Alita: Battle Angel (Movie) - Why Americans Shouldn’t Do Live Action Adaptions Of Anime

I had no interest in this movie but just like with “The Greatest Showman”, I had no real choice. It was my dad’s birthday and despite being 59 years old, he wanted to see a movie for some reason. Unfortunately, there was nothing good playing at our local cinema so we watched Alita and I knew this was bad before I walked into the theatre. I have seen the trailers and I knew just by looking at it, it was going to be bad and while it isn’t on Death Note levels of bad when it comes to American “adaptations” of beloved Japanese properties, it was still bad. Now if you think I was a fan of the original series, I am not. I have read the first three chapters a couple years ago before saying it’s not for me and I have read the parts that this movie covered after the movie and I can still say it’s not for me. In short, you can expect no inherent bias from me during this review (although I often try to remove that aspect anyway). It’s just going to be me talking crap about a main stream movie as per usual.

The plot is simple. The setting happens three hundred years after this event called “The Fall”, leaving us in the 26th century where there a floating city and everyone lives below it in poverty. It’s pretty much following the dots to making a sci-fi story set in the future and since we are following the dots, there is also the cyborg cliche and they are the main gimmick of the series. Our protagonist is found pretty much limbless in a dump by a Dr Ido AKA the surrogate father figure who patches her up with robotic limbs and upon finding out that she has amnesia, names her Alita and treats her like a replacement daughter. From there, she becomes a “hunter-warrior” which is effectively a bounty hunter, finds out more about her past and gains and loses a romantic interest over the course of the movie before ending in a cliffhanger. It’s pretty much a dot to dot mainstream sci fi action movie with nothing interesting going on and while the plot is pretty much the same as the original source, I feel like it’s worsened by everything else. Now, a rather stale plot can be somewhat forgiven if everything else is good about it and that’s probably why the Battle Angel series is still going but the way this movie was made, it’s not going to be easy to make this redeemable.

To start with the complaints so early, I wanna talk about the CGI, specifically what the hell is with Alita’s design. It’s so horrendous and people had to look at that and think that was ok. Like, why does she have such large eyes? Was it the decision of some out of touch Hollywood executives thinking that giving this character large eyes to represent the usual sizes found in anime/manga would make her more likeable but if they were going for that angle, that just brings up so many other questions. For example, why does Alita only have these large freakish eyes while everyone else have normal eyes. Like even the other cyborgs have normal eyes so why is Alita the odd one out? And while we are talking about CGI, the rest of it isn’t horrendous but it feels like most of it is unnecessary. To be honest, I should’ve known that this movie would consist of 90% CGI when David Cameron has his name slapped all over this product. Yeah, he only got a screenplay credit but considering the over use of CGI and the fact they were advertising the movie as “From The Creator Of Avatar”, it’s obviously that this is David’s brainchild. Now the CGI is good for like two action scenes and that’s it because we are at that point where CGI looks so realistic, it looks fake so in other words, we have done a full circle when it comes to crap looking CGI. I feel like they could’ve and should’ve used practical effects when they could for example, Alita. If they did that with practical effects, it would’ve been much better and not horrible with those creepy anime eyes. I’m sorry, I can’t get past the creepy anime eyes that Alita has like how I can’t get past the acting quality. Wow, what a great transition on my behalf but I needed to get to it because most of it is on same level of trash that you would find at Manila's dumpsite.

Because most of these actors have to interact with CGI, effectively someone in a stupid green suit or morph-suit and there is no way in hell that these actors could act seriously without feeling awkward and you could tell that in the acting quality. Alita herself felt extremely stilted because again, trying to do your job to your full potential while looking like a bumpy dildo is hard, especially when you are already bad at acting without the stupid suit. It takes a serious actor who has experience with motion capturing and doesn’t let themselves feel stupid while wearing such a contraption do to do motion capturing in a live action movie. But even if you somehow hire the female version of Andy Serkis, all these other actors still end up acting like dead fish because if the previous complaint. But let’s do the usual excuse that most of the cinema going audience would say to people to critics and just “switch off my brain” and “try to enjoy the movie” which I tried to do on my second viewing but I still couldn’t get past the CGI on top of numerous things. For example, the lover interest aspect is stupid but I think that just comes down to the actor. I don’t know why I hate him so much but maybe it’s because he is the lover interest of Alita, which makes him a weird robot lover which kinda weirds me out or maybe it’s the actor is just horrible. It could be the CGI again but I feel like even when he is talking to other “humans”, he is still forcing it. I swear some B-list actor could’ve done a better job then this D-grade hack. I got nothing much else to mention now since this movie is just that bland and uninsulting when viewed from the point of a non anime fan and I already talked about how I felt about it as an anime fan so I guess it’s time to talk about how I feel about it from a writer’s view.

This is going to be my biggest problem with the movie and it’s the quality of the script or rather, the adaption quality. For me, there is two kinds of adaptations: there is the lazy adaption where they rip out the original plot and just paste that into a word document E.G the unimaginative “Romeo + Juliet” and then there is the adaption that takes advantage of the new media format and/or newer technology to tell the story in a new and interesting way E.G uhhhh… Ok, so I don’t have an example for that but that’s because I haven’t been able to find one yet. My point that I’m trying to make is that this movie is the former since they pretty much just ripped out everything from the manga series and slapped it onto the screen with little thought. I feel like they could’ve taken their time and work on updating the script to not have only better dialogue but better character building moments but they didn’t do that. This movie has been apparently in the works since the 2000s so they had probably at least had a decade to update on the script so it felt like an improvement of the original story but they didn’t. This is also coming from mister “I have a screenplay credit” David Cameron who worked on Avatar, the supposedly “ground breaking” movie which is really good (which I still don’t get since the movie looks like dumb CGI crap with a pretentious plot) so for such a good director, he was so reeling it in here even if he was just working on the story side of things which I refuse to believe with all this CGI. Let’s say if he was just working on the story aspect, well I guess this makes him a hack writer since he just ripped everything from the original story line. If they actually put effort in making this stale and old plot more likeable and interesting, this movie would’ve been better, shoddy acting included but they didn’t and that’s one of the things that bring down the movie.

I don’t know who is at here to blame? Is it the long production hell this movie went through since as I mention, this movie as been in the works since the 2000s. Maybe it’s David Cameron being a hack writer and not taking the liberty he had and used it to improve the original plot or maybe it’s Hollywood’s need to cash in everything because it’s now an industry where most of the money is made from remakes and nostalgia. I certainly can’t be the only one who has noticed that Hollywood has been trying to cash in on every single idea and concept they can now. From Disney’s so called “Live action remakes” to studios rushing out cinematic universes to compete with Marvel, it seems like they are exhausting every single thing possible to the point they are resorting to nicking ideas from their Asian neighbours. It feels like within the triple A mainstream movie scene, we are seeing a slow decline in original movies. Luckily, the industry is still full with innovative directors so we haven’t lost all hope yet but eventually, it’s probably going to end up like that.

When I was discussing why I hated this movie with someone who liked the movie, I was told to chill off from hating on the CGI and that prompted me to go watch the movie a second time with a different perspective; the perspective of a casual movie goer. I only lasted ten minutes because for me, the CGI is just not good. I just can’t see myself enjoying this movie while with a Marvel movie, I can see myself going back and watching those because while I hate them from my usual perspective, I can still enjoy some of the movies because it’s still fun if I just “switch off”. Alita gets a 3/10 from me and I have no regrets saying so.

I guess this is the part where I apologise for disappearing for another couple months. Between this and the last review, it has just been a mess for me from my PC being unable to run my editing software anymore meaning I can’t make my YouTube videos for a while so I been sorting out my new PC in the background. I started tafe so I have to spend a lot more time on doing my homework and not writing while I do have the backlog, I honestly wasn’t happy with what I wrote back then so I ended up just deleting them. Don’t worry, I’m back now and I will try to be consistent again since I have finally balanced out my work/relax balance and in fact, the next two reviews are going to be on movies so tune in for next week where I talk about “Captain Marvel”. That’s going to be a fun shitshow.

Yu-Gi-Oh (The Manga): A Retrospective On How Much Of A Dick The Pharaoh Was

Like I said in the P&S review, I am writing this on my birthday so I’m going to be self indulgent because it’s one time of the year I’m allowed to have an ego on me. So for this review or more like a retrospective since I just want to be a lot more casual in this review, I’m going to be talking about the original YuGiOh manga with slight glances at the anime too and when I say original YuGiOh manga, I’m talking YuGiOh, YuGiOh Duelist, which served as the base for the YuGiOh anime, and YuGiOh Millennium World so this is going to be like a more detailed version of my “The Undiscussables” series. So I have three mangas to talk about and an anime to make comparisons to and before we start, I’m going to say I have not watched the original anime for this review. While I do have some form of access to the internet in the form of an shitty computer booth ran by my one of my aunties (which doesn’t have League on it for some god forsaken reason but has 5 different Battle Royales and DoTA of all things) to watch anime, when I do the comparisons, I’m going to be going off my memory of the original anime since I did grow up with the 4Kids dub and YGO:TAS which I highly recommend to any fan of the original anime. While I do think any abridged series deserves praise for what they are doing but the YGO series is just brilliant and really deserve your time and you can find it at “LittleKuriboh” on YouTube. For this retrospective, I’m just going to be focusing on plot and characters because if I talked about anything else, this would go on forever so don’t expect a serious review. Also before I start, I feel like I should explain my connection with the YGO franchise so let’s start with that before we get to the plot summary.

So I started with the series at a very young age. I was introduced to the series by my cousin during the late GX era and I didn’t start playing until the early 5DS era with my best friend with his Blackwings and Gravekeepers deck . I wouldn’t get my own deck until the start of Zexal series with the “V For Victory” starter deck and I would continue to play it until I started high school where I started a card game club with a bunch of my friends. While an unfortunate accident did stop me for playing for a bit, I would later get back into the game properly once we all started to dabble with the competitive scene with my Monarch deck. Jump forward to 2018, I now play Darklord and Ritual Beast somewhat competitively at my locals and I run the “An Idiot Plays YuGiOh” series on my YouTube channel (link in the sidebar and totally not a shameless plug) and while some of us has kind of drifted away for the game and started to play other card games such as Cardfight Vanguard (Bermuda Triangle for life), it’s still a massive part of my life because it helped me become the sort of person I am today. Now, you might be thinking what’s the point of all that backstory and I have two reasons. One, it’s my way of padding this review out and two, it’s my way of saying this review might be bias at times. As I explained, I have a very deep tie to this series and while I will try to keep a fair view, there might be times where the rose tinted glasses slip on. With that out of the way, let’s talk plot.

To summarise all three of the series as one, a high school boy known as Yugi (spelt with two Us in the original manga) solves a puzzle known as the Millennium Puzzle which holds the spirit of the Pharaoh (in the dub I believed he is called Yami Yugi with his real name later being revealed as Atem) who for the majority of the original series, is a complete dickhead. Granted, he is often being a dick to evil people such as Seto Kaiba but the way he does it is very dickish. I mean, first he makes them compete in a game of life and death and if they lose (which they always do), he will either penalty game them or outright kill them so either way, they are dead (unless your name is Shadi, Seto Kaiba or Ryo Baruka). This all happens within the context of the original series and while it does have like two whole duels done in the original run, Duelist is where it becomes the series as we know it now with an emphasis on the card game known as Duel Monsters in the manga (not be confused with Duel Masters). For the original run, it had more of a focus on just games in general from laser tag, tabletop RPGs and even a weird version of Ice Hockey during one chapter. The Pharaoh thankfully turns down his asshole levels by the end of the original series and just in time for the Duelist series.

So the Duelist series covers both Duelist Kingdom and Battle City within the original anime but there is a few changes made for the anime. To list some of them now real quick, the duel between Seto and Yugi was taken for the original run and used as the start for the anime which doesn’t end with Seto getting a good old mind crush which he gets during the Death Terminal arc in the original series. The original anime made these massive playing fields for dramatic effect while the Duelist series stuck with simple tables which I liked more and finally, the Pharaoh is mind crushing all the fools in the Duelist version. Like he pretty much mind crush anyone who didn’t matter or was going to return for Battle City but thankfully, Yugi has a lot more control over the Pharaoh during this run and make the Pharaoh more “human”. So, this series starts with the reintroduction of the duel monsters card game from the original series and after he gets a delivery from Pegasus, the campest (but not the gayest) villain around, he ends up dueling a video tape of Pegasus in a shadow game. After cheating/stalling for time with the help of his Millennium Eye, Pegasus does his own penalty game and traps Yugi-boy’s grandpa’s soul in the videotape (the anime had Pegasus straight up take the soul instead of keeping him in a tape). Yugi decides to go to the tournament Pegasus has set up on his own private island with the help of his pals, Joey (or Jounichi), Tristan (or Honda and voiced by Barney The Dinosaur) and Teá (or Anzu). Both Yugi (but it’s mainly the Pharaoh doing the work) and Joey do a bunch of dueling to get star chips to enter the castle and beat Pegasus so Yugi can put Grandpa’s soul back in his body and save the Kaiba brothers and Joey can win the money to pay for his sister’s eye surgery. Along the way, they have very memorable duels with such duelists as uhhh… I can’t remember. All I remember is that Mai Valentine is a shit duelist, we have a grudge match against Yami Bakura, Bandit Keith who is busying being Bandit Keith (and saying “In America”), Seto Kaiba is still being a dick after he recovered from his mind crush and also all the duels during this arc pretty much has no rules. There is no tribute summoning so you can outright summon your monsters, regardless of level, you can only set one spell/trap at a time and you somehow get field boosts if you duel in certain areas on top of other unfair advantages which is leads to a lot of “because plot” moments. I think out of all of these moments, the biggest case of “because plot” is during the duel between Yami Yugi and (I think) Mako Tsunami with a moment that was so iconic, they made it into a crap gimmicky card (that card is “Attack The Moon by the way). All in all, the Duelist Kingdom arc is pretty bad due to the lack of rules and the only redeemable part of this arc is the fact they killed off Bandit Keith and Pegasus in the Duelist version (thanks Bakura).

So Battle City. I do think it’s the better half of the two since it introduces the first ever master rule (or second, I’m unsure) but it’s only a slight improvement at best. So the Pharaoh has stopped being an ass and became a respectable duelist, Yugi grows as a duelist during this arc (unfortunately not in height) since he gets more screen time when it comes to duels even if it’s mainly the Yami Yugi show. Seto Kaiba also starts to slowly drop his egotistical asshole act during the run as well but that’s only because he has zero presence during Millennium World (his ancient Egypt counterpart doesn’t count). Battle City also sees more of a shift in plot since it starts to introduce more interesting plot points such as the Pharaoh’s lost memories but unfortunately for us, we have to wait until the last duel for any closure on this plot point. We get the set up at the beginning of the arc and then we get some information at the end which is only used to set up Millennium World. The whole middle of this is just dueling in the tournament so they get on a massive blimp to have more duels while also having very little character growth from anyone. On the bright side, I do think the duels are far more memorable during this arc with my personal favourites being the “Yugi Vs Arkana” Dark Magician face off, “Yugi And Kaiba Vs The Masked” skyscraper deathmatch and the “Yugi Vs Kaiba” grudge match and yes, this does mean Joey is completely forgettable. While he does have a very tense fight against Yugi while he is brainwashed, his duels during the tournament and the semifinals just doesn’t compare to Yugi and Seto’s duels since they are using the series newest gimmick at the time, the god cards. Yugi spends most of his time getting his god card and while Kaiba has one on screen duel before the semi finals since he is given his card by Ishizu before the tournament started. Joey just ends up dueling old duelists from Duelist Kingdom (you know, the ones who didn’t get mind crushed/killed) and getting new boss monsters to put into his crap deck since his Red Eyes gets taken at the start of the arc by Marik’s rare hunters (called Ghouls in the manga) and while we are on the topic of Marik, can we talk about how bad he is at being a villain. I feel like his presence in the Battle City arc was to have a reason for the Millennium Rod to be there and have some set up for Millennium World because Bakura could of easily replaced his role as villain because Marik is so bad. His reasoning for wanting to kill the Pharaoh is poor at best, as a villain he is not even threatening even when he becomes Melvin- I mean Yami Marik, he is still a poor excuse for a villain. Even after Yami Marik takes over, he suddenly turns good for some reason. His character is poorly written and I’m surprised that anyone likes him outside of his god card which is easily the worst of the three (Sphere Mode doesn’t count). Thankfully, he pretty much disappears until the end of Millennium World after Duelist and speaking about Millennium World, let’s jump boat to that since this review is getting a bit lengthy.

The final part for the original YuGiOh series, we have Millennium World where we finally get the pay off for the whole Millennium Items set up and finally get to see the origin of everything in the series, from the Pharaoh history, his ties with Yami Bakura, the origin of Duel Monsters and other miscellaneous stuff like where Kaiba gets his hard on for the Blue Eyes White Dragon and how Yami Yugi got his Dark Magician. What I like about the first half of this arc is the fact it focus less on Yugi and more on Yami Yugi and it’s not being done through the medium of card games. Yes, we do have Yugi and pals running around in his memory world looking for his name and yes, we sort of have duels but no one cares about Yugi until the pile of mess at the end of the memory world arc and the duels we have play more like traditional battles rather then the card game sort. Unfortunately that doesn’t last since it does get messy and I’m not just talking about the amount of blood spilt during this part. While the start is very nice and clean, the end of the memory world arc gets really messed up. First, they reveal the whole world the arc is taking place in is just an elaborate table top RPG of a shadow game which Yami Bakura made to versus Yami Yugi (and maybe also as a callback to the original manga’s final arc) and then they reveal that Priest Seto’s father is Zorc who Yami Bakura serves so the Pharaoh was going to have none of that shit so he banished that fool after his true name of Atem gets revealed. In short, Memory World is a mess and I’m somewhat glad that shit didn’t go any further and the payoff for memory world is worth it since the final duel is pretty good. I love the final duel between Atem and Yugi because you not only see how far Yugi has grown as a duelist but it’s also a fitting send off for Yami Yugi, even if Dark Side Of The Dimension ruins it a bit and talking about ruining stuff, Transcend Game.

I’m tacking this on real quick but Transcend Game is a two part OVA of sorts which was written and tacked onto the end of Millennium World much later as a way to promote and set up the Dark Side Of The Dimension movie which I hate. I will get to that movie one day because I have shit to say about that movie but Transcend Game is pretty bad in its own right. First, it retcons Kaiba’s changes he made during Battle City which I hate. You see, at the end of Battle City, he finally becomes a more respectable duelist with some ego issues and if his one panel appearance during the final chapter of Millennium World is anything to go by, he has accepted the lost of the Pharaoh who was his greatest rival and friend. Transcend Game pretty much retcons that because he is not only back to being an egomaniac, it reveals that he has not moved past the lost of Atem and now is using VR to recreate Atem so he can finally beat him. Now while the movie shits on this fact far more than this trash, I still can’t forgive it for helping in the set up of trashing Kaiba but that’s enough ranting so let’s cut to the end.

Now, I do realise this retrospective of sorts is a massive mess but I enjoyed writing this more than I have when I’m doing proper review plus YuGiOh is a big part of my childhood so I thought it deserves the treatment plus I’m quite clearly not the only one who feels like this, YuGiOh is a landmark in our culture since it’s not only still a staple part in Sunday morning cartoons and inspiring countless continuations (for better or worst), it’s real life card game adaption is the biggest of its kind in the world with it only being rivaled by Magic The Gathering and Pokémon and Yami Yugi is in that nostalgic wankfest of a game “Jump Force” even though he should get his ass handed to him by anyone else in the game. Clearly, YuGiOh has became a cultural landmark for our generation and I heavily recommend getting into the series, either by the manga or the anime if you have the time and I will be covering more YuGiOh in the future, especially the manga versions since they have kept with the trend of being darker than their anime counterparts which I love. If I was to score the whole original series, subjectively I would give it a 6/10 just due to how much of a mess Duelist and Millennium World is at times but if I was to score it objectively, it’s an easy 8/10. You cannot deny the fact that it’s a classic, amongst both Jump titles and manga in general. I’m starting to run low on stuff to review here since I have zero access to games here, I rarely get enough internet to watch a single episode of an anime and there is nothing good in the cinemas right now so don’t blame me if there is an over saturation of manga reviews.

The “DxD Talks About Anything” One Year Anniversary Special - Panty And Stocking With Garterbelt: It’s Really Not What You Think

I know this is a bit late and I’m also going to be 100% clear on this. This part is just being tacked on because I didn’t want to write an anniversary special. You see, I originally wrote this while I was on holiday and I thought why not just use this since I don’t want to talk about my favourite manga of all time just yet. Just not yet so there, if anything feels out of place, it’s mainly because I tacked it on at the end. Also for those wondering if I bought a Switch, I didn’t. I ended up using that money to survive by myself on top of Christmas shopping and personal stuff like a Godzilla model, don’t judge me. So yeah, no Switch reviews anytime soon unfortunately.

Man, this title really doesn’t sell it. Yeah, Panty And Stocking With Garterbelt is an anime. Yes, it is an anime with title like that which goes beyond the Japanese weirdness and that’s why I love it. It’s like number 5 on my top ten animes because for me, I see it as a brilliant satire on western culture as seen through the eyes of the Japanese. Like, it may not seem like that at times but it should click by the time you reach the diet episode or even the transformer parody. Oh god, this going to be fun to sell to you people but first, let’s talk about the summary and spoilers will occur so let’s talk about this amazing piece of satire and before you ask, yes I will do Kill La Kill one day. I love Kill La Kill a lot but I feel like Panty and Stocking deserves it more right now plus it was the only anime series I got away with downloading before I left for my holiday.

Panty And Stocking is by the guy who wrote FLCL and before you ask, yes I have read FLCL and no, I’m not going to comment on it because I never understood what I read. So anyway, P&S follows the two angels known as the Anarchy Sisters, a pair of angels known as Panty and Stocking who were kicked out of heaven for their sins with Panty being a slut and Stocking being a glutton for sweets. They staying with the immortal black priest called Garterbelt, who has a thing for little boys and bondage and I think the green thing of a dog, Chuck and if they want to go back to heaven, they need to kill a bunch of ghosts so each episode is them killing that week’s ghost so they can get coins for re-entry into heaven. The episode set up is pretty much very like your normal morning cartoon or should I say, your normal morning American cartoon. Yes, it does have some of that Japanese humour scattered across the series and they even mocked typical anime tropes such as the obligatory beach episode but it mainly feels like it’s making fun of very American-like culture from fad diets, high school life and even the sex industry and masturbating. Nothing is safe from these guys but they do it in a way that you gotta love the characters because they are that funny.

Stereotypical characters are usually not funny unless they are done in a over the top way like in “Mars Attacks” and P&S delivers it in spades. When I say Panty is a slut, she is a really a slut and a hardcore one at that too. There isn’t a moment when she isn’t having sex or preparing to do the deed but what I also like is how they are also the complete opposite of what you expect. Sure the Anarchy Sisters are angels but this doesn’t mean they play nice. They act like complete assholes when they are on screen with only their personal interests in mind and you still can’t help but root for them because who else are you going to root for? Brief the geeky sidekick who always get pushed around by the sisters and to a degree, Garterbelt. There isn’t much to talk about when it comes to characters so I want to do something different and talk about the writing. As someone with aspirations of becoming a writer themselves (I been drafting my own series since Year 8), I do like to pay attention to both dialogue and how story events are planned out and while P&S isn’t the best at it, it does have some solid writing especially when it comes to jokes. One of my favourite examples of this sort of writing is the high school episode where it just mocks American high school tropes from the popularity hierarchy with its queen bee called Barbie on top who later turns out to be an actual queen bee to how the sisters need to acquire a nerd to help with their quest. It’s just a fun and satirical look at high school but it does not compare to the semen episode. It does have a proper name but I like to call it the semen episode because it’s all about semen. It’s opening and ending sequences are just full of my second favourite kind of humour; sexual innuendos and this is used in the context of a war setting. Paired with their captain giving a speech worthy of an Oscar to his soldiers, it’s over dramatic and a great parody of war time movies and the fact it all ends with the whole cold opening being a masturbation joke, it’s brilliant comedy. Sure it’s not a masterpiece when it comes to satire or even comedy but it’s just really funny. I haven’t even talked about the transformer episode or the zombie episode but I don’t want to because I don’t want to spoil it. What also makes these sort of jokes great is the art direction.

When I think what makes Panty and Stocking great, I would say 30% belongs to its art direction because it’s changes on a whim. So the normal episode normally looks like a rather blocky early 90s kids cartoon like Cat Vs Dog etc. I like this style because it feels like you are watching an adult parody of your favourite 90s cartoon which really just adds to its charm. What also adds to this is the fact they change to an traditional practical effect with a model of the enemy they just killed blowing up into pieces while delivering a very cheesy death line. For me, that just adds to the charm but what really doesn’t do it for me is the transformation sequences. You see, when the sisters change forms, the art style changed to be a more traditional anime style and while I do enjoy the fanservice (not a pervert), I feel like it doesn’t blend well and just takes you out but what doesn’t is the soundtrack. I’m going to say it now, I love the soundtrack of this series. It has an whole album that you can find on YouTube which is copyright free on top of that and if you do decided to listen to them, my personal recommendations are “I Want You”, “S Trip” and ”Fly Away” and if you do go find these songs, also try to find their remixes which are found on “The Worst Album”. If you are a fun of techno or just like what you hear, you should totally download and give these songs a listen to. So with all the good stuff out of the way, let’s talk about the crap parts.

Ok, before continuing with this paragraph, I’m going to warn everyone, there is a minor spoiler here about the ending of the series. I seriously urge you to go and watch this series if you like what you have read about it so far because as much as I am going to not spoil it, I can’t properly criticise this series without talking about it’s ending. Ok, with that out of the way, I want to talk about the ending. The series ends on a cliffhanger. I’m not going to tell you about the cliffhanger but it’s a cliffhanger ending which I hate already since it’s usually a cheap way to keep viewers interested and make them demand a sequel but I love this series so a sequel should of been in the works anyway. Here’s the problem: WE NEVER GOT ONE. While I don’t blame the studio for not being able to provide us with a second season, I am still going to criticise it and in terms of closure for the cliffhanger, apparently the original creator has made/is making an unofficial official dogushi called “Cemetery Hills” and in terms of P&S in print, we got a volume of Panty And Stocking which feels like a bunch of shorts they didn’t use in the main series. The ending kinda pisses me off when paired up with the rest of these facts since we don’t have closure and I hate it when I don’t have closure. Now, this doesn’t mean I hate mysteries but it ends on a proper cliffhanger which has no closure so I’m pissed.

All in all, Panty And Stocking is a solid series with a bit of a shit end but I feel like the comedy and the satire is what makes this series great and is the anime I will always recommend to anyone who wants to get into anime since it’s not too long, it’s a self contained series and it has very familiar feeling for anyone who grew up on those 90s cartoons. I’m giving P&S the solid 8/10 so go watch it. It’s pure genius when it comes to raunchy humour and a must watch for anyone who is looking for something more mature without it bordering “fanservice” territory. Also, if you are going watch the series (which you should be doing), go out of your way to find the dubbed version because the English voice acting really just adds to that 90s feel and is far better the Japanese voice acting. So I’m finishing this review off in my birthday (23rd of November) so happy birthday to me and I am currently dreading the fact that I am going to jump in my Facebook when I regain an internet connection and see all these happy birthday messages because I’m finally 18 so I wonder how many of them is going to be asking me to go drinking with them. You know what, my next review (or whenever I end up uploading it since I don’t have an order for these reviews right now) is going to be a little self indulgent so next time (whenever it goes up), I will see you here for “YuGiOh” and not I’m going to tell you what aspect of the series I’m going to cover so have fun guessing. As per usual, you can find my YouTube channel to the sidebar and you can also find my Steam Profile there if you want to have as a friend on Steam and maybe even donate me something to review at a later date and you know what, I’m going to include a link to my FaceBook there if I remember to do that. I don’t often post on it but you can just use it to stalk me or inflate your number of friends you have.

2018 End Of Year Special: Talking Crap About Manga Rock’s Best New Releases

WOOOO, IT'S THE END OF THE YEAR. This year sure has been fun between me ranting on about how perfect Hellsing and Berserk is to me just crapping all over mainstream movie releases such as Greatest Showman and any Marvel movie. Now, this special was originally going to be me redoing my original Smite review since I felt like the current review is not representative of how crap the current game is but it started to feel heavily bias soon as I reached the end of it so I scrapped it. I ended up not knowing what I was going to do for the end of the year special but thankfully, Manga Rock came to my rescue. For those who don’t know what Manga Rock is, it is simply an app I use to keep track of my collection/backlog and read manga on my iPad and they often have collections of manga recommendations based on certain themes on their homepage and that’s how I find some of my manga for these reviews. So Manga Rock was promoting their “Top New Manga Releases Of 2018” and I can promise you, I have never heard of any of these mangas before and I thought why not I read them and review them. So let’s talk about the “top new releases” as dictated by a business.

First up we have “Drawing While Masturbating” and with a title like that, I have no idea how this flew under my radar but it only has two chapters at time of writing so it’s extremely new. The whole concept is that a female mangaka can’t draw properly if she isn’t masturbating while she does it. It’s just very cringy and unfunny erotic humour with no taste and what makes it worse is that we don’t see any of this. Sure, she is rubbing herself off but it’s always being covered and fully clothed. If you are going to base your manga on an erotic concept, at least make it more adult oriented because playing it safe is pointless. Go big or go home so stop with the blue balling and give me the good stuff. I have enough with this ball buster so let’s move on.

Next we have “Destroy All Of Humanity. It Can’t Be Regenerated” and if I was doing the whole award gimmick, I would give this manga the award of “Most Misleading Title Of The Year” because it has nothing to do with killing humanity. It’s about Magic The Gathering. Yes, Magic The Gathering. You know, the inferior alternative to YuGiOh. Ok, I joke and before you ask, I have played MTG for a short bit since we had players for it in my high school card game club. So the whole manga is pretty much about a high school boy and girl in the 90s playing MTG and it currently consists of a one shot and a proper first chapter. It certainly has the qualities of a card game manga except it doesn’t have the stupid anime hair and over the top card game battles. It feels a lot more grounded and while I can appreciate that, it’s just not for me. MTG never really grabbed me because even though I like the fact it is slower and more simple then YuGiOh, I preferred YGO anyway because it’s far more interesting and that applies to this manga. I suggest it if you are a fan of card game manga and/or MTG but if you are neither, it’s has nothing for you.

Jumping into the fantasy part of the review, we have “Kami-sama no iru Keshiki” and it’s a solid meh. Pretty much it’s a slice of life manga where we follow Toto, a novice god who is the god of small floating island called “Isle Island”. How redundant. It only has seven chapters and after reading four of those, I called it quits because it’s just so boring. I normally like slice of life manga, especially ones with gods in it but this is just bleh. It holds no entertainment value, the MC is bland, it looks bland and it also probably tastes bland as well. I just want to end the paragraph here because I am already bored with it. Read it if you want but I recommend not doing it. It’s not worth the ten minutes it takes to read this.

Moving onto something more promising, we have “Hitokui Dungeon e Youkoso!” with it being a slight improvement over the last manga we talked about but considering bar was lying on the ground already, that’s not saying much. I will admit I got more entertainment value out of its two chapters then Kami-sama’s four chapters but it feels like it was going down hill after chapter one. I feel like the only redeemable thing about this manga is the “adult content” which I will admit, was pretty steamy and doesn’t blueball you but story wise, its weak. It’s literally a half demon decides to make a town into a dungeon with the help of a succubus and I can promise you, this concept was done far better by “How To Build A Dungeon”. It only has a small handful of chapters but I feel like I have seen all this can offer. Just read How To Build A Dungeon, it delivers far more better on the dungeon gimmick and the erotic elements.

“Shougakusei ga Mama demo li desu ka?” is next and I will say I did like this one for a bit. The concept is simply MC’s mom gets reincarnated into a ten year old girl’s body and it’s just a nice fluffy manga about mother and son relationship with a bit of that awkwardness. It’s just very nice and I enjoyed this until I found out about the mangaka’s other works. This manga is by the guy who did “Kiss X Sis” and if you don’t know what that is, you are lucky because Kiss X Sis was borderline incest. Kiss X Sis was so close to incest and only avoided it by having the sisters be stepsisters and since this manga has a very similar set up, it just ruined it for me. Yeah, I’m letting that ruin it for me but it’s just so set up and I can’t get it out of my head. I still recommend this but just don’t let the idea of possible incest ruin this for you.

Next up is “Regarding That We Decided To Live In The Countryside With The Female Knight Who Came To Us” and quick side note but what is up with mangas having long ass names? Like, it seems like more and more modern manga have extremely long titles. What happened to having short and concise titles like “Toriko” and “Baki The Grappler”? Just a side rant. This manga is pretty much the reverse of reincarnation fantasy manga. Essentially, a female knight knight crosses over into our world, a single farmer then looks after her while they work on a farm. It’s pretty boring for the most part, there is certainly better manga you could and should be reading and you should do so.

So for the final one on the list that I bothered reading, “Do You Like The Otaku School Nurse?” and I like this one. I just find it relatable and quite funny. It just so simple and yet so relatable. It’s not stupid and over the top and possibly having incest. It’s just a middle schooler helping out the school nurse who is a otaku and as an otaku myself, I find it quite enjoyable. If anything, just read this one. If you had to read one of these things, read this one over the rest. It’s fun and I think you will enjoy it as much as I did.

So this a quick tack on review since I am finishing this review on the plane and I just put down “Hunter X Hunter” and you know what, we have a “World Trigger” problem. Ok, it’s not as boring as World Trigger but for me, it’s just not there. There was multiple times I wanted to put this down but I kept giving it the benefit of a doubt. What made me want to do this first was when they introduced a gourmet hunter and in that moment, I just wished I was reading Toriko because that’s more interesting. It did keep me in a trance for a quite bit but I ended up putting it down during Greed Island arc. It’s just the fact that they are supposed to be hunters but they aren’t hunting anything and they are just picking a fight with the equivalent of terrorists. They are called hunters but I haven’t seen them do any form of hunting yet. It just been fighting and fighting and I don’t think it delivers on its idea. It certainly doesn’t hurt to read it but I don’t think it can deliver on entertainment.

Ok, so that’s the end of the year special, I would like to thank you for reading and staying with my blog. Yes, I am talking to all three of you who reads the blog. I will probably do a proper thank you for the one year anniversary special which is next week at the time of posting this review, just don’t hold me to my word. I don’t know what I’m going to do for the one year anniversary special since I already used my favourite movie of all time and favourite game of all time so maybe an anime if I bother doing it but considering all the content I wrote while I was on holiday, it might just end up being a game or something. Who knows but I don’t so we will see. As per usual, you can find links in the side bar to my YouTube channel where I am posting YGO videos at the moment but I am working on doing other types of videos and you can only find my steam profile if you want to gift me something I can review or something on my Wishlist. Or you could just use it to stalk me and grief me in TF2 if you want. I’m not going to judge.

Poker At The Inventory Series: Gambling Isn't That Bad

Man, what a sad state of affairs. Tellatale Games has collapsed from their sheer incompetence and inability to do treat their workers properly and while people are mourning the loss of the final season of “The Walking Dead”, I’m going to talk about how I am going to miss the Poker Night series by Tellatale. That’s right, they could do more then push licensed narratives which are thinly veiled as games for the masses but in this case, they just took their existing licences and put them into a poker game. To its credit, the series is quite fun with a lot of character to go around and it’s a series that I keep going back to when I’m waiting for friends to play League with and I’m not in the mood for Ubermosh and while I’m not one for actual gambling, I do love playing card games with Poker being my fourth favourite type of card game with Cardfight Vanguard at third, Bullshit at second (because no one can outbluff me) and YuGiOh at first obviously but enough about my love for card games. Let’s talk about this somewhat acceptable form of gambling.

Poker Night is simple. Your goal is to win a standard game of Texas hold’em poker against four other players and the rounds keep going until someone wins the whole pot brought which is $50K in the first game and $100K in the second one. Each player starts the game with $10K ($20K in the second game) and normal poker rules apply. So what makes the game different? Well to begin with, this is strictly a single player game so there is no online competent and also, you are vsing other video game characters. Like in the first game, we have The Heavy, Strong Bad, Tychro and Max from “Sam and Max” while the manager is your dealer and for the second game, they bring in Samson from (I think) Venture Bros, Ash of Evil Dead fame, Sam (with Max) and Claptrap from Borderlands and if you don’t think that’s a good line up, you have Moxxi serving you drinks and Glados is your dealer. For me, these guys is what makes Poker Night fun. Without them, this would just be a very boring poker simulator but their presence in the series is what makes it different and they do have some good character chemistry.

Seeing these guys just acting like buddies while playing poker and being extremely meta about how the player is the silent type is fun to see. Each of these characters act like you would expect them and you actually can learn more about them from their character interactions even if you have no prior knowledge of their franchise. For example, I don’t even know who Tychro was but by the end of my experience with Poker Night, I know that he is intelligent, into some weird shit and just has the right amount of smugness to make me wanna punch him in the face. What also makes these characters enjoyable are the fact that they are constantly talking and having conversations about their franchises and their life outside of those franchises which makes it enjoyable if you are a fan of these characters and if you are not, it’s still very funny to watch, even if you can’t get all the references and their characters also extend into how they play in game.

Mechanically, the game is pretty much your standard two card poker game (unless you are playing Okoma, you weirdo) so there isn’t much to talk about but the characters is what makes it different. You see, each character behaves different in game and have tells in a way. So in Poker, a tell is usually some form of body language that can tell a player what another player is thinking such as if they are bluffing or they got a bad hand. Tellatale did add this to the series and they are very easy to spot since you can just go off of facial animations alone but if you are inept at telling different facial expressions, you can also go off by their personality since all the characters play like their own personality. For example, Sam is a detective with a smart ass attitude so you can expect him to be smart about his decisions and often play safe while someone like The Heavy is a dumbass who often gets frustrated so you can often tell when he got a good or bad hand and how he will often go with big raises when he does open the god hand. If you are observant, it becomes easy to cheese most of these matches by just either passing or bluffing because it becomes easy to do so but there is one thing that can ruin this and that’s chance.

Alright, I’m going to start with the complain train now but if you want me to talk about the graphics, they are fine. I do like how they tried to keep the same look the characters had from their original games for this series which does lead to some clashing styles but it’s not that much of a complaint. What I really want to talk about is how it feels rigged at times and I can promise you, it probably isn’t rigged but it doesn’t stop you from feeling like it is. This is more of an inherent thing because it’s natural to think something that being computer simulated is probably rigged and I swear it isn’t but it feels like it. Like, I recall getting a Straight Flush and somehow I lost some bull crap where everyone else pulled a royal flush out of their ass and this happened twice so far across my time spent with the series. It really does feel like it’s rigged at times and having that lurking behind you while you are playing the game isn’t good, especially when you are on a losing streak. What also doesn’t help is the fact is this is a gambling game and how am I supposed to recommend a gambling game? You either like or don’t like gambling and if you don’t, I can’t really recommend this game because it doesn’t offer that much outside of the gambling part when it comes to gameplay. If you really like some of the characters, I guess I could get away with recommending it then but you still need to play Poker in order to get these conversations which involve the characters and you might as well just google them at that point.

Recommending this is hard but I personally give it a 6/10. For five bucks on Steam, you are getting a good poker game with very interesting characters for a really cheap price and yes, it is five bucks on steam for both versions so next time you have spare change on your account, consider buying one of the two (after you buy all the editions of UBERMOSH that is). I personally recommend Two over One mainly because I enjoy those characters more and there is some more customisation options there plus if you play Borderlands 2, you can get some freebies for that and TF2. I’m also very sorry for disappearing again but usual excuse about finding job and blah blah blah. Also, I’m on holiday as I edit this so hopefully by the time I get back, I should have enough reviews to keep the blog going and leave me time to find a job. Next week is also a bit in the air but I’m considering doing a retrospective on League Of Legends maybe or maybe I will do a proper anime review, none of that brief mentioning here. As per usual, my channel is in the sidebar if you want to see me make and play crap YuGiOh decks and my steam profile if you want to be nice and send me games to review because I’m jobless and I don’t want to torrent games to review because pirating is wrong, everyone unless you are an actual pirate and if so, keep at it. Alestorm will probably sing about your exploits one day.

One Punch Man: A Better Example Of Shounen

Remember in “The Undiscussables: Tackling The Virus Known As Fantasy” how I said I hate saying redundant things? While I’m probably about to say some redundant things about One Punch Man but I think my opinions aren’t that redundant so let’s take that bet. I been recently reading the series again and the original series for the first time and while I will admit it’s an amazing read, I do think it has flaws so let’s talk about that because I have just graduated from high school and I have too much free time on my hands. I will be tackling a lot for this review because I am going to be talking about the original series drawn by ONE, the Jump series drawn by Yusuke Murata and the anime’s dubbed version. With that said, let’s talk about this parody and maybe my others problems with Shounen titles.

One Punch Man follows Saitama, the strongest and most bored man on Earth who can kill anything in one punch. We follow him during his daily life as he works as a hero for fun and trying to find a challenge while also having really bad luck. He also has a great supporting cast such as his disciple Genos, gaming buddy King and Bang who is a joy to watch. This is more of a parody of the standard shounen story. Unlike most Shounen characters who start off underdogs and become overpowered by the end through incredible means, Saitama is overpowered to begin with due to a very basic muscle training program he went through so there is no real tension when he is around because he is practically invincible. Not even a massive laser beam could stop him because he could just punch it and the problem is gone. This is a massive downfall of the series while I will get into later but this problem is mainly covered up by its supporting cast and world building. While Saitama is lacking character growth and any form of challenge most of the time, the background cast is what makes up for this lack. Genos covers for Saitama’s lack of character growth by constantly getting better over the series while all the other heroes help add stakes to fights because unlike Saitama, they aren’t the most overpowered thing in existence.

For me, the side characters is what makes One Punch great. Since Saitama is pretty much a blank slate most of the time when he isn’t displaying angry or greed, other characters fill in the blanks with rather over the top personalities. Genos is your super keen stereotype of a disciple who takes everything too seriously and has a rather big revenge boner in most of his scenes, Fubaka is one of the many pompous asshats in the series with an massive ego to boot and King is a great foil to Saitama with his wimpy attitude and just being in general a massive pussy. It’s these sort of characters that make One Punch brilliant and that also counts to its world building. Throughout the many moments across the series, the world is constantly being fleshed out and what I like most about this if you pay attention to the small details, you can see that the world the series is in has consequences for everything. One of my favourite examples of this is the fact the whole Hero Association was started by one guy saving the director’s grandson which inspired him to make the whole system. Now if you connect the dots like how this event took place three years ago and the director has a similar chin to the kid Saitama saved, you can see that Saitama pretty much inspired the whole association. It’s little details like that which makes this series brilliant and it’s something you don’t see most mangakas do this so this little thing makes me very happy and do you know what else makes me very happy? That’s right, the anime (as well as the art style).

I am going to do two birds with one stone here and talk about the anime as well as the art style across the two manga series so let’s talk about the original by ONE because I’m not going to dance around it, it’s butt ugly. ONE is more of a story teller then a drawer if his original drawings are anything to go by because they are more like a six year old’s scribbles than an actual piece of art which is why they probably got Yusuke to redo all of the art for the Jump publication which is definitely for the better. The Jump published version of the series is way better since it actually makes the characters presented look amazing while ONE’s style suits more of a comedy series which does benefit the many jokes of the series but Yusuke’s style is way better because it’s not as painful on the eyes and he makes some brilliant spreads for the series. It also brings life to the amazing fight scenes in the series and that’s my Segway into the anime which does its job of being just really good. Like, I don’t want to say anything about it because the quality speaks for itself. Both the subbed and dubbed have great voice acting, the animation is great and it does its job well selling you on the series. Alright, that’s enough praise now so let’s get to what I more or less hate about the series which is Saitama.

Now, this doesn’t mean I hate Saitama. I find him to be a great main character and protagonist to follow around. I just hate what he represents which is the deus ex machina of the series. True to his name, Saitama defeats everything with one punch because he is that powerful but that comes with a price and while in the context of the story, it’s the bored existence that Saitama has to live but for us, we have zero tension or invest in fights. Because Saitama is literally god in the manga, he can not be hurt and nothing really poses a real challenge to him which means when he does have this over the top fight with the villain of the week, he just needs to throw one punch and the problem is dealt with. There is no ten chapter long fight scene or spectacular fighting moves when Saitama is involved because he can deal with it with ease. Because of this, you can’t really enjoy the fights with Saitama and if you really gets to you, you can’t enjoy any fights in the series because you know that Saitama could easily walk in and deal with it, as displayed in the Sea Invasion arc. To its credit, the writers have been trying to deal with this issue by reducing Saitama’s role in the newest arc but I think it’s pointless because Saitama will eventually show up and duel with the threat and to be honest, I am not that invested with the other heroes outside of the ones Saitama is friends with. It’s just really ruins my fun with the fight scenes and it’s one of the few things I hate about this series.

In the end of the day, I do kind of dislike One Punch Man but unlike other Shounen titles (looking at you Bleach), I do like it more and I think it’s brilliant example of shounen being done well and I still enjoy it at times so 8/10. Now before I end this, I would like to say I am sorry for disappearing for two weeks. I just finished my schooling and I was busy trying to sort my life out but don’t worry, I am going to be doing these reviews weekly again and I don’t have a plan for next week so that’s fun. Anyway, see you next week and don’t forget to check out my other content in the sidebar if you want to support me on my other endeavours.

Kamen Rider Ex Aid: Proving That Video Games Aren't Evil (Most Of The Time Anyway)

This is a first for me and I don’t mean writing about TV Shows. I already did that first with “Steven Universe” and in retrospective, that sounds wrong. No, it’s a first that I’m covering a Kamen Rider show and well, Ex Aid is my first time watching Kamen Rider. For those who don’t know what Kamen Rider is, Kamen Rider is pretty an Japanese alternative to Power Rangers (known as Super Sentai in Japan) and I often use its music in my Inzektor videos (check out my YouTube channel if you are curious). Each series has a different gimmick but each one has the base plot of a guy gets the power to transform (or in the words of Kamen Rider, HENSHIN) into a Rider using a belt and whatever gimmick device they made for the season. If you can’t tell, I’m still an absolute noob to Kamen Rider since I was only introduced to the series this year and for me, it’s more a slightly more mature Power Rangers (fun fact: Super Sentai and Kamen Rider did have a crossover episode). Nevertheless, I am planning to cover more of this series in the future because I’m loving this series so let’s get into why I love it and of course, expect spoilers.

So Ex Aid follows our lead known as Emu Hojo who’s not only a genius gamer but is also an intern at the local hospital after being inspired to become a doctor in his younger years. There is also a virus going around known as the “Game Disease” which manifests itself in humans and becomes your typical villain known as Bugsters for that episode once they break out of the patient. Armed with this knowledge, a game company of all things known as Gemn Corp design the Gashats (pronounced Ga-Shat) and Gamer Belts with the gashats are games and allow them to turn into a rider based on that game via the belts. Using this, Emu can become Kamen Rider Ex Aid as he begins working in the special Cyber Rescue department who deals with the bugster menace. That’s my very basic synopsis of the first arc because despite being a kid’s show, the plots of the later Kamen Rider series are usually very complex which according to my friend who knows more on Kamen Rider and says it gets worse with Wizard so I guess we got lucky with this one. Nevertheless, I find the plot to be serviceable at the beginning since it just introduces the other riders such as Snipe, Lazer and Brave who have their own little gimmicks based on what gashat they use. If anything, the pacing is a little bit off because for a forty-five episode long series, it does feel rushed in places. Like, Ex Aid gets his first level three upgrade by episode six and then they track down a level five gashat by episode nine. It just feels like the plot is moving a little too fast in terms of progression but this is a kids show so I guess it’s somewhat acceptable. What’s not so acceptable is the flatness of all the characters in terms of personality.

This is a kids show so of course the characters will be very generic stereotypes. Ex Aid (yes, I will be referring to them with their rider names since it’s easier) is your good guy doctor who wants to save everyone, Brave is your cold hearted professional and Snipe is the anti hero. They are all very basic which makes story beats very predictable because you know what character is going to do next in the context of the story. It’s like watching a bunch of paper cut outs acting out a very predictable story but nevertheless, it’s still entertaining because the action distracts you from the badly written plot and characters. If you want some form of interesting characters, we have Gemn and he is just the god complex stereotype and Pallad who I think has the best character arc within the series but that isn’t saying much. He spends the first fifteen episodes just being an ass and then we spends the rest of the season being the actual main baddie with Gemn until Chronos shows up where he turns good because he is sick of Chronus’ crap. It’s all flat and that sums up my thoughts on the whole aspect. Keep in mind, the plot and the characters is only bad if you actually pay attention to it and nitpick because this is a kids show aimed at slightly older children so the action is what’s worth talking about so with that said, let’s talk about the production values.

I am going to say it now, I love the production values and that’s just Kamen Rider in general. Of what I seen in Ex Aid and clips of other series, Kamen Rider has incredible production values for not only a TV show but for a kids show. I usually expect crap from these kids show but Kamen Rider’s high production value and standards is probably what makes it popular with more mature audiences. The fights are not only well choreographed and keep you hyped but the music they use is just the cherry on the top. The music used in the series is just brilliant and I still listen to it in my daily life. While there is a lot of good songs in just the Ex Aid run, my personal recommendations are “Crazy Paradox” which is Pallad’s main song and “Wish In The Dark” which is Gemn’s main song. They are both amazing, especially Wish In The Dark and are great for self hyping. Back on the topic of the production values, I think the special effects are also well done. While it’s a little jarring at times, I think the CGI holds up most of the time especially during the first episode because that’s just an amazing fight scene for the pilot. With that all said though, I think Ex Aid has one of the weaker transformation sequences in the series.

You see, when a rider transform, it’s normally this amazing and over the top sequence which pretty much defies how good that rider is outside of their costume design and finishing move. For me, there is only three sequences I like which is Gemn’s Dangerous Zombie, Pallad’s Perfect Knockout and Chronus’s Kamen Rider Chronicle and while they aren’t as cool as Zi-O’s, I find them amazing and always find myself getting hyped but those are for the bad guys. For me, the supposed good guys are all very boring when it comes their transformation and this counts towards their costumes. Brave’s design is just a very generic knight design and Snipe has that stupid ass cape that looks weird on him and their level 3 forms are ehh but not mentionable but level 50 forms is where it gets effy. While Brave gets this cool demon king looking form with Taddle Fantasy, they just strapped parts of a battleship for Snipe’s Bang Bang Simulation and don’t get me even started on Ex Aid’s form. Shakari Sports is just a bike strapped to him, Geoshiki Robots is just a red metal arm and his Mighty Max form is just clunky and ugly like the rider’s level 1 forms and I am not going to bring up his god form. If I was to give any props to Emu’s Rider outfits, Mighty Brothers XX is cool with the inverted colour pallets for the brothers and I do kind of like Juju Burger even if it’s a one off form and don’t worry, the costume designs for the remaining riders aren’t too bad. I mean, Gemn before Dangerous Zombie is just Dark Ex Aid, Graphite is a little weird, Pallad’s switching between Perfect Puzzle and Knockout Fighter was cool in the ways he changes forms but gets much better when the gashats become one and Chronus will always be a badass with his trench coat look. While I haven’t seen not much of the other series outside of the first episode of Zi-O and an AMV of OOO (pronounced Oz for some reason), I feel like the custom design is lacking for both riders and the bugsters but I will return to that thought at a later date once I have experienced more of the series.

For me, Ex Aid is serviceable at worst and a great addition to the series at best. While what I seen in the first episode of Zi-O outshines the entire Ex Aid series (especially the transformation sequence. That was just so satisfying), Ex Aid is still fun in its own rights. I am going to give this the 6/10 with a solid recommendation from me. As for what newcomers to the franchise should watch, my friend recommends Build since it’s the latest completed series and the new series of Zi-O is just full of references that only long term rider fans would know. What I personally recommend is Ex Aid because I think it has a very simple plot to follow and the production quality is better than whatever Power Rangers make these days. Next time we visit Kamen Rider, I will be tackling Amazons (not Amazon) because my friend says it’s non canon and it has gore so I am excited for it. As for the next review, definitely a manga review because I have things to say about a very popular manga series and no, it’s not One Piece. I am not reading all +900 chapters for the 10th time just for reference. As per usual, if you want to see my other content, check out the side bar for my YouTube channel where I make badly edited videos and my steam profile if you want to donate something for me to review.