- Last OnlineJan 30, 9:29 AM
- JoinedFeb 12, 2016
No friend yet.
RSS Feeds
|
![]()
Jul 3, 2024
My score and general thoughts aside, please take note of this important TRIGGER WARNING! This movie contains depictions of Extreme Child Abuse. If you are sensitive to seeing rather graphic depictions of small children being severly abused, DO NOT watch this movie! It has some incredibly harrowing and disturbing scenes, and is much darker than any previous entries in this line. It also goes pretty hard on the eldritch horror. For more details on the abuse see the end of the review. (Slightly spoilery, hence I put it at the end.)
Also, if you were looking to see the events of Kizuna be addressed/resolved, you’ll be
...
disappointed. For all that it’s marked as a sequel it certainly doesn’t feel like it. No mention of anything that happened, in fact certain lines seem to indicate it didn’t happen at all.
Now that aside, I found this movie incredibly disappointing in many ways. If they'd made this a standalone movie unconnected to any of the series (except perhaps Ghost Game) and focused properly on just Rui and Ukkomon, and their story; maybe this could have been good. As it is, they didn't do justice to either the new (original) story or characters, nor to the existing Digimon Adventure/02 story.
Everything was rushed, and no one involved had the finesse to properly tie together the old and the new, even if they’d had more time.
Both the new and old characters were done a disservice. The resolution to Rui’s story was rather ham-fisted, and the message was muddled, and slightly problematic.
Absolutely zero thought was put into the Zero Two gang beyond surface level aesthetics. They are copy pasted from their younger selves to the point that Miyako still calls Ken by his last name despite them having been comrades and friends for over ten years at this point. Their dialogue and interactions are pretty much unchanged and while we see them at their jobs, none of their dialogue reflects this. Aside from Daisuke cooking ramen, and a few remarks and jokes about it, no dialogue reflects anything new going on in their lives except a throwaway line about Taichi being too busy to talk to his family. (That depressing tidbit is the only verbal glimpse we get into their lives.) No talk about bosses or coworkers, or anecdotes about the kids Hikari works with; plans for the future? Well Daisuke’s making ramen, possibly for a boss we never see. Hmm you wanted to know about Ken or Takeru? Too bad. Is Iori really working at a law firm already? How is that going? Who knows? (For all my gripes with Kizuna at least the characters felt and acted like they were actually older.)
Aside from a couple of cute comments and lines here and there, nothing is added, the status quo is kept. Except you know, the giant bomb blown into the lore part way through the movie. Metaphorically speaking.
Thus we reach the part that annoyed me the most (aside from Miyako calling Ken by his last name, seriously wtf?), about how the Adventure/Zero Two part was handled. It’s clear no one cared about either of the series that came before, not the characters and certainly not the lore. Adventure put a lot of thought into its lore, building it up over several hours’ worth of episodes; and Zero Two had a few interesting tidbits too. The writers of this movie arrogantly decided that their rushed little narrative was more important than respecting any of that. This is one of the largest retcons in the series, and it is poorly thought out, badly executed and just overall offensive to anyone who cared about the story and lore of the original. It’s lazy and disgusting and to top it all off, it can’t even resolve things without creating at least one plot whole within its own narrative.
The fights were boring, the horror was out of place, and there was zero breathing room in between events, overall a mess of a movie. This would have made more sense as a sequel to Digimon 2020 if they absolutely had to tie it to the Adventure line.
In a happier timeline we got a slice of life ova instead.
TLDR:
Rushed in every way.
Zero respect for the characters.
Zero respect for the existing story and lore.
Poorly handles the mature themes it chose to tackle.
Overall a hollow movie, which cannot live up to what came before.
The opening scenes where you get to see the characters living their lives are worth checking out though.
(This movie is still leagues better than Tri at its worst, but at least Tri had some interesting lore at its best. Overall I don’t hate this quite as much as Tri, and Rui is much more interesting than Meiko, but it’s still awful for the majority of its runtime.)
The music was good to average, the animation was decent, the art was a mixed bag, the voice acting was solid. Subs were slightly off at times, but fine overall.
God I wish I never watched this movie beyond the first few moments.
Under the stars is a more detailed but slightly SPOILERY trigger warning:
***************************************************************************
More detailed TRIGGER WARNING:
If you are sensitive to seeing rather graphic depictions of small children being starved, beaten, and left to slowly freeze to death, DO NOT watch this movie!
****************************************************************************
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
What did you think of this review?
Nice
 0
Love it
 0
Funny
 0
Confusing
 0
Well-written
 0
Creative
 0Show all
![]()
Apr 7, 2018
Is this anime perfect? no, not by a long shot. But is it entertaining? Oh yes, yes it is. Sure it paints an incredibly rosy picture of the Japanese military, but while it would have made things a lot more interresting if there were a few bad apples within the organization, it was kinda nice to have whole host of good guys to root for as they help out various locals in this new world they find themselves in.
I quite enjoyed it, but be warned that the second season is best skipped and ignored.
However if you do stick solely with the first season, you'll find
...
a fun little fantasy story with lots of comedy and fun times. However for all that the main character is giant dork and his team of misfits are equally entertaining and endearing in their own way, there are darker moments. If you are squeamish about bloood, and death you may want to steer clear, as there is more than one massacre and plenty of innocent background characters adults and children alike, are brutally killed by soldeirs, dragons or other.
There is drama and action and great animation to be had, but what kept me was the humor.
Plot Summary: When a large gate shaped portal appears in Japan, a city is attacked by mideival soldiers and beasts from another world. In the aftermath of this tragedy, the military is sent to investigate what lies beyond the portal, repel any further invaders, ideally broker a peace agreement, and maybe even secure new and rare resources for Japan.
Thus Otaku soldier Itami's plans for chilling out with his doujinshi are dashed, as he is dragged into battle and adventure.
There's also some awesome female characters, though season two manages to turn them into shells of themselves as they fall into the fetish pandering they were mangaging to sidestep in this one. (also season two feature rape and other gross themes. But those issues thankfully don't plague this first season.)
Anyway season one is good for a laugh and is actually fairly engaging when it wants to be.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Apr 6, 2018
Warning to anyone looking to watch this: This season contains rape, in fact it's one of the opening scenes. If you are triggered by that then be advised.
So this season is quite a bit darker than the first season. While the rape scenes are fairly well handled (in the first few eps at least), it does immediately take away from the comedy that I really enjoyed in the first season. That's not to say there were no comedic episodes, but they either felt out of place or weren't well done or both and I don't think I laughed once as opposed to the many, many
...
times I did so in season 1. So those expecting more of what we got in season one will be dissapointed since, once the dragon plot from season 1 is resolved (in a way that was wholly unsatisfying anyway), the show loses its pacing, introduing waay too many new characters and muddling the plot. The first few eps were fairly solid if dark. Some elements were actually pretty damn good. But after episode five things go more and more down hill.
The pacing, tone and character development take a hit, and while it was never boring, and there were a few clever twists I didn't see coming, I did not enjoy myself like I did the first season, in fact I regret watching beyond episode five. (no wait, I regret watching period).
So art: Still pretty solid, plenty of rich backgrounds, and diverse background charavters. The animation while, not quite a popping as in season one, was still very good. So yeah if I was rating solely on art and animation this'd get a much higher grade.
Sound: I didn't care for the opening, but the bg ost was carried over from season 1. Of course later episodes had more than one instace where it was used terribly and there was a complete tonal dissonence between the music and what was playing out on screen. The voice acting (Japanese version) was solid, like the first.
Characters: Here's where things start to go down hill. Development is rushed, and after ep five they stop even trying. The female characters slowly lose most of what made them likable and become the typical, shallow harem sterotypes obssesed with the same guy. Or become damsels to be rescued. While some of the new characters have their moments, those are fleeting and lack impact as the show fails to keep tone and opts to scrap development whenver it's convenient for the plot. I'm sad because I ended up disliking most of the character that I liked in season 1. :(
Story: Missed opportunities, over reliance on coincidences, unfunny and out of place comic relief scenes that are much more mean spirited than in season 1 and generally serve to degrade the main characters. Too many contrived plot twists, to many gross and disturbing scenes (I really did NOT need to see a goblin pig monster satisfy his fetish of licking and bunny girl's leg in the grossest way), to rushed, to unfocused, too many new characters, too many side plots. Just gah this season ruined everything season one had going for it. D:
Final verdict: SKIP IT! seriously save your sanity and pretend it ended with season 1.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Jan 7, 2018
Pokemon: I Choose You The Movie, is part reboot and part retelling of Ash and Pikachu's first meeting and journey.
Some things are kept, but tweaked slightly (or a lot), and others are scrapped entirely in favor of entirely new ones. Notably Ash and Pikachu travel alone for fair bit before being joined by companions who are not Brock and Misty, nor is his rival/antagonist Gary Oak. The Team Rocket trio make sporadic and pointless appearances throughout the film, but never actually interact with Ash or anyone else. They do blast off a lot.
Art: An over reliance on bad CG effects and underwhelming animation left
...
this feeling nothing like a big budget Pokemon movie. Some things were decent, sometimes it wasn't half bad at all. But there was no consistency and some scenes/things were simply dreadful to look at.
Sound: Now while I've heard good things about the soundtrack for the original, the Dub has not been well recieved, and for very good reason. I hope to eventually experience the Japanese version, but for now, the Dub is all there is, and it is underwhelming at its best, and absoloutely terrible at its worst! Ash isn't great but the person playing him does a somwhat decent job that kinda grows on you I guess. His new travelling companions (whose names I cannot remember because they were only mentioned like twice and weren't very memorable for me) are decent and horrible respectively. The girl is okay, and sometimes even pretty good, the boy on the other hand was sooo terrible I cringed every time he opened his mouth. Terrible choice of voice actor, the voice didn't fit, the guy playing him sounded bored, and bad directing made sure that the character was chore to listen to, and that's a shame, since the character himslef wasn't actually that bad. Most of the pokemon were voiced TERRIBLY too, especially charmander, who went from being cute to annoying in terms of sound. Also Meowth (shiver) and James, bleh.
ONE OF THE WORST DUBS I've heard in recent years.
Characters:
New: If the boy companion had gotten a better VA he'd have been okay. Both had an interresting backstory and fairly likable personalities, though with so little development, the boy was mostly bland. The girl was actually decent and had a ton of potential, but since they were given so little development, it was hard to grow attached to them. The girl would have made a great protagonist on her own actually, but as it was, she was pushed aside in favor of Ash, and I doubt we'll ever get to see her confront her past, so didn't really get to contribute much. Neither of them did. The rival, while less obnoxious than the character he was based on, was underdeveloped, let off too easy for his crimes, and overall pretty bland. He also had no backstory whatsoever.
Old: Ash was frustrating. Sometimes he was the embodiment of his best self, others he was a huge jerk. Like he did and said some things that series Ash never would have, and I wanted to SMACK him!
Somtimes he was a competent trainer, and other times he was just as bad as counterpart/analog could be, but more of a jerk about it.
His relationship with his mom was terrible! Just what?
Delia Ketchum was never my fav character, but her portrayal in this film was just awful!
Professor Oak mangaged to have no real prescense what so ever. He was completely forgettable and also seemed to lack any sort of relationship with Ash, barely knowing who the kid was.
Team Rocket were terribly (well I guess Jessie was passable) voiced, and absoloutely pointless to the story. No interactions with anyone, no "genius" plans, just tiny cameos before pointless blastoffs.
Story: Maybe they could have pulled it off in a series of OVAs but in a movie, and a short one to boot, it was just too rushed. It wanted to be too many things at once and ended up shooting itself in the foot. Underwelming. It had its moments, kinda, but everything was just too rushed and too many scenes badly handled. So much potential, and they ruined it.
Can't say I enjoyed it. My recomendation is to skip the dub entirely, but if the japanese version becomes available, maybe check it out for posterity, I guess, but really I wish I'd just read a recap.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Aug 22, 2016
If this anime had kept up what set up in its first episode I might well have been hooked. True it was nothing groundbreaking, but I found the premise pretty interresting, and the characters mostly engaging.
Then it went downhill. Cliches aren't necessarily a bad thing, nor is using a lot of them. If done right it can make for an engaging and interresting tale. However, in the wrong hands it all falls apart.
A major problem with this anime IMO, is that it can't decide what it wants to be. Blending multiple genres can tricky, but even more so if those genres clash.
It
...
sets itself up as dark and serious, and promises action and angst. But apparently that couldn' hold the writer's attention, because the very next episode is all about the main character going to shcool and learnign the importance of friendship. While yes there is some action, and blood and death, it doesn't make and impact. It's bland and the choice of setting is incredibly dissapointing. The eventual weapons they wield are contrived unnessicarily complicated. Magical cursed demon blades are apparently the only way to kill the vampires. Getting that weapon is all about sould searching and defeating your demons. There will probably be episodes later dedicated to learning how to wield the mguffen weapon, but it just makes no sense for them to even be a thing. The characters learning to use regular manmade weapons skillfully would have held up much better with the first episode, and just felt less cliched.
The story goes thus: In the immediate aftermath of a deadly virus quickly and devastaingly wiping out most everyone over 13, Vampires reveal themselves and brutally take control. They gather up the survivors, all children, and enlave them as "livestock". Their blood is harvested via a big gastly machine and they live out dreary lives under their cruel masters.
The main character (whose name already escapes me despite having just watched it), and his ragtag family of fellow orphans, hatch a plan to escape from their hellish prison. But of course things don't go as planned and only one them escapes. He is picked up by a group of surviving adult, who offer to train him in their military to kill the vampires.
Of course those last minutes of the episode mark the beginning of the decline IMO. Because those military men didn't just happen across him while on patrol, no there was a mcguffen prophecy which promised his arrivla on that day at that time. That annoyed me. The next eps are as mentioned above, nothing like the first. It really failed to deliver on all counts.
Characters: Bland after the first episode. Some were even annoying.
Sound: While most of it was forgettable, there was some that was like scraping metal, it sounded awful and hurt my ears. So yeah actually the soundtrack was pretty terrible.
The OP had major spoilers in its imigery and the song was not to my taste at all was in any case completly unoriginal.
Animation: average.
It could have worked, but it didn't succeed IMO. Instead it crashed and burned, and a bland fire.
Dissapointed.
The creators just couldn't pull it off.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
|
