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Vulpin Reviews - My Hero Academia

I’ve been watching My Hero Academia lately thanks to @canvaswolfdoll (see his review of it here).  It’s a new favorite of mine; it’s fun, upbeat, and simultaneously modern while paying loving tribute to western comic book heroes.  

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CanvasWatches: My Hero Academica

If there’s something I needed in my Anime Repertoire, it was a fun, pulpy Shonen Series.

I have selected My Hero Academia because frog girl.

Tsuyu Asui and the various tumblr posts she spawned is what drew my attention, and I was hearing good things about the series, so I thought I’d give it a go. Plus I’m catching it in the early stages, so there’s not too much of an archive to panic over. It’s a good time to get in.

I’m not one for long runners, since I enjoy definite start and end points.[1] Media designed to just go on forever, stuffed with filler and formula is a quick eject for me. And I’ve never been one for fighty man Shounen.

I couldn’t get into Dragon Ball Z, because I only caught brief segments, and those segments were the parts with Goku floating there staring down his enemy. Or Buu turning someone into a cookie and eating them. Contextless nonsense that was very unappealing.[2]

Naruto began it’s dubbed broadcast as I entered Middle School. However, those were troubled times of much grounding due to academic indifference, and I couldn’t be bothered to monitor the broadcast schedule. So I fell off the Naruto train… basically after the second episode.

I didn’t care about pirates enough to try One Piece, and Bleach seemingly left no cultural weight to enter the equation.[3]

However, these reviews are nothing if not a bizarre justification for making up for my misspent youth. Because yearning for the nostalgic past is what adulthood is for.

And I finally committed to Funimation’s streaming service, so, yay! More dubs for Canvas![4] Which leaves only the Viz stable to have difficulties with.

So… why does My Hero Academia succeed where it’s predecessors fail?

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Canvas(re)Watches: Daria

Hey! Remember these things? I do! Kept meaning to get back to doing CanvasWatches, but was having difficulty finding the time between school, work, and other projects. But I’m back! Ish! Back-ish!

I purchased the complete series of Daria a while ago, and having progressively been making my way through it. As of the start of this writing, I haven’t actually finished the rewatch, but I’ve decided to begin the write-up anyways, by reason of needing to write anyways.

As is tradition, the proper essay is below the break.

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CanvasWatches: Log Horizon

So, me and FoxFace were planning to do a podcast on this anime, but we’ve got work schedules, so it might be hard to finally sit down in a timely enough manner for us to ramble coherently and competently, so, just in case, I might as well prepare a text post.

Because, really, if I bothered to do a CanvasWatches for SAO, then Log Horizon deserves at least the same attention.

Besides, this way you don’t have to actually listen to me if I write, so it’s a win-win.

Heck, even if we do record a podcast, separate text posts for Log Horizon may also be interesting.

Anyways, enough blabbing, let’s go trap ourselves in a virtual world!

SPOILERS for Log Horizon, Sword Art Online, maybe Spice&Wolf. Quick rundown: watch Log Horizon and Spice&Wolf (then talk to me about it, if you’d like!). Only watch Sword Art Online if you’re desperate, need something to mock, or are a 14-year-old in need of a power fantasy.[1]

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VulpinReviews: Log Horizon

Log Horizon is the third anime/ Japanese franchise I’ve seen take on the idea of adventures taking place in an MMORPG that blur the line between reality and the virtual.  The first is .hack, which spans multiple series across all kinds of media, including animation and video games, and includes such elements of people being unable to log out of the game or being harmed in the real world by things within the game World.  .hack seemed interesting on the surface, but none of the series I checked out managed to hold my interest for very long due to being too talky.

The second series is Sword Art Online, which I’ve previously reviewed.  To summarize, SAO’s potential was ruined by ridiculous pacing, poor characters, and a severe lack of focus in the storytelling goals (unless that focus was simple power fantasy).

Log Horizon is, in many ways, the superior successor over SAO to the .hack franchise.  It takes the mechanics and plot of “trapped in a virtual MMO” to new levels above what .hack established, with great attention paid to both setting and characters.

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CanvasWatches: My Little Pony: FiM S5: Eps 1+2 ‘The Cutie Map’

new season time! let’s dust this old gem off again! because this show is awesome, and i like talking to nonexistent people!

this will probably be closer to the immediate responses post i did last season. we’ll see how things shake out once itunes is relevant again, and i’m more able to write as i “watch” (as in, watch a few seconds, think of what i should write, pause and write, then watch maybe a maybe a minute more. that would take forever). i may do a revisit then if i revert to the old style.

i was actually thinking of doing a change of format this season, and rope ole foxface into cohosting. i guess this will my indirect proposal to him, so we’ll see!

so now a page break before we find out how i plan to do this. spoilers!

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MLP Season 5 Premier

spoiler break for those who haven’t seen the new episodes yet.

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The first entry in our series of rambling opinions about the new English dub of Sailor Moon. Apologies for the frequent shifts in audio quality; we use two different microphones to record and are still learning sound editing stuff.

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next team review!

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VulpinReviews: Guardians of the Galaxy

Guardians of the Galaxy is an insanely hilarious romp through the far corners of the MCU that also manages to be just as crucial to the metaplot as everything that’s been happening on Earth.  Pitting the relatively obscure Guardians against a heavy hitter like Ronan the Accuser creates an imbalance in both power and attitudes that is so very unlike any other Marvel movie I’ve seen (which does not include Thor: Dark World or Winter Soldier), and it fits the rest of the absurdity that makes Guardians an absolute must-see action-comedy.

More, spoiler-filled details below the break.

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CanvasWatches: Guardians of the Galaxy

hey, guess what i did today instead of watching more korra and rebuffing the queue?

i saw guardians of the galaxy!

quick, spoiler free version: loved it. favorite marvel movie. go see it.

and now, a rambling, spoilery version that won’t adhere to any logical format beyond ‘ooh! i wanna talk about this!’

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Vulpin Reviews: Sailor Moon Crystal, Act 1: Usagi - Sailor Moon

Pony’s in the off-season and Sonic Boom isn’t out until October, but I’ve still got something I can sink my review chops into: the reboot of Sailor Moon, which premiered on Hulu today.  Since the original version is also on Hulu, I’ll mostly be commenting on the differences between the two.

Spoilers ahoy!

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Impressions of Sword Art Online

So much potential, but so little actually given.

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CanvasWatches: Sword Art Online

no avatar this week. family visited and didn’t find the time to watch the disc friday or today.

however, i did finish watching Sword Art Online, and i do have writing to do, so might as well talk about it. why not?

i mostly watched it because i had heard some things about, enough to pique my interests, and it got put on netflix, so i and foxface went through it. i think he liked it more than i did. it’s alright, but nothing amazing.

but, hey, i only watch dubs, don’t have excessive money, so my anime selection is limited. gotta take what i got.

rest of my ramble and probably spoilers after the break! (go ahead and pretend there’s a commercial here)

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CanvasWatches: Kimba the White Lion (eps 1&2)

*pfft* bwahahahaha!

it’s terrible.

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Vulpin: In honor of the season 4 finale of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Canvas and I decided to record ourselves discussing the the episodes. Sorry about the quality; we didn’t realize Canvas’s microphone wasn’t working until a good ways into the recording and neither of us have done sound editing before. Enjoy.