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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One Punch Man: A Better Example Of Shounen

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dead Cells: Its Dark Souls But Boring

Yes, I know I promised to do Kamen Rider this week but as it turns out, trying to fit 48 episode long series within a week with still enough time for school, writing, making videos and living in general is pretty hard. So yeah, the Kamen Rider review has been pushed back until next week but don’t worry, I had this as a back up. So one of my friends on steam has saw that I had Dead Cells on my Wishlist and instead of gifting it to me, he just gave me his account details and let me play it on his account. I meaN, it’s efficient but it’s still pretty risky to trust your details to someone else but who am I to complain? I get to try before I buy so after violating his steam profile, I downloaded the game on my laptop and played it while watching Ex Aid and well, don’t expect this to be pleasant review like every other review outlet has done so far. Also, I have very limited knowledge on Dark Souls so if I make any references to Dark Souls, feel free to correct me where I am wrong but don’t do it in that normal Dark Souls way of screaming it at the person in an aggressive manner. With that out of the way, let’s get ready to die and die over again from boredom.

Dead Cells’ plot is like UBERMOSH’s plot which is means it’s super vague. To my understanding, a kingdom gets messed up by this virus that makes everyone into monsters and I think the king is to be blamed. Our character is a weird moss thing that keeps attaching itself to the same deheaded body of a prisoner and his goal is to make it to the kings room to probably kill him, I don’t know. I only have it made as far as the castle once because of reasons I will rip into later but it seems like you are harvesting cells to give to this collector guy which helps you unlock new equipment for later runs. It’s all just super vague and this is what I pieced together from the very little lore given to us through the t two runs, the area descriptions and whenever the game decides to spawn in a bit of background for our character to gawk at. While the plot isn’t very necessary, I’m going to bring up my original complaint from UBERMOSH and say that they should of made the lore a lot more accessible and not make it super vague but now I will add the additional compliant of don’t make it RNG based. I will be getting into that RNG thing later but the fact that the lore is tied to RNG is very annoying and unfortunately, that’s not the only thing that’s RNG.

The gameplay is pretty much Dark Souls except it’s 2D which means you don’t need to worry about dodging attacks on an extra axis and you still have the metrovania style of gameplay. Pretty much, you just slash at something until they die and you can dodge their attacks if you somehow can time it right considering everything has a delay to them. Yeah, I’m going to complain about the controls now because I hate them because everything has a delay which makes combat very annoying. I was playing this game at a nice smooth 60 FPS and there was this very annoying one second delay between my input and the command being executed. This makes dodging near impossible unless you have near future sight and if you are using a shield (because bows are for sensible human beings who like using range to their advantage), you might as well be rolling an dice when you wanna parry something. It’s just something that makes combat very tedious and means you are going to be burning through your health flasks quick. Alright, tangent done, let’s talk about the equipment you can get. You have constantly five slots with two slots dedicated for your melee and ranged weapons which includes your shields and two slots for your throwables with one slot for your health flasks. The melee weapons have the most diversity amongst them since you can choose whips, swords of different sizes, spears and hammers if you get lucky while your throwables range from grenades to turrets. Now, I don’t mind this approach because it allows the player to dedicate their style of approaching the combat but there is one little tiny thing that just ruins it but we will get there. This being a very metrovania style game, you can explore the randomly generated levels and dictate your path to the King’s Throne. On top of this, you are getting Cells that allow you to use them to unlock equipment for later runs and even runes which can What I also don’t mind is the fact they reward speed running with timed gates which can be unlocked if you reach them before the time is up and here’s a very helpful hint: Don’t even try to get to those gates. You will get more out of your run if you take the time and explore so it’s nice idea in concept but it’s horrible just like my main problem with this game.

A quick diversion before I talk about my main issue with the game and before you all ask, the graphics are fine. The cell shaded style makes the game look ok and while the character and enemy design can be a bit bland, I find everything else quite serviceable what it sets out to achieve. So what is my main complaint about this game? Simple, it’s too hard. Before you all give me your biggest Dark Souls “git gud”, here’s my reasoning why. To my understanding, everything in Dark Souls is hard coded from what you find in what area to where secrets are with the only RNG being attack patterns so it takes knowledge to know where these sort of things are and make your experience easier in later runs. Dead Cells has none of that. Yes, it does have RNG when it comes to attack patterns but the RNG doesn’t stop there. This game is a rogue like dungeon crawler with RNG elements and that’s what makes this game hard, especially as one that tries to ape on Dark Souls. Your equipment that you start with and you find is randomised, the level layout is randomised and what you can buy in shops is randomised. This level of RNG ruins the game because it now makes your preferred playstyle hard to achieve and this can make your run either much more harder or a cake walk. You know why I only got to the castle once during my many and many runs? It’s because I finally got lucky and for the equipment I needed to get that far but consider that only happened because of a one in million chance happened after hours of grinding cells. This RNG paired with the very annoying one second delay I mentioned earlier makes the combat very frustrated and turns what should be a skill based combat system into a DnD battle and that is what makes boss fights so frustrating, especially against Conjuctivitus. That boss is near impossible with the one second delay.

I would be probably been a lot easier on this game if I wasn’t in a slump right now but my point still stands. Even if they fix that one second delay, the RNG is rooted into the game mechanics which means unless they end up rooting the whole thing, it’s going to be permanently ruining the game. If you still wanna try it, go ahead but I don’t really recommend it. If you want a Dark Souls like game, just play Dark Souls or wait for “You Only Die Twice” next year. If there was a sale for the game, go get it but not at full price because this here is a solid 4/10. Next week is Kamen Rider Ex Aid and after that, maybe Fire Force. Until then, just check out my YouTube channel in the side bar if you want to see my other content and also my steam profile is there if you want to donate me anything for these reviews.

Food Wars: Even Food Manga Can Become Stale

So here’s your long awaiting manga review. I was going to do “Fire Force” originally but I just finished catching up on “Food Wars” and I want to talk about it. You see, food for me is a guilty pleasure but I don’t mean in eating it (that only applies to chips and gravy). For me, food becomes a guilty pleasure when I’m watching or in this case, reading about the cooking of delicious food and it’s obvious it’s the same for others because it spawned its own sub genre of cooking manga with Food Wars being on top. I personally do enjoy Food Wars but I feel like it’s starting to stagnate a bit in its newer chapters and upon rereading, I got a couple more criticism to level at it. Of course you can expect me to cover Fire Force in the future but right now, let’s start roasting this manga (pun definitely intended).

The plot follows our main character called Yukihira Souma who is like every single other shounen character with an alive father: he wants to surpass his father but since this is a cooking manga, he wants to surpass his father’s culinary skills. After protecting their restaurant from what I think is property sharks, his dad closes shop and ships his ass to Tootsuki Academy to make him into a better chef. While he is there, he makes friends, meets Erin who kind of fills in the rival cliche and tries to grow as an character. There is some elements of a typical shounen manga like the underdog yet unbeatable main character who is somehow weird and unique to make them appeal to the target audience, there is new and stronger characters being constantly introduced to present new challenges and the MC has a large supporting cast that all grow in their own way. What makes it different that instead of bombastic fights, we get people cooking and then having the judges overreact to how good their food is which I will admit, can be pretty funny but it gets old after a while. They are done with so much frequency, they turn from a gimmick to just plain old cliche and for me, the “fights” aren’t the most interesting part. I found far more enjoyment from the parts where we see our characters grow because that’s when I believe they are really chefs and not just food magicians. Every time I see them battling it out in the arena, I know they will deliver their best because the manga demanded it but when it comes to events where they actually have to grow as characters and do something more “slice of life” like having their work experience in a professional kitchen, I feel like I can connect with the characters then. It’s probably just me but I do like these sort of character developing moments and talking about characters, let’s talk about how I feel about them.

I’m going to say it now, I don’t hate as many characters as I did with “Bleach” but it is still pretty bad. Once again, I hate the MC because I just don’t find him relatable or cool in anyway. He is the cooking version of Monkey D. Luffy minus the charm and cool straw hat which pretty much means he always bounces back and is amazing because of his heritage and the fact that he is just so talented and his only flaw is his weird cooking habits. It’s just he is so flawless that he becomes unlikeable and I can’t connect to him. Even Luffy had his flaws and they made him a somewhat likeable character so just follow that model next time. Apart from the MC, everyone else borders between “slightly unlikeable” and “enjoyable to watch” with my favourite being Megumi because she’s just so relatable. She quite clearly has flaws, she is constantly growing and I just love her cooking style. She is to me the ideal MC because we see her lose and we see her grow while Souma has all that experience so there is barely any room for him to grow as a character. Other honourable mentions go to Satoshi because even if he is the stereotypical chill but talented type, I find him funny as a side character and the chairman because he is just so serious but the fact that he strips when he tastes good food and the intensity of said strip is based on how good it is makes him very likeable and a joy to watch in action. I would normally now go in about how I enjoy the other characters but I don’t think the others are very mentionable so let’s just move onto the anime.

It’s alright. That’s all I have to say on it because it’s your normal anime with it meeting all the standards it should be meeting. If anything, I do think the cooking scenes are much better since I think the additions of colour and motion does make these scenes more appealing then it would on paper. As for the “sub or dub” question, it’s all personal preference but I personally like the dub for many personal reasons but mainly because I find the English voice acting not that bad and in fact a slight improvement over the Japanese sub. Now, this all does comes down to personal preference but I would recommend the dub to casuals so just don’t get angry at me for that. You do you, internet like how I am going to demonstrate that by now by dunking on this plot like it’s my chips and gravy.

I already covered why I felt like the series was getting stagnant due to the fact it’s main gimmick became a bit of an old hat and the mangaka noticed this so he tried to introduced stakes (having a “World Trigger” flashback yet) and well, he did it somewhat better than World Trigger’s attempt. It’s just the way it’s implemented is a little rough. Pretty much, Erin’s dad shows up, declares himself the dean of the school because members of the council voted him in and for me, this is a little bit stupid. I mean, why does the council have such power to overthrow the current dean when they are just effectively a student council. It’s just a weird plot hole in my opinion but the other thing I hate about this is the fact they kind of shifted focus. Before this, Food Wars was very slice of life like with it just focusing on different aspects of the school life but with this, it started to turn more and more into a proper shounen title because now we have a proper villain to hate and not friendly competition. This change of focus also meant the series started to introduce typical cliches into the series like one of the main cast turning anti-hero, an seemly unbeatable legion of villains and very poor set up for the final conflict. The only things I can really praise this arc is that going in, I found most of the characters reasoning for doing what they are doing to be believable. I still found Erin’s father’s reveal to be a bit pulled out of nowhere but that’s the standard for new villains but the other thing I can praise about this is the fact it gave us a good ending point. So you are probably thinking “ So why is there still so many words on this paragraph to go?” and the answer is very simple: They did a Death Note. That’s right, they continued after a quite clear ending point. I mean, Souma got his spot on the council which means he had the skills to probably beat his dad now but you see, this whole arc ends their first year at this school. That’s right, there is still two years to go and the mangaka must've reliesed it so let’s introduce another needless villain and to make sure they definitely see that this new villain is a badass and is better than Souma, let’s have his introduction scene be him beating Souma’s dad. That’s right, they warfed Souma’s dad to show that this new villain is a badass. This is probably as bad as that one World Trigger moment or Bleach’s final war arc and I hate it. It feels unnecessary and I feel like this is the end of an enjoyable series if we count the exam arc to be the car crash.

I still think you should read it but I don’t blame you if you don’t see what I see. I’m a lot more sensitive to certain things if you haven’t caught that yet but I do feel like I am being insulted (pun not intended) now with the new villain. He feels needless to the series since the series has done what it wanted to do and it should of ended there. If you want my personal recommendations for cooking manga, mine are “Hell’s Kitchen” and “Sweetness And Lightning” because they not only just a lot more enjoyable due to the absence of shounen cliches, Hell’s Kitchen feels like a much better take on the Food Wars concept and Sweetness is just a great slice of life manga. In the end, I’m going to give Food Wars a 5/10 and if you want to get into the series, I say watch the anime for the food and read the manga for the mediocre plot. So next week is still a bit up in the air but if I can somehow fit in forty-five episodes within a week, I will be tackling “Kamen Rider Ex Aid” which is my first Kamen Rider series I have watched but until then, just check out my YouTube channel for my crap video content and my steam profile if you want to donate me some games for me to review.

Mad Bastards: Why I Hate English Assignments

“What’s this? Another movie review? DxD, what are you like? Doing so many movies in such a short period of time.” Yeah, I don’t need your sarcasm here. I’m only posting this review is because this week, I had to write a review on a movie we had to watch in class and while I could of done two different reviews: one for the blog and one for the assignment, I’m lazy so guess what, I’m retooling another review for the blog. While my teacher actively tries to stop me from writing in class which is weird because I am doing what she wants me to do, she definitely can’t stop now because this is technically my school work now so miss, if you are reading, all I have to say is suck it. I am doing my work for once and you can’t stop me. But anyway, enough of taunting my teacher, let’s talk about the movie or I guess, let’s go to the real intro for the review I had to write.

Why did I have to watch this? We could of watched “Boy” which is a much better experience to watch but no, we had to watch “Mad Bastards” because the authority in charge of schools in WA thought watching a boring movie which is made in WA is much better then let’s say something like “Supersize” which covers a far much relatable topic while being fun. Even if it had to be something within the Oceania region, we could of watched “Boy” because it’s actually well filmed, well paced and a lot more fun to watch. Yes, this movie is boring with a capital B. I get it, it’s supposed to be about family and how failing these relationships can have massive knock back effects on kids but there has been certainly better movies that cover the same topic. Did we have to watch this because SCASA was paid off to make this part of the essential English curriculum or was it because they are full of that Australian pride that it had to be part of the curriculum because “Yeah, Australia”. I mean, my best guess is the fact that it has aborigines in it so they had to show it or the SJW group would of been a bit annoyed with them. Either way, I was given the task to review this and I will review this but they didn’t say it had to be a positive one so I am not holding back on this. Let’s start with the ripping of the plot.

The plot starts with our main man, TJ deciding to go back to his estranged wife and child that he left so he hitchhikes his way back. That’s the whole plot. It’s just one guy who has been absolute idiot all his life, wising up and trying to make amends with his family. While he certainly tries at the beginning when he was helping his brother connect with his family who has turned over a new life in prison, they are rejected at the door by his mother who tells him that they are bad influences on the kids. We also see the knock on effects of this with his (possibly) divorced wife who is in a cycle of being drunk and having abusive boyfriends and this affects their kid, Bullet. Bullet at the start of the movie shows that he is being a delinquent when he sets fire to someone’s house and you can see that the uncle is trying his hardest to fill in the father role while trying to hold the community. There is attempts at telling a story and bring across the message but it is poorly paced and the way it’s been edited makes events go by way too fast.

Like, we only see Bullet commit one crime and then he is put into a sort of program that I think is supposed to be a rehabilitation program, it’s never well explained. The same applies to the wife in this case because we are supposed to believe that she is a constant drunk who is in this cycle of abuse but we only see one case of each these things right at the start and she is pretty much sober for the rest of the movie. The director expects us to believe that all these things are constants in their life but unless you see or know that intention, it makes the movie’s plot look stupid. The movie’s plot is apparently based on true stories from the local community where filming was happening and you can sort of see what they were trying to do with these stories but I don’t think it’s not a very good idea since they don’t contribute to the plot. For me, the plot is very bland and quite blatant with its message so in the end, the whole fact it’s trying to play it like its message is “super deep and meaningful” is complete and utter hogwash.

What also was quite bland is the characters and the actors portraying them. Bullet is portrayed by a local kid and I’m guessing because he was shy, he pretty much says nothing throughout the whole movie. The kid might as well been a paper cut out for all the other actors to work with for all the “acting” he did and the same can be applied to the whole cast. You see, expect for one person (the possible ex-wife), everyone is just random locals and you can see this because every single actor in this movie is so bad. You can tell that they are new to this because they all act very stiff when they are on camera and they have to act. While I do think they are at their best when they aren’t forced to be characters in the story and just doing what they normally do, it still feels very forced. Even the one properly trained actor in the movie comes off stiff at times, especially when it comes to scenes when she has to be emotional and not just drunk. You can find sources saying that most of the scenes were unrehearsed and if the director did this because he thought it would add to the movie, well he is frankly an idiot and a narcissist on top of that. If he actually hired proper actors and then let them rehearsed, this would be a better movie but he didn’t because he thought that “the people we cast will shape our story” and I don’t blame him for thinking that but he isn’t the next Hitchcock. His decision to use untrained people in the end is just another bullet to the foot and it also makes you wonder what did they spend three million dollars on because it’s certainly not the editing crew.

For me, the filming is serviceable as well as the music but in the end, the way it was edited is what bothers me. It took them three years to film this and you would think with that time, they would have the time to film each scene to acceptable quality but for me, it feels like each scene is separate from each other which can break the flow of the story. What doesn’t help is the fact there is the occasional montage which seems like an easy way to forward the plot but really just messes with the time of the plot. I personally find it hard to watch and pay attention with just the constant jumping between characters. I mean, it’s already hard for me to pay attention without doing something but I did make an active effort to pay attention but I still had trouble and I think that’s my whole thought on this movie.

I could go on about the themes but I don’t think they are that important. For me, a good movie should be at least competent in other areas so they aren’t overshadowed by the bad things because it then distracts you. With that said, I’m giving this a 3/10. The theme of the story is generic, the performances given are borderline bad and the editing is amateurish. It’s just very boring and not a fun watch and I do think there is more entertaining movies which does the same theme much better.

And that’s the movie for you. If you can’t tell, I was very bored when writing this but nevertheless, it’s good training because when you are a reviewer, you can’t really be picky and you have to work with what you got. With that said, I have another movie and TV review lined up but I’m need to fill in this month’s proper manga review so next week is “Food Wars”. Can’t wait to talk about that pile of slight disappointment but as always, if you want to see my other content, links in the side bar to my YouTube channel and my steam profile if you want to donate anything to me.