actress and Perfect Blue , Tokyo Godfathers tells the story of three homeless people who find a baby abandoned on a pile of trash in the street and try to find the baby's parents. It's a simple plot, a simple concept and this leaves a lot of room for subtle character development and mini threads within this overarching storyline. Our main characters are Miyuki, a rebellious young runaway, Gin, an older grumpy, bearded guy and Hana, a gay transvestite who dreams of being a mother. Well, Hana's dream comes true early on when the homeless trio find the lost child and the film, from then on, explores the connections between people, their pasts and their futures as life offers them surprising coincidences. These characters are instantly loveable and are the heart and soul of this movie. You really care about th

ORIGIN: SPIRITS OF THE PAST - REVIEW

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Here's an anime feature I'd been wanting to check out for a long time, the good-looking visuals the trailers boasted being the primary source of interest. Origin: Spirits Of The Past is, indeed, a visually stunning film. Its well crafted mix of 3D textures, detailed backgrounds and fluid animation, when put together with a grand, epic score like Taku Iwasaki's, creates an altogether gorgeous film which really aspires for something meaningful. The film is set in post-apocalyptic Earth which, following a failed experiment on the Moon, is separated between the forest (and its spirits) and battle-friendly humans who want to get rid of the forest altogether since it controls the world's water supply. In the middle of it all is Neutral City, a peaceful place acting as a bridge between both sides. One day, a couple of kids wander off into the forest and find a young woman, Toola, who was sleeping in a glass box, they wake her up and, turns out, she was cryogenically froz

DEVILMAN - REVIEW

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Created by prolific manga mastermind Go Nagai, the man responsible for the likes of Grendizer and Violence Jack , Devilman was a popular 70's anime which, in 2004, saw itself get made into a full-blown live-action adventure. On paper, this sounded like it could have gone either way: either the film was going to be ludicrous and cartoonish or a dark, Casshern -style epic. The result, strangely, was a bit of both. The film opens much like a typically emo high school drama where a couple of friends are dealing with clichéd groups of bullies, until we realise that demons exist and one of them inhabits our lead character Akira (Hisato Izaki). As it turns out, his weirdo friend Ryo (Yusuke Izaki) was already a demon himself and a demonic take-over is underway by all sorts of winged ghouls. Then, the film goes insane and turns into an apocalyptic disaster movie in which demons are invading and turning the Earth inside out. Obviously, the weight of all of this ends up resting on Aki

CITY HUNTER - GAME REVIEW

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Check out my review of PC Engine game City Hunter , based on the anime series, over at retro gaming super-site  1MoreCastle !

GUYVER: DARK HERO - REVIEW

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Ever watch a film and feel slightly dumber after watching it? Well I finally checked out Guyver: Dark Hero , the sequel to The Guyver , and, let me tell ya, I’ve rarely felt this unsmart. Based on an anime series and a manga, this live-action effort was a cheap Hollywood production and was released straight-to-video in the US back in 1994. With a non-star cast leading the way, this sequel follows a dude, Sean (David Hayter, not Mark Hamill this time, sadly), who can turn into some kind of ghoulish superhero as he discovers that an archeological dig going on over in Utah may have the answers to his past he’s been looking for. As it turns out, he’s not the only “Guyver” out there and the finding of a spaceship unveils more uncomfortable truths about his alter ego's origin. Now I know it’s cheaper for this kind of low-budget production to just film in one place, one set, but 95% of this film takes place in and around the archaeological dig, making it feel a little claustr

R.O.D: READ OR DIE - REVIEW

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Based on a series of light novels and a manga, R.O.D: Read Or Die sounded awesome, on "paper" at least. The plot was something akin to a bookworm school teacher/special agent known The Paper (hence the above pun) fighting off weird super-powered bad guys over books under the US President's orders as some Beethoven manuscripts could end up being the key to building a 9th Symphony weapon that makes people kill themselves The Happening -style. In a word: nonsense. But it sounded like the kind of steampunky nonsense I could get behind. Remember The Amazing Screw-On Head ? The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen ? Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow ? I like all that stuff and I was looking forward to R.O.D introducing us to a crazy, messed-up world where Thomas Edison flies blimps, shooting carrots at robot penguins or something to that effect. The result was, indeed, appropriately absurd but not quite as joyfully so as it promised to be. The animated feature isn'

NAUSICAA OF THE VALLEY OF THE WIND - REVIEW

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An early-ish Hayao Miyazaki effort, Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind  followed The Castle Of Cagliostro and was based on one of his own mangas and, although it was produced pre-Studio Ghibli, it opened the door for more classic anime features from the legendary director. The film is a post-apocalyptic sci-fi adventure in which a princess called Nausicaa, who flies around in a weird little portable surf glider... thing and has a special bond with nature, becomes Earth's saviour in the middle of a potentially devastating conflict. Her people are taken over by the Tolmekian kingdom who are planning to use some weapon to destroy all the mutated giant insects in the land. Nausicaa, whose father is killed in the struggle, sets out to stop this disaster since pissing off the insects would only result in yet another global disaster. The last of which was caused, you've guessed it, by Man's greedy bullshit. As you can tell, this plot's all pretty environment-themed, whic

SPEED RACER - VLOG 22/11/13

SPEED RACER - REVIEW

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Here's what is quite probably the most expensive live-action anime film adaptation ever made making it basically Hollywood's biggest risk financially dipping its toe in that genre. Similarly to how the Astro Boy CGI feature lost about 20 million at the box-office, Speed Racer did make money but was ultimately a flop, losing over 25 million. But that doesn't mean anything quality-wise, after all, Blade Runner , The Thing and The Night Of The Hunter were all flops in their day. Speed Racer, however, is no Blade Runner. Right off the bat, you are thrown into a multicoloured CGI world so visually rainbowed that you'd think it was yet another Dr Seuss fairy tale come to life in movie form. The thing basically looks like an even more stylised The Cat In The Hat , with less talking cats and more bouncing cars. Directed by the Wachowski broth-... siblings, of The Matrix trilogy fame, Speed Racer takes a very old anime series and makes it into a full-blown candy-colou

FIST OF THE NORTH STAR - GAME REVIEW

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Check out my review of classic NES game  Fist Of The North Star  over at retro gaming super-site  1MoreCastle !