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itsybitsylemonsqueezy · 4 years ago

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So I finished watching Yakuza 7: Like A Dragon. Spoilers under the cut.

(Mainly positive take, some criticisms. C+/B I’d give it.)

So, first of all, I didn’t play it, I just watched people on youtube so my perspective of gameplay should be taken with a grain of salt. But I really liked the turn taking fighting style! Like a real JRPG, I thought it was fun, it seemed fun anyway, and the strategies to JRPG make more intuitive sense to me than fighting games, which I don’t know at all. I did end up missing the hand-to-hand combat like... aesthetically and it kinda breaks universe rules a little. But, like, Ichiban seeing combat as a sort of heightened fantasy reality actually helps with that and the plot still treats us like average combatants. Like, there’s still no murder, despite a lot more weapon use, including guns. So... it’s a little sad and weird universe-wise, but seems fun to play.

Ichiban is a great protag! Definitely not Kiryu! He has two dads, like 8 spouses, a lot of hair... He’s only 7 years younger than Kiryu and that’s... that’s a choice ^^; But he’s got a lot of good things going for him and I like his build. Interesting rage-grief he has going and a thing about revenge that Kiryu never had. And I like that actually, I like that Ichiban gets hit with different things than Kiryu did, but he still has flaws. Kiryu was never blind with rage the way Ichi got, but then, Kiryu also didn’t save his brother. Like, they have VERY different shit going on, which is GOOD. So I’m kinda annoyed that in the end we took Ichi’s dad and brother, just like Kiryu’s? Like... damn :/ Lame. Lazy.

I love Ichi’s team! I love Adachi, Nanba, Saeko, Joon-gi, Zhao. Top notch peeps! I like that they all just like him and are here for a fun adventure with him. They’re all here for something different, which is also really cool. Zhao is sort of redefining who he is in... retirement I guess? Trying out being a companion rather than a leader. Saeko is longing for family, connection, a place to belong. Adachi was here to accomplish a goal, to restore his honor and provide justice. And Ichi’s been a big help to that. Joon-gi is... a whore. I’m sorry! He’s just this beautiful, obedient man who’s just here on lend and he does whatever the fuck you say. Do not put him in charge of decisions, he’s terrible at them, but he knows a lot and has a vast network. But he appears just to be here to serve everyone’s needs, so to speak, and to moon after Ichiban like everyone else. And Nanba. Nanba hates adventures. He hates germs. He hates people and friends and danger and doing things. But he’s here. Because Ichi makes him hate things a little less. Nanba is a cynical, cowardly bastard, and Ichi’s a fucking sunshiney idiot always trying to fix shit that isn’t his problem. And he makes Nanba get up and fight. He makes Nanba believe in tomorrow. Nanba doesn’t trust people, Nanba doesn’t hope. He’s a pessimist and lives only to complain. But he is first in line to get shot for Ichiban every fucking time. He’s always the first to Ichiban’s side when he’s in trouble. Leaving and betraying Ichiban broke his fucking heart and my ship is probably showing A LOT here but I don’t care. I fucking love Nanba, I love his arc, I did NOT see it coming. And they are definitely my ship out of this. The fact that Nanba without fail is always the first to put himself in danger for Ichiban guts me. With how much he doesn’t believe in good things ever happening, it destroys me that he’ll dare it all for Ichiban. Fucking wild.

I thought it was cool to bring up a political villain, but... we didn’t really carry through on Bleach Japan’s thematic importance. We revealed them to be cruel and hypocritical, but we didn’t end up actually saving the slums or proving why the slums needed to be saved and that’s... kinda lame :/

I was really hoping that we might make a stand on why grey spaces were needed, on why organizations like the yakuza are needed but instead we... disbanded? And I don’t even know why?

Like, it was to fuck over Ryo Aoki. But... he was a TEMPORARY problem. All you had to do was move the organizations underground until he was unseated, which the Tojo already was???

But instead... we brought down Tojo and Omi and... WHY?! Like, SERIOUSLY, can ANYONE tell me WHY! Because I have a LOT OF FEELINGS about why that’s a BAD CALL.

What are all those guys going to do now? “Oh, we’ll just make a security company” YOU’LL WHAT?! THOUSANDS of guys used to shake downs will now be hired to patrol rich estates and cover banks and business buildings?! Fighting WHO, themselves?! A LOT of that job is just watching some fucking cameras, what... what the fuck are you talking about Watase?!

But I guess that’s still better than Daigo’s “I have no fucking idea” plan

NO WONDER Majima’s depressed at that funeral you JUST TOLD HIM his new job is BABYSITTING SOME RICH FUCK’S BUILDING. Fuck you guys!

And HAVE WE LEARNED NOTHING ABOUT POWER VACUUMS?! CRIME doesn’t disappear just because there’s no one there to manage it! That just means it gets worse! And rasher, crueler people grab power in the interim. Smaller but rougher groups will appear. More and worse crimes will happen now. You just disenfranchised thousands, not all of them are going to come with you to play security detail and not all of them WANT to. So why EXACTLY did we disband the yakuza? What problems did that solve???

What about all that shit about the yakuza being a home for people who didn’t fit in? What about people who fell through the cracks in the system, who don’t have anywhere else to go?

If the yakuza, as an idea, was so fucking bad, WHAT WERE THE LAST SIX GAMES ABOUT?!

You can’t have an established series that accepts the idea that crime and violence are sometimes necessary or are even good things and have a compelling protag who does that, ONLY to turn around at the last second and pretend like it was always wrong!

If you were gonna act like the idea of organized crime is a Bad Thing, THEN THAT NEEDED TO BE A CONFLICT FROM THE BEGINNING

But you didn’t even do that!

We DIDN’T disband the yakuza because organized crime is inherently morally corrupt, no we disbanded because some prick thought he could use us! A PRICK WHO IS NOW DEAD! THE FUCK?!

And DON’T GET ME STARTED on how this reframes Kiryu’s narrative. KIRYU WASN’T RIGHT FOR LEAVING YOU FUCKING BASTARDS.

THE WHOLE POINT OF KIRYU’S ARC WAS THAT HE WAS FUCKING WRONG TO ABANDON HIS RELATIONSHIPS I- *screams into pillow*

AND why does Kiryu need to be dead now?! There is no more yakuza! Who does he need to hide from?!

OH no wait, my mistake! We didn’t disband ALL the yakuza, just Omi and Tojo! You know, the two biggest cities in Japan. I’m sure THAT won’t have Fucking Consequences. But Kiryu still has to be dead for uh... Reasons.

This was just such a fucking dumb universe-building move. It’s not been thought through, it betrays the whole point of the franchise up until now, and I’m honestly just mad that they didn’t even feel the need to address it? Like, the yakuza’s just gone now, but it’s whatever. Who would even care about that. Like, that’s not going to be a plot point next game. It won’t matter, at all, I promise you. All of the in-universe implications this has, none of it matters. And I’m not even mad I’m just... tired. And annoyed a little. that you can’t be bothered to tie up your own rules. You won’t give your own writing decisions weight and that’s just... kinda sad. It’s just lazy and sad that they don’t care enough to connect the pieces. But I’ve had my heart broken enough by yakuza writing decisions. Of course they would do this, of course they haven’t thought enough about their own series to really consider what ending the yakuza would mean. Why would they?

I’ll still watch the next game. Like, Ichiban is likeable enough and I’m interested in his arc enough that I’d play or watch next time. But... *sigh* We’re the Yakuza series with no yakuza. And y’all gonna act like that’s a good thing or pretend it doesn’t even matter. And I really don’t know what to do with that since you haven’t bothered to examine it either.

On a nice Kiryu note, I did like that he was scaled appropriately, I like that Ichiban is Wiped Out after almost every fight. He’s a good fighter, but he has human endurance. Kiryu’s still god. He hits the hardest out of anyone you fight and you Don’t win and that’s As It Should Be. I’m REALLY glad they at least let me have that. I’m glad they let us fight Kiryu and we passed and it was a cool passing of the torch. I was so worried they were going to destroy Kiryu’s legacy and at least they didn’t do that.

The coin locker baby thing... it was cliche and convenient, but in the way that Yakuza is cliche and convenient and melodramatic and over the top. It was sort of fitting and familiar that way. Shame we ended Swashiro like that, I think we could have done more and cooler shit with him but, eh.

SPEAKING OF MORE AND COOLER SHIT

...all that effort, just to kill him? Alllllll that long time, that hard conversation, that break down with Ichiban... just to kill him. Just to make him Nishiki, all over again.

I... fuck you.

Why do you refuse to write a goddamn redemption arc

Fuck, you don’t even have to write it, have it happen off-screen if you’re so fucking afraid of it. Just have him recuperate in a goddamn hospital and, I don’t know, by next game just show that he’s doing better and is getting therapy and whatever.

Jesus fucking christ, he doesn’t have to MATTER in the next game just... don’t kill him. Jesus. Please.

All that fucking work and you’re STILL going to give Ichiban the trauma of losing someone he was trying to save.

I just... it’s really gutting how much you don’t like your characters and you don’t like to write and you’re cowards. You won’t take risks. You’re too afraid of fucking up so you won’t do what the narrative calls for.

Killing Masato was lazy-ass, punk-ass, coward shit and I wont’ stand for it. I did not expect to care about his ass by the end but you guys REALLY made an effort in making him a three dimensional character there at the end and explaining why Ichi would care about him and I was willing to come with you! I was willing for us to invest in this dumbass. We walk him all the way up to the edge and step him back. We let him let go. And then you just. fucking. gave up. You goddamn cowards.

I’m so tired of this shit

For all that, it was genuinely a really fun game and a really fun story with a lot of likeable characters. I think a solid C+, even a B. I really did enjoy most of it. It’s just... in usual Yakuza style, they only fucked up 2 things but they were a REALLY IMPORTANT 2 things.

Oh and I did like the fact that Ichiban Still Doesn’t Know. No one tell him.

#Yakuza 7 #Yakuza: Like A Dragon #It's always a mixed bag with RGG Studios #At least Kiryu was pretty nice #Y7 spoilers

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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10 Best Fighting Game Movies

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Once upon a time, Bruce Lee, Jim Kelly, and John Saxon visited a crime boss’ private island to compete in a fighting tournament and it was awesome. The 1973 movie Enter the Dragon is basically the prototype for the fighting games like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter. And when those fighting games became popular, they inspired their own movies that either tried to emulate Enter the Dragon or do something completely new.

The ‘90s gave us the cheesy live-action fighting game movies from Hollywood and the animated movies from Japan. There have been several live-action Mortal Kombat movies as well as a few animated ones. There have also been multiple Street Fighter movies, four attempts at Tekken, a trilogy of Fatal Fury films, and more.

Are most of them bad? Yes. But did we pick our 10 favorite fighting game movies anyway? You bet. Here are our picks:

10. ART OF FIGHTING (1993)

Eh…it’s harmless.

The Art of Fighting series is mostly defined by the twist that the first game’s final boss is the main character’s father and the second game’s final boss is a younger incarnation of the villain from Fatal Fury. Take away those aspects and you’re left with a rather lowkey storyline for a fighting game where a teenage girl is kidnapped by a mobster and is rescued by her brother and her boyfriend.

Wait, I said that weird. It’s two different people, I swear! Except in Capcom, where Dan Hibiki is literally both of them merged into one character.

In the 45-minute Art of Fighting movie about Ryo and Robert, who are like chiller and dopier versions of Ryu and Ken, we watch as the duo gets sucked into a plot about stolen diamonds, martial arts criminals, and angry police lieutenants. It doesn’t take itself seriously and it’s a fine, breezy watch.

Ryo’s incorrect hair color kind of irks me, though.

9. STREET FIGHTER ALPHA: THE ANIMATION (1999)

This movie suffers from the same problem as Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture. It features a cast of heroes from a fighting game taking on a villain created for the movie instead of the villains we actually give a shit about. But the movie does also have some brief but awesome cameos (Kim Kaphwan and Geese Howard from Fatal Fury and Dan Hibiki and Akuma from Street Fighter Alpha) to brighten up a less-than-stellar plot.

Street Fighter Alpha: The Animation does at least get by because the original characters play up Ryu’s whole fear about being overcome by “the Dark Hadou.” This leads to some cool animations where Evil Ryu looks like a mindless, shambling zombie but also an unstoppable fighting machine.

The movie’s main storyline is about a kid named Shun who claims that he’s Ryu’s long-lost brother. He too is a fighter cursed with an inner dark side, which is used as a red herring to suggest that Shun’s father (and presumably Ryu’s father) is actually Akuma. That ends up being bupkis and Shun is just linked to some scheme by a mad scientist or whatever.

Probably the funniest thing about this movie is the directors’ infatuation with Chun-Li’s midsection. She’s wearing her form-fitting Street Fighter Alpha costume and there are dozens upon dozens of random close-ups to her lower torso from the front and back. If this were a drinking game, it would kill you.

8. FATAL FURY 2: THE NEW BATTLE (1993)

Of the Fatal Fury movie trilogy, this one is easily the best, even if it makes all the good guys seem like a bunch of overly-serious crybabies. The basic story is that after having avenged his father’s death, Terry hits rock bottom, dusts himself off, and comes out the other end stronger. Good, good. Going Rocky III is the perfect direction for a follow-up.

The problem is that Terry comes off as a bit of a whiner and the other heroes try way too hard to vilify the movie’s main antagonist, who hasn’t actually done anything that terrible. Krauser shows up one day, challenges Terry to a fight, wins, and says, “Okay, when you get better, train and fight me again.” Krauser isn’t trying to take over the world or murder orphans or whatever. He’s just a dude with huge shoulder armor who wants a good fight.

But everyone acts like Krauser’s the absolute worst. Terry starts drinking and falls to pieces while his buddies hope to get revenge. What a bunch of jerks.

While a fun romp, the worst thing about this sequel is how they redesigned Krauser. Gone is his mustache and forehead scar for the sake of making him seem younger. Kind of a bullshit move, considering he’s supposed to be the half-brother to middle-aged Geese Howard.

7. TEKKEN: THE MOTION PICTURE (1998)

This hour-long anime is almost great but just can’t stick the landing. It runs into the same problem as Mortal Kombat: Annihilation where the game series tells a specific overall story but the movie cuts corners to tell the same story. Tekken: The Motion Picture covers the first Tekken while setting up Tekken 3 and skipping Tekken 2 completely.

It means that everything’s well and good until the confusing and rushed finale. Otherwise, the movie is a fine use of the Enter the Dragon formula. Heihachi Mishima has a special island fighting tournament and the entrants include his vengeful son, a couple of cops investigating the situation, a gigantic robot, an angry Native American girl, two feuding assassin sisters, and a bunch of awesome characters who only get about three full frames of appearances each. Really would have liked to see something from Paul, King, and Yoshimitsu, though.

Other than Kazuya being pissed at everything, the best scenes are the over-the-top ones. When Jack does crazy robot stuff, when dinosaurs show up and start eating people, and that memorable sequence where Heihachi catches a hatchet with his mouth and then shatters it with his jaw.

6. STREET FIGHTER (1994)

I know this movie is just a GI Joe script with Street Fighter names pasted over it. I know it’s a cheesefest of dopey ideas and Belgian accents. I’ve long accepted that. Thing is, the movie is still a total blast to watch. What it lacks in faithfulness to the source material, it makes up for with pure camp and ham.

The 16 characters from Super Street Fighter II are represented here, except Fei Long is replaced with the forgettable Captain Sawada. How ironic that the movie star character isn’t even in the movie!

In general, the movie features some head-scratching depictions of classic Street Fighter characters. All-American Guile is played by Jean Claude Van Damme, Charlie Nash and Blanka are the same character, Dee Jay is an evil hacker, Ryu and Ken are comedic conmen, and Dhalsim is a frumpy scientist.

It’s Raul Julia’s M. Bison who keeps this guilty pleasure afloat. He’s to Street Fighter what Frank Langella’s Skeletor was to Masters of the Universe. He gives 110% and his performance is easily the best reason to watch this movie. It’s truly a wonder to behold.

Games

The Forgotten Fighting Games of the 1990s

By Gavin Jasper

Games

King of Fighters: Ranking All the Characters

By Gavin Jasper

The movie is infamous for inspiring a fighting game based on it, but you know what nobody ever talks about? The Double Dragon movie also had a fighting game based on it made by Technos and released on the Neo Geo. And Double Dragon wasn’t even a one-on-one fighter to begin with!

Anyway, if you intend to sit back and watch Street Fighter, make sure to add in the RiffTrax commentary.

5. DOA: DEAD OR ALIVE (2006)

Enter the Dragon meets Charlie’s Angels is a heck of a concept, but DOA: Dead or Alive is so confidently tongue-in-cheek that it succeeds as an action comedy that’s way better than it has any right to be. Part of why it works is that Dead or Alive has never had much of an overarching storyline, but is more defined by the individual characters (plus, you know, all the cheesecake). Enough of those characters appear in what’s your regular “fighting tournament on a mysterious island” setup.

The whole thing moves with such energy that it’s easy to get sucked in. It’s the opposite of the live-action Tekken movie, where even though the film features accurate versions of all the characters, everything is so drab and lifeless that you just can’t wait for it to be over. In DOA, the combatants spend their downtime playing cartoony action volleyball with Fake Dennis Rodman on commentary, while in Tekken everyone mopes about dystopian capitalism.

Other than Helena’s character being “important dead guy’s daughter,” most of the main characters are charismatic enough to keep your attention during the 3% of the movie when fights aren’t happening. It must suck for Ninja Gaiden fans that Hayabusa is depicted as a total dweeb, but he at least gets to do some cool stuff here and there.

The movie also has Kevin Nash playing a character based on Hollywood Hogan and he’s so likeable that I’m genuinely bummed that he peaces out about halfway into the movie. Luckily, the movie is entertaining enough that I didn’t even notice until after it was over. It helps that during that time, we get more of Eric Roberts, his amazing hair, and his special sunglasses that turn him into the ultimate martial arts master.

Spoiler alert, but the secret to defeating him is, get this, removing his sunglasses!

4. MORTAL KOMBAT LEGENDS: SCORPION’S REVENGE (2020)

It took a while, but Warner Bros. Animation is on fire these days. After that Batman vs. TMNT movie and Teen Titans Go vs. Teen Titans, the studio appears to be hitting more than they miss. That’s exactly the kind of team needed to put together the latest animated Mortal Kombat movie.

This is the umpteenth retelling of the first game’s story. Not only does it have to compete with the first live-action movie, but also the events of Mortal Kombat 9, which depicts the tournament in cutscene format. Fortunately, Scorpion’s Revenge has a few tricks up its sleeve. First, it puts Scorpion in the forefront as the protagonist. He was barely a character in the original movie and the game just had him kill Sub-Zero and feel bad about it for the rest of the story mode. Now he feels like a character in a crossover, making a mark on the original story instead of being put in the sidelines.

We also have the wonderful stunt casting of Joel McHale as Johnny Cage. More importantly, Jennifer Carpenter plays Sonya Blade, which is such a step up from Ronda Rousey’s voice acting in Mortal Kombat 11.

This cartoon has a very hard R when it comes to violence. From the very beginning, Scorpion’s origins are gruesome and grisly. Once Jax is introduced, it doesn’t take long until we realize, “Oh, that’s how they’re dealing with THAT plot point in this continuity.” Then there’s a surprise villain death late in the movie that not only comes as a shocking development, but it’s so graphic and nasty that you can’t help but be taken aback.

Scorpion’s Revenge is a fantastic first chapter of what is hopefully a series of animated movies, but it does have its pacing issues. Scorpion being the protagonist may be a welcome change, but at times it does feel like a square peg being crammed into a round hole.

3. TEKKEN: BLOOD VENGEANCE (2011)

One of the best things about the Tekken series is the endings. While the cutscenes from the first couple games haven’t exactly aged well, these CGI epilogues have become a staple in nearly every installment. What better reward for your time and success than watching a rocking action sequence with Yoshimitsu and Bryan Fury killing each other in the jungle?

And so, to play to the series’ strengths, Bandai Entertainment released a Tekken movie that’s really just one big ending cutscene. It’s not canon, but it feels at home with the games.

Since Tekken’s main conflict is with two ruthless megalomaniacs (Heihachi and Kazuya) and a disgruntled nihilist (Jin), it’s hard to treat any of them as a real protagonist here. Instead, they go with Ling Xiaoyu, who is portrayed as the person who sees the good in Jin and wants him to see the light. She’s given a robotic BFF in Alisa Bosconovitch because Xiaoyu is kind of a tame character and needs someone with chainsaw arms and a jetpack to liven things up.

The first hour or so is good enough to keep your attention and its lightened up by a couple appearances by Tekken’s best character, Lee. But once it gets to the third act, it just becomes a completely awesome Heihachi vs. Kazuya vs. Jin fight, with Xiaoyu taking a backseat to watch all the crazy shit going on. It’s a full-on fireworks factory, as we not only see Devil forms of Kazuya and Jin but a very special final form for Heihachi that’s a true delight for Tekken fans.

2. STREET FIGHTER II: THE ANIMATED MOVIE (1994)

Let it be said that for someone who grew up in the ‘80s and ‘90s, finding a faithful cartoon adaptation of a video game property was not easy. Link and Simon Belmont were unlikable sexual harassers. Mega Man was a more annoying sidekick than Scrappy Doo. Mario and Luigi teamed up with Milli Vanilli. Power Team was…a thing. When we got an animated movie based on Street Fighter II, it was mind-blowing. This was a movie where the very first scene was Ryu tearing Sagat’s chest into a bloody gash thanks to a well-animated Shoryuken.

There’s a lot going on in this movie, but at the same time, nothing is going on. By this point, there were 17 characters in the various Street Fighter II games, and outside of a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Akuma cameo, it feels the need to include every single one of them. Some get minor roles, like Cammy and Dee Jay. Then there’s Zangief and Blanka, who fight each other for no reason other than for the sake of giving them something to do. Even Ryu vanishes for a huge chunk of the runtime.

Once everything funnels into the third act, this movie is great. And the earlier fight scenes are straight fire too, including the memorable Chun-Li vs. Vega brawl. Even though the movie already feels true to Street Fighter II, it’s even better when you realize that it’s all supposed to be a prequel to the game itself.

Or at least I hope so. Otherwise, all Sagat gets to do is get his ass kicked by Ryu and get chewed out by Bison.

1. MORTAL KOMBAT (1995)

The stars truly aligned for this one. Mortal Kombat Mania was at its peak, so it makes sense that this movie was a retelling of the first game’s story with added aspects from the second game, all while hyping up the arcade release of the third game. CGI was such a novelty in Hollywood in the ’90s that even if it looked primitive, it still looked cutting edge at the time. It was the perfect time to release this movie.

But Mortal Kombat isn’t perfect. Reptile is embarrassing. Scorpion and Sub-Zero being relegated to goons still stings. I still roll my eyes at the part towards the end where Sonya is suddenly the damsel in distress and Raiden flat-out verbally buries her by saying she couldn’t beat Shang Tsung in a million years. Otherwise, it’s the perfect storm of ‘90s action garbage.

There are so many over-the-top and charismatic performances here. Johnny Cage, Raiden, Shang Tsung, Kano, and even Goro are a blast to watch. All 10 characters from the original game are given something to do and, most importantly, they realize how uniquely weird the game’s story is and actually dive headfirst into it. The movie isn’t embarrassed to be a Mortal Kombat movie but handles itself well enough that we aren’t embarrassed to be watching a Mortal Kombat movie.

Even with a PG-13 rating, the movie was violent enough. Kano talked up seeing a pile of frozen guts in the wake of a Sub-Zero fight, Scorpion got his skull sliced apart with demon brain goo spewing all over the place, and Shang Tsung got impaled to death.

With the reboot being rated R, going for the gore could very well be the right route to go, but for the love of the Elder Gods, don’t forget to have FUN. All I’m saying is, if even Johnny Cage isn’t hamming it up, then what’s the point?

The post 10 Best Fighting Game Movies appeared first on Den of Geek.

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marshmallowgoop · 5 years ago

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Kill la Kill Books!

Got a small haul of Kill la Kill books the other day!

SUSHIO CLUB LOVE LOVE KLKL has been a glaring omission from my collection, so when I saw a listing of the book for 3,600 yen—which usually goes for 10,000+ these days—I bought it right away.

And I figured I might as well pick up a few more things while I was at it, right? To make the shipping more cost effective?

That’s definitely the only reason.

But anyway, my growing mass of Kill la Kill books and magazines has now reached 36 items.

And I’ve talked about some of this merch before; you can find my post about the Febri volume 21 issue here, my post about Fractal 10 here, my post about the Talking About Composite books, The Complete Script Book, and The Art of KLK Vol. 3 here (and I have a whole tag for the script book, #klk-script-book), and I yammer on about the nine Blu-ray key art collection and artboard books here. I also have several essays discussing the official manga adaptation:

Kill la Kill Manga Chapter 7

Kill la Kill Manga Volume 3, Chapters 8-17: Thoughts and Impressions

Kill la Kill Manga Volume 3: Translation Notes, Anime Differences

Kill la Kill Manga Volume 3: Worth it?

Manga Differences

And now, I wanna briefly (lol) yap about the six new additions to my collection.

Because I have a lot of love in my heart for this ridiculous, ridiculous anime.

SUSHIO CLUB LOVE LOVE KLKL

So, I got this book for cheap because it was allegedly in poor shape and “not suitable for collection.”

(My reaction to “not suitable for collection” is always, “It’s suitable for my garbage collection! I’ll give your ‘ugly’ copies a loving home!”)

But, like? There are a couple of dents and folded corners, but the condition is really not bad at all. The art is completely intact and beautiful.

Sushio—who is the character designer for Kill la Kill—has shared much of this book on his Twitter, and I would definitely recommend fans of the series to scroll through his photos and have a look. There’s such a cute, sweet charm to Sushio’s work, and along with the polished, colored pages from LOVE LOVE that he shares online, he also shares sketches of his own fanart for the series, too.

(Okay, maybe this isn’t exactly the best demonstration of Sushio’s absolutely precious artwork, but. It’s one of my favorites from the book. Ryuko resorting to such wild extremes to be with Senketsu again is just. My heart. Kill la Kill is actually adorable.)

In any case, I don’t think any of the content in LOVE LOVE was new to me, but there’s just really something about having the book in my hands. I know there’s such a strong desire for digital media these days, but call me old-fashioned—there’s nothing quite like holding this art and really seeing every stroke and line in person.

Being able to physically flip through the pages also makes me notice things I didn’t before. For instance, I found myself charmed by the little detail of Barazo, Mako’s father, loving and adoring Sukuyo, Mako’s mother.

I mean, aw? It’s stuff like this that really makes me wish Kill la Kill were a kids’ show (as Sushio himself seemed to want!) Barazo is so much more likeable when there aren’t any signs of his less-than-pleasant behavior and he’s a loving, supportive husband and father.

Seriously!

Another thing I notice from having the book now is the order in which the pages are organized. Like, I couldn’t help but be amused about how Ryuko gets her own page here...

(Smiling for her Starketsu in the sky, right? Just like he asks her to in “Till I Die”?)

...and then the next pages have Satsuki beside Nonon and Mako (and Mataro) beside Ira...

...which strikes me as a bit funny because this isn’t exactly how Sushio organized his Tweets of these images. There, Satsuki was next to Ryuko, Nonon was next to no one, Mako and Mataro were next to Ira, and Uzu was next to Houka:

So, in LOVE LOVE, is Sushio deliberately trying to say something with the changed placement? Especially when it comes to the direction of the ladies’ eyes?

Yeah???

I kid, I kid.

(But really, it looks much better to give Ryuko her own page and not have Nonon standing next to nobody.)

Also, one of the first things that popped out to me about LOVE LOVE is how Senketsu’s pages are right next to Ryuko’s pages. As they should be.

They belong together, okay?!

And speaking of Senketsu and Ryuko, I remember a comment years back that said you could probably find pics of your OTP with matching expressions in this book.

But, uh. Just compare Senketsu posing to Ryuko posing...

They’re kind of different types of people, lol.

But hey, they do both make cute sneezy faces.

As a final note about my copy of LOVE LOVE, I will say that my only disappointment is that I received the version with print errors. As such, this page of Nui...

...was accidentally printed twice, and I miss out on this page of Nui as a result:

There are also some minor goofs, like Mako’s arm getting cut off by the background here:

But considering I got this beautiful thing for only 3,600 yen, I really can’t complain!

Now I just need Sushiotan 2 to complete my Sushio Kill la Kill doujin collection....

Takepro

This charming little volume is a collection of animator fanart for the show (and other shows). The book includes a short profile for each featured artist, and their big Kill la Kill pieces are—like all titles in Kill la Kill—named after classic Japanese pop songs. You can read and see more about Takepro here.

It’s hard to pick favorites from this doujin because there is so much adorable and wonderful artwork, but I especially love Naoki Takeda’s “ここに幸あり,” or “Here is My Happiness,” named after the song by Yoshitsu Ootsu.

youtube

The picture features Ryuko, Mako, and Satsuki sitting together, all having a good time, and there’s just something so sweet about seeing happy Satsuki.

I also found an English translation of the song’s lyrics, courtesy of beast-senior 810:

The storm breaks and the rain falls Thorny as the women's path might be I would still keep on living with you And my happiness is here in the blue sky

I could not tell anybody of my scars A bird of love that resided in my chest If only I wander about crying and evading A sorrowful night wind will blow through the streets

I call out your name from the bottom of my heart Who will be awaiting me at the end of the echoes? Snuggle up to you and cheerfully look up to your face And my happiness is here in the white clouds

Aw. This song is so Satsuki.

And speaking of Satsuki, I can’t get over how cute she and Ryuko look on the cover of this book. Like??

Aw!

I also am quite fond of a small piece by Syuichi Iseki, which is in a super-deformed style and features Satsuki comforting Nonon after her uniform is destroyed during the Naturals Election. Nonon cries, and Satsuki pats her head. In the background, Ira looks distressed at the display, Houka seems to be deciphering it, and Mako smiles. It’s really, really cute.

Yoshie Endo’s “僕笑っちゃいます,” or “I’m Laughing,” named for the song by Shingo Kazami, is also real cute. It depicts Mataro holding up Guts, who licks his face. It’s another one of those, “I-so-wish-Kill-la-Kill-were-a-kids’-show” kinda pieces....

youtube

Hiroyuki Imaishi’s Doujin

Admittedly, I don’t actually know the title of this one, but it’s a very small doujin by Kill la Kill director Hiroyuki Imaishi. There isn’t too much Kill la Kill content, but there are two pages of Ryuko and Satsuki in their respective Kamui, accompanied by some text.

I thought the text might be something about the show, but it seems like it’s actually about Imaishi’s experience working on the show. And... it’s rather sad? He talks about how he’s able to accomplish more now, but he also has to consider a lot more as well, and he doesn’t have the time and energy that he used to. It’s a lot about aging and growing old.

At least, I think that’s what’s being communicated. Here’s a transcription, though:

なんだろう。

初会社役員とか。

昔よりやれることは増えたが考えなきゃいけないことも増えて時間と体力は足りなくなっていく。

年相応とも言える。

だけどいつまでも大人気なく生きていきたいものだ。

One last interesting thing about this doujin is the material it’s made from; it’s different than any other book in my collection. I’m not an artist, so forgive me if I sound totally ignorant here, but the paper reminds me watercolor paper. It definitely took me by surprise!

SL Sketch 3

SL Sketch 3 is a small fan doujin by Buzin. You can find most of the art in this book on their Tumblr!

Sketch 3 is a really fun collection of sketches, and I especially love the cover. I’m so desperate for art where Senketsu is acknowledged as an actual person that I’m just all heart eyes over Ryuko smiling at him here.

March 2014 Newtype

Okay, so this one’s really a magazine, not a book, but wow. I was taken aback by what’s inside!

I’ll definitely have to look at this issue in more depth because there are a bunch of Kill la Kill goodies in here that I didn’t even expect. And I don’t think most of it has been translated at all!

I also realized that I’ve been mixing up my Newtypes and will have to fix my resources page. But on the bright side, there is so much to love about this issue.

Like, the Elite Four Light Novel got reprinted in the Kamui Bansho, but it’s way better here because it has pictures!

I also love how Nonon, out of all the Elite Four, is the only one who stands beside Satsuki in these illustrations.

And I don’t even know what this is (VR or something with Ami Koshimizu, Ryuko’s VA?), but it’s cute and got me smiling:

And Ryo Akizuki, the mangaka for the official Kill la Kill manga, made a small comic about his experience working on the project. I like the little title panel with Ryuko, Senketsu, and Mako a lot:

Plus, there’s a shiny ad for the manga’s second volume, too:

One of the things that most caught my interest, though, is an article about the second opening song for Kill la Kill, GARNiDELiA’s “ambiguous”:

I got so curious about this bit because I’ve heard varying, conflicting information regarding the meaning behind the song’s lyrics. On the one hand, I’ve heard that half of the song is from Ryuko to Senketsu, and the other half is from Satsuki to Ryuko. On the other hand, I’ve heard that the whole song is from Satsuki to Ryuko. But I’ve never found any concrete sources for either of these claims!

So, I was hoping the Newtype article would help, but it’ll take a lot more digging into. Still, briefly looking over the page, I did find this bit:

そんな私の思いと歌詞が一致しました。『キルラキル』でいう流子ちゃんと神衣・鮮血の関係に近いかもしれませんね。

Roughly, it says, “As such, my thoughts about the song agreed with its lyrics. You might say it’s like the relationship between Ryuko and Kamui Senketsu in Kill la Kill.”

I’m not totally sure about the context here—and I admittedly don’t even know the author’s involvement in the making of "ambiguous”—but this article might explain where the Ryuko-and-Senketsu reading of the song came from. It’s definitely something I’d like to delve into more.

Because I really love the Ryuko-and-Senketsu reading of the song, okay, and I’d love some actually official backup for it!

Finally, another favorite part of the Newtype is simply all the art. Takafumi Hori’s spread is particularly great:

(You can find a cleaner image here.)

Just... dang. I wish I got a little poster of this instead of the ones actually included in the Newtype! The artwork is just stunning.

And one of the cutest things about the Newtype is all the fanart from its readers! I particularly love the little Valentine’s Day special; there’s an illustration of Ryuko giving Senketsu chocolate, and there’s also a Ryumako piece, too!

Kill la Kill Storyboard Ep. 01

Finally, one of my favorites from this haul is the Kill la Kill Storyboard Ep. 01. The book was included as a shop bonus for the original Japanese Blu-ray/DVD release, though I was able to win it by itself in an auction. I do think I overpaid a bit, but gosh, it’s a lovely addition to my collection. It’s just really neat to see the production process of an anime in action. I wish there were storyboard books for every episode in the show!

Hiroyuki Imaishi’s storyboards are also just super amusing. Here is a small sampling of some of my faves (because there is so much gold in here, my goodness):

And that’s all for now!

...I guess this really wasn’t so brief at all, huh?

Shocker.

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hoshigomi · 6 years ago

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THUNDERBOLT FANTASY/AMAZING STAR☆KILLER ROUGE - Hoshigumi, 2018

Disclaimer: I can’t call this a review. I don’t really speak Japanese, and what I understand is sort of limited, so I don’t think it’s fair for me to put my thoughts and opinions out as a REVIEW. I absolutely did not grasp the entirety of this show and will not pretend I did. I’m just someone who really loves Takarazuka, knows some Japanese, loves Hoshigumi more than air, is enthralled with Thunderbolt Fantasy as a show in and of itself, and was privileged enough to see this production four times. Here is a (very long) collection of thoughts!

THUNDERBOLT FANTASY~

This entire experience was a blast from start to finish. When Thunderbolt Fantasy was announced as Hoshigumi’s tour show, I think a lot of us were rightfully CAUTIOUSLY CURIOUS about the entire situation, especially after we looked up the source material and found a PUPPET SHOW. I remember watching the first episode with a friend, having only the tentative top/nibante/top musumeyaku casting and thinking “wow that’s uh ambitious and confusing but I kind of love it.” Well, reader, I can personally confirm that in the end, I more than kind of loved it. I’m currently nine episodes into the TV series and what I can say is the Takarazuka production MOSTLY follows it so far, up until about episode seven, where they start making some sacrifices in order to fit a 13 episode TV show into an hour and some change stage production. Names are a bit confusing, and even the Takarazuka main website put up a glossary of terms, so you know you’re getting into Something before you even start.

The BASIC, BASIC, BARE BONES PLOT is as follows (I am using the JAPANESE CHARACTER names for consistency):

THE PLOT:

Tan Hi (Kisaki Airi) and her brother, Tan Ko (Toudou Jun) are part of a clan that is tasked with protecting a sacred sword. Obviously, A Group Of Bad Guys™ led by Betsu Ten Gai (Tenju Mitsuki) followed by Ryo Mi (Arisa Hitomi), Cho Mei (Amahana Ema), and Zan Kyo (Ooki Makoto) ALSO want the sacred sword. Tan Hi and Tan Ko are ambushed and attacked by Zan Kyo, and Tan Ko (Airi’s character’s brother) is killed. Tan Hi escapes with the hilt of the sacred sword (hereafter: TENGYOKEN), but is in pretty bad shape.

Meanwhile in the woods, Shou Fu Kan (Nanami Hiroki), a wandering swordsman, is trying to escape the rain and does so by taking an umbrella from over a Buddha Statue. Enter Lin Setsu A (Kurenai Yuzuru), a VERY CANONICALLY MYSTERIOUS AND VAGUE guy who immediately starts giving Shou Fu Kan grief for taking the Buddha’s umbrella, to which Shou Fu Kan replies, “If the stone Buddha gets wet, it will be fine, but if I get wet, I will catch a cold.” Touche, cute swordsman. Enter Tan Hi, still being pursued by Zan Kyo. Tan Hi is in very bad shape, and Shou Fu Kan fights Zan Kyo, Zan Kyo severs his own head. After, in the land of evil, Betsu Ten Gai receives Zan Kyo’s severed head (really) and accesses his memory, the last of which is Shou Fu Kan giving his name immediately before Zan Kyo is beheaded. Betsu Ten Gai now is targeting Shou Fu Kan who obviously has something to do with the Tengyoken. Betsu Ten Gai sends his lackeys after Shou Fu Kan and co.

I won’t go any more into the plot (and unfortunately Wikipedia can’t really help you), but if you’re interested I really recommend you watch the TV show, because it is INTERESTING. From there, Ken San Un (Rei Makoto) enters and joins the party because he is a classic cocky charming young boy protagonist who wants to make a name for himself, along with Lin Setsu A’s old “friends”, Shu Un Sho (an archer, played by Kizaki Reo), Kei Gai (a NECROMANCER played by Yumeki Anru), and Setsu Mu Sho, (a LITERAL SERIAL KILLER who wants Lin Setsu A DEAD, played by Mao Yuuki.) Every one of these characters has a complicated and not overtly stated motive, and NONE of them agree on any tactics which is further complicated by the fact that half of them aren’t even human and Demon Motives Are Different. The one thing they have in common is that they all want the Tengyoken out of Betsu Ten Gai’s hands.

THE PLAY ITSELF: This was an anime stage play. If you like anime stage plays, you will LOVE Thunderbolt Fantasy. If you have ever loved a video game, an anime, a fantasy story, or THOUGHT you might love a video game, anime, or fantasy story, this play is going to be FUN for you. I felt like I was INSIDE a game in the Final Fantasy series. The technical aspects of the show BLEW ME AWAY. The coolest lighting effects I have seen in my life are in this play. The set is effective at getting across where we are, and projections are used to pretty cool effect this time around, in my opinion. There are LITERALLY only three and a half sung songs in this entire musical, one being the title song sung by the main players, one being another T.M. Revolution song sung by Kurenai Yuzuru to introduce the rest of the characters, one beautiful sweet little half song sung by Kisaki Airi, and one being just something they gave Rei Makoto at the start of the show because she’s technically Hoshigumi’s nibante but you wouldn’t know it just from watching this show. Which brings us to the cast!

THE CAST: PERFECT and weird. Kurenai Yuzuru as Lin Setsu A was honestly genius. I saw this production with a friend who knows only a little about Takarazuka, knows Beni tangentially, has seen one episode of Thunderbolt Fantasy and she said “that role was made for Beni.” He is sly and manipulative and FUNNY and his motives are ENTIRELY unknown. Beni sings what she sings fantastically, and it’s VERY good to see her slinking around the stage with a sly fox smile all the time. Nanami Hiroki as Shou Fu Kan. I wouldn’t normally list her second, but in this case, she was the nibante role. I have NO idea why this didn’t go to Rei Makoto, except maybe because Kai can play a disgruntled but good natured adult man better than she can play a like spunky sixteen year old boy. Shou Fu Kan is the protagonist of Thunderbolt and they did NOT change that even ONE BIT for this play. The story directly relied on her action and without spoiling anything, the coolest stage magic and ridiculously anime moment I have ever seen in my life involved her center stage in the final battle, Making It Happen. She has pretty much The Last Moment in the show. She has one-liners and dry humor and handles stage combat INCREDIBLY. Shou Fu Kan is just a morally good guy who doesn’t want trouble and does want to Do The Right Thing. This role was AMAZING for her (I am biased.), and I can’t wait to see how the tour audiences take it.

Kisaki Airi as Tan Hi. This is my favorite role I have ever seen Airi in. She was the best at stage combat in the entire troupe, and she acted her pants off. Her character goes through a lot of unecessary bullshit and suffering and she remains wholly likeable through it all. Her motivations are clear and her relationships with the other characters are believable and specific. She also has some really lovely comic bits.

Rei Makoto as Ken San Un. Coto was playing a spunky kid and honestly Coto was born to play spunky kids (but what wasn’t Coto born to play?) Ken San Un has an ego that IS backed up by skill, and he really just wants to Make A Name For Himself, Impress A Girl, and do the right thing. Her voice is as usual, killer, and her character is INSANELY charming, especially when interacting with Tan Hi. There’s a lot of complexity in this role too, and Coto handles it fantastically. They padded this role out a lot, which worked well and didn’t seem forced whatsoever, but even so, it was a solidly supporting role. Hopefully Coto got some well deserved rest in the process.

The rest of the roles were similarly well-cast. Hoshigumi’s focus on ensemble casts like they did here and with Another World REALLY do them all some favors. Tenju Mitsuki made short but crucial appearances as the MAIN VILLAN and got to show off the unhinged wildness that made her Mercutio so fantastic. Amahana Ema and Arisa Hitomi were good henchmen, Arisa Hitomi has a cool little fight and a costume with neat slits that make her movement interesting. The characters could have dealt with more development, but they’re also fairly one-dimensional in the show. Mao Yuuki as a serial killer was hard to buy, but she did what she could with a role that in the TV show is like stoic and, well, literally a puppet. Yumeki Anru kind of absolutely SLAYED being a hot demon with a whip, her interactions with fellow demonic entity Beni were true to the show, and she sings fantastically. Kizaki Reo is actually insanely handsome as the really gruff archer with (surprise) also dubious morals. Her voice also SHOCKED me in all the right ways. Other characters were played by everyone else, and the smaller cast meant that a lot of the kids got little moments in prolonged exposition scenes as storytellers or townspeople or evil henchmen. This troupe is in good hands with the younger ones, I think. Shoutout to EVERY ONE OF THE MAIN CAST (and Ruri Hanaka and Sumika Amane, playing TINY roles) for balancing weird puppet-inspired physicality and quirks from the show with like, actual human acting and movement.

AMAZING STAR ☆ KILLER ROUGE~

More of us have seen Killer Rouge, so this doesn’t need as much from me. This production, as a tour, has gone through some changes. Notably, the postman number sung by Seo Yuriya/Honoka Kozakura/Seira Hitomi was cut (and literally none of those three were in this because of Bow Hall/injury (get well, Honoka ♥️ ). Solos sung by Toa Reiya/Hanagata Hikaru/Seo Yuriya were mostly distributed to Amahana Ema/Tenju Mitsuki/Kizaki Reo/Amato Kanon etc. The Nippon Seinenkan stage doesn’t make ANY sense for this revue, which originally made pretty nice use of stairs/the ginkyou/the SPACE they had in Mura and Tokyo. Mask of Rouge got ANOTHER wig option and Nanami Hiroki seems to just be rotating through them entirely at her own chaotic will, which creates a really high stakes Russian Roulette Situation in terms of how Hot Mask Of Rouge Will Be. The Rose of Versailes/Disgaea/Wonder Rouge section of the revue was SOLIDLY the most charming thing I have ever seen in my life. Mao Yuuki has joined the Wonder Five audience participation bit in place of Seo Yuriya and Tenju Mitsuki is up there in place of Hanagata Hikaru. This troupe can ad lib like NO ONE’S BUSINESS or more accurately, Beni and Airi can ad lib like no one’s business, Coto occasionally has some bursts of inspiration, and Kai can’t begin to keep a straight face when put on the spot. There are a lot of new numbers, and all of them are in my opinion, really Good. There’s also a LENGTHY Beniko/Aiko/Reiko ad lib section always beginning with some discussion about studying Chinese and always giving away the fact that Coto and Airi are working harder at that than Beni seems to be. That said, Beni does have a REALLY BEAUTIFUL AND SIMPLE AND CLASSIC solo kuroenbi situation that is in Chinese and to my (English speaking ears) it sounds really good. We’ll see I guess. Coto/Airi/Ema have a HEAVY METAL ROCK NUMBER that’s kind of hot and totally in all their powerhouse ranges. The pegasus/everyone in multicolored outfits is really satisfying to me and would be to any other Hoshigumi fan despite the fact that I don’t love Toa Reiya’s taidan solo going to someone else (which I admit is just maybe because I loved Toa Reiya.) There’s a cute little number (Timing) with Airi, Minato Rihi, and Yuunagi Ryou. Yuunagi Ryou is CUTE. The number is cute. The kickline was a little different and also involved some girls who weren’t in it originally because it’s not just the whole 104th class anymore and they needed to make up for THAT in a fierce way. Shoutout to all the girls who jumped in and killed it. ♥️ Ruri Hanaka specifically caught my eye and also had a nice solo in the whole costume party number. Jounetsu no Arashi was replaced for whatever reason but the number thats in it’s place now is equally as hot and like involves some counting in Spanish and a lot of rowdy otokoyaku energy which is my single greatest weakness.

For me, as a Hoshigumi fan until the day I die probably, Killer Rouge was incredible. So many people got little chances to shine, and the fun the actresses were having with it was PALPABLE. I loved the vast majority of the costumes and set pieces and little themed moments, and I loved the new numbers, and I did not miss the numbers that were cut (save for Jounetsu no Arashi because Coto licking her lips was pretty good.) I got to see the people I love most doing a revue that was so joyful and energetic and group-focused. I could not have asked for more.

I’d give Thunderbolt Fantasy/Killer Rouge a 100/10, which will surprise no one who has ever met me.

Thanks Hoshigumi, and good luck in Taiwan!

#takarazuka #thunderbolt fantasy #hoshigumi #man i LOVE TO TALK

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sambart93 · 7 years ago

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2018.03.30 ‘KimiSaga’ Kimi yo Sakebe, Sono Saga no Aru ga Mama [Review]

Unfortunately I am a piece of shit who has fallen behind on reviews, AGAIN, so as usual, my memory won’t be the best. But, bear with me!

Official Site here Official Twitter here Online Store here Press Coverage 1, 2, 3, 4

CAST and CHARACTERS

Main:

Oguri Ryo as Byakoumaru / Byaki Seto Keita as Gedomaru Hiroya as Tsuchimigado Gentoku Natsume Aimi as Tamayorihime Akaba Mio as Umarokya Mochida Chihira as Izumi Kadono Sho as Hoemaru Takahashi Makoto as Nazo no Onna (Mysterious Woman) Ichijo Ryunosuke as Nagayama Kakun Minami Chisato as Sakura Araki Miyu as Wakasano Okiku Sugamoto Ikumi as Blind Man Ogura Erika as Shichuu Hanaoka Meika as Dabi Maruyama Raiden as Henmima Satsune

Kimi Cast:

Umeda Shouhei as Shiki Ishihara Rin as Iroha Aibara Mizuki as Shihou Hirono Ryota as Young Boy

Saga Cast:

Watai Ryuuya as Shiki Ota Saki as Shihou Umehara Saeri as Iroha Tanaka Hiroki as Young Boy

*The Kimi and Saga cast did alternative days. I only watched Saga's version.

Ensemble:

Masuda Yuuna Komae Yuka Kumaya Rion

NON-SPOILER REVIEW

Overall: As usual ASSH doesn't fail me. It was just as amazing and as enjoyable as I had expected and predicted. As always they have some shocking moments, they had moments where my heart was in my mouth; moments where my tears were coming out with no control; I enjoyed this so much. I wouldn't expect anything less from ASSH and they (alongside ODD) are becoming a very important production company to me. This was dark, this was funny, the story was compelling, the characters were all great and had so much development in such a small amount of time. They wrapped it up enough to be satisfactory but also left enough mystery and holes open for them to do a prequel, sequel, second installment etc. if they wanted to! And I definitely want a second installment. Rating: 8/10

SPOILER REVIEW

I have no idea where to start with this....

There's two running plot lines in this story; the past and the present. The past is centered around Byaki's story and what happened with him and then the future story is people learning about the Byaki's past. The future group is the Mysterious Woman, Blind Man and the Young Boy for the most part. Then everyone else is pretty much the past. I think there's about 15 years or so between the two time lines.

What I love about ASSH are their twists and the brutality in their stages. Actually I was super surprised that most people survived in this one because every ASSH I've seen so far, about 80% of the cast die xD so people suriving was that in itself a twist and a surprise! The other big surprise is with the future group.

So it turns out - By the way MAJOR spoilers coming up so ingore until 「*」 if you don't want to know the big reveals:

******

Shounen = Byaki's son Blind Man = Old Gedomaru Mysterious Woman = Tamayorihime

I am not doing it justice but when this fucking comes out, I was so freaking shocked and surprised! I was like 'WWWWWAAAHHH?!?! NO WAY!!!' I realise I've spoilt it for you but are you going to watch this dvd? Probably not, so I might as well tell you ALL and give you ALL my feels, okay?

******

Now let's work from the big scale and work in. FIRST, I really loved the set! I've been to this theatre before and it's super small. There's like 40 seats and a tiny ass stage but I was super impressed at how BIG they managed to make the set look! There were stairs and proper background and foreground sets and it looked super cool! But I felt kind of sorry for the front row people because there was literally no gap between them and the stage/cast so it's kind of a godsend no audience member got hurt to be honest...

Then we had the action scenes which were so well choreographed! AND!! I didn’t know until afterwards that Oguri Ryo did the entirity of the sword fighting choreography himself which is absolutely amazing! Huge kudos to him! He has a lot to direct and a lot of action scenes to deal with but I felt like everyone had their own style and the techniques were so great! I feel like Oguri is at his most confortable and most confident when he's doing sword fighting scenes. You can just feel that kind of sense from him when he's fighting. It's difficult to explain but he feels different when he's doing the sword scenes.

The story was great, like I said earlier, so many twists and surprising things happened! Also, they left enough questions unanswered that if they wanted to do a second installment then they could! I really want a second installment, especially for the one big question that I have, (again major spoilers):

*****

Who is hell is Shounen's mother?!

*****

Now I want to go character/actor-by-character/actor.

Oguri Ryo as Byakoumaru / Byaki

I love Oguri. I really do. He's such a good actor and he picks so amazing characters! I've enjoyed every character and performance he's ever done! Also his actual personality is always so different to his characters which just proves how great of an actor he is. I really enjoyed Byaki in this for several reasons. I love how, regardless of the fact he's being called a monster and a god, he just embraces it and pronounces himself as this thing, but that is due to the fact he has no recollection of who he is which I'm pretty sure is due to some magician meddling with his memories (more on him later).

I really liked how lost and quiet his character was. But I also love how he blamed how he looked as to why he was being treated in such a way << I realise how this sounds but you get what I mean right?! I enjoy the character, NOT the act of mistreating another human. This story, I believe, is set in an old Japan, maybe like 16th, 17th Century, maybe even later so it makes sense that people who had never seen an Albino before (which I believe is what Byaki is supposed to be or at least, represents) would treat him either like a monster or like a god.

I really liked Oguri's visual look too! He's a pale man to begin with but the added white paint made him even more pale. He also had this beautiful red eyeliner and eye makeup on which, along with red contacts, just made his expressions and face pop-out even more and looked super amazing! It was a really good look for him (actually he's somewhat redoing this look for his NEXT stage --- which I also really want to see but I shall restrain...)

His story towards the end of the play was left open enough that he could come back in a second installment too.

Seto Keita as Gedomaru

I loved this character! He was such a likeable character. He was loyal to his friend, he was a badass fighter and he has stupidly funny moments too. Especially with Sakura. He fell totally in love with her straight away and was an absolutely adorable idiot around her. But he is also self-sacrificing which was so sweet. He rejected Sakura and made her go far away so she wouldn't get caught up in the fighting and so she could live a happy and safe life even if it was without him. Which I think is totally sweet!

He also never left Byaki's side and was his pal from childhood, all the way to the end, I loved his relationship with Byaki and those two would do anything for each other! His look visually was really nice too! His visual, his comedy balance, his loyalty to Byaki, I just super loved this character!!

Hiroya as Tsuchimigado Gentoku

Here's the crazy guy!! I should've expected Hiroya to play the morally wrong, crayz guy! He is so great in these roles and he did great in this one too! His has some sort of power where he can take control of people and get them to do his bidding, which he does with the ensemble cast, he controls them and makes them attack the good guys; he also has control of Byaki for a while when Byaki is really lost in himself and weak; and THEN we get this moment where he takes control of this super powerful sword, it even has a name which is epic because we ALL know how I feel about naming swords ♡　(psst. if you didn't know, I am a Touken Ranbu lover which personifies swords and many swords in Japan have names and just... flail...) but unfortunately I've forgotten it *cries*. It was amazing seeing how the sword had a mind of it's own and you could see Hiroya struggling to control the sword and trying to get the sword to do it's bidding.

Also before the show, he kindly spoke to me and my friend and he was spekaing some English to us which was totally sweet. I've always known Hiroya to be a nice guy so it was great to took some of his time out to talk to us. Also when he realised we knew Japanese he was like 'we use old Japanese in this-- WILL YOU BE OKAY?! Will you understand?!' which is so nice of him.

Natsume Aimi as Tamayorihime

She was such a sweet girl but had such a SHITTY husband! She was beat and bruised and hurt so much by him. It was the standard DV case for this couple. She just had such a sad life and it doesn't get much better for her for quite a long time.

Without spoiling too much, thank god she has a happy ending but oh my lord did I cry a few times with what happened to her!

We had the standard, 'husband beats wife but then produsely apologises right after' scene which hurt my heart. And then something precious is taken away from her and she's thrown away which I was just balling in tears at. And then when she finally gets a happy end, I was just cry from pure happiness for her. After ALL the shit she went through, she deserved an ending like that. And just like everyone else, her end of the story is left open just enough that, if she wants to come back for part two, she can.

Akaba Mio as Umarokya and Hanaoka Meika as Dabi

Uma and his underling, Dabi, were absolutely hilarious together! They were such a great pair! His character is a damn good archer and he has powers to shoot multiple arrows at once and he can rain arrows upon people which is so cool and then while he always scolds his underling, he also has this stupid soft spot for her. Dabi was so freaking funny!! I'm pretty sure she was in charge of a lot of the adlibbing and some things she said were just nonsensical and ridiculous and even Mio couldn't hold it together sometimes, he would just crack into smiles and try so hard to hold his laughter back. There were also times where her adlibs were so fast, she'd mess up and then she'd make fun of the fact she obviously messed up which made everyone crack up even more. She had so much energy and was so high-pitched, she was so amusing and funny! I really loved their dynamic and I also love just how loyal she was to Uma even though she was crazy and she was very obviously in love with him -- she definitely acted like a fangirl around him at times with all the 'kyaaaa' screaming and cheering him on during battles. But it was cute when she ended up getting injured and he was there to help her and protect her so he obviously cared for her too! It was a great and enjoyable duo!

Kadono Sho as Hoemaru and Mochida Chihira as Izumi

Izumi and Hoemaru were part of Gedomaru's gang. It felt like they'd all been with each other for quite a while and were a tight-knot group. I unforutnately don't remember too much about Hoemaru except that the actor, Sho, had the best muscles and looked DAMN attractive! I really liked his physical and visual look xD but I remember quite a bit about Izumi; she was a very quite girl, almost ninja like in how quiet she is and she sneaks around a lot. But I also felt for her because it was obvious she was in love with Gedomaru but, I guess due to comradary or due to him liking Sakura, Gedomaru never really paid attention to her feelings. But everyone else around could tell and there's a scene towards the end where Okiku refuses to join their group because she sees how Izumi feels about Gedomaru and doesn't want to ruin it, so Okiku is like 'you should stay by his side. She'll always be there for you' so the two go off together. A part of me thinks, maybe he feels the exact same way back to an extent but, like I said, if they get involved and one of them ends up getting killed or something, the hurt would only increase and be a lot worse, so maybe they both mutually and unspokenly agreed to never get involved just so they can save each other a way of emotions? OR I am simply being WAY TOO DEEP about this!

^^^ Do you not see?! In less than 2 hours ASSH managed to produce a play that had THIS much context and THIS much meaning and THIS much thought in it?! This is why I love ASSH, their characters are so damn LAYERED and you can get so MUCH out of them and the story even when you only see it once and only in like 2 hours. Ahh ASSH.

Seriously, check them out. Just go and love them okay! They're two amazing production companies and they have given me MORE satisfactory stages than any MARV or Nelke or any of those 'big shots' in the 2.5 stage world have.

ANYWAY...

Takahashi Makoto as Nazo no Onna (Mysterious Woman)

Her reveal was so mindblowing. I loved it! Also, she has a limp and throughout the story we learn what happened to her and what caused her injured leg and just my poor heart. She was such a lovely woman though and I'm glad her ending was happy. OH! And the actress herself is super badass, she played the shamisen LIVE on stage and it was so good! I was so impressed!

Ichijo Ryunosuke as Nagayama Kakun

This guy is supposed to be a bad guy but... he's handsome and he looks cool so I was very soft towards him. He does treat Sakura like crap and he is mean to her and he does turn on her, (or she turns on him) and he IS a bad guy but I just reallt enjoyed him visually and the actor himself did a really good job with the evil moments! Seeing his switch between being this nice guy and being evil was just great acting. It was so juicy and so good!

Minami Chisato as Sakura

She was Kakun's wife (or to be wife) and she up until about half way through believed in her husband and they looked like a great pairing but then obviously soon she starts to realise that he's not all that good and after being introduced to Gedomaru, she starts falling for him and seeing how great of a genuine guy he is, even though at first she pretended to like him in order to manipulate him and because it was very obvious he liked her. But she genuinely falls for him after discovering the malicious plan her husband has with Satsune, and she just sees how much of a great guy he actually is. And it is quite sad how, even after she falls for him and begs to stay by Gedomaru's side, Gedomaru is just TOO kind and tells her to escape and get away so she can be safe and have a happy life and not be held back by him or by Kakun.

She is my girl crush in this stage... so beautiful!!

Araki Miyu as Wakasano Okiku

I don't quite remember HOW she ended up join Gedomaru and crew but she was a great addition to them. She was totally cute and like Dabi, a bit silly and ridiculous but the actress herself is very flexible and she obviously has some sort of dancing under her belt because she did a lot of beautiful movements and lots of high perfect kicks and legs and stuff. She too fell for Gedomaru but seeing just how much Izumi likes him, she gives up which is just... my heart ♡

Sugamoto Ikumi as Blind Man

He is a tricky and sneaky little guy, BUT with good intentions so don't get too suspicious of him! His reveal, just like the Mysterious Woman, was just like 'OHHHH MYYY GOOODDD' but also made sense. I really loved his relationship with Shounen -- but later on it makes sense why they get on so well and why they are a pair. I enjoyed the actor and his acting. In fact I knew he looked familiar and I've already seen him in Marker Light Blue (his character is GREAT in that) and Onigiri so I had that familiarity with him and his character in this is GREAT.

Maruyama Raiden as Henmima Satsune

This piece of shit. He was a great bad guy. Not only was he just a bad guy but he was a real piece of shit. He constantly beat his wife, he beat his wife's maid, and then had the audacity to apologise every time after wards?! He was so controlling and would get angry at Tama for everything! He was bat shit crazy and seeing him meet his demise was so satisfactory. Kudos to the actor for being such a SHIT. I wanted him dead so badly! The way he treated his wife and what he did to her, not just the beatings by the way(!), was just dispicable. Espeically the way he dies is so good but also hits you in the feels because of WHO kills him.

Also, I love how it's not simply just one bad guy in all this. We have Satsune who's the messed up King, then we have Kakun who's only motive is for control and power, and then we have Horiya's character who just wants to control others literally and how the world's strongest weapons etc. While they aren't technically all working together, it's great how we have all these shits for different purposes and meanings. It's great!

Umehara Saeri as Iroha

She was Tama's maid and she was so protective and loving towards Tama. She tried so hard to make sure it was her being hit by the King/husband rather than Tama herself and she spouted so many reasons just to please so Tama wouldn't get attacked etc. Her final scene in this was just so touching and, again, loyalty is a BIG thing in this play and you can see it in her actions for Tama ♡

Tanaka Hiroki as Young Boy

Ahhhhh my boy!!! First a compulsory picspam!!!

He was great!! As usual I fall into my normal complaint of 'he didn't get enough stage time!!!' but we all know that's me being biased xD Besides that, he was GREAT! I really loved his character. His reveal as to who his character actually was is great! I was so happy when it came out who he was!! Also his part of the story is very calm as he's just walking through the forest and stuff listening to the Mysterious Girls' story but they also 'stand' in the scenes while they're happening so that's great. He does get a moment or two to fight and show off his fighting techniques and he also had like a cartwheel here and there which made me very happy. Visually he looked great too! And totally makes sense why he looked like that (trying not to spoil too much here) xD and at the end we are still left with this HUGE question mark about him (mentioned above already) so I am hoping they're do a part two and that becomes a main part or is at least answered. I definitely want to know more about his character and his past and what he's been through and his connections. I loved his relationship with the blind man too and I'd love to see how that friendship came to be too!!

And that's all! I don't think I have anything else to add except, GIVE ME A SECOND STAGE!!!

But as always, finishing off with the

GOODS

Hopefully I have a bunch of reviews coming out fairly close between each other!

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masayume85 · 8 years ago

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Could you pls rank your fav to least fav for all the hakumyus up to now? From Saito hen to Hakumyu Live 2. I'm curious on your thoughts and opinions >

Oh man, so this isn’t an easy ask. I’m kind of the worst at ranking things and sticking to it, especially when it comes to these musicals. I’m going to rank these basically by how re-watchable I’ve found most of the musicals to be. I tend to watch certain musicals more than others and I guess that’s probably the most natural way to realize that you’ve started forming preferences.

So here’s where I stand at the moment (please forgive the rambling word-vomit in advance):

1. Toudou Heisuke-hen - It’s honestly a toss between Heisuke-hen and Kazama-hen for which musical I’ve watched the most at this point, but Heisuke-hen instantly had me in love from the get-go. Maybe it’s because it’s Junya and he just nails Heisuke so well but I have very little to complain about in this musical. It was as true to the in-game route as you can get in 2ish hours and the music was pretty fantastic, especially considering I’m not big on salsa-type music, which took a little getting used to, but it was very Heisuke. I’m always torn on this one cast-wise because that’s the only area I feel that Heisuke-hen lacks. Junya and Marina are perfect in the title roles and their chemistry still slays me but it’s a shame we had to lose Ryo and Hiroshi. Though I’ve always felt Izawa Yuki might’ve improved with time. He’s an amazing singer and I think he could’ve done pretty well as Hijikata if he really had a chance to settle in, but at least by act two he seems to have gotten into it a bit more. His singing is A+. You also have Kazama being the most likeable he can possibly get in this series and I just... I’m so happy to have Sen-hime. Having two girls on stage was such a long time in coming. I dunno, Heisuke-hen managed to be enjoyable, funny and emotional--it really as like Heisuke himself. I laughed, I cried, it was just such a good time.

2. Kazama Chikage-hen - Anyone who would’ve known me when I first saw this knows that initially Kazama-hen left me SO angry. There was a lot to process at the end of that 2.5 hours and at first I honestly was just so angry I couldn’t bring myself to watch it again for at least a week. But when I finally did go back to it, it was compelling. It’s really weird because until Reimeiroku I honestly think Kazama-hen was probably the worst story and character wise. Kazama is supposed to be the lead role and yet he fails to redeem himself whatsoever. It’s almost tragic really. Even in his own musical Kazama can’t be the good guy and I mean, you don’t go killing Hijikata like that and NOT piss me off in the process. Maybe it’s because I spent countless hours subtitling it but cast-wise and music-wise Kazama-hen is hands down my favorite. The music is fantastic and there was just so much in the details to process but what kills me every time is Kazama. I don’t know what was going on with the direction in the musical but the fire that Shougo usually puts in Kazama wasn’t there. He just seemed so bored the entire musical and it was just so disappointing, imo. It’s hard to put into words but when you see how Shougo has handled the role in every other musical and then you watch this one it’s like was out of it or something. The one thing I’m happiest about in this is Chizuru. I’m so glad in the end that she stood her ground and refused to go with him. I remember people being so upset at that but he killed Hijikata, brutally, in front of her. Chizuru has more self-respect than that. I guess Kazama having a grudging respect and being by Chizuru’s side as she follows the Shinsengumi’s demise was too boring. I dunno, Kazama/Chizuru is my least favorite ship in Hakuouki in general so in all the moments Kazama was supposed to be even grudging caring he just felt distant and cold, I couldn’t get behind that. I watch this musical over a lot though. I think it’s mostly bias because of how hard I worked to translate it, heh ^^;;;

3. HakuMyu Live (the first) - There is never a bad time for rewatching HakuMyu Live. I don’t think I need to elaborate on how much I love this, it’s kind of it’s own thing though so I feel bad comparing it to the other storied musicals, but this is what I put on when I just need a pick me up.

4. Hijikata Toshizou-hen - You would think, with Hijikata being my favorite, that I would have put this higher up and maybe before Heisuke-hen this would’ve been my favorite but Heisuke-hen was just that good. Hah, if I think about it, it’s like the game for me. Heisuke’s route is my favorite in-game, at least with the original game it was, don’t ask me to rank game routes yet, I need to finish Shinkai first XD ANYWAY! I love Hijikata-hen but when I think about which musicals I tend to rewatch more, the others come first. As with Hijikata’s route in the game, I feel like this musical gets a bad wrap for being boring? Which I honestly don’t understand, but there’s really only so much you can do to “spice up” the poster boy’s route, heh XD I love that it was Hijikata rehashing everything that had happened to Ootori, their dynamic was so much fun to see on stage. I think what really kills me in this though is the lack of real chemistry between Hijikata and Chizuru. That’s my series OTP, I really had much higher expectations so seeing it fall flat was kind of a bummer :/

5. Shinsengumi Kitan - I haven’t watched this one as much but I honestly have nothing but fondness for it. This musical really warmed me to the new cast and while the music itself was still kind of... a mess? (No, seriously, I really don’t like a lot of the newer songs.) It was starting to kind of get back to feeling like the previous musicals more. Maybe because it was back with Chizuru and familiar storylines but what made this musical for me was the unrequited element between Sano and Chizuru, with Sano being in love with an somewhat oblivious Chizuru. I honestly can’t say I’ve ever seen anyone play that angle but it was done so masterfully that when Sano died (basically sacrificing himself for Chizuru) it was emotionally brutal. I walked away from that musical thinking if they didn’t announce Sano-hen after all of that, I was going to have to have a talk with someone. Thankfully they did though, so we’re good ;)

6. HakuMyu Live II - My newest addition and honestly I’m not sure where I’d fit it in yet but I feel like this is as good a spot as any. It was fun, yes, but I don’t know that it’s quite up there for me yet. We’ll see where this goes with time though.

7. Reimeiroku - As much as this musical is a mess as far as the actual songs are concerned, the story of the musical itself is a good one. Reimeiroku I feel will be a harder one for Western audiences since the game itself hasn’t been localized and the anime is incredibly lacking but the musical itself was good. It wasn’t outstanding but it wasn’t bad either.

8. Okita Souji-hen

9. Saitou Hajime-hen

Don’t really know how to elaborate on why Okita-hen and Saitou-hen are the least faves but I think it just comes down the fact that I’ve barely rewatched them. They’re both good musicals and the music is lovely but all I can do is just shrug when I think about them. I don’t find either to be particularly engaging and honestly I usually end up fast forwarding through them at points, which is kind of sad when you think about it, but... someone had to be at the bottom and unfortunately it’s these two.

So, there you have it Anon! I hope this helps satisfy your curiosity a bit n_n

#Anonymous

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beybladefanboy · 4 years ago

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Beyblade Seasons Ranked

Here is my personal ranking, from worst to best, of the seasons of Beyblade Metal Fight: Metal Fusion, Metal Masters, Metal Fury, and the awkward spin-off Shogun Steel. Yeah, let’s get into that:

4 Shogun Steel

Honestly even if I did like Shogun Steel for what it is, it would still be at the bottom just by default. It can barely be considered part of the Metal Saga. The main characters in the last three seasons are either absent or reduced to supporting roles in favour of new characters who aren’t nearly as interesting or likeable. It is by definition a spin off. It feels very disjointed from the rest of the series because of these factors along with the lighter tone, the changes to the Beyblade system, and even some continuity errors particularly with Fury. Bringing back Doji again was also the biggest leap in logic this whole series made and feels downright lazy. The whole story just feels like a watered down Fusion with many of the story beats being similar and some characters never growing past mere echoes of the old characters. Some of the bey battles are fun and Ren and Takanosuke are decent characters but there’s a reason this show doesn’t get much attention. It falls into the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy trap of being overly dependent on original series sucker punches for its appeal and not putting as much effort into the new stuff. So as a result, the new stuff, some of which has potential, isn’t as fleshed out as it should be. This show is honestly fine on its own but awful when compared to the Metal Saga and it is comparing itself to the Metal Saga. This show intentionally put itself in the Metal Saga’s shadow and seemed content with being just that: a shadow of greatness.

3 Metal Masters

Okay, this is where I’m gonna start pissing people off. Don’t get me wrong, Masters is great and I don’t think it’s clearly worse than the other two seasons or anything. I think the main three seasons are very close in quality and putting them in any kind of order was incredibly difficult. However, I do think Masters is slightly weaker than Fusion and Fury. First off, it introduces Masamune. I don’t like Masamune. I find his whole “I’m the number 1 blader” shtick incredibly obnoxious and he’s everything I don’t like in real Americans: self absorbed, disloyal, big mouthed, entitled, and just annoying in general. He did have good character development over the course of the season but I personally can’t stand him. The pacing of this season also isn’t the best. With the exception of the Dark Tsubasa arc (which I’ll get to!), the season is just a normal world tournament until they get to America, which I don’t find very interesting. Kenta is also criminally underused. In Fusion he was basically a second main character and there are some episodes specifically following him. Then in Masters, he’s pushed aside in favour of side characters. People say Fury underused characters, and I’ll get to that, but holy crap, Masters gave Kenta no room to grow. Aside from him though, the other characters are used really well. I particularly like how Kyoya and Ryuga are incorporated. This is actually the season where I grew attached to Ryuga during my viewing in December. I was starting to like him in Fusion but this season cemented my newfound attachment. This season also gave us the dark Tsubasa arc, which is one of my favourite plot points from the show overall. It’s a fascinating look into the mind of a character I already really liked and it allowed Tsubasa to develop a lot. I love the conclusion that you cannot drive out the darkness in yourself, you have to accept it as part of who you are in order to properly control it. It’s brilliant, and I can personally relate this message to my own life. The dark Tsubasa arc is probably the strongest part of the season overall as the rest of it until we get to the HD Academy conflict kind of drags for me. However, when we do finally get to the HD Academy conflict, it is very fun. The whole “spiral energy” thing was actually pretty creative and while brainwashing isn’t a new concept for this show, I think they went more in depth with it in this season and it was pretty interesting. So yeah, still a really good season.

2 Metal Fusion

If I was ranking based on nostalgia, this would be number one. In fact, it probably deserves to be number one. However, I do have a few problems with this season that hold it back and it’s not the pacing. Actually, out of all the seasons, Fusion probably has the best pacing. The main villains, Doji and Ryuga, are introduced early in the season and all the characters are developed throughout the season, building up to the final tournament: Battle Bladers, which is also set up fairly early. The story is predictable but very well-structured. My biggest problem with this season is the plot twist with Gingka’s dad. Not only is it painfully obvious, but the reveal of the twist drags the plot to a screeching halt for nearly an entire episode, hurting the pacing and making an entire episode an exposition dump. It also made Gingka’s dad a terrible character. You can argue that him abandoning his teenage son and making him believe he was dead was for the greater good, although I personally still think it’s messed up, but breaking Gingka’s point counter like that was a step way too far. That moment serves to further the story by forcing Gingka to work harder to get into Battle Bladers. But did it have to be his dad who broke the point counter? I argue it didn’t. Gingka’s dad was flat out abusive to his son on that occasion and was pretty cold to him in general as Phoenix and yet the plot and even some of the characters praise Ryo for doing this. Why?! The way the story is structured puts Ryo in the right for abusing his son which disgusts me. That is my biggest problem with this season and possibly the whole series to be honest. I hate it that much. However, apart from that and those random filler episodes with Sora that in my opinion were boring, this season was really solid. Like I said, the story is told well and the characters are all introduced and developed well. Battle Bladers is definitely the highlight of this season, having the most intense battles and hardest hitting moments. Those episodes are exhausting to watch, because of Reiji and Ryuga. Reiji was randomly introduced in Battle Bladers and decided to try and rival Ryuga in how much he could traumatize the characters (and younger me). I have no idea why they decided to do that, but it worked. Ryuga in this season is the best villain in the whole series. He has such a presence to him: his (dubbed) voice, his sadistic expressions, his abilities, the music that plays when he’s onescreen. He’s over the top but in my opinion, Ryuga is the perfect balance between entertaining and intimidating. He’s even slightly sympathetic by the end of the season when he gets taken over by dark power and is seen trying to fight its control. They managed to both make Ryuga an irredeemable psychopath and found a believable way to redeem him. I love that in the end, Gingka isn’t fighting to defeat Ryuga, he’s fighting to defeat the dark power, which came from the greed and hatred of humans. Basically, the problem isn’t humanity, it’s humanity’s greed/hatred and being consumed by these feelings lead to evil. That is genius. This season also had two of my favourite battles in the entire series: Kyoya vs Ryuga, and Gingka vs Ryuga.

1 Metal Fury

Yeah, I said it. Fury is my personal favourite season. It probably has more wrong with it than Masters and Fusion but honestly, Fury’s strengths more than make up for its weaker parts for me. The only problem I have with Fury that actively hinders my enjoyment is Kyoya’s poorly handled arc, which I’ve been over multiple times and wrote a whole fanfiction rectifying. To sum it up briefly: it was rushed and weakened Kyoya’s character when it had the chance to develop him. I will admit this season also had too few episodes. I don’t think it was rushed per say, it just feels like parts are missing. There should’ve been more leading up to Nemesis’ revival and an actual epilogue episode because as it stands now, Fury ends really suddenly without much actual confirmation of where the characters we know and love ended up. It’s kind of jarring. Overall however, I really love Fury. I love the adventure style story and there's so much variety to the bey battles this time around, both in terms of the beys themselves and the stadiums. It’s just more interesting to watch. It also did a great job giving all the major characters victories, not just Gingka. This is something Masters also did well and a gripe I have with Fusion: Gingka gets all the major victories in Metal Fusion and pushes the other characters to the wayside. Well, Masters and Fury fixed this issue in my opinion. The very final fight of Fury against the shadow Nemesis could’ve been executed better in my opinion. However, it hits all the right emotional beats for a final battle and still grabs my attention rewatching it, so I can put aside my criticisms of it while watching it. Also, I like that “destiny” is something these characters are controlling themselves and can go either way rather than being some unstoppable force that they will all give in to eventually otherwise they’re villains. Because that’s how Yugioh does it and it’s probably my biggest problem with that show. In that series, it feels like the characters are all just blindly accepting “destiny” and those that don’t, Kaiba and Marik most notably, are deemed villains for wanting to take control over their lives and not be governed by some invisible force. Yes, I know Marik went to some horrible extremes using this logic but it still bothers me that the only characters in that show that don’t throw their lives away blindly following someone else’s whims are deemed villains. It’s just kind of messed up. Fury thankfully subverts this. “Destiny” is not an unstoppable force in Beyblade, it’s the will of the characters and those characters are allowed to make their own choices. It makes the story more interesting and the characters more likeable because the characters are the ones driving the story, which feels so much more natural. Yeah, I really like the characters in Fury. Honestly, I’m more attached to Yuki, King, and Chris than anyone introduced in Masters and the other legendary blader characters all bring something different and interesting to the table that I don’t think older characters could have. I also like how the old characters are used. Sure, Tsubasa and Yu are underused this season. But guess who also got a lot of focus last season? Tsubasa and Yu. And some of the characters who were underused in Masters, Kyoya and Kenta, get more focus in this season. They did mess up Kyoya’s arc in my opinion but the effort is there and I appreciate his presence before and after that. Kenta especially was severely underused in Masters so this season decided to make him relevant again and they did it in such an endearing way. You all know how much I love Ryuga and Kenta’s friendship. It’s one of the things that should have gotten more focus but what we do get is good enough build up. This season was the one that drew the most emotion out of me during my most recent viewing and that was because of Ryuga and Kenta. I was devastated by Ryuga’s death (even if he may not actually be dead, that’s certainly what it felt like in the moment) and the scene where he gives Kenta his power was the most touching moment in the entire show for me.

Well, that ranking probably pissed some people off. Again, I love the classic three seasons. (I’m not a fan of Shogun Steel but it has its moments.) Choosing between the three of them like that was incredibly difficult, especially Fusion and Fury. In the end, I just had to go with my gut.

#beyblade #beyblade metal fight #beyblade metal saga #metal fusion #metal masters #metal fury #shogun steel #metal fury is underrated #i mention Yugioh as well #I talk about that show on my main blog #I do recommend it #but damn do I hate the way it handles the destiny theme #honestly fury is the only story I've seen that handles the destiny theme well #fusion handles it decently too #but the way fury did it kinda blew me away

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recentanimenews · 7 years ago

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Bookshelf Briefs 9/11/17

Absolute Duo, Vol. 1 | By Shinichirou Nariie, Takumi Hiragiboshi, and You Asaba| Seven Seas – In general, fans tend to dislike a couple of things in the manga they read, especially Western fans. The first is the tsundere female lead, and the second is the super-powered male lead. Not sure yet whether we’ll get the second, but Absolute Duo seems to be free of the first. Unfortunately, that does sort of make it clear why manga and light novel authors enjoy writing tsundere female leads—the conflict here is rather mild and undramatic, with our hero fighting against a nice girl, and when she loses, she just… says bye and leaves. As for the actual heroine, she’s nice and shy and sort of self-sacrificing. Absolute Duo is decent, and I like everyone, but if you didn’t see another volume you’d barely care. – Sean Gaffney

A Certain Scientific Accelerator, Vol. 6 | By Kazuma Kamachi and Arata Yamachi| Seven Seas – I said last time we were down to the final fight, and we’re still on it by the end of this volume. Index is filled with long, drawn-out battles, but in Railgun and the main series they tend to be separated by more mundane matters. Accelerator, true to its antihero, never really lets us relax, and humorous escapades are at a minimum. It also makes it rather difficult to review. I mean… the fights were cool? I actually understood the action, which is not always the case with heavy action manga. The villain is bad and you want to see them go down? And I’m pretty sure one of our team of heroes is going to die, though I’m also pretty sure it’s the girl who’s already dead. A good spinoff that’s not as good as Railgun at its best. – Sean Gaffney

Delicious in Dungeon, Vol. 2 | By Ryoko Kui| Yen Press – I’m enjoying this second volume more than I did the first, I think. We get a bit more backstory on the characters which makes them a bit more likeable, and Marcille is no longer whining at absolutely everything. On the opposite tact, Laios gets to do some truly ridiculous things showing that he’s a lot more impulsive than we expected (and we get flashbacks showing that his sister really was a major part of their party—I wonder if she’s actually died by now?). And Senshi, while he’s still the wise sage of the group, is also shown to sometimes be wrong. But of course the main draw here is the ridiculous food, detailed in loving “this is actually a cooking manga” detail. A lot of fun. – Sean Gaffney

Girls’ Last Tour, Vol. 2 | By Tsukumizu| Ywn Press – This volume sets itself up much like the last one did, with about 2/3 devoted to Chito and Yuuri’s slice-of-life adventures among the ruins of the world, and the last third has them meeting with another living person and helping them try to achieve a dream. Both times they do this the dreamer fails, though it’s not really the girls’ fault. It does make me wonder what sort of mood the author wants to convey here. There are occasional scenes of Yuuri being an airhead or Chito a grump in that Chika and Miu sort of way, but the air of melancholy you’s expect to hover over this world is more prevalent here. Is there an endpoint the author wants to get to, or when they run out of cute situations will we just have the girls quietly die? Good but odd. – Sean Gaffney

Haikyu!!, Vol. 15 | By Haruichi Furudate | VIZ Media – Karasuno has advanced to the semifinals of the Miyagi Prefecture qualifier tournament. Will their next opponent be Aoba Johsai or Date Tech? Readers are treated to some of that match-up before Aoba Johsai emerges victorious. There are some nice moments here, particularly one in which Kageyama actually admits to Hinata that he’s scared to face Oikawa again and a brief interlude where Sugawara is brought in to shut down a high-scoring newcomer, but not quite as many as in the last volume, which fleshed out background team member Ennoshita. There’s no such thing as a bad volume of Haikyu!!, and this has plenty of excitement and a cliffhanger ending, but the final page suggests I will like next volume’s payoff even more than this volume’s setup. Looking forward to it, as ever! – Michelle Smith

Kase-san and Shortcake | By Hiromi Takashima | Seven Seas – Well, the girls have gotten together in book one, and gotten to know each other more closely in book two. Book three has a double shot of plot, with Yamada realizing that Kase-san is going to a Tokyo university on a sports sholarship, while she’s going to a local college. This… really doesn’t sit well with her, and she frets about it as best you can do when your manga is meant to be cute and fluffy. We also deal with Kase-san wanting to take things further physically, but not wanting to pressure Yamada, and being somewhat stymied by Yamada’s complete ignorance of what to actually do—at one point, she even googles how to have sex with a girl, with hilarious results. Still adorable and fluffy even when everyone is crying. – Sean Gaffney

Kiss & White Lily for My Dearest Girl, Vol. 3 | By Canno | Yen Press – We’re back to the first volume’s couple at the start of this new book, and it’s become pretty clear that their story will tie into all the others we see in this series, which is also why it’s not official as such. Ayake is still overdramatic and difficult to like, though you sympathize with her having to deal with the blase Yurine. As for Yurine, she’s dragooned into the gardening club, which is short on members and about to lose its garden to the sports clubs. And, as it turns out, is also being sabotaged. Luckily, Yukina is the utterly straightforward sort of ojou-sama type, and so it doesn’t end quite as badly as it possibly should. The series continues to detail how absolutely EVERY girl at school is falling for another girl, but that’s not uncommon in this genre. – Sean Gaffney

Log Horizon: The West Wind Brigade, Vol. 6 | By Koyuki and Mamare Touno | Yen Press – It is not a good sign when the best, most interesting part of the spinoff is the one that’s basically telling the events of the main series. I have no doubt that we see Raynesia because she’ll be interacting with our heroes in future volumes, but seeing her and Krusty here made me wish that we had a side series focusing on them instead. Instead, we get a predatory lesbian who seems to be in the West Wind Brigade for only that reason, though Soujiro can still calm her down. The other minor plot is the newbies training at the beach, and how Kawara may not be a dependable sempai but that her type of personality is probably just as good in the long run. I wish this was more consistent. – Sean Gaffney

Murcielago, Vol. 3 | By Yoshimurakana | Yen Press – This series continues to be super violent and super uncaring about the status of its victims—TWO loving fathers are graphically butchered, one right next to his daughter, and we don’t even stay behind to see the horror and grief. It’s all about the killing and the killers. Now, that does not mean that we can’t have fun—seeing Kuroko go to town is the purpose of this series, and it’s nice to watch her be cool and take down actual monsters. And you get the feeling that the next volume, involving Kuroko infiltrating a girls’ academy, will be funnier. But you really need to not really care what happens to anyone at all in order to get into Murcielago. It’s pure rush, but the rush is filled with sociopaths. – Sean Gaffney

One-Punch Man, Vol. 12 | By ONE and Yusuke Murata | VIZ Media – Even though hero-hunting Garo is on the cover, he barely appears. Instead, this volume mostly consists of glimpses of Saitama’s progress through the martial arts tournament intercut with various heroes fighting against a slew of monsters. Genos handles quite a few himself, including a skittering bad guy called Roach Awakening who is wonderfully icky, and it’s also fun to see a few other Class-S heroes in action, especially Watchdog Man, who I bet would get along well with Saitama when and if they actually meet. The tournament stuff is okay, and the action scenes are great, but it all seemed to zoom by so quickly without leaving much of an impact. I’m not sure what exactly I’d change about it, though. Could the answer be as simple as Saitama doing more punching? Maybe so… – Michelle Smith

Tokyo Tarareba Girls, Vol. 6 | By Akiko Higashimura | Kodansha Comics (digital only) – The last time I reviewed Tokyo Tarareba Girls, I found it to be majorly depressing. As a result, I let a few volumes accumulate and, honestly, kind of dreaded reading them. To my surprise, I didn’t find them depressing at all, despite Rinko and friends still being in the same awful relationships as before. I think the difference is that they’re beginning to see the truth, and there’s a strong suggestion that they’re going to do something about it. In this volume, for example, it’s Key to the rescue again as he helps Kaori finally (hopefully) break free of Ryo. Interestingly, though, when Rinko seems about to reunite with Mr. Hayasaka—and they’re genuinely cute together—and Key is poised to intervene again, I suddenly found his interference very unwelcome. Very eager for volume seven! – Michelle Smith

Yowamushi Pedal, Vol. 6 | By Wataru Watanabe | Yen Press – As I’ve mentioned before, this is one of those sports series that runs in a shonen magazine whose Western audience is predominately female, and the BL fandom is huge. (Pity poor Kanzaki…) I was not really expecting to see quite as much of why the BL fandom was huge till I got to this volume, the last half of which is Makishima and Toudou’s race, which may in fact be the gayest thing I’ve ever seen in a non-explicit manga. It’s incredible. The first half is also very good, involving Onoda getting into a crash which leaves him in last place, and having to pass 100 bikes in order to catch up. Which he does, because of course he does. The series is a pure exhilarating thrill ride, and I desperately want to read more. – Sean Gaffney

By: Michelle Smith

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beybladefanboy · 4 years ago

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My biggest problems with each season of Beyblade

I like to keep my posts more positive but all series have faults, and I want to give my constructive criticism of each season. Of course, it's alright if you disagree, just be civil about it.

Metal Fusion-Ryo Hagane

Literally everything about him in this season bothers me. Even as a kid, I hated the twist that he survived. It felt like a cheap cop out and kind of implausible as well. However, what bothers me the most now is his characterization. As Phoenix, he neglects/kind of abandons his teenage son, allows him to think he's dead, causing him immeasurable grief and stress, and actively hurts him. Breaking Gingka's point counter like that was downright abusive, making his so-called righteous reason sound kind of disgusting. Even if Gingka didn't know that was his dad at that point, what Ryo did was still an act of theft and property damage, two things that are absolutely illegal. Yet the story glorifies him for some reason. Literally the only purpose he served was to give Gingka exposition about the creation of beys and why only he could defeat L-Drago, which could have been done differently. Ryo isn't much better in the following seasons but at least he's featured less. Plus, his friendship with Hikaru is kind of cute. To give Ryo some credit, I love that moment in Masters where he shields Hikaru during her panic attack. That’s both sweet and badass.

Metal Masters-Masamune

I will admit, he developed well over the course of the season, but I still think he's annoying. A lot of characters in this show are arrogant but Masamune is arrogant and talkative. He won't shut up about how he's the number one blader when in reality, he's probably the least competent blader on their team. He was also a complete dick to abandon Toby and Zeo like that but at least in this case, the narrative does condemn him for that, unlike Ryo in Fusion. I also think Masamune was more likeable in Fury, as he and King have a very dynamic friendship and Masamune coming to terms with not being a legendary blader is a great scene. However in Masters alone, Masamune is extremely annoying to me.

Metal Fury-Kyoya’s arc

Everyone says the lack of episodes and while I agree that's an issue, it's not my biggest issue. The pacing of the parts we got is fine, but it feels like parts are missing and should have been filled in to strengthen the story and characters. My biggest issue with Fury is and always has been the handling of Kyoya, specifically the arc where he leaves the group. His reasons for leaving the group are somewhat relatable to me: he feels like he needs to be a loner to prove his strength. However, these reasons are forgotten about and Kyoya returns to the group because he feels like destiny is forcing him to. I hate that. Whether it's in character or not isn't the main problem. Kyoya's inner conflict was set up then forgotten about and never addressed again because the story needed him to return to the group. The characters should be driving the story, not the other way around. That is terrible writing. It also makes Kyoya look pretty bad. Throughout the show, he has been shown multiple times to help his friends of his own volition when they need him, even earlier in Fury. So it seems weird that he would feel like destiny is "forcing him" to help his friends when he actively helped them in the past. I am in the process of rewriting that arc actually since I think it had good potential so I’ll post that once it’s complete.

Overall, I still love all three seasons these are just the things in each of them I take the most issue with. This will probably spark some discussion, which I encourage as long as it remains civil.

#beyblade #beyblade metal saga #beyblade metal fight #ryo hagane #masamune kadoya #kyoya tategami #they did Kyoya dirty #seriously fury #I love you but what the heck #why don't people ever talk about that arc #it's been bothering me for two and a half years

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