#the set design and ghosts are lame and bland

[ohfugecannada]

Watching the haunted mansion (2023) with my mom. I haven’t been this painfully bored watching a movie since I watched Batman: Gotham by Gaslight.

[justicespeared]

Cynthia is not an actress. She is, however, a performer. So, when some weird guy comes into town, promising that the actors would essentially ad lib a performance? That’s Cynthia all over. She’s not expecting the lead, but a main character would be nice. She could bring back Beano the Barbarian Queen!

Except no one is really around to appreciate her old persona from when she was a child. She misses Owain; he would understand her.

There’s a bustling crowd already, though not everyone is trying out to be in the show. There are musicians - this is going to be a musical? - set designers - there’s no set to speak of yet! - and more. Cynthia looks at everyone around her. She doesn’t recognise anyone. That’s fine by her; it’s an excuse to make new friends.

“S’cuse me!” She flags down someone with papers in hand. “How do I audition?”

She’s guided to a table. Auditions aren’t for a little while, but still, there aren’t many names on the list. Oh, she’s going to ace this. She’s going to be Cynthia, the Heroic Star! No, that sounds kind of lame. She needs to workshop her cool new title. The Star of Battle? No, that doesn’t make sense. Cynthia the great? So bland.

She’s so lost in her thoughts that she almost doesn’t notice the ghost walk past her.

Of course she remembers him. He would take her class out for walks when he grew bored of monologuing. She also remembers the time she had gotten lost. Jeez, how long ago was that? Six months ago? Time flies.

Wait.

“Didn’t you die?!” she asks Nasir before he can walk away.

@yukyunotabibito

once more with feeling

( mission board - distress - authority +1 )

[scottymcgeesterwrites]

Final Fantasy VIII Review

(A serious review this time, without spoilers.)

Year: 1999

Original Platform: PlayStation One

Also available on: PC, PlayStation Store

Version I Played: PlayStation One

Synopsis:

Squall Leonhart is a new recruit of SeeD, a mercenary team protecting the world. Rinoa is a resistance fighter against the Republic of Galbadia, led by the Sorceress Edea who is suddenly hellbent on conquering the neighboring nations. Squall and his team attempt to assassinate Edea, but the mission goes awry.

Gameplay:

Final Fantasy VIII throws nearly every previous battle system out of the window. It’s nearly as radical as Final Fantasy II’s battle system. Enemies around the world map average their levels according to your average level among your characters. You only need 1,000 EXP (experience points) to rise to each level, unlike the other games where the EXP needed rises after each level. But that doesn’t mean your character levels up all their stats – that all depends on the summons, known in this game as Guardian Forces.

 Unlike other games, summons are crucial to the gameplay, despite not being crucial to the story itself. The Junction System has you “junction” each character with a GF, allowing you to assign different battle commands (Item, Draw, Magic, GF, etc). If you don’t assign a character a GF, all they can do in battle is “Attack.”

That gets super annoying when you’re moving around GFs between characters a lot but you forget to assign that one character a summon right before a major boss battle, so then they can’t do shit.

The drawing system is my favorite aspect of Final Fantasy VIII’s gameplay. Instead of harnessing magic by a points system (such as MP), you draw magic from enemies. Magic is only limited by the number of spells. For example, you fight an enemy and draw 5 Curas from them. You now have 5 Cura spells. You can hold up to 99 of any spell. You don’t have to worry about ethers or running out of MP. I guess it’s an incentive to battle enemies, as they are resources for magic.

But the way the GFs work annoy me the most. You to call upon GFs at any time in any battle for an infinite number of times. This doesn’t give you any incentive to even try battling. If something annoyed me, I just said, “Fuck it” and spammed GFs. Not only that, but you have to sit through the short cinematic sequence of your summon every time you call them. I must have viewed Shiva’s summoning sequence ten-thousand fucking times before finishing the game. This makes battling feel repetitive, tedious, and unenjoyable. Battling was a chore.

The Junction System overall is so complicated that you have to go through a tutorial within the first twenty minutes of the game. It’s aggravating enough already to sit through Quistis going, “Blah, blah. blah” but it’s actually super important because if you don’t pay attention then this game will be tedious.

The final battle though? That shit was epic. Hard. But epic. One of the best final battles.

Graphics:

This game took a different route in giving realistic proportions to its characters. While that’s a cool idea on paper, the overall effect is. . .boring? Almost every other Final Fantasy game has a cast of very distinct characters, like various species, age groups, or wildly different clothing. To suddenly play a Final Fantasy game with what looks like real people – like Bob, Joe and Jill – seems drab. Selphie by far has been the least interesting character to me. When your characters look and feel like NPCs, it’s hard to become invested in them.

I wasn’t a fan of many of the backdrops because for whatever reason I had trouble discerning some doors. I couldn’t tell what I was looking at in the background sometimes, like if there was a switch or button that I had to press.

The cinematics are great though – some of the best in the series. It has the most memorable opening sequence of any game – the duel between Squall and his rival Seifer. The cinematics were a MAJOR step up from Final Fantasy VII.

Story:

Oh hey, so here’s a serious, non-spoiler, non-inflammatory review of Final Fantasy VIII.

Put this story side-by-side with Final Fantasy VII and you can see how they carried on the inspirations. Once again, the story is set in a more modern setting with cars, trains, etc. Squall is Cloud. Rinoa is Aerith. Etc., etc.

Squall Leonhart is the epitome of angst. You will spend the entire game rolling your eyes at Squall’s angsty introspective thoughts about the situations he’s in and people around him. Squall is essentially a bad version of Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII. Take Cloud but only take his cool design and angsty responses. That’s Squall Leonhart. Squall literally has no interesting qualities about him other than his physical design. He can rock that jacket and that scar on his face. Squall’s “romance” with Rinoa Heartilly is also a cardboard copy of Cloud and Aerith’s romance. Squall meets Rinoa by a chance meeting at a military ball. She serves as the optimistic, lively counterweight to Squall’s stoicism. But there’s hardly any depth other than Squall finding her pretty and Rinoa thinking he’s cute and handsome.

The cast of characters is bland, to say the least. They are composed of other students (Quistis being an instructor though) at Balamb Garden (except Irvine, who is a student of another Garden). They look boring. Their introductions are boring. Balamb Garden sounds like a cool idea – a mercenary school – except it plays off more like a poorly written high school anime drama, which is lame. At one point, Squall’s friends – Zell, Selphie, Irvine and Quistis – all try to conspire to get him to talk to Rinoa. You actually have to play through that of the plot and watch it unfold. But Squall tries to understand Rinoa’s upbeat attitude with lots of question marks in his thought bubbles and mumbling, “Whatever”. It’s jarring to sit through four discs of this over and over.

The plot is a butchered mess. After Disc 1 is when the plot gets strange like a fever dream. Plot twists happen left and right after Disc 1 without any rhyme or reason. Very little is explained and many twists are too convenient. Seifer is introduced as Squall’s rival and Rinoa’s original love interest, but then he inexplicably turns evil. In no dialogue or plot points do we ever learn why Seifer switches sides. None at all.

There’s a particular interesting fan theory that actually makes infinitely more sense than the story that Square gave us. Here’s a hot tip – when fan theories start making perfect sense, you probably didn’t write a good story.

The best part of Final Fantasy VIII is actually Laguna Loire. Throughout the story, Squall and his friends pass out for mysterious reasons and you are introduced to Laguna Loire and his two buddies, Ward and Kiros (who are reminiscent of Biggs and Wedge from Final Fantasy VII). They partake in events set in the past. Laguna Loire hearkens back to the pre-Final Fantasy VII heroes – heroes like Bartz and Locke. He’s funny and charming. I wish the game was about him and his friends instead of angsty Squall and his cardboard friends.

 So, for four discs you play through these parallel plots and then they merge by the end. The payoff isn’t so amazing. I expected something better. Time travel is involved, albeit in a way that doesn’t make sense. Time compression! The ability to compress time into a singularity because . . . because why again? I guess you don’t have to wait for the next season of Game of Thrones anymore. Is that what that means?  

Other notes I want to mention – Balamb Garden is an awful, clunky airship and the world map is the least interesting world map in the entire series. The only remotely interesting place is Fisherman’s Horizon.

 Final Fantasy VIII’s story is the second most radical departure from the series, the first being Final Fantasy X, which I will get to later. However, Final Fantasy VII lacks any meaningful depth or existential crisis for its main character to explore. There’s no grand critique on the meaning or life or anything like that. There’s one slight existential question that Rinoa faces near the end but it’s practically nothing. I admire what they tried to do but it fell flat on its face. It’s dull and insipid with its characters and the plot doesn’t steer in a clear direction.

Overall, I admire what they were trying to do by adding time travel to the story. But it became such a warbled mess that it failed to deliver. They took all the cool parts of Final Fantasy VII but didn’t bother to give them depth.

Music:

The music is the biggest highlight of Final Fantasy VIII. Laguna Loire’s battle theme is sexy as hell. It made me so sad to return to Squall’s timeline, because I wouldn’t get to hear that music again for a while. The world map theme irritated me. It has a jingle that didn’t jive well with wandering around. It probably also didn’t help that the world map is dull to run around in.

The game’s theme, Liberi Fatali, is damn epic. Liberi Fatali does have actual lyrics but the famous lines “Fithos lusec wecos vinosec” is actually nonsense. Maybe that nonsense reflects the nonsense that is the actual story. It would have been nice if they had actually incorporated those words into the story somehow, like some magic spell like “abracadabra”.

The love theme is Eyes on Me, performed by Faye Wong. It’s the first time that Uematsu composed a pop song for a Final Fantasy game. Its lyrics are nice and of course fitting for the love story. I like hearing it.

There are no other character themes in this score. The focus was all on Squall and Rinoa having their silly angsty romance.

The final boss theme is actually one of my favorites. It starts out eerie with the chorus singing “Fithos lusec wecos vinosec” but in this drawn out, ghost-like manner. Then the music picks up sounding like a typical Final Fantasy battle theme, then goes crazy from there on out.

Notable Score:

Liberi Fatali.

 Verdict:

My least favorite Final Fantasy game. I would place it right at the bottom tier. The story is absolute gibberish. The gameplay could be fun once you wrap your head around it, which I didn’t and so it was a pain in the ass for me. Finding all the Guardian Forces can be fun. Laguna Loire is the best part of the story, and that’s really it. At the end of the day, probably put this one off until you play the better, more important Final Fantasy games. You are not missing anything if you never play this game.

Direct Sequel?

No.

Keep it that way.

[flying-elliska]

lotrblogging pt 2 - Return of the King extended edition

- I just love this movie so much, it’s just a collection of big narrative payoffs and it’s so satisfying ! 

- I honestly hate Denethor more than Sauron ; he’s just such a compelling antagonist, that despicable figure of authority that lets his biases completely corrupt everything, seeing only what he wants to see, and a good example of the dangers of unfettered pessimism that passes off cowardice as ‘realism.’ And of course what would a story be without at least one terrible father figure, I mean. Also the noble but pointless sacrifice of Faramir/Pippin singing/the triviality of Denethor’s terrible table manners still gives me so much chills. i can’t help but think of Tolkien going through wwi, one of the most egregious examples of brave young men being sacrificed to the pride of older officials, safe behind the battle lines, for completely trivial reasons. Ugh. 

- i think what is so amazing about this movie is that most of the heroes go through a moment of being completely hopeless : Pippin and Gandalf in an assieged Minas Tirith, the Rohhirim charging a much bigger army, Frodo and Sam having to go through Mordor and talk about not coming back, the last battle at the Black Gate they know they can’t win but is meant as a diversion, etc. And from their limited perspective, it really is. But they decide to fight regardless ; and then they realize they’re not as alone as they thought ; because everyone decided to fight. It’s like the opposite of the Prisonner’s Dilemma, and it’s like the Good Ending for so many of the problems facing the world and it’s such a satisfying narrative and ugh - i’m emo

- i already talked about this re : masculinity and shit but i just love how emotionally open everyone is in this movie ! it’s just so fucking delightful ! i think this is part of why i loved the movies so much as a neuroatypical kid who had trouble regulating/expressing emotion. It’s also very straightforward, with little irony or second degree or whatever. very relaxing. I mean, take Aragorn, in the books he is honestly kind of boring, he’s so aloof and serious and remote, but in the movies he just cares so much ! i mean that look of utter devastation on his face when he gets out of the caves and thinks he hasn’t been able to convince the ghost army ! beautiful !!! it could be cheesy or trite but they just play it so earnestly and fully, it’s just !!!!! yeah !!!!

- honestly throwback to my teen self having a crush on a different character everytime i rewatched the movies there are a lot of beautiful people in there

- i find it very unrealistic that there is not one culture in there that has warrior women. and very bland. especially the Rohirrim who are kind of Viking-like, and have a word for ‘shieldmaiden’ apparently but there’s only one around ? and what about the elves who are all supposedly badass and indestructible ? i’m sure any elf maiden could like, seriously fuck up a human dude, also having thousands of years to train. gender roles being so unquestionably replicated in fantasy settings where they don’t necessarily makes sense is so annoyinnnng. that said, Eowyn’s ‘i am no man’ moment of ultimate badassery is just....still so incredible. But I’m glad they didn’t include the moment where Eomer is all ‘war is the province of men’ in the cinematic version because that makes him look like a serious dick tbh and he already doesn’t have a lot of personality so...

- i know it’s based on ancient myth where these archetypes are frequent but like, the worldbuilding is really full of like...um...uncomfortable tropes, like the evil races concept is one thing, but then the movie topped it up with some really problematic design choices, like making some of the men aligned with Sauron look distinctively middle-eastern which, yikes. As a product of its time there’s a lot worse, but i like to think if they remade it today they would be more aware of this, as I am watching these movies as an adult. And also, glad that fantasy is moving away from these tropes today, at least in books. 

- man i love Legolas. he just seems high half of the time, spouting off epic poetry in the middle of a creepy cave full of skulls that’s only tangentially related to whatever is happening. he stops a minute to be a snarky badass, then he goes back to thinking about poetic stacks of mist and golden leaves or whatever. legend. absolute goals. also that drink-off with gimly where he wins and is like ‘oh my fingers are tingling’ with a delicate finger motion. so stupid. amazing. 

- monarchy is bad etc but i love narratives about kingship/leadership as acts of service, and stuff about the king being linked to the land and if he fucks up then everything goes bad, he can’t just do whatever, as a proto-pattern of accountability of power, and mankind having to be a good steward. and Aragorn as a healer. 

- i skipped the bits with the giant spider. when there’s a giant spider in a movie i always make a point of honor to skip it. because that’s just unnecessary. 

-  Sam and Frodo’s relationship is so beautiful, ugh. And honestly it kills me everytime, how there’s these big epic battles but they’re put in parallel with the small acts of compassion and kindness of these two, and with Gollum as well. How these small, personal struggles matter just as much. And of course, the ending, with Frodo failing and Gollum stealing the ring from him and then falling into the pit of Mount Doom...That moment puzzled me for a long time. It highlights the importance of Frodo’s compassion, but it’s also very disturbing, because it shows how much is left to chance in the end, like the fate of the world wasn’t determined by a grand gesture or someone making the right choice. This probably haunted Frodo for the rest of his days. Maybe it shows the importance of putting yourself on the right path ; but also in the end, so much of history really comes down to chance and unrelated stuff. 

- overal it just holds up so well. the visual effects are still mostly incredible and there is such craftsmanship in there, i can’t believe those movies are almost 20 yrs old. i remember my parents allowing me to skip school to go see Return of the King with them, felt like one of the best days of my life lmao. i think part of what makes them so great - compared to stuff like GoT, which had also amazing craftsmanship, but the story really doesn’t make me want to rewatch at all - is that there is this sense of wonder about it. (and they’re not trying to avoid being seen as fantasy, lol.) It’s not shy about the whole ‘and here’s a totally different world, isn’t that awesome !’ thing. And the character arcs are just incredible. It’s far from being flawless, it’s very pompous at times, it’s a zero in terms of diversity, and I can see that more clearly now. But I like that it’s aware of its own myth-like aspects ; stuff that I used to find lame, like Gandalf calling the moth or the eagles, bother me a lot less, because the point is not Realism!!!. It’s the metaphor of small gestures and signs of hope in times of tyranny and mass violence. And that holds on its own. 

[cloakedsparrow]

Sometimes you watch a movie, and between the seemingly endless screentime of criminally dull characters spouting nonsense dialogue, you marvel how something so lame and expensive got made. It takes a lot of people to make a movie as big as Paramount’s “Ghost In The Shell,” which is estimated to have cost upwards of $110 million. It also takes a lot of bad choices to make a movie this unrelentingly boring and, ultimately, astonishingly offensive.

Based on the manga written and illustrated by Masamune Shirow, “Ghost In The Shell” follows Major Mira Killian (Scarlett Johansson), a groundbreaking cyborg that combines a robot body (that looks like Scarlett Johansson) with a human mind. The mind is her ghost, her soul, her humanity. The shell is robot vessel, which holds her brain and pushes Major to understand her identity in a world where humans race to upgrade themselves with cyber tech like x-ray eyes and drink-all-you-want livers, but robots are treated as slaves. When hunting down a terrorist hacker called Kuze (Michael Carmen Pitt), Major is forced to confront how she doesn’t really belong in either world. This sends her down a path to uncover her human past.

The great irony of the film is that while its plot is all about the search for soul, “Ghost In The Shell” is all style, no soul — or, rather, all shell, no ghost.

Director Rupert Sanders made his name helming commercials, most famously one for the video game “Halo 3: ODST.” But when it comes to his filmography, all he’s got to offer is “Snow White and the Huntsman,” a battle-studded fairy tale re-imagining, which crammed its princess in jeans and pitched her into chilly CGI landscape to create a stylish but stilted adventure. That film was critically panned and considered only a modest box office success. Yet somehow Sanders was gifted a second chance. And what he gave us was the same superficial showmanship.

Set in a futuristic Tokyo, “Ghost In The Shell” drapes the city in giant holograms of robot geishas, smiling bodybuilders, and a drooling corgi. A skeezy bar boasts holograms of strippers (glitchy enough to appease its PG-13 rating), and boxers battling (presumably the future’s pay-per-view fight night system). While some of the production design is gorgeous–the robo-geisha teased in trailers is a highlight–most of the designs seem to have no function beyond looking cool. They tell us little about this world.

With all the holograms and cyber punk flare of “Ghost In The Shell,” I thought of the aesthetic of The Wachowski sisters, who’ve created rich sci-fi worlds with “The Matrix” trilogy, “Cloud Atlas,” and “Jupiter Ascending.” But there’s a huge difference between their designs and Sanders’, in that the Wachowskis’ designs give their world context, life, and depth. Every detail seems to fit and function, and gives audiences some little insight into this fictional universe. Sanders’ stuff just looks like CGI stickers thrown around his dazzling Hollywood star, lacking any purpose beyond wow factor. It makes for a hollow viewing experience, especially when paired with performance styles that feel lost in translation.

From the Marvel movies to the trippy action-adventure “Lucy,” Johansson has brought dizzying charisma to heroines who use their incredible abilities–be it sharpshooting or telekinesis–to topple tyrants and take down armies of armed baddies. In “Ghost in the Shell” she wears a barely-there body suit and scales walls while firing a gun right into the brainstem of any who’d oppose her. She punches out terrorists and single-handedly downs a tank, even when it risks tearing her shell asunder. And yet I felt nothing. Johansson’s charm seems in sleep mode as she struts vacantly through this tedious journey that boasts more tech talk than interesting action. Sanders has somehow drained away the very star power Johansson was supposedly cast to deliver. And that brings us to the scandal that’s followed the film since its earliest casting rumors: Yes. This is an example of whitewashing.

This issue has raging online for years, before the film even went into production. One side insisted that because the Manga — and its resulting 1995 anime — were Japanese, so too should be the heroine of its live-action, American-made adaptation. Others claimed that because the character is just a brain in a robot body, anyone could play the role, so why not Johansson who has a big fan base and a storied history in the action genre? Before seeing the movie, I understood both sides. But after?

This is hands down Asian erasure.

It’s not just that Major was renamed the white-coded “Mira Killian” instead of the original Japanese name Motoko Kusanagi, “Ghost In the Shell” is set in Tokyo. The film is dripping in elements of Japanese culture, from the anime iconography to geishas, and koi fish to traditional sushi restaurants with low tables and visitors in elaborate robes and obis. And yet most of the main characters are white; not just Major, but also her best friend Batou (Pilou Asbæk), her mother-figure Dr. Ouelet (Juliette Binoche), her antagonizing boss (Peter Ferdinando), and the aforementioned terrorist she’s charged to track down (Pitt).

So even if anybody could have theoretically been cast to play the fully robo-figured Major, Paramount chose to cast a movie set in Japan, telling a Japanese story, and steeped in Japanese culture using primarily white actors. That sends a message about who is valued and not, and it’s a pretty insulting one that only gets more clear and offensive as the movie goes on. There are people of color in the film, filling out Major’s team. But aside from her handler (Takeshi Kitano), they barely get five lines to share between the three of them. I couldn’t tell you any of their names, because the movie only cares about them in the rare instances where Major and Batou need back-up. They’re not characters as much as conveniences.

Another shocking scene involves Major hiring a sex worker so she might touch human flesh. Instead of the short-circuiting lesbian scene from the comic, Major — who absolutely reads as a White woman — hires a Black woman so she can poke her and experiment. The optics are bad, especially in the wake of such a successful and woke film as “Get Out.”

And then things get worse!

Spoilers for the third act of “Ghost In The Shell.”

I rarely get into third act reveals. But as was the case with “Passengers,” it’s necessary to discuss the vile story lurking beneath the slick ad campaign. When Major discovers her past, she finds out she’s actually Japanese. Her name was Motoko Kusanagi. She has a living mother who speaks English with a heavy Japanese accent. Her childhood bedroom is decked out with Japanese knickknacks, as if it’s a souvenir shop for tourists. Major is secretly Asian! And still, the filmmakers felt totally comfortable casting her as white. This reveal hits in waves of “no they didn’t” that don’t peak when Kuze discovers he’s also actually Japanese (“Your name is Hideko!”), but when Major visits her own grave, then embraces her mother as if to say, “It’s cool. I’m your rebooted white daughter! I test better globally.”

End of spoilers.

If the social politics of this property bore you, so will the movie itself. Sanders seems to have urged all of the cast to speak in the same deadpan delivery, making every line feel like an afterthought. And with dialogue like, “I don’t think of her as a machine. She’s a weapon,” the script could have desperately used some energy. Instead, the actors, Japanese culture, and story are all put in service to build to action set pieces that are sometimes visually stunning, yet never hit hard because Sanders hasn’t bothered to build the world or develop compelling characters.

I rarely check my watch during movies, but this movie is so gruelingly slow-moving that I had to, if only to assure myself it was almost over. It wasn’t. When I checked, I assumed we were nearly a two-hour mark. It had been 72 minutes. I still had 35 to go, and every one — whether made of quick-cut action, bland banter, or leering shots of Johansson in that high-tech leotard — felt like a unique bit of torture; vapid, yet self-aggrandizing.

In only keeping mildly true to the source material’s aesthetic, Sanders created a film that has spectacle and action, but no excitement. How he was allowed a second chance at a big-budget remake after the mediocrity of “Snow White and The Huntsman” is beyond me. How Paramount poured this much money into a script that reads like a sloppy translation, and action scenes that are so CGI-enhanced they look like video games, I can’t even begin. I’m genuinely astonished a studio movie in the age of incredible offerings like “Logan,” “John Wick,” and the upcoming “Atomic Blonde” can be this totally, absolutely and utterly garbage.

“A Ghost In The Shell” opens Friday, March 31.

[furederiko]

Looking back, over the yea... er, months. That's because the 44th episode of Zyuohger is nothing but your friendly neighbourhood... recap episode!

NOTE: Starting this year, I'm changing the style of my recap-view. Rather than using the usual 'pseudo-live-blogging' style like before, I'm going to exclude the actual 'Recap' part from now on, and prioritizes on my opinions/comments on plot points from an episode. It might still be quite long, but at least this one would be far concised than before. It's also faster for me to work on! LOL. I'll be doing the same with other future titles as well.

- I actually thought since we already had a clip show before (that doppleganger story on episode 27), we wouldn't get another for the New Year. I guess I was wrong. No way TOEI is gonna break their established pattern, right? So yeah, this is a pretty standard clip show, and unfortunately a rather unmemorable one too. Which easily explains why I kept on forgetting to make the review for this episode *sigh*. There IS however, an important side story concerning Azald sprinkled throughout, so if you're looking for a reason to see it, that's the part that might be worthwatching. - Our episode begins with Bard looking for Larry. Yep, I don't think it's ever explained why Bard just took off after helping Yamato and friends as Zyuoh Bird (episode 38)). Even Larry wonders about that. Bard's answer of "I'm sorry, but that will have to wait for later" basically means you need to stay tune on this show if you ever want to hear the reason. As in, "Don't quit while we only have 4 episodes left!". Am I right, TOEI? LOL. - Wow, obvious movie promotion is TOO obvious. And it doesn't even care about continuity issue too. This means Misao is already aware of the Ninningers, eventhough their Versus Movie is only set to premiere today, January 14, 2017. Or perhaps... the event has taken place before the New Year? That's certainly a possibility. Hmmm, I wonder why they aren't pairing ShiroNinger with Zyuoh Tiger? Also, the opening sequence reminded me how Ninninger is crazy about its AkaNinger. We're getting another one in this movie... Aaaargggh. - Hey, everyone is eating New Year mochi. Part of, what I believe is called, Osechi perhaps? Maaan, I would love to try one of that someday. - Mario returns and he immediately reveals his discovery of the Zyuohger's secret. Knowing how caring, helpful, and sincere this quirky uncle has been, can anyone remind me again why it's even NECESSARY to keep the truth from him? I mean, sure they are afraid he might be shocked (like self-proclaimed coward Misao), but after witnessing his considerate kindness and generosity, they really could at least tell him sooner! - Anyway, Mario wants to join the fight, as... Champion of Humanity, Zyuoh Human. UUUGGGH... now I can't get that awful image out of my head. Somehow I'm feeling super grateful that we don't have a Pink-colored member on the team... *sigh* (although a Zyuoh Pig probably would be nice) - Apparently Mario has heard about the story of Bard rescuing child Yamato, but always thought it was merely hallucination. What I like about this remind... er, part, is how Mario is smart enough to understand that there are more Zyuohgers than the number of Champion Symbols. A pretty smooth excuse to recap about what happened to Misao (episode 16). Seeing Mario comforting Misao is pretty moving, methinks. - Misao's backstory is also neatly connected to Azald, giving us the assumption (not confirmation, at least for now) that the Leader might have gone through the same process as Misao. Wait a sec, does this mean we are seeing Azald's backstory? That's BIG, considering Naria and even so-called vengeance-driven Kubar didn't even get one. But... I wonder if it's a little late in the game? - Talking about friends, turns out the Cube Animals don't want to be left out. Unlike "Engine Sentai Go-onger" that constantly showcased the members' Enjins as their individual partners, the Zyuoh Cubes only occasionally showed up to frolic around. To be honest, at this point I've even forgotten that they can solely act on their own. LOL. Quite disappointing that Mario doesn't point out about Cube Whale though, considering Yamato has asked him to make its replica before (episode 34). - Hearing all these, Mario realizes that he doesn't need to join the fight. It's sweet that Yamato reminds him that his uncle is important nonetheless, because he's the 'smile', the comfort, and the... food(eh?) that greets them everytime they arrive home. But must Leo remind us about that lame... cow-breast joke (episode 39)? UGH. Really though, Mario could've been way more than these, if he had known their secret much earlier. A missed opportunity, right there! - It only took 2 weeks and 15 minutes of runtime to get here, but the Zyuohgers can finally hand off their present for Mario. I don't really like that sweater, probably because of the color scheme, but it's a sweet scene nonetheless. Their discussion afterwards is sure hinting towards the finale, huh? Complete with that 'making oath while staring at the shooting-star together' bit. Cliche, much? - Naria scans Azald's body because he's feeling... weird, and discovers that there are 4 Zyuoh Cubes inside him. Since the core Zyuohgers are busy cozying up, Azald decides to target Bard instead. This isn't surprising. After the show wasted their potential for Kubar, there's no one left but to rely on Azald now. I mean, just look at the preview for next episode. - Oh wow, I might be wrong, but it looks like Larry's foreshadowing Bard's death at the end. This can't be good. Then again, we haven't seen much of Bard to actually care about him that deep. All these time he's been absent and acting like a lone-wolf... whoops, lone-bird who RARELY spent time with the Zyuohgers. I doubt his death will give an impact to the team. His only connection is only with Yamato so far, but even that doesn't warrant a higher emotional punch for him. I mean, it WOULD be entirely different if he turns out to be Yamato's real father, but we know that's NOT the case. Oh well, let's just wait and see...

Overall: I don't think it's a good sign for a show if its recap episode feels... forgettable. Wanted to say boring, but well, I'm being generous like Mario so... 'bland' might be a nicer word. I'm still holding out on this show, hopeful that we'll be getting a good to great finale. At the very least, a dcent payoff to everything that's been going on. But even I have to admit, that the trajectory of mine and public's interest isn't really heading to the right direction. The same thing happened with "Kamen Rider Ghost", and it sure didn't end as 'satisfying' as I would have preferred. Next week Tomorrow: Mario meets Larry. Yamato's daddy issue Part Deux. And it's finally Azald's time to shine... (who'd probably bite the dust real soon) PS: Hey, the new show has revealed its first official teaser! Gaaawd, I'm loving these 9-members team the more I see it... XD. Just look at all those personalities they emit from their unique designs! Is it rude of me to want this show to arrive as soon as possible, because that means the end of Zyuohger? Ahahaha...! By the way, this is inline with the fact that they will have a customary cameo appearance in Zyuohger vs Ninninger movie that arrives on Japanese theatres today. We can expect to hear reactions of their debut pretty soon.

Episode 44 Score: 7 out of 10

All images are screencaptured from the series, provided by the FanSubber Over-Time. "Doubutsu Sentai Zyuohger" is produced by TOEI, and airs every Sunday on TV-Asahi. Credits and copyrights belong to their respective owners.

[venus-says]

Kamen Rider Ghost Episodes 01-16 + Super Movie War Genesis

I see dead people... All the time... They're everywhere.

It feels sacrilegious to be referencing The Sixth Sense here but I've done it anyway, I'm sorry. XD

Kamen Rider Ghost! The seventh season I watch and write about and I can't believe I've been doing this for almost 5 months now, that's insane, thank you so much to everyone who follows these reviews. I've heard a lot about Ghost. I've heard a lot about how bad it is. So I came into this with my expectations very low and I was surprised when, even when I wasn't expecting anything, I still got really disappointed.

You know, I'm very easily entertained, but I'm also very easily distracted, so to me when watching a show in a marathon setting like this where I try to watch 4 episodes back-to-back every day it's normal to me to be watching and doing other things while I'm at, of course when the show is good I'll eventually drop my phone and my pencils so I can focus on the show properly, but when the show is bad I'll try to divide my attention as much as possible so I won't get as annoyed right before going to bed, because that's usually when I watch these episodes.

If you've been following my reviews you know I'm not the biggest fan of Drive, and I hate Fourze, but even while watching those shows I had moments where I watched while not touching my phone. Ghost on the other hand... I believe I've played more Bang Dream than watched the show in this past week. I feel like this is enough to call it a bad show, but I don't wanna call it that because I'm more or less apathetic towards it. It didn't have moments where I was stoked about it, but I also didn't felt as angry or annoyed as I felt with Drive or Fourze, for example.

Ghost was just... boring. Like, it has good concepts, I like some of the ideas, but the execution is pretty bland, I'm still not sure about what this show is trying to say. Is this a story to teach history to kids? Is this a show about believing in yourself? Is it about valuing life? Or is it just trying to tell a supernatural story? I don't know, and I think the show doesn't know the answer either because I didn't saw any solid point in which this story was being built around. Again, from what I heard, Kamen Rider, at least in the most recent years, first starts with the toys before the story is built and I think this is pretty damn clear here because the only central theme for the story that I can see is the presence of the Eyecons.

Like, the thing that was set-up as our main conflict was our protagonist, Takeru, dying and becoming a ghost and having a deadline of 99 days so he can gather 15 Eyecons and wish to be back to life. In episode 11 all 15 Eyecons are already gathered, and in the span of one episode 21 days of his countdown happened, he truly "dies" and by the end of episode 12, he's already in a new 99 days cycle. And that's stupid. Like, I get it, 99 days are around 3 months and 1 week which would more or less correspond to 12~13 weeks of the show airing so you can argue that they have done that to match with the actual calendar, but if they can skip 3 weeks of his life from one episode to another they could've made these 99 days last for at least 16 episodes. Or do a smarter thing and say his time limit is 365 days and distribute the heroic Eyecons more spreadly and make something like OOO where they "collectibles" are constantly moving ownership from a person to another.

If this was a short season, kinda like a seasonal anime, and finished it after episode 12 biding farewell to Takeru and saying he died as a good man because he chose to save another person rather than regain his life, it would probably have fare way much better. Yeah, it would still be a bit boring, but at least it wouldn't be dumb. This show is already dumb enough with those motivational speeches almost every episode, they didn't need to continue after that point.

And it's a shame that things are like this because Ghost could've been the best opportunity to talk about history, I'm all here for a show where you can learn things, and while I suck at it, I think it's pretty important to be teaching kids about history, also making historical figures your power-ups is also very fun and could very well tie-in with the history lessons. But this show tackles this in the most boring way possible and I couldn't be bothered to pause in every episode so that I could read a trivia box with a single paragraph on whoever the historical figure of the week was.

Going to characters, Takeru is boring as hell, he has no personality, his speeches are boring, and his whole thing with his dad isn't dealt in the proper way it should. Yeah, the dude is a ghost, and that should be cool, but Takeru is just lame. I think I can say the same about Makoto, he had a good motivation at the start with the whole "I'm gonna bring my sister back" thing but soon enough he became very weak, very pointless, and very boring.

Akari is probably the most interesting of the cast because she's the skeptical scientist who doesn't believe in the ethereal, and she is a lot of fun, but because they decided to make her so connected to Takeru her skepticism as a woman of science is kinda lost a bit because she softens herself a lot for Takeru, and it's kinda sad to see they lose her as a strong counterpoint to the whole mysticism of the show. Onari is like Shunpei 2.0, he's loud, he's obnoxious, he's way angrier than I believe a Buddhist monk should be, I know he's supposed to be comic relief but I don't think he's funny. We also have the old guy who I believe is supposed to be a mentor figure but he does barely anything so I have no opinion on him other than I like his thing with costumes. And Yurusen is just a big question mark, like I'm sorry Aoi, I love you and your work, but Yurusen doesn't have a purpose and I just keep asking myself why did that need to be a thing.

The villains are boring as a slice of white bread, we know nothing about them, I can't care enough. But I like the MOTW designs though, they're pretty dope.

Speaking of dope design, probably the best thing about Ghost is in the design department. Yeah, the Eyecons and the transformation belts look hideous, and Necrom has a pretty horrible helmet, but everything else looks cool, the whole thing with the hoodies is very stylish, they do some great composition work with colors and the design of the historical figure each form is based on, and as I mentioned I like how the powers system works. I just wish the side forms weren't so present because we don't get to spend a lot of time with neither of the three basic designs. In any case, if I had to mention my favorite's they would be Ghost's Robin Hood, Beethoven, and Benkei forms, and Specter's basic and Tutankhamen forms, I also like his Houdini form, but only when the wings aren't attached.

I feel like that's everything I had to say, but before I wrap-up I wanna talk briefly about the cross-over movie.

Super Movie War Genesis

This was a mess with the whole wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff, but this is probably the best crossover movie so far solely by the fact this isn't three episodes merged together and there's an actual story being told with both rider teams being together since pretty much the beginning. The plot isn't the best, it has a whole lot of holes in this storyline, but I had fun. This was probably the thing I enjoyed the most out of Ghost so far. I liked the little touches of making Shinnousuke transform into Proto-Drive while he's in the past because the actual Drive suit wasn't complete yet by then, I loved seeing Chase again even though it was just for a short time, I really dig the more gothic looks they gave Heart, Brain, and Medic for this movie, it was great to see Kiriko kicking ass again, seeing Akari and Rinna create a bond was also very fun, and despite not getting jokes because I don't know the references seeing Jun and the old guy from Ghost interact was really something else. I had more things I disliked, but I wanna have something positive on this post so I'll leave it at there, it wasn't enough to ruin this movie to me anyway so it's not important to highlight them.

And this does it for now, what are your thoughts on Ghost, let me know in the comments down below. I'll check on y'all later. See ya~