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Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam - Full TV Series Review / Rant

Ever since I first got into Gundam some 16 years ago and started going into the Universal Century era, I was always told how I should watch Zeta because it’s so great and how SEED Destiny is shallow imitation of Zeta. Now I am that kind of person who often reacts with being told that something is the best, all the time with the opposite reaction but in Zeta’s case I always did want to watch it. It was just that I never had the motivation to do so.

Year ago, I did watch the movie trilogy version of Zeta and I thought the first movie was hands down the strongest one with it’s opening song Metamorphoze performed by Gackt. My only complaint was that it felt like the movie was rushed. But who could forget such an fantastic ending scene of Char and Amuro meeting face to face for the first time after the One Year War?

The other two movies I barely remember anything from.They really didn’t stand out a whole lot to me. Henken’s death scene was better graphically and emotionally I believe.. Perhaps. Not sure, I’d have to rewatch that. But I definetly know that the ending to Movie 3 “Love is the Pulse of the Star” is far better and far more emotional.

So this finally leads us into our collected review of the entire Zeta Gundam TV series, and I will sum it up with one sentence here:

It’s bad, it’s really really bad.

About a month ago, a friend and I discussed TV shows and anime and we got into the discussion of Gundam where I spoke fondly of the various shows, especially the One Year War part of the Universal Century. He expressed an interest in watching that with “I should probably watch Gundam at some point” so I suggested that we can watch it together, that I could be his guide to Gundam, and so we got started. We went through the original MS Gundam TV series where at it’s conclusion, I concluded that the movie trilogy is far superior as it cuts out needless fat like Doan’s Island, and the White Base insistence on sending the Guntank out into combat, in space, since in the movie they replace the Guntank with a second Guncannon instead. After this, we proceeded to watching War in the Pocket, 08th MS Team, MS Igloo series, and finally 0083 Stardust Memory.

This finally lead into us starting to watch Zeta Gundam, TV series together. Oh boy, if I thought the movies was rushed, I was in for a surprise. Right from the get go, the story jumps from beat to beat at a rapid pace, giving us no clear sense of time progression at all, yet it’s suppose to take at least two days in terms of time from Char’s team locating the Gundams, to Kamille getting captured and held in detention, to the inevitable Gundam-jack, but all of this happens in the span of Episode 1 making Kamille seem like an insane highly emotional unstable kid.

From here on onward, it’s a constant battle in every episode. I don’t think a single episode went on without at least one Mobile Suit combat scene but I could be mistaking. Character motivations is all over the place and they flip-flop faster than pancakes. Now we can understand Emma’s motivation, she had no idea that the Titans were such murderous totalitarians as they turn out to be. This makes her one of the better characters in the show per default.

Reccoa is probably one of the worst characters in the show. From the very start, it’s clear that Kamille wants to ‘engage docking procedures’ with her fast and hard from the start, and they even make this a point of him being a hormonal teenage boy and Reccoa an attractive woman. She’s supposed to be a good spy but frankly, she’s the worst spy ever. She does nothing but to get caught and she claims that she enjoys spying because she lost herself after the One Year War, but what this really means is that she wants to dock with Char but he has no interest in her, so she takes this to mean that men only use women as tools. Until she meets Scirocco who is the, and I quote, only Man to treat her as a woman first. Because that is what is important to her, that she has T&A and is acknowledged for that.

Or to put it in far more absurd terms, Reccoa is the perfect justification that the American Military would love to have in order to ban women from serving. She’s that bad of a character.

Perhaps ironically, this leads us into the character known as Paptimus Scirocco who is hands down the best character. He treats everyone with respect and friendliness, even Yazan. Perhaps you could claim that this is a manipulative tactic of him but in that case, you can never trust anyone ever who is kind because they’re only out to manipulate you. That being said, we do know that he has an ulterior motive but we never truly learn what this motive is. Perhaps it’s divulged in the Crossbone Manga that deals with the Jupiter Empire.

But oh, let’s not forget about Beltorchika, or as I’d like to called her Bel-“DOCK ME AMURO”-chika. No really. She goes from I’m a character to throwing herself into Amuro’s arms and demanding he do her there and now. Okay not like that but might as well be since she just out of the blue wants him to kiss her, and he does. It makes no fucking sense. On top of that, she’s a total bitch towards Kamille and other characters. Awful!

And don’t get me fucking started on Katz, a more worthless character together with Sarah is hard to find. Why is he even on the Argama to begin with, why did he go into space? There’s absolutely no fucking reason to other than Amuro sent him there. Besdies, we all know that Kikka was the ace soldier of the One Year War’s White Base Children Platoon anyway.

And Sarah, fucking Sarah. What a despicable character. Eventually, whenever I saw her I’d just be screaming “ SHUUUT HEEEER! ”

I think it’s a damn shame that Zeta Gundam TV series did not live up to my expectations, instead just feeling like a repeat - almost like a prototype - of Neon Genesis Evangelion. From character’s having extremely poor characterizations, to random segments of drama and angst thrown in just for arguments, to the extremely poor quality of the show, Zeta Gundam is a complete disappointment.

But that’s my opinion after all. Perhaps you’ll enjoy it more.But for all my opinion’s worth, you’re better off watching the Movie version. it keeps a better pace of things and it gives you a cameo in the form of Advance of Zeta, the Hazel II Gundam. 

All said and done, let’s enjoy some burgers.

- Zeithri

[zeviews]

Legend of Crystania

Legend of Crystania is a hard pill to swallow I find. It opens with Sir Ashram cursing the Gods for stranding them in the middle of nowhere without water, food, medical aid in the middle of the sea since the events of Record of Lodoss War OVA / Chronicles of the Heroic Knight saw them and the forces of Marmo being defeated by the forces of the combined good. Oh sorry, Spoiler, the bad guys lost.

So, let's get the most obvious thing out of the way first. The animation style is really bad, but it's also good. It exists in a weird borderline of not having had a proper animation budget for it, cutting corner, and making other things very detailed. So you can have character's faces very well-detailed, voice actors of high caliber, but magical spells is more an animated suggestion.

After Ashram cursed the Gods, a God answered him and promised him everything as long as Ashram accepts being a vessel for him. Ashram agrees to this and doesn't see it as a bad idea at all. After this, we're introduced to our viewpoint character of the show, Reddon. He's a twerp as you'd come to expect, he dreams about valiant deeds and being a heroic knight and all that, while his buddy Nasser ( I believe that was his name ) isn't at all interested in valiant deeds, he's only interested in Knowledge. I, I think. The copy I have some times gives me a translation and other times want me to guess what they're talking about, so for all I know he might be speaking about the holy dale of a woman's lower spine to her butt.

Either way, they are both looking at this massive wall known as God's Wall and talk about legends of it. How the Gods slain a giant snake to erect as a wall to it's inside. The Mage is certain that one day, the doors will open to this mysterious place so they can go in and witness the splendor of whatever is inside. At this moment, an overexcited horse makes it's presence known - a signal of the twerp of Knighthood to head back home because Lady Athresia have arrived. Apparently the horse likes to tell his master whenever visitors drop by.

At the Kingdom of Dirt and Sand with some Grass, Lady Athresia is consulting the King in requesting the army to overthrow a vicious dictator, but all he can tell her is to look at his people and see how content they are. The crops are going well, they have food in stock and on the table and so forth. If he were to go to war, it wouldn't be him who would suffer, it'd be his people, and the people don't really care who sits on the throne of the Kingdom of What-Where. Thus he denies her request for army aid.

Later that Knight, a stylish assassin who looks like he's a wannabe Guts ( and curiously close to my own design, hmm.. ) named Orville... Wait, Orville? Anyway, he arrives and attempts to assassinate the old Knight-king but fails for the old man is just too good, he even blocks his hidden knife-projectile with his forearm, he's just that good! But then arrows come through the window and kills the King, turns out the Royal Cavalry themselves turned on the King ( I think..? Again, didn't get the full translation ) and that they had only used Orville with the intention of killing him as well. The King's son come in and immediately jumps the Royal Cavalry alongside some Rogueish friend who blocks another guy while the King's son - Yeah, that's Reddon - stabs one of them dead with a sword through the chest. He then hurries to his father's side who tells him to get out and save himself. Distraught, he's dragged out of there by the Rogue-friend.

As Reddon swears revenge, the word of a God offers him unlimited power if he just comes to him. And the Wall to the Gods open up, allowing them entry into the land of Crystania..

As they enter, a God stops them and acts confused over their presence here, but then he poofs after the other God laughs. Then Lizard people arrive and attack them, and after being saved by Orville who had been stalking them, even giving Reddon the King's Sword, they find out that the people here in Crystania can turn into animals. Specifically, they learn this when they save a man whose protecting this mysterious Dark Elf named Sheru, and he turns into a Lion and fights someone who turned into a Snake. He explains to the party that Crystania used to be a peaceful land, and people devoted themselves to the many Gods who reside here, as they do so, they are given the power to transform into Beast of which the God resides over. Those who turn into Snakes follow the Snake God. Those who Lion, Lion God and so forth. And it was peaceful, until the God Barrados, the God of TIGERS! Acquired a human host about as a vessel.

I have to say, being born in the sign of the Tiger, I feel targeted by this movie. Geez!

Sheru, the Dark Elf supposingly carries the secret on how to stop Barradus but she must be escorted to the village where the rebellion hangs out, known as Fangs of the Beasts. However before they can, Barradus sends a surprise attack, and just to show how powerful he is to Reddon - kills everyone, including his own troops. Reddon is horrified at this, while he had initially been saying that he'd go any length to get his revenge on those who killed his father, this is too much to him. He and Sheru get split up from the rest of the party and he asks Sheru what makes her so special, and she recounts the tale we saw at the start. How her lord Ashram 300 years ago made a pact with the God, and at the start it was all good as Ashram was asleep and she waited for him to wake up, and once he woke up, he no longer was Ashram but Barradus. So she escaped but not before snatching the Chaos Ring, a Ring that some mystic had used to banish Ashram's soul as he was stronger than Barradus had expected and didn't give up.

And for you listening at home, Yes, Sheru is Pirotess. I thought all the way up until this time that she was a child of Ashram and Pirotess, but apparently not. Which is strange considering that’d make for a lot better story as opposed to she just suddenly sporting a different hair and skin color to go along with a different name since you know, that’s kinda a completely different character..

She thanks Reddon for escorting her but she's gotta do this on her own now. Reddon, distraught about what to do- SUDDENLY, Horse Ex Machina! His horse appears in front of him and looks happy, and together they ride after Pirotess and takes her up on the horse and head towards Barradus Fortress. Meanwhile the army of the Fangs of the Beast alongside the other companions have made a valiant charge and cut down all attackers and busted in the door to the castle. While this was going on, The Rogue, Orville and Orville's... daughter? Not sure what she is but she's been around all this, sorry for not mentioning her earlier. They're all locked in a cell, and after Leifon ( that's her name ) gets pissed and summons every Fae she can to blow up the door, she succeeds enough so the Lion guy can force open the door.

Reddon and Sheru arrive at the top of Barradus fortress, and Reddon says they have to leave Garmus ( the horse ) behind as he cannot get down there. That's when the horse decides to do a Skyrim and make a series of super stylish jumps - and break all legs and presumably internals upon landing - just to get his master and her down. The horse coughs up blood and dies, but I guess looks somewhat content in the knowledge he could assist his master. Reddon is once again distraught over this and cries profusely. Understandably, had I been in a different state of mine this would had made me cried too.

They all meet up in front of Barradus in the throne room, and he shows them just how weak and pathetic they are. The Chaos Ring does nothing against Barradus - until Pirotess in her anger throws it at him and he tries to block it with his hand. That causes it to start sucking like a vacuum cleaner, allowing Ashram to struggle. He tells Pirotess to kill him, she refuses, Reddon attempts but it's utterly pointless, his sword does nothing. Ashram commends him for his valor but his sword cannot do anything, and he tells Pirotess to use his sword - Yes, the Demon Sword ‘Soul Crusher’. After a long drawn out Yes No Yes No, she finally draws the sword and stabs him with it, killing Barradus, and Ashram thanks her and dies.

The movie ends with Reddon talking about his father and how his father would never let him hold a sword, and the Mage says that his father would be proud over what he did, and Reddon says Yes.

Legend of Crystania... Is a bad movie. It really would had benefited from a 20+ episode series as opposed to one movie. Bad animations, mixed with good animation, comes off as jarring. Very rushed story elements jumping from place to place at times, and characters dying. Yes, I didn't mention everything that happens in here and skipped some stuff and just went for the rough straight forward parts so you yourself can watch it and make up your mind about this movie.

The ending song Hikari no Chizu is pretty darn good though!

- Zeithri

[zeviews]

Psycho Pass 2 - Episode 3 “The Devil’s Proof”

We start with the image of the missing inspector from episode 1, Shisui waking up with her hands strapped around her own gun aimed for her face and the voice of a mild mannered man who introduces himself as the mythical Kirito Kamui, apologizing but he needed her eye. And that he desires to make her - nay, the whole world - Clear.

After the opening, we’re greeted with the usual bullshit from Miss Bitch Shimotsuki who insisted on calling Tsunemori insane and the usual stuff and ranting against Enforcers. How dare they do the job they were here to sent! The reason for them all being in the room is because Tsunemori discovered someone had been in her apartment - somehow - without her or anyone noticing, and scribbled “WC?” on her wall.

On their way back to the office, Tsunemori tells Shimotsuki to take a right turn and go to the Isolation Ward instead. Unfortunately it’s not to lock Shimotsuki up much to my dismay, but to have a chatty discussion with a man named Jouji Saiga. Realizing this person could probably talk her panties off, Shimotsuki suddenly declares that she is sick, that she’ll wait in the car and it’s most definitely not because she’s afraid of someone with a clouded hue!

Of course Tsunemori is here in order to bounce ideas and theories regarding how someone could had entered her apartment without anyone noticing, and barring the fact that it couldn’t been any cat person since the lack of clawed furniture speak against that fact, the most logical conclusion is that it can only had been a ghost. This prompts Saiga to speak the episode’s title of ‘The Devil’s Proof’.

The Devil's Proof, or as it's called in Latin Probatio Diabolica, means to produce the evidence of an impossible proof. In other words, while there may indeed be evidence for something to have occured just as the statement claims, there are no actual evidence to prove that it didn't happened. I'm jumbling it up here, but the point is a logical dilemma that can be summed up as: There is no evidence that denies the devil's existence, therefore one cannot deny the devil's existence.

Back at the Office, Tsunemori requests to the Chief that Division 1 will be in charge of this mystery case as well as all other things they’re busy with, and the Chief asks her to stay for some one-on-one discussion, mentioning the intriguing idea that Tsunemori could potentially be so insane that she’s actually sane and there would be no way to prove it - aside from catching her red handed I guess. She also claims that Sakuya Togane, one of their enforcers, have had the highest crime coefficiency in the history of ever and therefore she wants to hear everything about him if things crop up. You know, if he likes sugar in his hot chocolate and such.

While this is going on, we got some backstory from action girl ( Risa Aoynagi ) and Nobuchika Ginoza. Action girl talking about how her life is a mess so she focuses on her job because it’s all she has left, and how she put her emotions aside because it’s too much yet she enjoys killing criminals. It’s all pretty uninteresting but it serves a purpose for what’s to come. As she leaves, she gets a call from none other than Shisui.

Alarm, area stress event is going on inside a hotel so naturally the bitch decides that she’ll deal with it, prompting her to spout her usual nonsense of how Tsunemori is dumb AND I DON’T LIKE YOUR FACE EITHER, crap. Now the area stress warning is because it’s a fat politician talking about improving citizens’ lives and I mean, yeah that could get a rise out of everyone’s stress levels. He insists that there’s nothing wrong with him and that they should get Kamui here so he could talk to him and clear this misunderstanding up.

While this is going on, Action girl Aoynagi have arrived at the destination where Shisui .. I keep making typo’s of her name that I’m contemplating calling her Sushi by now instead... claims she was waiting. Which turns out to he a pharmacy because, why not meet your co-workers there! She observes an old man talking in a normal tone yet using upset language at a young clerk, and even still talking calmly as he starts to strangle the life out of the clerk, presumably because he had been running on his lawn, but as Aoynagi pulls out her gun on him, the gun doesn’t recognize him as being a Criminal, and she gets her face full of his protective robo-dog.

We get a brief scene where Tsunemori and crew talks about this oddity of a Bomb-Diffusing Drone that was found some distance away from the scene of the crime, and when it was sent into maintenance, they discovered a piece was missing from it - Impact Absorber, hmm. How peculiar.

The episode ends with the old guy having assaulted Action Girl and delivers a final punch to her face, hand bloody, face bloody, yet the old man looks calm. Yet this is only the calm before the storm.

This episode isn’t as interesting and I have to admit that I zoned out several times watching it. Perhaps it’s my intense dislike of Psycho Pass, or the episode is just kinda dull. Instead I found myself contemplating my inner thoughts about it and how I think it’s important to potentially first hate something, then go back and watch it again, and try to see it from a different perspective.

But the thing is, everything about Psycho Pass speaks against what I would describe my nature is. The whole system of Psycho Pass is simply about conformity in it’s rawest form, and I’m someone whom been called numerous of times as someone who refuses to conform, which isn’t entirely untrue but it’s more complicated than that, so when I look at Psycho Pass, I try to think - is there something deeper here? But no, there isn’t.

Either way, we’re only at episode 3, we still have some way to go.

Next time, it’s Episode 4, The Salvation of Job

... What?

- Zeithri

[zeviews]

Psycho Pass 2 - Episode 2 “The Creeping Unknown”

The episode opens with Inspector Tsunemori being naked in the shower, contemplating on the meaning behind the message of “WC”, thinking back on the events of discovering the bloody mess from the hostage scene.

After this short flashback, we see them all back in the office. Tsunemori is doing computer stuff when Inspector Shimotsuki comes up and asks her to submit her report to the chief, all the while looking like she’s got a huge rod up her ass, and it turns out that she does. Enforcer Ginoza informs her that this report is a piece of shit, only throwing dirt on Tsunemori for no valid reason, but Shimotsuki isn’t taking any of his rhetoric because he’s just an Enforcer and therefore lesser than her. She’s momentarily taken aback when Enforcer Yayoi tells her to take that rod out of her ass because Ginoza used to be an inspector himself, but she quickly pushes it further and deeper in and proudly declaring that’s exactly why she refuses his opinion, because he lowered himself from the elevated status of Inspector to that of the criminal scum known as Enforcers.

Just as all hope seems lost on convincing her, Tsunemori does in her usual stereotypical-main character way, says that it’s a good report and she’ll submit it. This comes to the shock of absolutely no one except Shimotsuki who snaps the rod in her ass in half because she was clearly expecting a confrontation but was denied it, thus only furthering her disdain for Tsunemori.

After delegating work to the crew, such as giving main authority to Shimotsuki, Tsunemori proceeds to go and question the suspect Akira Kitazawa on how he managed to keep his hue from clouding, but they don’t get any concrete answers out of him except the reference to a mysterious “he”, a supposed accomplice. Tsunemori discusses this with Risa Aoyanagi, also discussing the whereabouts about the disappeared Inspector Shisui, but Aoyanagi only confirms that Shisui’s Dominator is active and occasionally shows the GPS location and therefore whatever Shisui is doing is approved by the Sibil System. Tsunemori however, proposes a third possibility, namely that of a person who is able to avoid Cymatic Scans and even the Sibil System itself.

It’s at this point Aoyanagi says something that is so profoundly stupid my head immediately started to ache, firmly proving that this has to take place in the same universe as Demolition Man with how in that movie, Police weren’t trained in how to handle violence, while as in this series, characters such as Risa will repeatedly deny logical conclusions and basic fucking investigation 101. It is so stupid in fact that I chose to post it, in it’s entirely, in this picture right here. You’re welcome.

Meanwhile in the other room, Enforcer Ginoza says what everyone who watched the show immediately thought of when they read the word “WC”, namely - Water Closet. Or in other more sensible words for those whom never heard the term Water closet but have heard WC - The bathroom. Inspector Shimotsuki immediately berates him by saying that most people would assume World Cup, and then continues to berate him by insinuating that he needs to take a piss, thus firmly proving that the rod is still up her ass.

We then cut to Tsunemori eyeing Enforcer Sakuya Togane with the expected level of hormonal balance as he make a meek suggestion to do less watching and more sweating if she wants to lose stress. After talking a bit with him, Hinakawa comes running in to tell them that this Holo-stuff is the coolest shit ever, so they hurry back to the office so he could explain why it’s so cool and Karanomori starts tapping her computer for people this holo is ripping off. Getting nowhere with that though, they determine that it must have been a dead person and they are entirely right - Just that the person happened to be like 8 years old when she died in an accident. Therefore the person had used a program to determine how this young girl would had looked like 15 years later as an adult instead and formed the basis of the holo disguise on that appearence. That’s when the news comes in - Kitazawa’s crime co-efficiency has dropped so low that they’re no longer allowed to contain him. Something that’s absolutely impossible and yet it has happened.

They interrogate him on how this was possible but he’s talking like someone’s whose high about this mysterious accomplice again and how he came and made him clear, yet the only person whose visited him was a therapist. Tsunemori and Ginoza goes to talk to the therapist in an amazingly crappy scene that leads absolutely nowhere except showing how easily manipulated Tsunemori can be. In the end, they transfer Kitazawa to a medical facility regardless, Tsunemori goes home while Aoyanagi go to interrogate him.

At her home, she contemplates if it’s enough that she just gets some second hand smoking on her clothes as opposed to actually smoking to reduce her stress while her AI tells her that smoking is bad. Anyone with two brain cells would know not to start in the first place, but then again I don’t hold much hope for humanity considering how people are telling kids to not smoke, and they still start smoking. So for Tsunemori to turn into a smoker to deal with the stress of her job despite never looking stressed a single time is not surprising. But I’d have to say that it is bad writing. Anyway, her AI discovers that there’s some scratches on the wall which confuses her since, she’s not in the habit of scratching her walls. At least not to her knowledge - she’s probably not had that much action lately aside from job otherwise she’d not be needing the smokes after all.

Disabling the holo emitters in her room to see what these scratches are allows her to see that someone has etched into her wall “WC?”, thoroughly terrifying her as it should. At the same time, the call comes in that Kitazawa has escaped. That with a completely clear hue when he was going to show Aoyanagi where he made the bombs, he instead pulled out a knife that was hidden in the apartment, cut her, and fled with bombs he had already prepared. Aoyanagi being complete in disbelief how anyone with a clear hue could commit a crime.

While the officers acted quickly, Tsunemori points out that there’s a sewer entrance nearby because every Dungeon Master knows that when you need one, you can just whip one out. Shimotsuki however shoots that down on the basis that it’s locked, and even if it wasn’t locked, they have cameras there so it’s impossible for him to get past there, period. As usual, she’s not very bright because at the same time, Karanomori reports that she just spotted him entering the sewers, because the door was unlocked.

Tsunemori, Togane and Hinekawa stops Kitazawa right before he could exit to freedom. He tells them to stop mocking him because his hue is clear and he has set bombs. Tsunemori attempts to get him to surrender but in response, he rerorero’s with his tongue before pressing the button, detonating a bomb. Still firmly believing that his hue is clear despite just blowing up several people. However, Tsunemori tells him that his hue, WAS clear, but now Togane’s Dominator displays that Kitazawa’s crime co-efficiency is up to 357 - target for lethal elimination.

In distraught despair, he apologizes to “Kamui” while seemingly disillusioned of where he currently is, asking metaphorically What Color he is now - right before he swells up about five times the normal size of a human and explodes into a gooey pile because Aoyanagi arrived and blasted him with her Dominator.

Meanwhile, up the sewer and on the other side of the door, we see this ‘Kamui’ lamenting on that Kitazawa’s hue could had been fixed, and how he hoped that Tsunemori would had understood that.

When it comes to Episode 2: The Creeping Unknown, I have a hard time formulating on what I think of it. It’s just so full of dumb mixed with scene jumping and poor character development. In between the events of Psycho Pass 1 to now, Tsunemori have apparently picked up smoking to deal with the stress of her job and yet, we never see her acting stressed at all. Her thought process regarding her smoking honestly strikes me as a teenager as well. That’s nothing to say about when they go to the Psychologist to ask him what kind of treatment he gave Kitazawa which apparently cleared his hue, and the whole scene amounts to him saying “You can see that on the surveillance recording”, followed by him completely leading the conversation while Tsunemori stands there like a complete idiot.

The only moderately good part is the revelation of WC although I personally believe it was handled all wrong. It’s not really a moment of clarity when it’s revealed, it’s “How come I was too stupid to not notice it?” and only becomes blatantly obvious in hindsight with the discussion of his hue being clear or clouded. If it’d been me, I am not sure if I’d revealed it in this episode, but I sure as hell wouldn’t have had a criminal spit it out like that, I’d have the viewer put two and two together, around the same time one of the main characters would had started to piece it together.

Like say for example, they have three suspects. All of them claiming their hue is clear and yet, at least one of theirs is fluctuation in different colors like blue, yellow, red and so forth while someone is still trying to decode the letters WC, and thus able to put two and two together that it stands for What Color, or something else, something similar like that. But that’s the problem with Psycho Pass, it doesn’t LET YOU. The show is absolutely terrified of you being smarter than it and that is Psycho Pass’ greatest failure.

Not to rant on it too long but, one of the issues with this episode’s logical path of thinking is that it assumes that clear and clouded are colors and meant to get the viewer to think of colors, but the issue is that if you tell some what is clear and what is clouded, they’re going to think about windows and transparency.

The only other characters to get any significant screen time this episode are Aoyanagi and Togane. Togane who runs after Tsunemori and asks her off-screen to be a part of the interrogation and then later on insinuating sex to Tsunemori in the gym and yes, I know it’s a gym and might as well been just regular workout but no. The way she fawns over his combat ability is screams exactly what the makers were thinking in that scene.

Then there’s Aoyanagi who says the absolute dumbest shit in this episode. Even outshining Shmotsuki’s idiocy by stating that, it’s not in her job description to search for ghosts simply because she can’t comprehend that the Sibil System could be flawed. She absolutely refuses to believe that, right as the evidence is spitting her in the face.

And Shimotsuki. I don’t know what fucking bird laid an egg up her ass but my god if there’s ever been a character I’ve hated more than her, I cannot think of anyone right now because she rubs me the wrong way, every time she’s on the goddamn screen. She’s a complete fucking idiot whose only goal seems to be to get Tsunemori fired because she doesn’t agree with her views, presumably because that’d mean that Shimotsuki would have to do ACTUAL THINKING.

She’s so fucking misplaced for the job that I have to fucking ask what the hell the Sibil System was thinking suggesting her to become an Inspector in the first place. Then again she IS suppose to represent a younger, inexperienced Tsunemori - But not even HER was as fucking stupid in the first episodes. Idealistic sure but not stupid.

I don’t know what’s worse in this episode. The Logically challenged Aoyanagi, or the rod-up-my-ass Shimotsuki.

When we return next to Psycho Pass, it’ll be for Episode 3, The Devil's Proof

Hopefully it won’t take as long until I get around to writing that review.

- Zeithri

[zeviews]

Bubblegum Crisis - Tokyo 2040 - Episode 2 “Fragile”

We open up this episode with a short point-of-view perspective of someone who had taped the rescue of Linna Yamazaki, the human shoe-throwing catapult, by the Knight Sabers while they were busy smashing up the rampaging Boomer.

Needless to say, the Chief of the Special Anti-Boomer Taskforce ( AD Police ) is not pleased.

Daley Wong, Leon’s ( Leon McNichol ) partner openly questions some of the chief’s opinions regarding the Knight Sabers during the meeting as the Chief says it’s up to the regular police to handle the Knight Sabers and not their department.

After the meeting, the two of them head out where they stumble across Nene Romanova who works at Dispatch for the AD Police. She refers to Leon as Leon-chan which upsets him and she tells him it’s an endearing term and sneaks away with some help from Daley.

Elsewhere, Linna Yamazaki is busy doing what most people at work does.

.. Which is avoiding work, but instead surfing the high tides of the information super tidal wave! That’s right! - The internet. Unfortunately for her, and despite her co-workers attempt at getting Linna’s attention. She gets caught browsing the web. Of course as most working people know as well, checking the web during work is usually punished by a slap on the wrist with a dust cleaner. Unless you’re an idiot who look at porn during work hours.

The reason for her intense net-searching is not to find new shoes to buy as one would expect of a shoe-thrower.. at least not primarily but it is in fact that she can’t find a single news article regarding last night’s bravado of the Boomer and the Knight Sabers.

So with this in mind, she does what’s number #2 on every employee's shitlist at work - Go bug their boss until they leave so you can snoop around their office. And he does, partially because she was creeping him out with her snooping about his date for the evening and partially because he had fled the scene last night with his tail between his leg - metaphorical and figuratively speaking of course.

But she can’t still find any info about the Knight Sabers so she decides to go through the AD Police’s database instead. Unfortunately for her however, Nene’s at the job playing what I can only assume is a lazy cheap version of Star Fox 64 ( Lylat Wars for us Europeans ) when she gets the alert that someone’s snooping around and therefore, she sends a virus to scare the crap out whomever is doing that. Because Nene is exactly that little spoiled brat that you could guess she’d be.

Linna does some detective work ( asking club owner ) in order to locate Priss. Priss is initially startled by Linna having found her so randomly as she’s practicing with her band but soon starts acting all playful with her, pretending she doesn’t know what she means, and how she should try using her tongu-cough COUGH-

Priss soon leaves but Linna refuses to be undeterred. She wants to join the Knight Sabers so badly that there’s nothing she’s unwilling to do, no price too high to pay! ... Except getting a good vehicle as the only one she was able to afford was a used scooter but regardless, she can tail Priss and her motorcycle to find out where she’s going!.. Until the scooter’s engine explodes of course.

But despite ending up far behind, dragging the remains of her scooter, she still manages to locate where Priss has gone and spots her talking to a ‘beautiful woman’ - that’d be Sylia Stingray of course whose upgraded herself from the blue short hair she had in the original to long silver.

The two leaves into a smaller room and Linna enters the strange building and follows where Priss and the other had entered, only to find a small empty room with a large wall-sized mirror, and the mirror reveals a secret elevator.

She ends up far down in a secret room where Nene is dressed in her hardsuit complaining about it not fitting properly anymore, Priss is standing there as is the beautiful woman. Nene naturally immediately proceeds to be the most annoying one in the room when she spots Linna, being rather rude towards her but Priss retorts with the perfect comeback for the situation: “ I know you are but what am I. “

While a Hardsuit has to be tailor made specifically for the user and thus they don’t have any ready yet for Linna, she’s invited to try out the Action Recorder, which is basically the best VR simulation game ever. Once the simulation is done, she drops to her knees and declares that it was amazing, and the episode ends.

Fragile isn’t the best episode, but it’s not entirely bad either. It has some funny moments, some playful comments hinting at a bisexual nature ( mostly from Sylia ). We get to see the head of the Genom corporation talk about his love for Boomers, and his second in command Mason who I didn’t mention. There’s also an exchange between Sylia and her inside contact regarding that the Genom corp know about the spreading of Mad Boomer but they declare it’s nothing to worry about, but nothing really feels like it’s going anywhere.

It’s an episode that throws some bits out, but nothing is really all that interesting with the exception of Linna. There’s also a part fairly early on where Priss talks to Sylia asking if she can make a 4th Hardsuit, and Sylia asks if Priss has anyone in particular in mind but Priss denies it and leaves. It just feels... Like it had a lot of missed opportunities.

Next time when we return to Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040, it’s for Episode 3  - Keep Me Hanging On

- Zeithri

[zeviews]

Psycho Pass 2 - Episode 1 “The Scales of Justice { 299 / 300 }”

Psycho Pass was conceived from the idea of making a successor to Mamoru Oshii's achievements such as Ghost in the Shell ( 1995 and I presume GITS 2: Innocence in 2004 ) and Patlabor, drawing inspiration upon such works like Minority Report and Blade Runner, the latter of which Naoyoshi Shiotani compared very close to Psycho-Pass. Gen Urobuchi, the series writer insisted heavily on using a Philip K. Dick-inspired dystopian narrative, a notable American writer whose written such influential works such as Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and The Man in the High Castle.

Chief director Katsuyuki Motohiro really wanted this series to counter the concurrent trends, so for example the term moe was banned at staff meetings. Akane Tsunemori, the main character was created as the most relatable character, the one who would question the setting from the audience's point of view, and her journey from an innocent newcomer to a mature person.

Wow.. With a history like that.... With such passion behind it like how they appreciated dramas like Gundam and Patlabor, and conflicts between characters and the anti-moe sentiment.. One just has to ask themselves... 

What the hell happened?

But let’s get down to it.

Episode 1 opens up with everyone’s most hated kind of people next to telemarketing people, attempting to sell and give free things to people at the street. So it’s no surprise that the secret doll-robot with a holographic exterior is carrying bombs.

While this is startling and certainly terrifying, no one gets hurt from it because as the police notes, the criminal made sure no one was in the immediate area. After all, when you live in a dystopian society and trying to get people to wake up and face the truth of it all, killing them will be counter-productive to your cause.

Akane observes footage taken by the cameras and notices a person whose looking towards the explosion and asks Karanomori to compare the picture of the man with a video they have of a masked man whose making wild threats and they conclude it’s the same person, whose also a demolitions export. So they locate where he is by following his movements using the cameras and surround the building his in, preparing to send in the Enforcers to apprehend or exterminate the suspect.

But the thing with insane demolition experts is that... They’re probably experts at setting traps so naturally, he’s set a trap for them. Though not just one, but three. The first was a bomb, the second was a empty truck on auto-pilot, and the third was a robot.

Now.. We have to move into spoiler territory a bit, mainly regarding Psycho-Pass 1. Towards the end of the show, Akane learns the truth about the Sibil System that controls society and even their guns, as in a sense, the most advanced computer ever. Around 20 or more brains are plugged into the mainframe which allows them to have complete access to the entire city and control each aspect as well as other nifty tricks and the key here is that all these people who run the Sibil System are the criminals that can avoid the system.

Unlike most protagonists, Akane decides not to out the truth to the public, which would surely ensure a riot and the downfall of this civilization structure that the Sibil System represents. Dogs and Cats, living together and all that sort of stuff. However, because she gives her word that she will not out them, she wants something in return which is the ability to control the lethality of her gun at will ( if I recall correctly ) and Sibil agrees.

This, is also where I lost all respect for Akane and the show as a whole. Presented with the opportunity to expose the truth, she chooses to be content within the framing of society. A society that does not work. A society that, tells you what you are allowed be and if it doesn’t work for you, tough luck, go ahead and die.

By allowing the Sibil System to continue, she’s enabling this criminal dystopian future to go on. She’s a tool of the worst kind by stating that she still believes in it - if I remember correctly from Psycho-Pass 1.

After some chasing of the suspect, they manage to corner him on the roof where he threatens to blow himself up but instead of shooting him, Akane starts talking to him and point out his admiral traits and noble attitude of wanting to expose the truth of the system and the likes, while he complains about how the system basically robbed him of wanting to do what he wants to do. Eventually she talks him down enough for his Crime Co-efficiency to drop below the 300 line, allowing her to bring him in non-lethal as opposed to splattering his body across the streets below.

When confronted by Mika Shinotsuki, on why she didn’t outright kill the suspect because the Sibil System had deemed him a waste of air and waste, Akane says that she made a judgement call and that the Sibil System reverted it’s decision on him. She walks away, while Mika says to herself that Akane is Wrong.

After the credits, we find the other two officers who were heading after the hostage only for the hostage to turn out to be the new series main villain - yet another one who can use their guns against them without fear of retaliation. The episode ends with the marking in blood scribble on the wall reading “ WC? ”

I guess someone really needed to use the toilet badly.

The Scales of Justice is a rather fast-paced episode that relies on you knowing the majority of the characters already while also showing that some time has passed since the first show. There’s a new character who plays the role that Akane had in the first series except that in this, she’s an absolutely awful character who I predict will most likely turn bad, while Akane is more self-secure in herself now.

When we next return to Psycho Pass 2, we’ll have a loot at Episode 2, The Creeping Unknown

- Zeithri

[zeviews]

NetFlix presents: Castlevania III Dracula’s Curse - The Anime ( Trailer Talk )

A good friend of mine informed me that Castlevania was going to be on Netflix and my first instant reaction was #FuckKonami while my second was “ Will they try to do as that in-plans live action Zelda-TV series? Try to ride the hype of Game of Thrones? “

But no. It turns out that it’s going to be an anime. Quite possibly the results of the long-awaited anime OVA they talked about like 7-10 years ago and then ended up in development hell and then promptly more or less died out when Konami got it’s famous panty-twist and decided to jump 100% into Pachinko Machines - Pull the Lever and all that!

Erotique Castlevania & Silent Hill: The Revenge of the Balls.

So what we can judge by the trailer is that this is clearly Castlevania III Dracula’s Curse. Trevor Belmont returns after having been exiled ( “ Is, this your card? “ ) because the Church found him to be.. Let’s say problematic existence, if I recall.

We also see Alucard rising from his coffin, however he is sporting his Symphony of the Night-look although with blonde hair. This isn’t a bad thing after all, it makes him more recognizable to most fans and won’t have him be confused with Bela Lugosi.

As we know from the game, Trevor will fight Alucard because Alucard is looking for someone to help him take on his father. Though my mind wanders and contemplate if they’ll take it in some different direction here that, perhaps Alucard is being controlled and Trevor will break him out of it, or perhaps Alucard is exhibiting his lone wolf traits of Symphony of the Night and will refuse the help and instead act on his own, perhaps occasionally fighting with Trevor in verbal jousting or something.. I dunno, I would presume they stay faithful..

At least, more or less.

Grant DaNasty have certainly seen a visual upgrade since the good ol’ NES days. Of course back then he was basically portrayed in terms of looks as a very stereotypical swabhand of a pirate ship. The little we see of him in the trailer seem to suggest that he’s more a Thief’ish / Rogue’ish type, presumably good with words and finding traps. Essential to any group in D&D who don’t want to end up impaled on gem-encrusted spikes.

Grant retains his affinity for throwing dagge- Oh wait, those aren’t daggers. They’re KUNAI now.... Alright. I can roll with it.

= ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~

Update 2017-06-04: Having a proper look at the screenshot of the supposed Grant and Trevor, I’ve come to believe that the image above here is not Grant but in fact, Trevor.. After all, it’s the same clothing. Reason for this confusion can only been because in the image of Trevor holding the whip makes him look significantly much larger and imposing while the one throwing the daggers makes him look smaller and more rogueish.

= ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~

While personally, my first run through Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse was with Alucard as companion because I dig Vampires, all my subsequent playing of the game is always with one character in particular, whose my favorite, who I love in that game..

SYPHA BEL-

-NA.. NA... WHAT?

Why are you hoodless? Why do you cast magic while holding your hand in the way Christians would piss themselves with fear? Or are you heavy metal’ing it up? I guess it’s rather silly of me to get stuck on her looks right after talking about Grant but the thing with Sypha was that she was keeping her sex a secret. Magic users AND ESPECIALLY WOMEN were not seen in any kind of positive light in that world, in that time of age. But let’s start over.

Aside from that I think she looks far to feminine in my eyes, I dig the little of her design that we see in this trailer. Her long flowing robe or cape or, well, that looks great! She also seems to have short hair which is nice, though in the game she had long but, perhaps that’s how they’ll intend to try and keep her be seen as a Male so she can have the hood down all the time?

She sure looks a heck a lot better than what she did in Judgement though, that’s for sure. Talk about a complete misunderstanding of priorities in that game I tell ya’.

However, we have yet to see Dracula in the trailer unless the guy dressed in black, with black hair, firing lightning, is Dracula. However I remain skeptical about it. It does seem like an interesting character though, with the Elven Ears ( at least from my perspective ) and the black clothes and the lightning. All nice stuff.

Overall, I’d say that this is a very nice trailer and I am looking forward to it. Though airing it in July is a mistake. It should be aired in October if you ask me.

You can see the trailer here.

- Zeithri

[zeviews]

Bubblegum Crisis - Tokyo 2040 - Episode 1 “Can’t buy a Thrill”

In 1959, Robert A. Heinlein published a novel that featured something that was to become a staple of science fiction everywhere. The novel was called Starship Troopers, and it starred the slightly impulsive youth known as Juan “Johnnie” Rico who signs up for the mobile infantry and his subsequent exploits. The mobile infantry military service branch are known for employing some really amazing high powered armors with long arms that make the user somewhat resemble a primate.

One thought, one tiny idea, set loose into the infinite space of creativity, sparked a massive number of franchises and variations. In short, the mecha genre was born.

Fast forward to the 1980′s, Toshimichi Suzuki ponders how he shall remake the 1982 movie Techno Police 21C when he stumble across Junji Fujita. Over a discussion, maybe even lunch, they get talking and eventually exchange ideas with one another and eventually they decide to collaborate. It’s not exactly what happened but the two of them did meet and they did exchange ideas which lead to the creation of Bubblegum Crisis.

Released between 1987 to 1991, Bubblegum Crisis ( sometimes subtitled as 2032 and 2033 ) is a OVA set in a Cyberpunk future of 2030′s where the Megacorp Genom is responsible for the creation of Boomers, which is the name for this universe robots and also used for androids. Mostly used for androids when I think about it when it comes to that series. It follows mainly the exploits of the all-female mercenary group known as Knight Sabers, armed with some serious high tech equipment in the form of power suits called Hardsuits that not even the military have access to. The best they and the AD Police can muster are the significantly inferior K-Suits.

Bubblegum Crisis is definitely a set piece of it’s time, taking a load of inspiration from other Cyberpunk movies such as Blade Runner and Terminator. They’ve also stated that the movie Streets of Fire played an inspirational role as well and while I haven’t watched that movie yet, the song Nowhere Fast from that movie, and BBGC’s Victory are so close to each other I wonder if it’s borderline plagiarism. The music is certainly one of it’s greatest selling points along with artistic value as it is just absolutely gorgeously animated, unfortunately this causes the story to lack in quality. Originally planned for thirteen episodes, they only ever completed eight because of legal problems.

Suzuki explained in an interview with Animerica back in 1993 about the title Bubblegum Crisis, in that it’s suppose to reflect a world in Crisis, “.. like a bubblegum that’s about to burst!” and if you’ve followed or heard anything in regards to our own world the past twenty years, then you’ve sure to have heard about a few bubbles bursting here and there! But in regards to BBGC, it reflects the inability of the AD Police to properly handle the problem, the supposed good guys who are mostly after to earn money, and the Genom Corp who keeps pushing out Boomers despite the issues that occur ergo - The bubble’s gonna burst.

I felt the need to elaborate on this all in order to properly do justice to the new, and for you to understand from where it comes from, and what impact it may have on Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040, and my view on the work overall. But let’s get down to it, this is;

Bubblegum Crisis - Tokyo 2040 - Episode 1 “ Cant’ buy a Thrill ”

Right away we are presented with a rock song called Y’know, which I assume is suppose to be performed by the character Priss who is the musician of the group. In the original show, her band was called Priss and the Replicants which was a clear nod to Blade Runner. The song itself seem to be about love primarily as it references Romeo and Juliet specifically with ‘Blind love’, but it also seem to be about lust really as it references the cool things clone dolls can do and things one can simulate. So I guess, in context of the song, Cybersex and how having real sex is better. But I could just be missing it completely.

After the opening, we are introduced to Linna Yamazaki who is new to Tokyo, having just moved here from the country, looking for the big break in the sales business. She accidentally stumbles into a Boomer and apologizes, but just like how Canadians are from what I’ve learned from How I met Your Mother, it’s the Boomer who apologizes. She does not however, get any donoot on the hoose. Her work buddy is shown to clearly harbor an almost racist dislike towards Boomers.

After getting lunch, Linna daydreams while her work buddy continues to express her intense dislike towards Boomers, some people have priorities I guess. This results in Linna stepping out into the road a bit just as a woman in red, driving a bike nearly runs her over, causing Linna to trip and drop her food. Well, such a challenge to a catfight can’t go unpunished after all, she’s from the country and she’ll be damned if she gets pushed around on her first day by the big city!

She does however, fail to impress the lady on the bike who just drives the other way instead of engaging in a tongue fight ( I can dream can’t I? ), so Linna throws her shoes because as we all know, that’s when things get serious in the modern times! Medieval ages, we hit each other with gauntlets - modern times, we throw shoes.

Linna gets chewed out by her boss who happens to be a Boomer, and even though Linna does say that she is starting to dislike Boomers, the boss simply says “ Yeah well, I’m not the one with a broken shoe. “ and sends her to clean the bathroom. Let that be a lesson to you, when the robot uprising happens, they won’t kill us - They’ll just make us clean toilets! However shortly after this, her supervisor / other boss drops by and asks to show her around later at night and she accepts the offer.

Now, we’re introduced to one of the worst characters in my opinion. Nene. I don’t know why but, I just really dislike her. She’s cute, but I guess it’s just her supposed genius to age that makes me dislike her. She’s a fine character in general. Immediately following that, we are introduced to Leon and his compadre and Leon has a huge anger boner against the Knight Sabers. Both Leon and his work buddy, and Nene all work for AD Police.

In the span of two minutes, we’re introduced to three characters, and I only remember the name of two, and immediately following that, we’re following Linna again walking across the nightlife in Tokyo with her boss, who just so obviously want to get into her panties. Unfortunately for him, Linna have hots for Priss who she recognizes from a poster as the woman who drove off.

He attempts to feel her up after being a rude asshole because some guys just think girls get turned on by that ( though I am sure some do ), luckily Linna is a country girl and people from the country are more likely to either talk sarcastically back, or punch you in the face when you do things they don’t like. However a Boomer who senses that there might be harassment arrives on the scene to destroy and kill everyone so the boss takes off, even throwing other people out of the way because he clearly wasn’t portrayed as sleazy enough.

The Boomer decides to chase after Linna, presumably because it heard about the shoe incident and decided that such a crime can’t go unpunished. Luckily, that’s the time the Knight Sabers decide to show up and save the day - or err, the night. Much to Leon’s dismay who arrives at the scene, just as the Boomer is destroyed.

The next day, Linna seeks out Priss to confront her regarding the audacity of making her drop her food and throw her shoe, but she also says that she knows Priss is a Knight Saber, and she wants to become one as well. Priss rides off without saying anything but she does give her a lingering look at she drives off.

Can’t buy a Thrill is an excellent episode that feels perhaps a bit quick. It throws out all these characters in rapid succession while focusing almost entirely on Linna who is the clear choice of main character for this series, unlike the original where Priss was the main character and Linna.. Barely did anything of note that I can remember.

I have to say that the show is just beautifully animated and the redesign for the characters are really really good. I really like the Motoko-style that Linna pulls off, perhaps because I’ve wanted to have my hair like that as well. I am not too keen on Sylia’s design though but it fits her character. Nene is pretty much the only one that didn’t change a whole lot. The hardsuits themselves look amazing!

Yet despite how much info it throws out, all of it sticks with you with perhaps the exception being certain locations and names. It does a very good job at giving you what’s relevant and why, and we’ll get to see how things go in next episode, Fragile.

Oh dear..

- Zeithri

[zeviews]

Constatine ( 2014 ) - Season 1 Episode 1 / Pilot “Non Est Asylum”

“ My name is John Constantine. I am the one who steps on the shadows, all trench coat and arrogance. I'll drive your demons away, kick 'em in the bullocks, and spit on them when they're down, leaving only a nod and a wink and a wisecrack. I walk my path alone because, let's be honest... who would be crazy enough to walk it with me? “

Constantine started airing on the 24th of October about two years ago. I do not really remember how I stumbled across it, except that I saw a trailer for it and was instantly hyped. It just spoke to me on a fundamental level of sorts that I find hard to describe. I guess the easiest way to phrase it is that some people fall for Batman, others for Superman. For me, it’s John Constantine. Despite that, I have not read the Hellraiser comics ( mostly because I don’t read much comics or manga at all ).

I fully enjoyed the airing of Constantine and was very saddened by the fact that they decided to not renew it for a second season. But the brightest of fires burn twice as fast, great shows that only gotten one season are so much more memorable than the ones that’s been done to death.

Constantine begins with John getting zapped by electricity in a psychiatric ward and we quickly learn that he is there on his on free will. It turns out that he has willingly committed himself because he wish to forget about the existence of the supernatural forces in the world, a sort of pretend that it isn’t real due to a traumatic accident that he was the cause of. However, he is sent a message in the form of a possessed person, realizing that he needs to get out there again and do what only he can do.

The message points him in the direction of a woman named Liv, the daughter of his late friend Jasper, as she is targeted by a demon from the underworld to kill her. She initially believes John to be nothing more than a random creep but following the death of an acquaintance of hers and the revelation of the supernatural, she agrees to be protected by John and his friend Chas, a man with some interesting survival skills.

An angel drops down on John and tells him that something is coming, and also that he is sent to watch over John. He never specifically says what is coming, but after visiting an old friend of John’s, John learns that whatever it is, it’s happening all over the world.

John Constantine is played by Matt Ryan who does a phenomenal job at it, really solidifying how Constantine is unlike Keanu Reeves performance back in 2005. However, that Constantine is a lot less bullshit talk and more action and is good in his own right, and I believe you should feel free to like either interpretation of Constantine. Chas is played by Charles Halford, Lucy Griffiths play Liv and Harold Perrineau plays the angel Manny. They all provide great acting though I have to say, that Liv feels a bit stiff to me in particular, almost a bit stereotypical though I had no problems with seeing her in more episodes, but she never did.

Which brings us to the inevitable crossroads...

There exists two versions of the first episode. The first is the pilot episode which i believe was only shown online ( but I could be wrong ) and the second is the episode that actually aired. While similar, they have some noticeable differences. Longer scenes in certain cases, different angles in a few and most notable, a completely different ending.

I highly recommend you check out Constantine if you haven’t already. It is a fantastic show.

One that is more than perfect, for the best month of the year - October.

- Zeithri

[zeviews]

Utawarerumono Itsuwari no Kamen - Episode 10 “In love”

Last time on Utawarerurmono...

Puking. Let’s get on with it..

This is yet another episode written by women aged 45+ who miss their youth and want to relieve it as this episode is devoted to nothing else than a young girls dilemma of being in love. I am therefore completely unable to take it serious in any way at all.

Anju has come out with saying that she’s in love with Oshu and she’s seeking the wisdom of a couple of girls at an inn for how to make him hers. Shenanigans!

Suddenly a NiNjA appears throwing gold all over. This part I will admit to being funny as it sort of subverts the classic Robin Hood-trope in that, she steals from the rich and gives to the poor but the poor doesn’t want the gold, and views her more as a destructive nuisance as her throwing the gold around causes more damage than what the gold most likely can cover. Not to mention that some guy gets a big assed statue of which he shouts after her “What the fuck am I suppose to do with this?!”

She escapes into the sewer when suddenly plot convenience Haku appears and grabs her boobs, rips her shirt off, and lands in a big pile of poo...

..............

- stands up and walks away -

- Zeithri.

[zeviews]

Utawarerumono Itsuwari no Kamen - Episode 9 “Messengers from the Land where Gods sleep”

First off, I had suspected this episode to go elsewhere. My prediction was completely off. The episode starts with Ukon asking Haku to spy on the messengers from the land where the Gods sleep in order to determine if they have hostile intentions towards them. The land in question, is Tusukuru.

Before the characters were even revealed, I knew it would be Aruruw. I’ll recognize that Tiger from anywhere and my reaction was appropriately, “Tigur!”. Just like with Touka and Karura, Miss Plot-contrivance attempts to flee the script and believe me, I’d run for the goddamn hills myself ahead of time.

Every now and then, we get the standoff between the Tiger Mukkuru and the over-sized bird of Rurutie’s, arguably some of the best scenes of the episode, mostly because it’s just so damn adorable.

SURPRISE! IT’S TIME TO MEASURE YOUR NAKED BODY AGAINST OURS! BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT FAMILY AND FRIENDS DOES WHILE MEASURING HOW DEEP ONES FINGERS CAN GO! FUCK YOU YOU PATHETIC OLDER BITCHES WHO MADE THIS SHOW!

The other half of the episode consists of Aruru and Kamyu hunting the streets for Kuon while pestering Haku to buy every food they find on the way. That part is pretty funny but overall.. Why am I even writing this anymore? Fuck this. It was a decent episode but meh overall. Best part was Mukkuru.

Now yanker wankers will dank.

- Zeithri

[zeviews]

Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans - Episode 6 “As for them”

Last time on Gundam, it went deeper than they expected.

The two aces discuss that they aren’t pursuing the rebels but blondie knows for sure that Kudelia is on that ship and therefore they’ll have plenty of time to meet them again. After all, they are destined to either be the everlasting rivals or to see the errors of their ways with time and join them so there’s no need to rush that.

Meanwhile on Tekkadan’s ship the Isaribi, maintenance of Gundam Barbatos is on it’s way and Mikazuki is being a glutton, explaining that he always get hungry after a mission which could either be because of the energy he expands using the Alaya-Vijnana System, or he simply enjoys eating more knowing that he’s still alive.

Orga and the others discuss how they’ll reach Earth now when they lost their guide due to treachery, so they decide on the organized Mafia known as Teiwaz, clearly taken from the Nordic god of the same name also known as Tiwaz and Tyr ( trivia, in my early teens, we used to have a wolf hybrid named Tiwaz, the rune for Tyr is ᛏ  ). And I swear they say Teiwaz at least like fifteen times, like if they’re purposefully trying to hammer it into one’s head.

On board the Gjallarhorn ship, we see blondie summon Second Lieutenant Ein Dalton for a report on his experience of Gundam Barbatos during the initial episodes of getting their asses kicked and he promptly tells blondie that they got their asses kicked. Since he’s clearly the destined rival who’ll probably eventually received a Char-mask, he also begs to join the Gjallarhorn in their pursuit of the enemy.

Back on Isaribi, Kudelia offered to teach Mikazuki to read and ended up as a teacher for all the kids on the ship. Not all that surprising really all things considered, and we find out that the reason Orga might seem crazy is because he wants Mikazuki to always have his eyes on him. Well it didn’t come out like that, the way Orga puts it comes out more stalker’ish like, Mika is always behind him whispering in his ear “What should we do now, Orga?”

This episode.. Was interesting I guess. It’s not bad overall as it serves to show life on board the ship and I am all for character interaction and development, it’s just that I personally found myself rather disinterested in this episode. I apologize for my lack of updates lately but this is rather normal when I run out of food but I’ll try to get the following episodes up on reviews as well.

I think my next review will continue with Vivid, but we’ll see.

- Zeithri

[zeviews]

Utawarerumono Itsuwari no Kamen - Episode 8 “Imperial Capital Detective Stories”

For an episode titled detective stories, there really weren’t any detectives and stories felt somewhat misleading.

We start the episode off by seeing the corrupt merchant Echigoya ( Tenchu reference / joke ) on his ship scheming menacingly along with his trusted second. Shortly after that, we’re bottle fed exposition on why Haku & the gang ( which consists of Haku, Atui and Ukon ) are on this boat and in disguises. Well, everyone on the boat is wearing some mask but the reason they are wearing it is because they’re detectives I mean, OF COURSE, that’s what the title is about right? They couldn’t possibly just simply be spying.

It barely takes five minutes from the opening celebrations of “Welcome to my Ship” to spiral into “Cockfight!” which was somewhat mind boggling how fast that went. It turns out that Echigoy- I mean DekoDeko-aho ( nickname I just gave him, his actual name is something like Dekoponpan ) is running an illegal insect cage fights where two giant insects fight to the death for the amusement of rich nobles. Hm, I can’t see where this will go wrong at all.

We also find out that Haku & the gang aren’t the only ones on this ship as we see the busty NiNjA / Thief again in disguise, Atui and her are betting against each other on what bug is going to win while Haku and Ukon discreetly check out the rest of the ship and find the cargo hold which evidently is full of caged insects. It as this point that Ukon tells the story of how a single one of those creatures made it into the sever system of Yamato and set up an underground hive. It started collecting live people...

This Xenomor- sorry, I mean BUG, collected these people in order to impregnate them with chestburs- I mean eggs, which breed more bugs BUT it was thanks to Ukon’s brave father Lieutenant Ripley who wielded a flamethrower... Sorry, I got off hook.

Naturally disaster happens ( who would had thought? ) as one of the insects uses it’s acid saliva ( are you sure this isn’t an Aliens fanfic? ) to get out of it’s cage, release the others and then wreck havoc on the ship. DekoDeko-Aho escapes as the corrupt asshole he is while his assistant collects everything he can.

Now we find out the most ridiculous part of the show. Atui finds bugs icky so she screams like a little girl while butchering them all up. One of them explodes his ... white... stuff.. all over her... Just why..

DekoDeko-Aho realizes that one of his priced treasures were left behind so his assistant swims back to get it, only to find Haku in possession of it and as he attempts to cut Haku down, he cleaves the treasure instead. Suddenly the two NiNjA’s appear to gloat about finding the proof of corruption before bravely diving into the ocean ( wouldn’t that ruin the papers and thus, the evidence..? ) as Atui panics and blows a hole in the ship causing it to sink.

Bugs attempt to escape but it turns out that Ukon is Batman and has prepared a firing squad so we get some more fanservice for ladies and men who like men in the form of overly musculus yet slender Haku and Ukon being very close and huggy with each other almost completely naked.

I’m not gonna lie. I am happy that the episodes are picking up in speed but I was just completely disinterested in this episode. It was boring and predictable, the half-naked bodies of Ukon and Haku look ridiculous too.

Next week, we’ll return with episode nine, “Messengers from the Land where Gods sleep”.

- Zeithri

[zeviews]

Utawarerumono Itsuwari no Kamen - Episode 7 “The Young Princess”

The episode starts off with Ruru and Atui walking around the streets of Yamato during early day to shop when Ruru suddenly spots a store where she just HAVE to go into, NO MATTER WHAT, SHE MUST IN THERE RIGHT NOW! 

Boys’ Love manga. Wait, MANGA?! BOOKS?!... I guess it’s not that strange when I think about it but still. I certainly weren’t expecting this. Then again, having a specific love-love store seems a bit weird to me as well but it shows the cute fanatic side of Rurutie. Coincidentally, she reacts the exact same way to these books as my girlfriend did when we found Mega Man X Collection at Gamestop for a significantly less-than-Ebay price.

Haku remains the anchor of skepticism in the show much to my delight as he and Kiuru hangs up lanterns ( / decorations ) as he very easily teases Kiuru due to his obvious love for Nekone. A plot point I honestly couldn’t care less about because he’s being really creepy about it.

Meanwhile Ruru and Atui collided with a cheetah. She takes Ruru’s books as a sign of ‘offering’ to her and runs off. We can already tell that she’s going to be this episode’s mischief character and sure enough, next time we see her she’s stuffing her face full of food, so Haku decides to join her and stuffs his face full of food as well. After that, she disappears again after Haku and Kiuru attempted to find out where she lived.

As they return home, we get a painful reception. A wooden spoon straight to the forehead.. I can tell you that it’s not a pleasant experience at all, having experienced something much similar.. But yes, Haku gets a spoon thrown on him by Kuon since a little mischief maker had eaten the desert she had prepared and damnit, Kuon was out for blood!

They eventually find the little mischief maker having created a complete mess in one of the rooms and reading the Boys’ love book that she had taken earlier. Kuon makes her clean the entire room as a lesson until..

... This happens, and I can already tell that this character is going to be one of my favorites. Me and my friend were studying the opening where all characters were shown and I pointed this one out as most likely one of my upcoming favorites and here she is, Munechika in all her glory - spanking a child for being a mischief maker.

This was a funny episode. I wouldn’t say it was a great one but it certainly made me laugh a few times straight out. For the first time, we have an episode where none of the characters were naked in a bath, though, we had to fill our quota for episodic nudity as per usual and that was filled by Anju getting spanked...

I have gotten behind with my reviews but rest assured, I’ll get to them. Next week, we’ll have a look at episode eight “ Imperial Capital Detective Stories ”.

- Zeithri

[zeviews]

Utawarerumono Itsuwari no Kamen - Episode 6 “The Master of the Inn”

I meant to write this much earlier, but I never got around to it. So I decided to jump in on Episode 6 with my reviews of this show because, better late than never.

We open up with, how else - one of the characters being naked in the bath. A re-occurring theme so far in the show and much to my annoyment. You know, doing it once or twice is one thing but finding a way to get the character naked in every episode is another thing and it reeks of desperation.

We can immediately tell that the animation quality for this episode sank drastically, or they’re just trying some new style because it looks awful. The colors looks washed out and filthy, I guess they were going for a look to emulate that of a hot spring but.. It just doesn’t look right. However, we get to see a familiar face finally. I thought this took place a long time after but.. I would assume that no more than 10-15 years have passed since the first show.

The one we get to see is none other than Karura. And as fitting, she’s drinking. She’s also naked but she’s drinking. If there was something you could trust Karura to do in the first show, it was to drink. So here she is, offering a drink to Haku.

After that little scene, we once again get a view of Kuon’s uncanny ability to detect when people are observing her as we spot a strange character hiding behind a wall so that she wouldn’t see her. And I have to admit, I have huge problems with Kuon as a character. She’s only here to further the story ahead, and she can detect a fly farting. It’s really annoying. Haku receives an invitation for a banquet and decides to take Kuon with him at the very top of the Inn, and that’s where we find out the secret..

SURPRISE! THE INNKEEPER IS KARURA! And she knows Kuon! Because of course we needed that connection! To be fair, I am happy to see Karura again though, she was one of my favorite hands down. Karura also favors pouncing on people from behind just like a Tiger, except her idea seems way more... non-lethal.

Kuon attempts to call Karura for mother but upon nearly saying that word, we get the death stare from Karura. Now, while I wouldn’t mind it one bit if she was the actual mother, in fact I think that would be an interesting plot point but of course, no she’s just someone who helped raising her and therefore prefers the title of Big Sister. Karura rings a bell an-

* SQUEEL * TOUUUKAAA !!!

My favorite character enters the scene and I am so happy. Again, Kuon calls Touka for Touka-mother and I’ll just say it: I am all for shipping Touka x Karura! It is good to see that Touka’s just as much a blabbering moron as she was in the original. Moron isn’t the correct word but I would absolutely call Touka “ aho ” in Japanese. That is why she’s my favorite. She’s someone relatable I guess. Touka acting like a mother is just.. perfect. I love it. That’s how I am with my sisters.

So Karura drinks Haku under the table senseless and we get the true reason why Karura and Touka is in this town and that is to spy on the town’s progress to see if it’s a threat to Tusukuru, so now we have the Oniwabanshu in Utawarerumono. Makes sense but.. When is this show going to start being smart?

This episode helped to establish several things. Some knowledge of what the old characters have been up to, what their current goal is and Kuon being seen and accepted as an adult and therefore allowed to drink.. It’s silly, but I can’t hate this episode because it reintroduced my favorite character again, and she’s certainly grown up now ( since we get to see her butt because, this show relies more on nudity to progress the story as opposed to being smart ).

I really must ask, was Utawarerumono Itsuwari no Kamen made by a group of middle aged women or something? That might sound extremely sexist of me, but I like to think of it as stereotyping more, I have so many issues with this show but I can’t hate it, yet. We’ll see how it proceeds in the future.

- Zeithri

[zeviews]

Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha Vivid - Episode 2 “Einhart Stratos”

We start this episode where we left off last time, which was Nove being accosted by a mysterious figure wearing a visor in hunt for answers to her questions. They have a bit of a chat and we learn that this Miku Hatsune wannabe is named Ingvalt but goes by the title of Hegemon.

She asks about the royal family of the Sankt Kaiser and Flame Queen but Nove says pretty much what most are thinking - We don’t give a crap. They engage in a fist fight where Nove does what she does best, being an amazing hothead that charges straight in without any armor.

Eventually though, she decides that battle gear is the better choice before continuing the battle and it seems like she’s gonna win this easily. But this is anime so rest assured that she’ll get punked out in one hit, and sure enough that happens but not before she manages to kick Miss Hegemon in the face. Hegemon leaves a too-weak-to-fight Nove where she knocked her down but it seems that Hegemon wasn’t prepared for just how strong Nove really is, so she faints shortly thereafter. So for you whose keeping score at home, that’s Nove one ( 1 ), ancient Belka fighter zero ( 0 ).

However, we also learn that Hegemon isn’t all that she seems, and she’s in fact exactly like Vivio in the sense that she has a magical adult form for fighting but is actually a child. And just like Vivio, she too is heterochromatin.

Nove calls Subaru up and it’s a joy to see her again. She explains that she put a bug on Hegemon with her kick so they can track her. Seeing that she’s a child, they decide to not call the authorities on this but instead do the honorable thing and kidnap her for more information. It’s the only sound thing to do to your opponent once you’ve knocked them out, you take them home, give them breakfast and talk.

This episode doesn’t further a lot of things, but it mainly serves to establish the backstory of this character whose real name is Einhart Stratos. The more I see of Nove in morning getup the better. Speaking of, she was evidently watching Einhart sleeping, and I am not sure if that’s a cute or creepy thing in this situation.. I guess I’ll go with cute.

The combined might of Subaru with making the breakfast, Tia just being Tia and Nove being the talkative one is a frightening concept to be hold I am sure, and they make Einhart promise to not charge for any royal family nor late night punching bags.

It turns out that Einhart is apparently suffering from the rare Assassin’s Creed syndrome in that she carries latent memories of a distant relative to her, or perhaps even a previous life. This ancient-dead person was a part of the royalty of Belka, either the Queen’s royal knight or something more. I am sure we’ll get to know later on.

I will never not be disturbed to see a 10 year old training seriously as if she was 15.. The image of Vivio jogging and training martial arts during the day is rubs me the wrong way, but I guess I just had a sucky life and therefore cannot comprehend when someone is so goal driven at a young age, as opposed to me whom always been by my dreams.

Anyway, after that we cut to Nanoha home where we learn that Fate is in the shower and - OH GOD NO! WHY JAPAN WHY! WHHY!! WHA- YOU TOO NANOHA?! WHAT IS THIS? INCEST! FUN FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY NOOO!!!

That disturbing image aside of the family sharing a bath and shower together.. The interactions between Nove and Einhart is very cute and something relatable to me I guess. I wouldn’t be surprised if Nove ends up adopting her by the end of it all, or rather the whole Nakajima family does.

But time will tell I guess. It was a decent episode overall but it kinda feels a bit like a filler overall. The comment Nove makes about how you shouldn’t street fight but instead practice and go pro sorta sticks to me but, it’s easy to say one thing.. But very hard when one is broke and in debt.

Next week’ish we’ll take a look at Episode 3 “True Feelings”.

- Zeithri

[zeviews]

Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans - Episode 5 “Beyond the Red Sky”

In this episode, we finally leave the red planet in favor of space, and if there’ something I do love it’s space. The episode starts with Orga finishing the transactions with Orcus for, I assume supplies and similar in order to have enough to reach Earth. After that, we get another scene of Kudelia lamenting of her role in the show as the next in line of absolutely meh-copies of Relena Peacecraft, until she sees a light and decides to investigate it, only to find the Heero-clone of this show, Mikazuki who himself ponders the fate of Earth’s moon as it apparently suffered heavy damage during the calamity wars to the point that, it’s apparently not in the sky anymore.

That brings forth a whole lot of questions of how our future would look like without a moon but, I have my doubts this show won’t go into any of those so therefore we won’t either. But I have to question Mika in this... He lives on Mars, and Mars has two moons named Phobos and Deimos. So far we’ve yet to see these two moons so... What happened to them? Did the creators just forget about them?! We don’t even get to see them in space. That being said, they are rather small compared to our moon which, according to this page, you can see from Mars.

As they leave for space, we finally get to see how they were set up by Todo who had in secret told Orcus about their precious cargo and her worth. Needless to say, it doesn’t go as planned and that goes for any of them except for Tekkadan, as it turns out Orga had planned for possible betrayal.. By preparing his huge metal rod for this occasion, the stolen CGS ship Isaribi, formerly known as the Will-o’-the-Wisp. He also had stuffed his favorite toy Mikazuki in his backpack, and Mikazuki had prepared his own large metal rod for some serious, to-the-front penetration action.

There’s a lot one can say about the various Gundam shows, not to mention that everything’s probably already been said as well. From unrealistic, to realistic, to surreal, to “That thing doesn’t fit in there!”. But Iron-Blooded Orphans is probably the first time I’ve ever reacted with a combination of how something, at the same time makes sense, and doesn’t. They say at one point that as long as they’re doing long-range battle, Mika doesn’t need to worry about the Gundam’s armor getting busted up since it’s not at close range - but this is space, not Earth. Theoretically, if you stand on Pluto and fire a bullet towards the sun, that bullet won’t ever slow down in speed nor loose it’s angle of approach. So in this case, it doesn’t matter if Mika is close or far with his Gundam, their bullets would still rip him to shreds.

As they’re being chased by one or two other ships - I honestly don’t know and it seems the animators didn’t either because there’s a ship that just appears out of nowhere and is gone in the next scene - they come up with this absurd tactic of using an anchor of sorts in order to slingshot themselves around an asteroid and face their opponents head on and escape by that old trick. However, it requires someone to take a trip out with a mobile worker and release the anchor so they don’t end up colliding with the asteroid. Of course they manage to pull of this highly questionable manouver, flash bang their enemy and high tail out of there, all the while I reminisce about how similar that kind of frontal ram is to how i play World of Warships.

On their way out of the Mars area, they pick up Mikazuki whose dispatched and / or injured some of the enemies mobile suits, and also were engaged in combat against two supposingly Ace pilots of the Gjallarhorn ( Earth’s military peace keeping force ), the man with the chocolate, and the man who was with the man who had the chocolate.

I am willing to put my nitpicks aside when it comes to Iron-Blooded Orphans. Don’t get me wrong, it’s totally everything I’d find stupid and I am sure that this show will find a way to implode in on itself before it’s over as it’s predecessors did, 00 and AGE. There were things I liked with both of those shows as well, but they both find ways to piss me off.

This show started out incredibly stupid to me but is doing things right. I really like how it feels that everything actually has a weight in this. I like how the space battle felt and the impacts of the blows. It’s all very nicely done in my mind.

Next week, we’ll have a look at Episode 6 titled, “As for them”.

- Zeithri