Sunday, 8 February 2015

Mini Anime Review - Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica

The perfect deconstruction of the magical girl genre, taking the tried and tested concepts of teenage witches and cutesy companions and turning it on their heads.
The macabre themes and emotions running wrought throughout this work of art add to it's depth and make it a stunning piece of animation, by far the best that is ever going to come from the magical girl genre any time soon.
The animation is fluent and very pleasing to the eye, with sections being made to seem cut out and doll like it adds an eerie quality to the show that is missing in many anime of newer seasons.
The show at time can be very depressing and is not for those with a fragile disposition, on the whole a total recommendation for any lovers of magic and tragedy.


Looks - 4.9/5
Sound - 4.1/5
Plot - 4.6/5
Characters -3.4/5 
Total - 17/20

Friday, 23 January 2015

Mini Game Review - Persona 3 (Portable)

My eventual assault on one of the most popular JRPGs of all time was long awaited; and upon it's completion I sorely regretted my unintentional evasion of this franchise. Though with it's long play length & sometimes harsh difficulties I am unsure if I would have finished a few years ago.

The plot centralising around the theme of death & the mysterious 25th hour of the day, that appears only to a chosen few Persona Users. While there are indeed some dryer spells in this part time Dating Sim & part time Dungeon Crawler the plot overall is fairly gripping, the characters being a major contributing factor to this. Despite there being bearable side characters such as the Justice Arcana girl or the Magician Arcana boy, there are highlights as that of Junpei's development from a jealous asshole to strong individual post character progression.


The soundtrack is is amazing for this & all other iterations of Persona 3, tracks such as "Burn My Dread" and "The Battle For Everyone's Souls"; these are well worth the purchase even if one were to avoid the game.


Rating:

Looks - 3.7/5
Sound -4.8/5
Plot - 3.9/5
Characters - 4/5
Gameplay - 4.9/5
Replayability - 3.3/5
Total - 24.6/30

Saturday, 17 January 2015

Anime Review Overview - Sword Art Online

Sword Art Online (Aincrad Arc)

Looks - 4.5/5
Sound -4.1/5
Plot - 2.9/5
Characters - 1.5/5

Looks - 3/5
Sound -3/5
Plot - 0.5/5
Characters - 0.5/5
Looks - 4.2/5
Sound -4.5/5
Plot - 3.2/5
Characters - 3/5

Mini Anime Review - Sword Art Online II (Calibur Arc)

Looks - 2.2/5
Sound -3.7/5
Plot - 1.8/5

Characters - 1.5/5


Looks - 3.1/5
Sound -3.7/5
Plot - 2/5
Characters - 2/5

FINAL RATING

Looks - 17/25
Sound - 19/25
Plot - 10.4/25
Characters - 8.5/25
Total - 54.9/100



Mini Anime Review - Sword Art Online II (Mother Rasario Arc)

The final chunk of SAOII, and far more enjoyable than the last, being a Kirito-less arc for the majority. This time the focus is on Asuna andnew girl Yuuki ( basically she-kirito, at least she is a real girl).

The arc kinda drags, and is filled with "depression-porn";  where so many sad things happen in a small story in order to force you to pretend to care about the characters. Some elements had some effect, but the massive death scene of Yuuki surrounded by all the users felt super dumb and forced, something that could easily be done in real life with Asuna at the hospital.

Also I find it super weird Asuna being in tears in the beginning when Yuuki hasn't logged in for a few days, lots of MMO users take breaks; I find it weird, now that the show has no  murder via the game, for such things to be made such a big point of tension. 

Easily the best AFO set story, with pleasing animation & soundtracks. The new opening video is also more appropriate to the intro song that was established in the last arc which is carried over.


Rating - 
Looks - 3.1/5
Sound -3.7/5
Plot - 2/5
Characters - 2/5
Overall - 10.8/20

Wednesday, 24 December 2014

Mini Anime Review - Akame Ga Kill

One of the hypest new anime of 2014, leaving a great impact on the viewers for it's graphic violence and interesting plot, all couples with classic tropes and character types found in the majority of modern anime tropes.


All I can say is it is a must watch, it captures things I love about Gurren, the bits of SAO I like and many other anime I've seen and thus is an incredibly enjoyable watch, so go watch it now!!
Rating - 
Looks - 4.2/5
Sound -4.1/5
Plot - 3.7/5
Characters - 4/5
Overall - 16/20

Saturday, 15 November 2014

Mini Disney Review - Frozen

This film's almost unstoppable fan-base seems to treat it as the best thing Disney has ever created, and treating those who prefer older titles as fools. Personally, the plot is nothing special, has loads of poor points and the titular frozen world is rather bland.

At points it feels the plot is just an advert break for the next money printing song, and it is bland as hell. A good musical's songs progress the plot and don't waste the watcher's time, like that of "Make A Man Out Of You" from Mulan, but these songs take up minutes mainly progressing characters with little plot movement. Even in Tarzan where the music was really distanced from the characters the plot advanced in leaps and bounds.

Thinking of Mulan this film doesn't even do that good a job on it's feminist aspects, the thing it had used to draw so much hype; Anna is a silly girl who is seen to fall in love at the drop of a hat, from the very first man she spends time with to the second, and Elsa isn't seen to do much of any use in the plot apart from triggering the snowpocalypse when she is seen to be a freak, something that she could have stayed and debated for more than in few minutes. The men in the film are either evil or disgusting savages, I wonder if they are trying to say something; the so called twist could be seen a mile away, almost as if the only way for a main character to choose the poor love interest over the rich one is to make rich guy evil and poor guy the simple honest lover.

<--Rich                       Poor-->





They attempt to parody their past works, by avoiding some tropes as "Love at first sight", but then they run the joke into the ground very quickly, and then ruin it entirely by just making the second man she meets her true love instead.

For some unexplained reason Elsa has random ice powers; and instead of dealing with them lovingly her parents erase her sister's memories and lock her in her room for years. and the way the get rid of those memories is even weirder, they go to see dumb unexplained rock trolls.They look fucking appalling to be frank.

What the hell are they? Why do these guys have magic? Why are these guys allowed to use their magic to go round helping people if Elsa is forced to stay in her room? If they can remove the magic from her sister why can't they remove it from Elsa? And if they state that fear and emotion would be negative to the powers, why would any adult feel that locking her away from everyone forever would help her if she has to be queen later and meet everyone in the whole kingdom?


Oh we get two dumb sidekicks this time, three
if you include our dumb love interest Kristoff. The snowman's debut is marred by an awful song, that goes even further to break the pacing. At least the reindeer doesn't talk.

The animation feels generic in their new CG artstyle, being less visually interesting than Tangled due to the similarity of their characters making it feel less original. The snow physics are great, being one of the points they picked upon during their promotional campaign, however the film being mainly blue ice and white snow can make it a little dull on the eyes, with only a few colourful scenes after the opening.

Rating - 
Looks - 2.7/5
Sound -2/5
Plot - 1.3/5
Characters - 1.5/5
Overall - 7.5/20


Thursday, 6 November 2014

Mini Anime Review - Sword Art Online II (Calibur Arc)

This tiny boring mini story was incredibly dull and forgettable, it lacked danger, it was visually bland and had annoying character actions also.
The party was so big there was little need for Kirito; yet they still act like he has done something amazing when he does a simple sword skill. Sinon is yet again best-girl, and Klein is yet again best main character.

The new intro is nice, but doesn't feel very SAO-like.

Yet again they manage to mess up everything that started well with a return to ALO, they really need to just hurry to the next MMO in the series and forget fairy incest land for good.


Rating - 
Looks - 2.2/5
Sound -3.7/5
Plot - 1.8/5
Characters - 1.5/5
Overall - 9.2/20