Romeo + Juliet: A Masterclass In Trash-edy

Remember how I loved to talk about my old reviews and how I would eventually get around to uploading them? Well good news, I’m retooling one of those reviews fill in for this week. Yeah, I have another contribution for “The Undiscussables” series in the works but I wanna take a break plus I am in bit of a movie groove as of recent so let’s keep this going while we can. This week, I am retooling an English assessment. Yeah, I only watched this trash for English once during year 10 and while this isn’t my first review at the time (that would be the now lost “Maze Runner” review I did in year 9 for media which got me a 100% for that assignment), I certainly didn’t have fun with this. Also, since this is from two years ago, back in a time where I wasn’t so good at writing (you could probably say there is no difference now) so expect some rather crappy jokes since this was back when I tried to replicate the “Zero Punctuation” approach to writing so yeah, I’m sorry for what about you are going to read.

In 1996, in a time when cartoons were apparently decent compared to today's standards and Tim Burton blessed the world with “Mars Attack”, a certain Baz Luhrmann came back after 4 years of doing nothing after releasing his first movie, “Strictly Ballroom” with “Romeo + Juliet” which is annoying to repeatedly type so I will be referring to it as R+J or alternatively, lazy. This movie was supposed to be an "adaptation" of the original Shakespeare tragedy with it being spruced up for the modern times but since it was the 90s, it had floral button up shirts, over the top drama and teenage hunks or more specifically, Leonardo DiCaprio. Yes, the 90s heartthrob takes the role of Romeo before his role in the literarily titanic role in “Titanic” with Claire Danes and if you are who she is, she was Kate Connor from the Terminator 3, proving how bad she is when it comes to acting. The movie was an massive success with it racking in $147.5 million on a $14.5 million budget and getting a score of 72% on Rotten Tomatoes but yet again, this is the 90s and they thought MMMbop was good so will this be a master class in tragedy or comedy?

The plot is pretty much the same thing as the original play so if you were forced to read “Animal Farm” instead of “Romeo and Juliet” and happen to live under a rock in the Arctic Circle, I'll do a brief summary on it. There's two main families (most likely mafia families considering the conditions we see them in) who are in a feud with each other. After a brief shootout between two of these families and a intervention from the police, we are finally introduced to Romeo and Juliet. Romeo and his friend makes plans to crash the party set up by Juliet's father. Romeo is dressed up as a knight and Juliet as an angel because of Baz was trying to be subtle but he missed out on the class about conveying ideas via visuals which explains why costumes is not a good way of doing this so we got a visual metaphor that's a bit on the nose. Juliet meets her suitor, Paris who is a naive rich guy who is depicted by Paul Rudd who is also Ant-Man so at least Marvel knows how to use its talent properly instead of having be in a total of 5 mins of this 2 hour film. Romeo then sees Juliet and Juliet sees Romeo and after a series of stops to stare each other and chasing each other until they each an elevator which I then forgot what happens. Knowing the typical romance cliches, they probably started snogging like there's no tomorrow but I could be wrong. They probably started playing Scrabble for all I know. After this encounter, they find out who they are too late and the star crossed lovers plot kicks in. I won't continue from here since I won't spoil what happens and also because I got incredible confused. What didn't help was the fact Baz was absolutely lazy and decide instead of hiring script writers, he just copied a script of the play and added new stage directions.

All the dialogue is “Ye Olde English” so unless you either have a PhD in Language Arts or was born in the 17th Century, you are going to have fun trying to understand what's going on. You may call it respecting the original work but I call it looking pretentious. Like, I get it you want it to be a homage of sorts but this is Romeo And Juliet, a classic of the years. It already has like ten thousand “homages” so what is the excuse for just copy pasting the whole original play. It’s just pure laziness and the same can be said by the actors because it just seems like they are reeling it in. The decent job done here in terms of acting is our main man Leo since he actually emotes, even if he does it by the medium of yelling very loudly at the camera. The others seem a bit like robots. They don't seem good at showing emotions. There's a point in the movie when Juliet is threatening to kill herself and it has no drama because she just looks likes she just got out of the uncanny valley. For me, these actors outside of Leo have no talent and just serves to just make the already crap and confusing dialogue even more crap and confusing.

The only thing I'm prepared to praise is stage design. Baz may of missed the class of subtlety but he was there when they covered on how to make visual representation look just perfect. One set that stands out to be me is Juliet's room at night. It's all being light up by candles which is spread out generously with its soft lighting making the scene with the cherry on top being the Angel statues since it perfectly brings across the message of how Juliet is a just a innocent angel. This is the only thing it does good and I'm ready to praise it as an example of why we shouldn't use CGI but I digress. I also think all the scenes are brilliantly well shot, proving that he is a much better director than screenwriter. For me, the visuals alone is worth putting up with the crap but I get it if it doesn’t appeal to you or the visuals don’t do the movie enough justice but I think they are brilliant and are the one of the two only redeeming qualities of this movie.

In the end, Baz has brought us a semi decent movie. It's a 3/10 for me since its only saving graces was our man, Leo and the visuals as both really bring the movie together for me. This film claims to be a faithful adaptation and I guess it is since both are out of date, overused and is only loved by people who wear rose tinted glasses. The only difference is that English professors like the original play and English teachers like the movie and I honestly don't know where I was going with that joke. Next week might be the undiscussables review if I can’t get into theatres to watch Mamamia 2 since that just came out in cinemas and I really want to watch it. As per usual, there are links in the sidebar to my YouTube channel where you can watch my horribly edited YGO montages and my steam profile if you want to stalk me on Steam.

Batman Ninja: What Happens When Batman Goes Full Weeb

Well isn’t this weird? I am actually doing a movie review within two weeks of the last one but I am also technically reviewing an anime for once. I don’t know where this movie falls but I do have some things to say about this. I was about to watch Black Panther while I was checking if Infinity Wars made it on DVD yet but then I saw this so I decided to be a very naughty boy and watch it online. Don’t worry, on premise anyway I will buy this on DVD to show my support anyway. With that said, this going to be a very regrettable purchase for me because I don’t like this much and warning, you will see the more compulsive side of my picky taste when it comes to anime. While I’m very easy to win over, I can be also very easy to lose if you do something wrong and from that perspective, you will see lot of my reasoning behind my criticisms. You can also expect an fair review with no bias because I wasn’t expecting anything from this. I remember stumbling across a trailer for this a year earlier and thinking “Man, that’s looks like an interesting concept” but just not really into it. Needless rants aside, let’s dive into that plot summary so spoiler warning as usual.

The plot is simple. Gorilla Grood makes a time travel thingy called the “Quake Engine” which teleports a bunch of villains and members of the bat family to feudal Japan which Batman being the last one to arrive two years later because plot convenience. After trying two failed full on assaults on the newly crowned “Sixth Heavenly King Lord Joker”, who foreshadows mecha castles and destroying his tech during them. Batman being uncharacteristically stupid, actually teams up with Grood, who lets them take out “Lord Joker” before predictably betraying him. After Batman realises that he has to fight by this time period’s rules, he becomes a ninja lord known as “Batman Sengoku” with a ninja clan who happens to be planning for Batman’s arrival because prophecy cliche and while it’s cool and all, it’s a shame that his opponents didn’t follow by the same rules because they have all turned their castles into mechs and decided to have a massive mech fight where Grood just made them become his slaves and then Joker pulls a deus ex out of his arse, takes control of the castles and does a super cheesy “Power Ranger” megazoid transformation. Following this, Batman forms a giant Batman made of bats and armoured monkeys to fight the mech and then Joker and Batman has a sword fight. After all this mess happens, Batman decides he is done messing around in Japan, they just time travel back where it ends abruptly. Yeah, I don’t really care about spoiling this at all because the plot is on the same level of a direct to video cash grab.

This plot could of been much better if it a writer that didn’t love “because plot” moments and wasn’t schizophrenic about what genre it wanted to be. I will be getting into those “because plot” moments later because I want to talk about the tone or rather, the lack of it. If this was just sticking to more of a period piece feel with Batman characters, this would of been a serviceable movie but the fact it can’t find its tone since it wants to go balls to wall on what mainstream westerners think what anime is mainly is, it becomes confusing and plot elements have no rhythm or reason to why they happen. They just happen because plot needs it to happen and that’s poor writing. What also bothered me was the lack of establishment presented to us in what canon and time period of the Batman mythos we are in. I am not the biggest comic book person (ironic, I know) but I know an awful lot about them and I was still slightly confused. We are up to our fourth Robin and Catwoman is trusted enough to know Batman’s true identity as well but that establishes nothing. You can say it doesn’t matter but if we don’t address them, there is plot holes like Catwoman knowing Batman’s real identity. I will drive that point home when I complain about our Batman depiction but let’s talk about the animation because I hate it.

This is where you going to see my more “otaku” side leak out but I think we already saw this in my numerous manga reviews so let’s get on with it. Cast your mind back to the “Berserk” review where I complained about how the CGI for the anime was ugly because guess what, Batman Ninja did it as well and it still ugly. To its credit, it still tries to have a very anime drawn look and there is a brief moments of 2D animations but the 2D looks like crap and Berserk also tried to do drawn look and still looks like compacted trash so it’s pointless. I also don’t like the animation quality, it just seemed stiff at times for me and you really see it when they do facial close ups. It’s just the same animation problems I had with the Berserk anime except this is WB this time so you would think they had the cash to splash in this but I guess the DCCU is burning a hole in that fat wallet. What also isn’t helping is the character designs are horrible to look at. I get it they wanted to roll with the look of the period it’s set in but Joker has a stupid looking mustache, the current Robin has gone partially bald and Catwoman’s hair colour keeps switching between dark brown and light brown. While some of these are forgivable (except Joker’s mustache) but they ruined Red Hood by giving him a stupid looking mask which is pretty much a very tall basket painted red and Batman in his general armour looks like crap. It’s just really sloppy character design in my opinion and talking about my opinion, the voice acting is like listening to randoms off the street to do really bad impressions of the characters. The trailer I saw first was subbed and although I am more of a dubbed over subbed person, I really wish they stuck with the subbed version because omg, the dub is horrible. Everyone sounds uninterested and the Joker is constantly ear grating with his shrill voice. I know his voice is supposed to be annoying but it’s supposed to be scary but this dub voice is just horrible because it doesn’t scare me, it just makes my ears hurt. I just hate everything about this part of the film because I am an otaku (or weeb if you want to be derogatory) and they didn’t really do anything with the more anime like approach. I wouldn’t be even remotely interested in this if they went with their standard comic book cartoon look but they advertised this like it was a anime adaption of the Batman franchise so I feel like as both a otaku and very casual comic fan, I had to see this and judge it so with that said, let’s talk about I think the way they have depicted Batman is absolutely wrong.

If you were asked what would be Batman’s most defining personality trait, what would you respond with? For me, outside of pointing out his grouchy attitude and the whole “dead parents” thing, I would say it’s intelligence and how he has a plan for every single possible outcome because he is the world’s greatest detective if we were to believe his comic book title. I bring this up because they do not follow this at all in the movie. He is constantly making rather rash and stupid decisions like teaming up with Grood or trying to assault Joker’s fortress twice by himself and this would be slightly excusable if he was still that young person with no experience but he isn’t. Remember, he is up to his fourth robin in this film so he must be in his late 40s - early 50s by now so he isn’t dumb and naive. He has the experience so what is the excuse for him to act like an idiot? Simple, the plot demanded it and that’s the only reason why he acts like an idiot. Why does Batman show up two years later after everyone else dropped in? Why is there a ninja clan that has been waiting for this prophecy to be fulfilled and Batman happens to fit that criteria? Why does Batman constantly make horribly stupid mistakes when he is proven to be far more intelligent? It’s because the plot needs to happen and that’s why I hate the writers. The writers of this film doesn’t know how Batman acts or what makes an fun and interesting film. They have written something that’s an insult to both anime, Batman and maybe even direct to home DVDs and direct to home DVDs are horrible so it’s appalling bad.

Like I said before, I had no expectations for this going in and I ended up being disappointed anyway. It’s just a really bad display of writing and animation. The fact this exists is a stain on this earth in my opinion. I think the only way this can be enjoyed is if are either 10 years old or you got your friends around and you had a drinking party while you watch this because it’s that bad. If I was to praise anything in this, it would be how balls to the wall crazy the second half is. Here’s 2/10 for effort but effort isn’t enough, WB when you are incompetent. Direct to home DVDs used to be the one thing you had over Marvel when they started their cinematic universe and now you are just screwing it all up. I am more then disappointed to be perfectly honest. So anyway, next week might just be another movie review because I want a bit of a break from writing these next week so I am going to be updating a review for everyone which features the 90s heartthrob before he got his Oscar. Remember, if you want to support me in other ways (outside of sharing these reviews with others), you can check out my steam profile if you want to give me free stuff to review or my YouTube channel where I upload weekly montages of me being an idiot while playing YuGiOh.

Lollipop Chainsaw: Suda51, A More Colourful Kojima

I should of done this a lot earlier but hey, there is nothing you can do when your friend is borrowing the game for a indefinite time plus I was saving this bullet in the chamber for a week where I had nothing to do. Nevertheless, we are doing another review where I go on about my favourite thing and this week, it’s my favourite game of all time but that should be taken with a grain of salt. I actually spent my weekend thinking, trying to figure out if this game is my favourite game or not and while I did eventually hit that conclusion that it is my favourite game, I am still unsure about it. Hopefully by the end of this, I will have reached a conclusion but that’s enough with the boring stuff. Let’s cut into this glorious pile of rainbow coloured guts.

“Lollipop Chainsaw” follows Juliet Starling, typical American teenager with a cute boyfriend and also a cheerleader. Oh yeah, she is also born into a zombie hunting family. The plot starts on her birthday and zombies have shown up so after killing a bunch of them, she goes to meet up with her boyfriend who gets bitten while trying to save her. After decapitating him and keeping him alive as just a head, Juliet kills more zombies in her school and finds out that this depressing emo (or is it goth?) kid called Swan has summoned the zombies with their undead lords because he hates this world (like probably every single emo or goth kid). From there, you must kill all the zombie lords with your rainbow, spark spewing chainsaw to save the city while you try to celebrate your birthday. Does it sound over the top because if it does, then you just understood the whole concept of the game. This game wants to be balls to the wall crazy and considering this was a collaboration between Suda51, who probably snorts a kilogram of cocaine for breakfast every morning, and James Gunn who probably does the same going by his filmography, they achieved it. This is a very basic plot but just like last week, it’s ok because it’s a parody. Ok, Lollipop Chainsaw is a little less parody and little more crazy but they are both fun takes on popular trend at the time with “Mars Attacks” making fun of 90s obsession with aliens and “Lollipop Chainsaw” making fun of the more serious depictions of Zombies during the early 2010s. Nevertheless, the plot is just a way to chain a bunch of the fun little gimmicks of each level in this case while still providing enough time and moments for us to connect with each character so overall, great writing and the same applies to the gameplay.

This is a very basic hack and slash game, more along the lines of the “Dynasty Warriors” line of gameplay but instead of wiping out just endless amounts of warriors, you are gutting hordes of the undead and with Juliet being a cheerleader, she brings a lot of flair to her style of slaying. You can stun zombies with your poms to make it easier to decapite them or you could just go all in and stab and slash them with your chainsaw and of course, you can get combos to make your job easier. To get combos, you need buy them from the shop with coins you find by killing zombies and thanks to Sparkle Hunt, something that toggle if you kill three or more zombies with one attack, it will be raining money instead of guts. The shop is also where you can buy supplies which either boost your stats or unlock new content like costumes. She does have an awful lot of costumes but if you are me, you will just unlock the Haruna costume (from the anime “Is This A Zombie?”) and roleplay as a magical garment girl. I do love this game just because the controls feels fluent which is the mark of a good hack and slash. While it’s not as tight as the DMC controls (the remake mind you), performing the combos as Juliet is very easy to do once you remember them and I can tell you now, there is nothing more than satisfying then performing Chainsaw Paradise on a large crowd of zombies although it does leave me wondering how she is spinning that chainsaw while she is doing a one handed handstand. You also get upgrades for your chainsaw later down the line which include a dash which makes speedrunning later levels easier and a cannon because apparently a chainsaw isn’t enough to kill them but these don’t even stand a chance against your best weapon: your boyfriend’s head. By using a Nick ticket, you spin a roulette wheel and get to see what you will use to stun or even kill the zombies. My personal favourite is the one where you play football with Nick because it’s not only a good way to stun a bunch of zombies for a easy sparkle hunt but the fact you are kicking the living head of your boyfriend into a bunch of zombies is just amusing to think about. The only problem I have with the gameplay (the minor one for now) is how clunky it can be at times when you get crowded. Juliet isn’t well made for massive crowds unless she taps into her tickets or her special mode which makes all her attacks into a one hit kill. The game seems like it wants to be DMC but also Dynasty Warriors at the same time so it wants tight single targeting combat and crowd killing combat and it doesn’t mesh. It’s just something that really stands out in later levels, even with the combos but enough of the gameplay, let’s talk visuals.

Visually, I think it’s suits the style of the game. The game wants to be quirky and the design they took to represent is brilliant. It’s colourful with that modern 50s styles and the fact they replaced all the gore with just rainbows and sparkles just adds to it. The models are cell shaded though and it does kind of date the look of the game and the level design can be a little too dull at times. I think the only time the game stands out in terms of setting is during the Arcade level because it actually tries to be colourful and not dark and grim. This is a game where you are decapitating as a quirky cheerleader with rainbow chainsaw and the victims are spewing rainbows and sparkles from their opened wounds. It doesn’t mesh well if you know what I mean. That’s all the compliments I have for them now so let’s make like a zombie and bite into some more meaty complaints.

I’m going to start with the massive difficulty curve. Maybe this is just me as a player since I never have been good with hack and slash games (as DMC and Bayonetta has taught me) but when you are playing the game on easy at the start of the game and it feels like you are playing hard mode, you have done something wrong. When you are starting off, you don’t have access to many crowd control combos and considering the enemies are zombies who are known for being found in large hordes, it doesn’t make for fun times. You have to balance trying to kill one zombie while dodging incoming attacks and while you can argue this is to be expected from a hack and slash, it still doesn’t take away from the fact you don’t access to any solid mass damage abilities until near the end of the game. And while I’m talking about typical hack and slash issues, boss fights. I hate them in this game because while they are great as characters, I find them dull to fight. This is mainly because they aren’t that spectacular to take down with the sole exception being the arcade level which is easily also the best level in the game. On top of being mainly forgettable, they are boring and sometimes downright confusing on how to beat them. A great example of this the first zombie lord, Zed the punk rock zombie because you pretty much need to dodge his flying Mohawk attacks while destroying his amps so you can attack him. He is not only annoying to fight but it does get confusing when he summons a stack of them and you have to take down the amps in a certain order so he can stop dropping more in. I just find him annoying and considering it’s only second level on top of being the longest one, he is just a horrible first boss.

I would also complain about the incredibly short gameplay time of 6-8 hours but I won’t because it’s perfect. It knows it would be shit if it tried to extend the runtime to something more favourable and that’s what I like about this game overall. It knows what it wants to be and it does it in almost perfect way. Everything else that I didn’t criticise about this game is perfect because Suda51 and James Gunn knew what it wanted to do with the original concept. It wants to be fun and crazy and it does it with such great style. I am also tempted to give this a perfect ten like I was with Berserk and Mars Attack but I have to acknowledge the flaws so 9/10. I really do recommend going out of your way to track down a copy of this game since it’s only been on for last console generations and I promise you, it’s worth tracking down and paying that little more if you need to. Next week might just be more manga reviews because I am going back to school to finish off my final term so the reviews maybe be a little spread thinner than usual. At least take solitude in the fact that I do own another Suda51 game but unfortunately it’s “Shadows Of The Damned” so prepared for a shitshow when I finally get around to it. If you want to see my other content or just support me in general, link to my YouTube channel in the side bar where I post YuGiOh videos of me being an idiot and also a link to my steam profile if you want to gift me any games to review.

Mars Attack: Why I Love B-List (and Maybe Also Cheese)

It’s a been a while since I have done a movie review and I thought why not do my favourite movie of all time. Today, I want to talk about my favourite Tim Burton movie and what I will always consider a B-List classic, Mars Attack. I remember watching this when I was eight with my gran on our usual movie Monday and while it did scare me, it did influence me to start looking into films which lead me to become a filmmaker in high school. While I no longer have the passion to direct or star in films, It did lead me to start writing which snowballed into this. So in other words, you have a Tim Burton movie to thank for these reviews. I do still adore this movie though because the things you can do with a B-List type of movie is amazing and I adore directors who still try to keep this genre alive. I live for cheesy movies with questionable production values because you can see the blood, sweat and tears that directors shed when they try to work their best with small budgets. While Mars Attack doesn’t have the same budget as a B-List movie, Tim Burton still pays homage to that in the movie but I don’t want to keep masturbating forever so plot synopsis.

I don’t know why I am going to even try to crunch this plot into something explainable because it’s standard. Martians come to Earth, the POTUS tries to establish peace but after shooting a dove, the aliens start a full scale invasion and we follow different groups of people trying to survive and eventually beat the aliens by the end of the movie. It’s the bare bone essentials for any alien invasion plot but I don’t mind because going into this, you know this going to be a cheesy parody of a homage to the genre. Every character in this movie is a stereotype, from the dumb rednecks to the over confident president type, they each contribute fun moments to the movie. Like when the stereotypical washed out boxer type decides to sacrifice himself so these others can escape but he does it by challenging them to a fistfight so we have Jim Brown fist-fighting a bunch of CGI aliens and winning. It mocks that “Independence Day” sense of justice because the whole “Yeah, America” thing is just stupid and the movie knows it and it runs with it. It makes fun of all the types of feelings you are supposed to feel from these sort of movies and it’s fun. I mean, the aliens are eventually beaten by the rednecks playing “Indian Love Call” in a very spectacular and hilarious fashion and it treats it with a straight face. They just beat the aliens by playing a man yodelling and they doing it with a straight face. This is the standard for any B-List movie because the poor writing and overacting is what I would expect from a low budget film and it’s hilarious. Yes, I do have my complaints but I will save that for later because I want to get onto the stars of the show.

If you want me to talk about the actors, I am not going to talk about them just yet because I want to talk about the Martians because despite having no proper voice acting and just being made of CGI, they carry this whole film when the actors can’t. While each human character have their moments, the aliens are a lot more funny because they just great for slapstick and other stupid moments. What about the fact that under their suits, they are just wearing red underpants with white swirls on it and they walk around like this on their ship. What about during their first landing, they say they come in peace but after shooting a dove, they pretty much go “well screw it” and start shooting all the humans who they disintegrated until they are just skeletons. What about the fact they go running around saying “Don't run away. We are your friends” as they trying to kill them or what about they look like green shrooms and all they say is “Ack”. I can list all their best moments but that would be ruining the movie for you. I do think Tim managed to capture that same appeal that most B-List monsters have with the martians by not only making them incredibly cheap and stupid looking but also making them terrifying and they really do compliment the cheesy acting of the human actors. All the actors bring their Grade A cheese when they are on screen and it just complements the saucy base which is the martians. They know they are playing 2D flat stereotypes and they run with it. I already talked about how big man Jimmy boxed a bunch of martians in a fistfight earlier and how he brings home the cheddar with it but then we have cases like when we have Danny Devito trying to bargain with a couple of the aliens and then instantly getting shot. Another wonderful example is when the POTUS gives one final peace speech to their Martian leader when confronted with his death. Jack Nicholson does it with such confidence and cheesiness, it sounds like a real political speech that would come out of a certain cheesy whatsit. This to me is a wet dream in film form and I enjoy all of it so let’s move onto what else just adds to the charm of the movie.

Technically speaking, it’s shit which is good. For me, a good looking B-List movie is a shit looking one and this movie isn’t any different. It might of used top-end technology to create the aliens and everything else that they had to CGI but these days, it looks incredibly dated which just adds to the charm. Mars Attack is like a good aged cheese and it’s that it’s gets better with age. Apart from that, it’s well shot and edited and while I do kind of hate the frantic jumping between characters, it’s incredibly well paced for an alien invasion movie and that’s all I can say about this. As much as I love this movie, I have not much else to say about it. I have zero criticism for it and I do that’s a flaw with any B-List movie. With a normal movie, you can easily go “well this is bad because of this” but with a B-List movie, you can look at the flaws and go “Well that’s just apart of the film’s charm” and I guess that’s why I can’t say much about it. You see, writing a review for something you hate is easy because you can easily talk about why you hate those aspects but when you cover a really good movie, you can only praise what’s good and there isn’t much meat to bite into. I am having that dilemma right now because if you didn’t get it already, I love this movie including its horrendous flaws which is why this is a little shorter than I wanted it to be.

If I was being a completely unbiased critic, I would say this is an easy 5/10 film and that you shouldn’t watch it but I am not because I am not Metacritic. It’s said that you should only follow critics that share similar views or opinions with you because that way, you can definitely know what you would love and what you would hate and this logic is why I hate sites like Rotten Tomatoes because they try to generalise it for the largest audience possible so I am going to be giving my personal opinion about things as per usual. With that said, I’m giving Mars Attack 10/10 which I know I shouldn’t be throwing around so liberally but screw it. I am a B-List movie fantic and this is a just a glorious case of what the genre can achieve. If you also like B-List movies, watch this immediately. There will be nothing else that will compete with this in our entire existence on this planet. Also next week might be Naruto, I don’t know anymore. I am just very tired while writing this review so remember guys to check out my YouTube channel in the side bar and also my steam profile if you want to help me out and donate some games so I can keep reviewing games for the blog.

E3 2018 Special: The Hypeculture Convention

Needless hypeculture. I hate it but it’s necessary because without hype, you don’t have anything to look forward to in life plus I would be a hypocrite if I did say I hate it which I did which makes me a hypocrite. Either way, Why am I bring this up? Because it’s been two-three weeks since E3 2018 has dropped which is the definition of needless hypeculture in the gaming sphere and I wouldn’t be a self proclaimed game journalist/reviewer if I didn’t cover it. I would just be a teenager with a lot of time on his hand but never mind that. E3 has came, got us all hyped up before it ran off to hide for another year in its usual fashion as it either leaves us disappointed or flying high as a kite. I am going to be talking about the noteworthy stuff from each conference, for better or worse, and give my personal thoughts on it. I did say I was going to do a game review but I was halfway through it before I realised how boring it was so I’m doing the E3 Special this week plus it’s technically about games so take it for what it is worth. With that done, let’s talk about Satan-I mean EA.

E3 used to just be a thing to show off new products to investors and stockholders and going into E3, I never remember this fact but EA never fails to remind me of this fact. Their press conferences are always flat with a lot of cringe worthy moments (and saying cringe makes me cringe) and because of it, I would say this easily the most uninteresting one to talk about it which is funny because the same applies to the games. There is literally nothing noteworthy to praise about the games they showed off so let’s trash them. Anthem looks like EA’s attempt to take on Destiny because they want to start another dick measuring contest with another publisher. I mean, their title franchise of Battlefield has revealed in the first eight minutes of E3 that it’s going BATTLE ROYALE because they want to both fight Activision and Epic Games for the Battle Royale Crown so EA is going to waste money trying to fight them. I mean, their licensed sports games still sell like hot cakes for no reason so they got the money to burn because they are only programmed to make all the money these days. The only glimmer of hope from the mess was the fact that Anthem is being made by Bioware who are known for their great story telling skills but this is an MMO game and it’s being published by EA so we know what’s getting shoved in. While on the topic of microtransactions, they planning to release a new Command and Conquer game. Yeah, a new Command and Conquer game FOR MOBILE. To say I am disappointed in EA is an overstatement. I mean, it’s EA. You can’t enter an event where EA is involved without feeling automatically disappointed. Apart from that, nothing else that was shown is worth talking about so let’s move onto Microsoft who actually got some good shit.

I’m going to start with the elephant in the room. Cyberpunk 77 looks amazing and there is no doubting it. It’s just what I would expect from CD Projekt Red because they make no compromises when they make games. They don’t shove in needless gimmicks or microtransactions. That want to give you a solid experience from the get go and that’s why I say you should buy that game the second it comes out. CD Projekt Red is one of those studios that always constantly hit every single expectation people make for them. The trailer they showed for it was such a show stealer and that was a trend for Microsoft this year because it seems like they had brought out the dump trucks of money to have all the show stealers. They had Just Cause 4 which is just what I would expect from the Just Cause series and that’s stupid, explosive fun and if you want to see more of that game, go to the OfficialNerdcubed channel because he actually has alpha footage of the game on his channel so just go watch that video if you want more of that. The other one I’m going to quickly touch base on because I am going to gush about it in the next paragraph is Fallout 76. That is just great looking but let’s talk about the shit parts of the conference so Jump Force. I am going to carefully dissect my reasons why I think Jump Force is going to be very disappointing. Let’s start with the style of the game because oh my god, it’s looks like shit. This is an anime game so why are they using realistic 3D models? Like, this is coming from Bandi Namco who makes and publishes the “Naruto Ninja Storm” and “One Piece Pirate Warriors” Games so they know how to do this properly. On top of that, Dragon Ball Z Fighters come out earlier this year and it looks much better then this so this just looks like crap compared to them. What’s not helping is the fact that they are smooshing in characters from all the Jump series so they have to try to mesh very different styles of shounen together to make this but don’t worry, Light from “Death Note” is the game if the trailer is to be believed so they officially don’t give a crap. They are just throwing all the marketable stuff into one game and hopes it sells and I kinda of brought the pitch and I’m somewhat hyped but I know I will hate most of it. Before ending this, I wanna quickly talk about the new FromSoftware game that looks like Japanese Dark Souls and it looks far more better then Dark Souls and that’s it and also Devil May Cry 5 is a thing alongside with Crackdown 3. I haven’t played any of the Crackdown games but I have played the remake of DMC so I will cover my thoughts on Devil May Cry at a later date. That’s all so unless you wanna talk Gears Of War 6 and Halo Infinte, I’m just going to move onto Bethesda.

Bethesda is still new to the press conference thing but they sure have mastered how to get a crowd hyped for their games which is a shame they pulled a Sonic Anniversary right at the start. They gave Rage 2 both a really weird teaser trailer before the conference started on the stream and then they got this guy to sing this song about dying which was really weird. To be perfectly honest, most of this year’s conference was very bad. They announced Doom’s sequel and then told us to wait until Quakecon find out more on it and then they announced Wolfenstien Young Blood which is a coop experience and ended with that. They released more content for Prey and also did some stuff for that Elder Scrolls CG app. Rage 2 looked promising but I am disappointed that it’s trying to be more “eccentric” because the original Rage was a lot dark and dramatic but then Rage 2 comes along and destroying all of that for stupid fun. I think a stupid fun game should be the basis of a game not be built on the remains of another game and although is some cases where this doesn’t apply (Look at the Saints Row series) but this isn’t one of them. So the first half of the conference was horribly executed so Bethesda had to pull out their trump card again of Todd Howard. This man might as well be the company logo or at least the PR manager because he is pretty much the face of Bethesda now and being the gaming incarnation of Jesus, he saved the whole thing with the chained sequence of reveals of Fallout 76, Starfield, Elder Scrolls phone game (which looks amazing for a phone game) and Elder Scrolls 6. Just for that alone, I am willing to give Bethesda “Best Conference Of E3” award as well as “Best Comeback Of E3” but we haven’t gotten to Nintendo yet. Never the less, Fallout 76, despite being a multiplayer game, is still going to have that single player option for all those who want their solo experience but they are also adding co-op which means you can now trek the wastelands with an actual human being now. And also you can launch nukes at people for no reason but the fact that nukes are fun, as long as we ignore the fact they caused the Great War to begin with. Bethesda in the end wasn’t too bad and produced most of the most hyped games from E3 and talking about hyped games, Square Enix.

Square Enix pretty much brought nothing new to the table. We got more details on Just Cause 4 which has natural disaster elements now which looks amazing and does add more flair to a game which is full of it. We are getting a new Dragon Quest game if anyone cares about Dragon Quest. The Switch is getting a rather unique looking RPG who’s name I forgot but still looks very interesting due to the very 2D art style. We are getting a new Platinum Games game called Babylon’s Fall and as a fan of their games, I was so hyped because a Platinum Games game is a rare and beautiful thing for anyone who likes hack and slashes like me. We got more on Kingdom Hearts for all you Disney fans and Final Fantasy XIV is getting a crossover with Monster Hunter of all things. We also got to see more footage for their new game based in their new “Life Is Strange” universe which looks very childish and Lara has finally gone full Jason in her latest trailer featuring really bad AI. I like how Square Enix has turned a game about raiding tombs to killing people, all ala Assassins Creed style. There isn’t much to say here since the conference was only thirty minutes long and only featured teasers stuff, in fact, it wasn’t even a conference. They did the Nintendo Direct thing and just streamed a video of their reveals which is good because when they did the live thing, it was very boring and dull. The only other thing I want to bring up is The Quiet Man which sounds interesting on paper since it’s about a deaf hero but I think it’s going to be executed horribly. Overall, Square Enix brought nothing much of interest outside of Just Cause 4, Kingdom Hearts 3 and Babylon’s Fall and nothing of value was gained so let’s talk Nintendo.

Nintendo didn’t have much going for it except for a new SMASH ANNOUNCEMENT. I’m not a massive Nintendo fan but when I was watching the Nintendo Direct live, I was fanboying in a discord chat with a bunch of other equally hyped Nintendo fans because Smash just has something about it which makes it an amazing party game and because of it, everyone who ever played a smash game just joins the massive hype machine when a new Smash game is announced. I was especially hyped when they announced that all the previous Smash characters will be in this game which means the Pichu agenda is back in full force and the fact that they ended the whole thing with the announcement of fan demanded Ridley is just beautiful. I mean, there is other stuff to talk about like a new Animal Crossing game but that doesn’t matter because Smash. There was also a really cool looking mecha game for the Switch but I don’t care because of Smash. I feel like I can deflected any complaint about me not talking about anything else because Smash. In fact, I am tempted to just end it there because Smash but we got two more conferences so let’s move on to Sony. Oh god, Sony.

I don’t want to talk about Sony because their conference was on the same level of embarrassing disappointment as EA’s but this time, it isn’t because they were trying to push money and investors before consumers. It was because it was just so cringe worthy. Like, for some stupid reason (probably because marketing), they had musicians come on the stage and play music for no well explained reason. I think it’s to set the mood for each game they plan to show off beforehand but it just felt so unnecessary. And talking with needless crap, Last Of Us Two. You can fight me over this opinion but I think the game doesn’t need a sequel and Naughty Dog should either go back to Crash Bandicoot or just start another new IP. I also like how the trailer opened up with showing Ellie being a lesbian which is only a big surprise to those who aren’t familiar with the Last Of Us universe so pretty much, it’s only there for bonus points. Apart from that, it looks like that usual standard third person stealth them up with a side of that post apocalypse lacks of ethics so nothing has changed with the game. There was some Destiny 2 promo stuff for their new expansions for those who care and after another awkward musical segway via a white man trying to play traditional Asian music via flute, they revealed what I think was a pretty good looking game going by the name of “Ghost Of Tsushima”. For me, it looks like a case of “Looks amazing, plays like crap” and I am hoping that I am wrong about that. This game is the most promising thing coming out Sony’s conference so I have high hopes for it. There was also “Control” which also looks amazing but it’s a pre rendered so I am not buying into it plus it looks like a Sci Fi shooter game which means it’s every single shooter game these days. They revealed Resident Evil 2 Remastered for all those who like Resident Evil before it spiraled into a trash chute after 4 and we learnt more about Death Stranding NOT. It’s still super vague and the trailer left us even more confused than before which seems to be the standard for this game now which is why I am going stop going on about it now. They revealed more Kingdom Hearts 3 stuff for the third time in E3 because hype but at least this time, they didn’t recycle the same footage and added some new stuff to it. Nioh’s sequel was announced and I think that’s a good thing. I don’t know, I never played the first one but to end on a high note, we finally saw some new stuff about that new Spider-Man game. It looks promising but that’s it. That’s all I want to say about the other disappointment of E3 so let’s finish this off with Ubisoft.

As per usual, Ubisoft opened with their stupid dance number to promote “Just Dance” because people still buy it for Ubisoft to make a big fuss about it. They did at least follow up with that mess with more Beyond Good And Evil 2 which is nice of them but it’s seems like they baiting all the fans with the young Jade thing and this being prequel, they just pretty much released the ending to the game for all those with half a brain cell. They then talked about Rainbow Six Siege content which if I recall is the only game Ubisoft isn’t releasing every year with new editions. I do want to eventually get into the game but they did nothing to encourage to buy it any time soon. There was an embarrassing intro for Trails Rising and then we got more crap thrown at us about The Diversion 2. They announced DLC for that weird X-Com Mario game they made but then they revealed their pirate ship battling game called “Skulls And Bones” because ship battles is the new hot and fresh thing now, alongside with Battle Royales. If I don’t sound enthusiastic, that’s because, spoilers, Ubisoft brought nothing I found interesting. I mean, they announced a collab with a film company to make a creepy horror game with maybe FMV because everyone totally loves FMVs. I just going to end this paragraph here before I devolve into depressing rants because oh, For Honor is getting new content because apparently people are still playing it. You know what, screw it. I’m just going to go now.

And that’s E3 in a nutshell. I didn’t bring up two other conferences but the PC Gaming Show can be summed up as “Ten minutes of games, three hours of masturbating over PC parts”. As for the other one, it was just Devolver Digital doing what Devolver Digital does at these E3 events and that’s making fun of the latest trends. If you ever need a good pick me up after the usual bog standard corporate crap, just watch the Devolver Digital conferences because they are always worth a good laugh. Next week will be a movie review and no, it’s not Black Panther because screw Marvel at this point. I want to do a movie that I like and I will know it won’t end with me, ranting my ass off for a whole paragraph. Remember to check out my video content via the link in the sidebar and maybe also check out my steam profile if you feel like donating me any games.

The Undiscussibles: Slice Of Life and Other Stuff

I really didn’t want to to go back to doing this so soon but circumstances lead me to this. I was working on a Need For Speed review but halfway through it, I got bored and when I get bored of writing on a review, I know it’s going to be bad. You are going to have to wait another week before I do my E3 rundown so just put up with this for now. I do also have Naruto lined up but I’ll also try to pad in some other stuff in between but today, I want to gush over some more smaller titles. It seems like I only talk about more well known titles when I do talk about mangas so I’m going to recommend some more newer titles that has flown under the radar. I won’t be scoring anything in this series for now on since I will only feature ones I would recommend so let’s just get this over with.

The first one I want to talk about is “Oijichan Shinanai” where we follow a retired hero and his angel companion and the only thing I have to say is that the MC is my role model now. This man may look old but this guy is such a smooth talker, he actually cheated death because of it. His angel companion was supposed to take him to heaven but he then seduces the angel and effectively stopping her from taking him to heaven. On top of that, he also seduced a succubus because he is that good. This man is probably 50-60 years old and he was able to seduce both an angel and succubus because he is that good. Unfortunately that’s all I can say about this title because it’s only 8 chapters long at time of writing. I still think the MC is worth reading it alone but everything else about feels really standard. It is a fantasy setting but they are yet to expand on that concept and the supporting characters are rather cut out cliches. In other words, it’s a rather nice little manga with a lot of potential so I would recommend it if you don’t mind waiting for new chapter releases.

The next one is “The Story Of An Onee-san Who Wants To Keep An Highschool Boy” and I think the title says it all. It’s just a story that follows an onee-san (The term used to describe young women who are older then you or just to call someone your big sister) who ends up keeping a teenage boy after his parents sold him because they are idiots. No, it’s not that dark but I found it rather funny to see twenty something women just losing her mind at the fact she gets to keep this boy in her house. For me, most of the charm of the manga comes from the onee-san since she acts more like a family friendly yandere. You know, instead of trying to murder for your love and attention, she is just acting like a hyperactive schoolgirl who is excited she gets to hang around her crush. I find it rather cute and I am sucker for romcoms so this just hits the spot for me. I would recommend it if you are into more cutesy things like this.

If you haven’t noticed the trend yet, I mainly been covering romance based ones and I plan to keep on theme with “Tonikaku Kawaii” or its possible English title of “Fly Me To The Moon”. We follow Yuzaki Nasa as he asks a girl out after getting hit by a car chasing her but she only agrees if they get married which he accepts. Forward a few years, his supposed wife finally shows up and they begin their married life. The manga only follows their everyday life together and I find to be a very standard slice of life  marriage manga. It tries to have an element of intrigue by playing up the mystery of Nasa’s wife past life but it feels unnecessary because I like it when it focuses on them adjusting to their new life while finding out new things about each other. I do still recommend it on the basis of it being an enjoyable read but if you want more plot, I wouldn’t try with this manga.

I do like this to not be completely all slice of life so let’s talk about “Iron Ghost No Shoujo” which is the newest series from Rei Mikamoto who is probably more well known for his other title of “Chimamire Sukenban Chainsaw”. I am going to give Chimamire it’s own review at some point after I cover another certain title to help give context but I think Iron Ghost deserves to get one now, even if it’s super brief. I honestly don’t want to say anything about this since I think it’s something you should go into completely blind but I am still going to give some context. All you need to know is that most of these fights happen with Iron Ghosts which people possess with their actual souls. Even if I don’t think it won’t be as good as Chimamire, it still has this very creepy aesthetic and I do love the designs of the iron ghosts. I don’t like horror but the aesthetic of it has always been a love of mine since they have that freedom to tap into that primal fear and just like Chimamire, Rei taps into that to make a very appealing battle manga. It’s just so wonderful good and while it only consists of 12 chapters now, this manga has the making of something great. I would say this a must read for anyone who wants darker manga to read.

Now to jump back into the slice of life thing we have going, “Gokushufudou: Way Of The House Husband”. I think it’s pretty funny. That’s all I have to say about it since it only consist of eight chapters. The whole gimmick of the manga is that we follow a former yakuza who is now a simple house husband and it’s pretty funny. Seeing this guy trying to live like a house husband while all his former yakuza buddies are dragging him into other things just makes great comedy happen. That’s all I have to say about it so let’s move on.

Let’s do one last one so let’s talk about “Bijin Onna Joushi Takaiza-san” which is more Slice Of Life but in 4-Koma form. I am not a big fan of 4-Komas due to how they are formatted but I did enjoy reading this. It’s pretty much the life of Takeda who works at a company where his boss is rather distracting due to her “well endowed” chest. Yes, the whole joke of this series is how big her breasts are but considering this is manga, you are probably used to seeing large breasts. The series is more focused on the working relationship between him and his boss and it’s not bad because I did find it funny and enjoyable but I don’t think it’s not as good as other 4-Koma series. Still a solid recommendation but don’t expect much.

I really do enjoy doing these short little reviews. I usually have a huge manga backlog which I usually want to talk about in these reviews but then they are usually either too short for a full feature review so this just lets me get them out of the way while padding out some of my reviews materials and talking about review material, I do have some plans for the next couple weeks. I already mentioned the Naruto review and the E3 special but I do also plan to cover “Fire Force” and “Death Note” later down the line for those who still want more manga reviews despite the fact that 80% of this blog is full of them. I also got a review planned out for some last gen games since I am bargain hunter when it comes to games and for those who want movie reviews, there is still the Mama Mia movies to cover but I also have some films that suit more of my taste. Don’t worry, I will eventually cover all the MCU and maybe DCU movies but I want to cover some more older stuff which have more of a cult following status. For those who want to get other content, there is a link to my YouTube channel in the sidebar and also a link to my steam profile if you want to friend me on Steam or just be a kind donator if you want to me talk about a certain game. I am just a poor teen so I appreciate anything that comes free.

World Trigger: Too Dull To Be Triggering

I kind of made myself make the decision between doing this or a game. I do feel like I will need another week to at least finish the story so I'm going to be reviewing World Trigger this week. Yeah, I am not excited either to review another shounen manga this week, especially after Bleach but I have nothing else interesting to talk about until I finish reading History’s Strongest Disciple Kenichi or get the money to buy the Black Panther DVD. So yeah, we gonna bare the dull feeling of boredom which is the World Trigger reading experience. Now, this doesn’t mean it’s on the same level of Bleach. I actually think World Trigger is the better one of the two but not by much let’s get into the plot so we can see why I think this is rather dull.

“World Trigger” follows the life of Osamu Mikumo who is a mere trainee agent for the agency known as BORDER who are in charge of taking care of the alien invaders known as “Neighbours”. The agency has co-opted the alien technology to use in their fight which all mainly use Trion as energy which can be found in human beings (you will need to remember this since it’s an important plot device). When Osamu meets an neighbour that looks suspicious human known as Yuma who wields a black trigger (Triggers are pretty much their weapons which are powered by Trion), it kicks off the plot. Pretty much from there, Yuma and Osamu become teammates and form their own squad with Osamu being the captain despite being established to be utterly useless for the most part. There is a few things I want to discuss about the characters but for the most part, I think the plot is serviceable. It’s nothing mind blowing but at least it’s coherent which is something I can’t say about much manga but I do think it has a pacing issue. Yes, I am going to complain about it again but it’s nothing major this time because I don’t think it’s as bad as Bleach. The story progress is slow for the most part and while there is nothing wrong taking your time as you tell your story, I think it takes too long to get to anything of interest. Like, the current arc right now (at time of writing) is a ranking battle (not worth spoiling) to see who gets to go on this trip into the enemy neighbour territory and while I am glad something interesting is going to happen, this arc has been going on for way too long. While it does set up character growth moments as well as flesh out more of the other BORDER squads but that’s not really fun. They just spoiled us with a massive invasion set piece which was fun and introduced a bunch of new stakes on top of introducing new baddies and now you are going to follow it up with this? Yeah, I can’t help but feel a little bit disappointed. World Trigger is just a lot of talking and training against other agents for the most part which is nice and all but I want to see them fighting the aliens more often since they have interesting designs and offer much more better fights. I also hate how most of these neighbours are just human looking because when I think alien, I don’t think humans with slightly different appearances and talking about appearances, let’s get to the characters.

I am going to save time here and say it now; the character design is yet again flat as a board. The mangaka quite clearly went to the same school as the Bleach mangaka because they both draw by the rule of “A single physical character trait is all that is needed”. I mean, this is a shounen manga on top of being a sci fi themed one so where is the interesting character design? Osamu looks a like a background extra, Yuma’s defying physical trait is his white hair and the token female character, Chika, looks like a typical loli with just a really boring flat design. What about the big boss man at BORDER who is ambiguous evil, what is his physical trait? Well, he has a big scar going down his face because apparently all ambiguous bad guys has to have a visible scar to show that they have a tragic past and a grudge against the enemy. Like, I get this is supposed to be boys but don’t treat your readers like idiots. There is nothing wrong with using cliches but this is rather insulting. He already acts like an bad guy so you don’t need to make it more obvious. Everyone in this series just looks boring and unmemorable. I had to double check I was getting the right names to faces because of this and this is the second time I had to do it for one of these reviews (you can guess what’s the other one) but anytime someone can’t remember your characters after reading +100 chapters, you have definitely screwed up the designs. If I was to credit any form of character design, I think I would credit him for the Trion soldier designs because they actually look like aliens and they are far more visually appealing then the humanoid neighbours because I see humans on a regular basis. I want to see more unique designs, especially from a series with sci fi elements. It’s just a shame that they start getting phrased out for the far more dull humanoid alternatives. Dull is the name of the game for this series and they do carry it on with the overall style of the manga.

For me, the style of the manga is also very flat. It just doesn’t feel right for the series. While series like Berserk has a far more rougher design to it to suit the tone of the series, the drawings in World Trigger are a lot more smoother in general so it has this very clean look to it which is nice but it’s dull. I think a good series to define by its style of drawings but when it’s just really generic like World Trigger’s style, it’s just blends in with the rest of the other generic crap that gets spewed by Jump most of the time. It’s also because of this flat styling, there isn’t as many good spreads and you know I’m all about that spread. I have put in an example of this just below the paragraph and you can see why I don't like it.The only thing I think I like about the series from this aspect is the fact that the volume covers are very nice which I can’t say about some plot aspects so you know what time it is. Get the rubbish bin out because I am about to trash talk the plot for something it lacks: stakes.

I did mention how they introduced new stakes earlier in the plot section but I’m going to retcon it now. I meant to say they FINALLY INTRODUCED stakes to the series, well at least ones I would consider worth taking notice of. Stakes are important to a plot since it’s the cause of tension when depicting dangerous scenarios and stakes are usually introduced through character building because you should of gained a form of attachment to them by then. It’s because of stakes, we start to care about the well being of the character so it comes natural to root for them and you don’t want to see them lose. World Trigger really doesn’t have it for me but that’s mainly because I don’t see myself rooting for anyone since they are all so dull but let’s say, I did have some form of attachment to one of these characters. For example’s sake, let’s say I’m invested in the character of Osuma, despite being as flat as the plank of wood he was based on. Well, I still won’t feel any form of tension because of two major plot related things and the first one is the Trion body system. You see, all BORDER agents fight using Trion body suits which allow them to take damage without physically hurting their real bodies with some other benefits. Notice how I said that the Trion body stops their real body from being injured. This means they are under no threat of being killed during most of their fights. On top of this, there is the bail out system where if their Trion body gets seriously injured, they get teleported back to base to avoid being killed. So there is zero risk when fighting unless you really care about bystanders and the state of city but the manga doesn’t really touch on that aspect enough to care about it. The creator has at least tried to fix the lack of stakes with the mass invasion arc but he ends up just generating a massive plot hole (minor spoilers coming up). You see, Osuma gets seriously injured when he had to bail out of his Trion body in order to escape from an humanoid neighbour. It is set up that you can’t be harmed by Trion based weapons if you aren’t in a Trion body but then he gets nearly killed by a Trion based weapon. The mangaka literally broke his own rules just to make tension because he was unable to make any before this and I hate it when creators break their own established rules for plot reasons. It just shows poor writing techniques because a good writer shouldn’t have to break his own established rules if he avoids writing themselves into a dead end.

Before we wrap this up, I need to talk about the anime because I actually had time to watch the first episode (subbed) and it’s decent. It’s pretty much a pretty standard pilot. The voice acting isn’t bad and the animation is pretty nice but it’s dull like its source material and I think that’s all I have to say about the anime and manga. It’s just really boring to read but it doesn’t mean it’s bad. I have read this manga two times over now and I didn’t stop to have a mental cool down break during both reading which means I wasn’t bored enough to put it down. It felt like it just puts me in a trance of “I want to know what happens next” and that’s good. It’s just a shame what happens next is completely predictable so there is no surprise. I honestly think this is a very dull manga with a lot of potential to be entertaining and I think the mangaka is getting there very slowly. He is currently setting up elements for the next arc which does have me excited but it’s during this really boring, no stakes rank war arc and I have to criticise what’s is given to me so 5/10. Its just a very standard shounen manga which is why I had very little to say about this because everything else I haven’t mentioned is just decent enough to not be noteworthy. Next week will be the game review of an really old EA title which was somewhat a fond nostalgia trip for me but I won’t be as gentle in the review. For all my other content I make, link in the sidebar to my YouTube channel where I post really bad montage of me playing really bad YuGiOh decks in a really bad matter on a weekly basis.