The Undiscussables: Movies, Movies, Movies

Eh, close enough to a month to do another one of these. So I have spent my time watching numerous movies just to justify having “movies” in my little slogan but in reality, I’m not a movie guy. I don’t go out of my way to watch certain movies and I never particularly had strong opinions or knowledge in movies unless I put my mind to it and just nitpick which I hate doing. If you were to ask me about Kaiju movies, especially Godzilla ones, we would be game and the same could be applied to some chick flicks but everything else, unless it’s that good or bad, it’s not going to be noteworthy enough for me. In an effort to change this, I went out of my way to go and watch some popular movies in the hope of finding something to write about (and also attract more readers) and what I mean I went out of my way, I just streamed some movies and all I got was nothing worth talking about so welcome to our third entry for “The Undiscussables” which also the first entry where not everything is a manga this time. Isn’t that depressing?

First up we have “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” from 2002 which is a labeled as a romantic comedy and I can tell you right now, I didn’t find this funny. The story is pretty much greek woman falls in love with non greek man, greek family gets both excited or angry (depending on who) and we follow these two until we reach the titular wedding and that’s why I feel like it’s boring. The plot is just the standard, point to point romcom with Greek elements and that’s why I find it hard to understand why this is a sleeper hit. The only thing that made me laugh was me just doing a horrible Greek imitation accent (I’m 17 years old, I’m allowed to do inappropriate things in the privacy of my room) so unless everyone else who watched this movie did the same, I don’t see how this became to be popular. Maybe because of the romance elements but that’s probably one of the few things I can praise about the movie and even that’s just standard schlock. The only thing I can take away from this movie is the fact that the movie serves as a representation of the Greek American community. While I’m not a greek myself, I found the way they represent greeks and their culture in the movie to be interesting and if this movie was more promoted as a documentary, I think this would be overall a great movie but this is still a romcom and I have to judge it as a romcom so 5/10 for this. There isn’t much else to talk about since there is no other real complaints since the movie does its job as a movie. It’s well shot and the actors are great but I didn’t find it funny or interesting enough to write a 1.5K review about so he it is. You might say that I’m too young for the movie or I am not the target demographic for this movie and to that I say firstly, thank you for the compliment because I do feel like I have been becoming too much of a grouchy old man recently and secondly, does it matter? No matter the target audience, there is going to be outside of the target audience who will watch the movie and have their own opinions plus I do love rom coms so I do feel like I fall into the general target audience. Just go watch the movie if you really want to and since it’s been over a decade since it was released in theatres, you can probably pick up the DVD for bargain bin prices if people are still using DVDs.

Secondly, we have 2017’s “Thor: Ragnarok” and this might as well represent how I feel about all MCU movies and to a degree, all comic book movies moving on in my reviews (barring a couple ones which may be the subject for later solo reviews) because my god, does this feel standard. I know there is going to be a lot of you that are going to think this is going to be a butt hurt DC fan just ranting on about how bad all MCU movies are or that I’m just going against the grain to provoke a reaction and to that I say, what a rather standard response. I’m not a comic book geek (if the numerous manga reviews hasn’t tipped you off to that) and comic book movies don’t excite me so if you were to attack me for watching a movie that I know I wouldn’t enjoy, you would have a slightly more valid point but the other two aren’t valid at all. I will say it now, I think the MCU movies are better than the DC movies but only because WB doesn’t know what they are doing with their cinematic universe right now so I wouldn’t take that as a compliment for MCU movies. Thor: Ragnarok is the supposed “final part” in the “Thor Trilogy” and is considered the best Thor movie in the trilogy which is an easy feat when compared to the other two movies and I still think the movie is standard. It’s just the MCU formula now with next to zero risk taking and that’s why it feels standard. I can’t come up with anything witty because it’s just standard. It has jokes, it has action, it has character development, it has super heroes and it has set up for future MCU movies and this is every single MCU movie now. What else is there to say apart from the fact that the only thing that I found really funny is the character of “Korg” who is voiced by the director of the movie, Taika Waititi, so he has this thick New Zealander accent (or kiwi for all us Australians) which is just so fun to listen to him because to me, Kiwis are funny but like, holy crap, there is no real difference in these movies. It feels like they literally just slot in characters, plot devices and conflicts into the standard script and with a little bit of CGI and maybe a bit of director’s vision, you have your MCU movie which is now ready for general consumption and guaranteed 7/10 reviews from critics as well with the bonus of massive box office return. This is just ridiculous to me how society has decided to let stuff like this happen but what’s more ridiculous is the fans. I mean, Black Panther was getting 100% reviews on Rotten Tomatoes by its fans before it was even released in theatres and when someone broke that overall 100%, everyone lost their minds at this poor guy. The culture around MCU movies now is like any mass fandoms these days. It consists of the sheeps who love the MCU to bits and the trolls who just do troll stuff to get an reaction and then you have the standard audience who thinks anything is a good movie these days. Before angrying any more MCU fans, here’s a 6/10 so let’s stop stroke the flames of misplaced rage now and move on with our lives.

Now for the third slot, we have “Spiderman: Homecoming” from 2017 and yeah, following up a rant about MCU movies with another MCU movie is probably a bad idea but it’s the only other movie I watched this week so let put it out there, this is a 7/10. This does seem hypocritical but even if it follows the same painting by the numbers formula, I still think this is one of the better MCU movies. Yeah, Ragnarock was funny but I couldn’t relate to anything in that movie. It seemed like an excuse to show us where Hulk disappeared to and end Thor’s trilogy while I think Spiderman is a great start for a new Spider-Man trilogy. I am not a big Spider-Man fan but I grew up with the original trilogy and while I hated the amazing Spider-Man series, I feel like Homecoming is a solid movie by itself but that’s probably only because I found Spider-Man more relatable. I mean, I can relate to a nerdy teen more than I can to an Australian actor trying to imitate a Norse god but still, this is an MCU movie so it has all the MCU trappings. Watch it if you want to since I do think it’s slightly better than the usual but it will never stand up to the original trilogy (excluding emo Peter dancing) but if I was able to slightly divert away from Spider-Man for a bit, what is Sony thinking with the Venom movie. I mean, they sold their rights for Spider-Man back to Disney so do they think Venom, who is primarily a bad guy, can carry a movie on its own because apparently the script has such little fate in Venom, the movie will have next to zero of Venom in it. God, that’s going to be a fun one to review when it comes out.

So for a bonus review, I want to quickly talk about a manga called “Gate: Where The JSDF Fought” and before you walk away in disappointment because I couldn’t stop myself from talking about manga, this is only going to be brief and I can promise you that there won’t be any more manga reviews for a while (as long as “a while” can be translated to two weeks). The manga follows this event where a fantasy world crosses over with our reality via an portal gate and after an army slaughtered and kidnaps people within Japan’s Ginza district, Japan sends in its own army to learn about the enemy and delegate their way to peace with this new found empire. This is a manga that explores how governmental, technological and social trends can influence a fantasy empire as well it’s consequences which is a very interesting concept which is why I hate how it’s handled. This is so boring on top of being stupidly frustrating. It’s literally just checking all the checkboxes on the fantasy checklist but it adds guns and while I like exploring the implications of modern weaponry in fantasy settings, they just go “here’s guns and now we will use guns to kill things” and it’s a waste. What also bothered me to no end was how stupid the names of all the fantasy characters are called. Like, they named the princess who is revealed to be a pretty important character “Princess Pina-Co-Lada” and I hate it. Was it too hard to make an authentic name for a character with royalty so decided to name her after a type of drink and then name the emperor “Malt Sol Augustus” I’m sorry but you are taking the piss. There is other stuff like the failed comedy and the massive cast that the author expects you to all remember and feel for but I’m just going to throw my 4/10 score before this degrades into the second rant of the review.

So there’s the make up for the lack of movies reviews on this blog. Next week might be another game review or just a retrospective on a movie series but that depends on what gets finished first and the following week, I will be releasing a far more longer and slightly more in depth review of a manga that is as old as anime’s memelord and maybe after that, I will be probably releasing my old one shot reviews known as “Death By Gameplay”, don’t quote me on that. So that’s my plan for at least the next month so have fun enjoying those while you can because I’m certainly not going to.

Hearthstone: Why I Hate Online Trading Card Games

So I was playing “Shadowverse”, an online TCG (trading card game) while I was waiting for an recommendation from my friends for my next review when it hit me. I’m playing the game I should be reviewing so I instantly went “I’m going to review Hearthstone” so sorry for all those Shadowverse lovers but I want to talk about “Hearthstone” because I hate Blizzard and I hate Hearthstone for so many things. I will cover “Shadowverse” one day but I have to find a way to cover it without it becoming a rant about how stupid Havencraft is and why everyone who plays that craft is an idiot and also, I was referring to “YuGiOh” in my last review for anyone who was wondering.

“Hearthstone” is a free to pay, online TCG which you can get on PC or on mobile and features Blizzard’s “beloved” WoW characters as playable classes. The main gimmick of the game is to play a class which has its own little gimmick and build a deck that works with that style and play against other players online. In the game, there is currently Warlock, Priest, Mage, Hunter, Rogue, Shaman, Druid And Warrior and each one of them counters another deck in a way (unless you are playing Murlocs). If you were paying attention, you would of seen that I used the phrase “free to pay” which is yes, was coined by everyone’s favourite egotist “Jim Sterling” but it’s a term which should be accurately used when talking about most free to play games. “Hearthstone” is a grind game if you don’t want to stump up the cash to get boosters or in this case, card packs. I’m not going to be explain how the actual card game mechanics work since there is so many different ones, I would be wasting my breath and each class specialize in what it says on the tin (except maybe Warlock, Druid And Shaman if you haven’t played WoW before) so let’s just get this roasting done with.

So how you get card packs in “Hearthstone” is you either get them from doing special modes, free drops or turning in the gold you get from wins and quests. Of course, you can fork out real cash to get packs if you really want to and because of this, the game makes it hard to get packs other ways. For example, let’s say you went the old fashion way and just went by winning. You get ten gold for every three wins and with each pack costing 100 gold, you need thirty wins to get one pack of your choice. Yes, you can speed up the progress with doing daily quests but if you are unlucky like me, you are mainly going to be stuck with quests that require to play with classes you don’t like and haven’t invested as much time into making functional decks with. I also feel like this game will be very punishing to those who unwilling to pay, especially those who like playing one class. I mainly play Hunter in Hearthstone and since I utterly refuse to give these sort of games my money, I went through hell to get the cards I needed and very early on, if you don’t have a good deck to start off with, you are going to struggle to get the wins necessary to get gold and that is a major problem for newbies getting into the game. The game does say it matches you with “worthy opponents” but I refuse to believe that because when I started, I was getting thrashed by all sorts of players online and I wasn’t able to compete with them until my own deck became better over time with all the free stuff you get given to you over time if you are patient enough to wait for Blizzard to have mercy on the poor non-whales of their player base but there is a bigger fish to fry here so let’s talk about it’s biggest sin: the lack of a trading system.

If you can’t tell, trading is a very big thing in trading card games. I mean, it’s in the name and trading is the best way for any player to get stuff they want and if you ask me, makes it way easier on new players to get into a game if they already have a limited budget but online TCGs don’t have this which does have bit of a domino effect but we will talk about that once we cover it’s “replacement”. The closest we got to a trading system in this game is a disenchantment system which pretty much means you trade in your cards for puny amounts of essence which you can then use to get the cards you want and this system does has its flaws but let’s try to focus on the positives. This does make getting cards easier on players and allows them to dump any excess or unneeded cards as well as acquire cards from older sets but I feel like this is strongly discouraged due to both the daily quests as well set rotation (we will get to that later) but I hate this system because unlike a proper trading card game, this doesn’t promote player interactions. Player interactions is the biggest thing about TCG because it’s promotes a sense of community and that is the heart of a TCG but online TCGs lack that. Sure, you could just go to a forum or Reddit for the idea of having a community but that’s talking to people over the internet. It can’t be compared to actual face to face interactions and the expression of human emotions. Yes, this does seem stupid coming from an introvert but a sense of community is a truly valuable thing and this is what I mean by a domino effect. With the lack of a trading system, you lose player interactions which loses the sense of community which ultimately makes the feel of the TCG worse when compared to other TCGs and that’s why it’s a downside for this sort of game.

Personally, I wouldn’t even be writing this review if it wasn’t for two things so let’s talk about the first thing, set rotation. Some card games to use set rotation to stop people from using older cards and promote the usage of new cards and Hearthstone is no difference and I hate set rotation. Set rotation is just such a dirty way of pushing new products and this also means people who have either grinded or spent the money to get the cards they wanted, those cards are now useless because set rotation has stopped you from playing them in Standard. Yes, you can still keep playing in Wild mode which does the equivalent of telling set rotation to bugger off but I feel Hearthstone punishes you for playing Wild plus having to add Wild mode just so people can use their older cards seems incredibly unnecessary. Like, you could of just be like most other card games (and much better ones at that too) and not have a set rotation. This promotes not only new and interesting decks and play styles but also gives older cards a much longer life expectancy since they can’t really be power creeped in this sort of game so set rotation should just go and die but unfortunately, this is Blizzard and they need to keep finding ways to milk their player base for all the money they have. The other thing that I want to mention before ending this, I wanted to talk about how this game has squandered potential. I think this game could of been great but all the problems I have mentioned is what brings it down in terms of a trading card game. I feel like if Blizzard applied the same amount of care and dedication the company is known for and what help them turn games like Starcraft, Warcraft and Overwatch (we will get to Overwatch much later down the line) in global successes and turned Hearthstone into a proper trading card game with a focus on trading and community, I would say, without a doubt in my heart, that Hearthstone would be the future for TCGs but with its current issues, I think it can’t compare to other TCGs like YuGiOh and Magic The Gathering. Hell, I think Cardfight: Vanguard has more potiential then this and Vanguard has a ridiculously small community and hey, Shadowverse is better then this and that’s pretty much Hearthstone with Waifu bait.

I’m giving this a 3/10 since I think it can’t live up to the other games that Blizzard has produced plus it’s disappointing as a TCG on top of being full of methods to wring out the money out of the player and I already deducted points for the micro transactions which do feel intrusive at best. If you want to play it, go ahead because maybe you can see something enjoyable that I don’t see but if you want to play a good card game, try investing into something like YuGiOh or Cardfight: Vanguard because they are not only fun but are easy to learn and play and is a proper trading card game unlike this pile of trash being peddled by the new money giant which is Activision Blizzard.

The Undiscussibles: Things I Read Instead Of My Class Work

Hooray for another filler. So after writing the “Drifters” review, I had no idea what to do next so I was procrastinating while I thought about what to do next. I was recommended to play Celeste but the game was out of my budget and I was going to talk about a very specific trading card game but I couldn’t figure out a good title for it so here’s another filler, covering the things I read in class instead of doing my work. Hopefully by next week, I will have a game worth talking about or maybe even a movie if I bother getting an Netflix account.

First things first, we got “Bakuman” who is written by the same guy who wrote “Death Note” and I am 100% serious when I say this is better then “Death Note”. I was originally planning to do “Mangas Better Then Death Note” which would feature three mangas by the same creator but only “Bakuman” and “All You Need Is Kill” (which I will cover later when I get around to it’s movie adaption) was worth talking about but since “Bakuman” was still fresh on my mind, I might as well cover it now. “Bakuman” is a manga about two people who I forgot their names so let’s call them “Drawer” and “Writer”, trying to make it big as a mangaka duo and try to get published in Shounen Jump with their manga and while Writer is doing this because he likes manga, Drawer is in it to make up for his dead uncle who never got that far in the Mangaka business (I think so anyway) and also get an anime so he can marry the love of his dreams. Since this is in the filler review, you can guess I don’t have much to talk about here so let’s get it over with. What I like about this manga is quite simply is the way it conveys the struggles of mangakas, both for amateurs and pros alike and that is what got me in and kept me in and admire the two main characters for what they do and achieve in this manga as a wannabe mangaka. To me, it’s awe inspiring and is my favourite point about this manga but this manga still has some flaws and I think is a consistent problem with this mangaka and his ability to carry on a story. One of my biggest problems with “Death Note” is the fact half way through, it quite clearly has a end point but it continues to ignore that point and start a new arc which isn’t very good or interesting as the first half, bring down the whole thing for me and “Bakuman” has the same kind of problem. Granted, the transistion feels a lot more smoother then “Death Note” but I feel like beyond that point, it becomes far more dull. There is a forced introduction of an antagonist for the last half and the ending just feels standard. It’s nothing spectacular and it’s a disappointment. I do feel like the mangaka is not suited for long series such as “Bakuman” and “Death Note” since he does seem to lose steam as they go on while with something like “All You Need Is Kill” has all the charms of its longer counterparts but is also self-contained with its shortness so it doesn’t run out of ideas by the end. “Bakuman” is a 7/10 because even with its flaws, I still think it’s a great read but I don’t expect anyone to stick around for the end.

Next up, we have “Sun Ken Rock” which is by the same guy who was behind the “Trigun” series if the fact that all his main characters always have the same spiky blond hairstyle tip you off to that. The series follows Ken, a Japanese wannabe fellow who just wants to follow the love of his life to Korea and become a policeman except he fails and ends up being unemployed. After saving an old man from some gang members, he attracts the attention of another gang boss known as Tae-Soo and offers him a position in his gang which Ken naturally refuses because he is a “good person” and then continues to fight Tae-Soo but Tae-Soo surrenders and makes Ken the boss of the gang (which consists of 3 people at that point, excluding Ken). The story then continues to follow Ken as he becomes the strongest boss in Korea and I have nothing else to say about this. “Sun Ken Rock” to me is a just a great, well rounded series with very little flaws. I think it’s great all the way through until the end which is slightly sucky and a let down but I think the characters are great, the plot is well written with great twists and most importantly, the fights are fun and are great to read on top of looking amazing. My only problems is with the ending which I won’t discuss because spoilers and the fact this didn’t get an anime adaption already but that one is personal. Here’s the 8/10 so we can carry on with this review and make sure to read this when you get the chance.

For our last manga of this review, we have “Accel World” which I loved so much but of course, there had to be one cameo which just ruins the whole thing for me but we will get to that. The plot follows Haruyuki, a fat little piece of meat who is constantly bullied and takes his frustrations out on a squash game until he becomes friends with this girl which introduces him to the program, Accel World which in they enchance their brain power and capabilities at the cost of having to play inside this brawler game and duking it out with other users. I think the concept is cool and unique and it looks amazing but this being from the same guy who brought us the infamous SAO, this is has an SAO cameo. It’s completely out of left field and this doesn’t belong in the SAO canon. If it was to promote SAO, they should of made it a spin off and not part of the official canon. “Accel World” is just in a way, different from SAO and is implied that “Accel World” is far more technologically advanced then the SAO canon so why do this? I’m just disappointed with this series so here’s the 5/10 because apart from the SAO crossover, there is still some other issues in terms of plot and characters so I guess read it if you want some more of that Kirito action and you still think SAO is better then “/Hack”.

Here’s the usual end of review banter which is nothing this time because I used all of it in the start so see you guys next week if I can finally decide what to do next and I really hope I won’t need to do this again for at least a month.

Drifters: Japan's World War 3

It feels so nice to finally talk about “Drifters”. Although it’s not my number one pick for best manga, it is definitely one of the top mangas and just like the manga, the anime is also top quality but I’m getting ahead of myself here. “Drifters” is a manga written and drawn by Kouta Hirano and if I haven’t drilled it in there from my last reviews, he wrote and drawn “Hellsing” and if you were paying attention during the “Hellsing” review, you would also know I called it “Drifter’s Prototype” and I hope by the end of this, it will be more painfully obvious then the main antagonist’s identity.

The plot is super simple. We follow Shimazu Toyohisa, a samurai (and also a real life person by the way) as he pretty much mortally wounded while trying to kill Ii Naomasa during the Battle of Sekigahara and after trying to chase after them on foot, he is suddenly teleported to this room with a guy (it's hasn’t been explained properly yet) and he pretty much throws poor Toyohisa through a door and into the fantasy setting of this manga. He is then saved by some elves and brought to two other people of his kind who are “The Demon King Of The Sixth Heaven, Oda Ufu Nobunaga” and the legendary trap “Nasu No Suketaka Yoichi” who then very shortly start their conquest of an country by saving the elves from the oppression of the Orte Empire which we later learn, was made into the powerful figure it was by the one and only Adolf Hitler so there’s that classic “Hellsing” charm and if you think that’s the only thing that’s so left field, well you are wrong. This manga might as well be called “Out Of Left Field” because there is so many things that come out of left field, it’s ridiculous but yet again, this makes that ridiculousness seem sensible and makes a very interesting and surprisingly grounded storyline and I think that’s one of the many factors why this is better than Hellsing.

If you are still wondering what’s a Drifter, well it’s simply someone who has gone MIA if what we got on it by hints since this is yet to be expanded on but it seems like they only pick historical figures as Drifters. I mean, that’s the only explanation I can think of the fact the man at the desk choose mainly people who are known for some form of war experience, from ancient tacticians such as Hannibal and Scorpio Africanus to WW2 Kamikaze Pilots but this being Hirano’s work, of course he took liberties. As many liberties as he wanted in fact because he takes these figures from history and then twist them to fit his comidical needs. Like, we already talked about how he made Hitler a good guy but then he also makes Hannibal a senile genius with a obsession with raspberries, the Count Saint Germi a wannabe drag queen with a hard on for elves and he even makes the french saint, Jean De Arc a pyromaniac who wants to burn everything. This isn’t “Hellsing” who jabs at religious and political bodies for fun, this is its own form of twisted humour where each liberty the mangaka takes on a historical figure, they become far more interesting to watch but also makes them into far more believable people (for the most part anyway) plus the fantasy setting is just great for these people to be thrown in as well. We see them interact and get used to things that they are unfamiliar with, either it being magic and technology that’s beyond their time period and the same applies to the inhabitants. The inhabitants of this world, even though they are pretty much glorified play pieces for the Drifters who are in turn, play pieces for the man at the desk, they are just like the Drifters when it comes to new technologies and we see how they adapt with the new technology like how Dwarves went from not knowing what a musket is to mass producing the things for war against The Black King. You can see there is a message about how technology is a dangerous thing somewhere in this manga but I don’t care because that would get in the way of my fun but that unfortunately doesn’t mean it has other ways.

To be perfectly fair, this isn’t perfect to say but yet again, nothing can be truly be perfect but this series does has it flaws, two to be precise. Let’s start with The Black King’s identity because if you didn’t get it soon as you saw him, you are blind. Like, Hirano doesn’t even try to disguise the fact who the king is truly is. I won’t spoil it here since I would just be being an ass then but there is so much hinting at his identity but Hirano is still going “It’s a secret” when it’s so bloody obvious. We get it, you like secrets but you kind of let it out of the bag very early on. You just can’t stuff it back into the bag and still play it like a secret after you went parading it around like this super amazing thing. It’s just so annoying to watch after a while and it went from bothering me to just annoying the hell out of me. My other problem is more of a self-worrying one because as the story is going, I feel like this series is going to end quickly. This series is only 70 chapters long at the point of writing but with “Hellsing” ending at 95 chapters, I feel like this story is going to be short. I mean, at the point we are at now, the Drifters are getting ready to finally fight the Black King head on in a final battle but unlike Hellsing, who ended with the no loose ends or threads to continue with, I feel like Drifters has the space to expand beyond this chapter. I mean, they made a somewhat temporary peace (if the manga is to be believed) with a Merchant nation the Orte empire was at war with and the Drifters has Orte in their hands now so those two loose ends are tied up but to be perfectly honest, I want there to be a way for the Black King to escape this battle and then hope that this Merchant Nation turns heel and now use the guns they acquired from this “peace treaty” to start the war anew. For me, I don’t want “Drifters” to end so early so I’m just hoping that I’m wrong and that the series will continue.

This is the part where I usually talk about how I personally feel about the topic but outside of talking about how amazing the drawings are (trust me, it is amazing) and how good the anime adaption is, I have nothing else to add. To me, Drifters isn’t something I shouldn’t be talking about so much since I feel like if I say anymore, I would ruin the fun for you guys so here’s the mandatory 8/10, obligatory summary of all the points and the compulsory comment about reading/watching it and where you can do so. See you next week for probably more manga reviews if I can’t find anything interesting in terms of games or movies to talk about because I’m both broke and in the dry season for anything noteworthy coming out unless people want to hear me rant about the MCU.