Anime Reviews: Devilman II

After the shock that was Wicked City, I once again lost all hope on my sister's anime collection. But there was one more left and that was Devilman II.

And before I even started to watch it I already knew that this one was going to be somewhat better than Wicked City.

I mean look at it, it's not even trying! 

So then I did watch it and I have to be honest here: I loved it! 

Devilman II was simply awesome the end. 

But now you're asking what the hell is Devilman? Or hell Devilman II, to that matter?

Well, 

Devilman II is a sequel to the first Devilman OVA based upon a manga series, which bases upon a anime that bases upon Go Nagai's previous manga series, yeah it's complicated. But luckily it's not a canon sequel to a non canon sequel of it's original show. 

And to those few who are asking about Devilman 2004 movie, I heard about it, but unfortunately I haven't seen it and knowing that it's one of the worst movies ever made I'm not planning to see it. 

But who's work is Devilman?

Well it's none other's than a famous mangaka Go Nagai, the man behind such classics as: Violence Jack (which I never seen) and Mazinger Z (which I also have never seen). Also Hideaki Anno claimed that Devilman was a influence for Neon Genesis Evangelion. Knowing Evangelion I must say that I can see that but alas Evangelion wasn't nearly as awesome as Devilman OVA's. 

So what is Devilman II about:

It's about this kid called Akira who is possessed by Amon, a great and powerful demon. With the power of Amon Akira has the ability to turn into Devilman the only known natural predator of Devils that are the only known predators to man!

The series is somewhat similar to the Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy in the sense that in the first Devilman Akira get he's powers. Now that he is the only one protecting humanity from other demons they want to take him out, much like Batman and Joker in the Dark Knight. 

I know that might have made this sound way better than it actually is. There is some talk about humans and demons and is it right to use Devilman to protect the humanity, because the demons are the only creatures that eat humans, but that is quickly forgotten. 

What follows is nothing else than some good old fashion Devilman vs. Demon action and my God is it glorious! 

So yeah, Devilman II is nothing else than a dime dozen violent schlock anime, but you know what? I don't care! This could have easily been ruined by making this like Wicked City and thank God they didn't do that! 

So that concludes my anime review series from this month, next year we'll have it's sequel! 

That will hopefully be the canon sequel!

Dragonball Evolution

What's the point?

Really, what's the point?

I mean it, what's the point?

What is to point for me to review Dragon Ball Evolution?

Seriously, over these past few years Dragon Ball Evolution has garnered somewhat of a reputation, much like C&C 4 and incase you don't know the reputation that Dragon Ball Evolution has, here is an opinion of a hardcore Dragon Ball fan:

BETRAYAL! BETRAYAL! THIS MOVIE SUCKS!

What's that? You want hear an opinion of C&C 4 from a hardcore C&C fan? Why that is impossible because C&C 4 doesn't exist! And since it doesn't exist it's pretty hard for me to give you an opinion of a hardcore C&C fan about a C&C game that doesn't exist.

But here is the thing, I wouldn't be writing this review about Dragon Ball Evolution if I thought that movie is a "Betrayal". You see I don't consider Dragon Ball Evolution to be a "betrayal" at all, in all honesty I think that Dragon Ball Evolution is -

                            - underrated.

And by saying that I just signed my own death warrant. But allow me to explain and by explaining I mean that I'm going to tell you my history with Dragon Ball.

It was early the 2000 and we had just got our very first digibox and with that opened a whole new world for us, me and my sister started channel surfing and we found SubTv and the very first show that we ever saw on that channel with our own very eyes was: Dragon Ball Z it was part of the Frieza Saga, Frieza and Goku were fighting and Goku had just finished charging up the spirit bomb. From that second me and my sister were hooked.

But remember when I told you that it sucks being into anime in Finland?

You see in Finland they only showed one episode of DBZ a week.

 I'm not even kidding.

And here is the thing DBZ is not a show that you watch only a episode a week, I wish!

DBZ is a show you watch 5 episodes a day, because it literally takes five episodes til something happens in that show! And for reasons unknown there is only two DBZ movies released in Finland and they are only on VHS tapes, that's right! In Finland we don't have, DVD releases of DBZ we don't even have box sets of any kind. Sure there is the internet, but my point still stands! In Finland DBZ is just as big thing as it is in everywhere else and no DVD releases?

Seriously?

But anyways, despite the fact that they only showed a episode of DBZ a week me and my sisters still liked it. My other sister eventually grew out of it but that's bound to happen. I still feel nostalgic for the show mainly because of Videl, Chi-Chi and Bulma, I know I'm so going to hell.

 But back then I also liked DBZ because it was awesome and really that's the only word worthy enough to describe DBZ: It was awesome, sure it was ridiculous to the point of being downright stupid and silly and I don't consider it as one of the best anime series ever, simply because there is bound to be better stuff than DBZ.

But still at the core DBZ was surprisingly good and heartwarming show. Sure it was stupid and most of the characters aside from Goku were pretty useless, but at least I still cared for all of them, even Yamcha and Krillin.

Oh and I also know about Dragon Ball Z abridged and I love it!

Now I didn't hear about Dragon Ball Evolution 'till I saw Jesuotaku's, Todd in the Shadow's, Rollo T's and Y Ruler of Time's review of Avatar the Last Airbender and it got me interested on the crossover that they did a year before that and thus I went and saw the Dragon Ball Evolution review and then I eventually saw Blockbuster Buster's review of it, because in my book BB is cool.

I eventually did find a DVD copy of Dragon Ball Evolution and incase you want to know what average Finnish DBZ fan thinks about the movie it's pretty much considered to be a BETRAYAL! too.

So why do I like this movie?

Because in all honesty I think it's decent.

In my opinion Dragon Ball Evolution captured the feel of the show and in my book that is pretty important for a movie adaptation.

Does that mean that Dragon Ball Evolution is perfect? Of course not!

Even though I believe that it captured the feel of Dragon Ball that's not enough. Like the whole Goku going to high school and the stupidity that is that Goku is bullied because he is a fighter even though Chi Chi is a fighter too but no-one bullies her, yet then again Chi Chi is so very lovely.

Oh and the fact that half of the characters are missing is pretty stupid too, but I think that I have an answer for it: You see the original Dragon Ball even though it's a lot shorter than Dragon Ball Z still has 153 episodes and 519 chapters in it's manga series you still have a lot to do in a one movie. Not to mention the studio probably wanted to play it safe meaning that they wanted to make it more for not DB fans - oh and FYI here I seen DB anime series too - but here's the thing they didn't count on the fact that most of the Dragon Ball fans are otakus, mainly because other people went on from Dragon Ball to like other anime series and otakus are the kind of people that you don't wanna mess with!

 So that and the fact that the Dragon Ball is pretty long TV series, I actually think that it would have been a lot smarter move to simply make an independent live action Dragon Ball movie for the fans, like they did in Japan with all of those DBZ anime movies, but alas that wasn't the way they decided to go. Instead they rolled with the more difficult option, to sum up the whole 153 episode anime series into a one live action movie with most of the characters removed, this and all lead to the Dragon Ball movie we got.

And before I comment on the casting of Goku, there are a couple of gripes I have with this movie:

Number 3
Piccolo looks stupid! Seriously what the hell!

Number 2
The Kamehameha wave heals, because they didn't want to have Korin and the senzu beans.

Number 1
Ok, this is a really stupid thing and I can't believe that even to this day in all the two reviews I've seen about this movie and including the comments, no-one has brought this up. In order for them to do those energy wave attacks they use bending!

As in "Avatar the Last Airbender bending"! It's not even something small they downright say it in the middle of the movie! That is not how it works! It works through concentration and controlling one's Ki it has nothing do with bending!

Now that I got the bending bullshit out of the way let's now talk about the casting of Justin Chatwin as Goku. This caused a lot of hate among the Dragon Ball fans mainly because "Goku is Asian and there for must be portrayed by an Asian actor!"

To me that claim that Goku must be portrayed by an Asian actor is bullshit!

Because Justin Chatwin is a great actor!

 Seriously when I was watching this movie, all I was seeing was Goku, I didn't care that Goku wasn't doing anything that Goku was suppose to be doing, because the movie was way too short for that! But Justin Chatwin really was Goku to me.

Now I'll admit this movie really isn't that good, but in all honesty it really isn't that bad either. All the problems just come from the fact that the studio just wanted to play it safe in order to get as much money as possible. It was just like Star Trek 2009 in that aspect. But where as the 2009 Star Trek movie succeeded Dragon Ball Evolution failed, simply because of it's fans and here is the difference between these movies:

Star Trek 2009 is a Star Trek movie and Star Trek as a franchise, has been around since 1966 and has become a household name, when I was a kid I had barely seen a full episode of Star Trek, but I still knew who Spock was and because Star Trek has been around since -66 it has ton of fans and movies and so on people know what Star Trek is and in the case of Star Trek 2009 the reason why it did so well wasn't just, because of the fans Star Trek it was, because people knew that Star Trek is a quality franchise so the movies will be most likely enjoyable. Not to mention that deep in they're hearts people love space adventure films and that's what Star Trek 2009 is.

Dragon Ball has been around ever since 1984 as a manga series and then as an anime series and even though  Dragon Ball has fans that are just as loyal to it all over the globe, the problem is that these are the fans who consider every single last change to the source material as a betrayal and consider Dragon Ball to be up there with Shakespeare. Meaning that even though Star Trek has it's hardcore fans who call BETRAYAL over the 2009 movie there still are some Star Trek fans who just enjoy that movie, because much like DBZ Star Trek 2009 is just awesome. Not to mention the fact that to you're average Joe, Dragon Ball is really weird because it's Japanese and let's face it Asian culture is weird! I mean we are talking about the culture that gave to the world of porn genres like: Tentacle porn and Bukkake.

 I'm not saying that Star Trek isn't weird, but the thing is that Star Trek takes place in space and in the future no less, so it has every single reason to be weird. Where as Dragon Ball no-one knows when it takes place and despite the fact the Earth in Dragon Ball doesn't have a space program, for some unknown reason, they still have dogs walking and living they're daily lives just like normal people. Then there is the humor of Dragon Ball and Master Roshi. Again not saying that Star Trek doesn't have humor and perverts, but it's still more down to earth than Dragon Ball is.

So making Dragon Ball movie that wasn't that much for the fans as it was more for everybody was pretty stupid, but seriously what they were suppose to do? Make live action adaptation of Dragon Ball which includes every single thing from the anime series? Do you have any idea how long that would have been? Even if you we're going to make a simple trilogy or a film series out of Dragon Ball it would, still last longer than people would like to spend in a movie theatre! Not to mention people have lives outside they're obsessions! So making a faithful adaptation of Dragon Ball that has a total running time of six months would have been impossible.

So yeah, despite the fact that the Dragon Ball Evolution got many, many things wrong I still though that it was enjoyable and fun and like I said it captured the feel of the anime, there are many big budget movies out there that don't do that *cough* The Lord Of The Rings *cough* and like the Sage said, we finally are in that place and time that all the old otakus wished we been since the early 90's that: someone would do something like this, not saying that it was that great, but God dammit it was they're first try!

And considering how poorly Dragon Ball Evolution did at the box office it was most likely they're last.

Oh and one more thing!

What was up with Yamcha in this one? He looked nothing like in the anime! Hell the only character who should have been played by an Asian actor and they got it completely wrong!

Here is the link for Jesuotakus Avatar The Last Airbender review:
http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/ir/yrt/specials/30277-the-last-airbender

Here is the link for the Dragon Ball Evolution review:
http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/teamt/paw/specials/16364-dragonball-evolution

Here is the link for the Blockbuster Buster's review of Avatar The Last Airbender:
http://blip.tv/the-blockbuster-buster/the-last-air-bender-review-by-the-blockbuster-buster-5013533

Here is the link for the YouTube version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Lw30apKN3Q

Here is the link for the Blocbuster Buster's Dragon Ball Evolution review:
http://blip.tv/the-blockbuster-buster/dragon-ball-evolution-review-by-the-blockbuster-buster-4233067

Here is the link for the YouTube version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHk7O5E62bI

Farewell to Roger Ebert

Greetings,

Last Thursday, we lost one of the biggest lovers of cinema: Roger Ebert. When I heard the news of Mr. Ebert's death I was of course shocked, now this isn't because we were good friends or anything like that, I wish. It was because even though I hardly knew Mr. Ebert, at the time when I started to hear things about him - mainly from Nostalgia Critic's Tribute to him and he's colleagues the late Gene Siskel and to a degree Richard Roeper - I started to respect him.

Roger Ebert was a well known and beloved American film critic. How beloved? So beloved that the President Obama commented the death of Mr. Ebert by saying "that seeing movies won't be the same without him". Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg said that the death of Mr. Ebert was the end of an era.

When I heard that Mr. Ebert had passed away I thought that every single internet persona out there would do something to say they're respected farewells to Mr. Ebert, but for my ever-growing surprise the Nostalgia Critic's farewell is the only one I've seen. I went back and forth about writing this, because like I stated many many times in my videos, I live in Finland and I didn't think that I was worthy to comment Mr. Ebert's passing away, but then I decided to do it anyway just because I respected him.

My first encounter with Mr. Ebert was when I was going to watch the Anastasia on DVD that one of my sisters has. While making my way to the DVD player I read the back of the DVD cover and in there it said this:" Two thumbs up!" Siskel&Ebert. Now as you can imagine I was somewhat thrilled, because it said that some guys called Siskel&Ebert gave it two thumbs up not knowing what it meant, I just assumed that it was a good thing. Needles to say that kind of praise for you're movie is kind of sad when the only positive thing you can say about it is that some guys who live in U.S gave it two thumbs up and you would put that in DVD that was released in Europe, because you need some praise for it dammit!

It wasn't until I saw that tribute by Nostalgia Critic that I started to be aware of Mr. Ebert I watched a couple of he's reviews and I enjoyed them. Not to mention you start to respect a man who says that Shout Park: the Bigger the Longer and the Uncut is "mean spirited" and now we will never know what he thinks about the Family Guy. Even still Mr. Ebert's untimely death is made even more sadder, because now we will never know what he's take on the Star Trek movies would have been, about a 15 years of watching Star Trek movies you really start to wonder. Not to mention now we will never know if he had liked the AVGN Movie.

I've really said all that I wanted to say about Mr. Ebert's untimely death, but let us all go on living our daily lives from now until it's ourselves time to join Mr. Ebert on what ever possible afterlife there will be. Just remember that for the new the old must come aside.

May you all live long and prosper as I'm sure Mr. Ebert did.

April

Greetings,

Here is once again the list of everyhing that's coming up this month:

Dragonball Evolution review, the one review that might be completely different from what you might be expecting.

Anime Reviews: Devilman 2, Oh Boy! Aren't you for a treat here!

Quain Laroche#4

The stuff that I missed from my Star Wars retrospective, finally I get my hands on this one!

Star Wreck In the Pirkinning I try to review one of my biggest guilty pleasures of all time. It's not going to be an easy one.

So plenty of things to do in April, hope I get to do all of them and hopefully I get to finish the Tintin movie series on video front, hopefully.