Anime First Impressions: The Master of Killing Time

High school.  For me, let's just say it's a time which was less than pleasant.  One common memory we have is that there'd be this one guy who could mess around and not pay any attention in any class, never ever get in trouble for it, meanwhile if you did anything you'd instantly be caught.  This is an anime about that guy.

From the sounds of things, this show is a one-trick-pony.  It's possible that this is a short gag anime with an episode length of only a few minutes, and if that's the case it could very well work.  But to do a full season of full length episodes, I don't think it'd work out.  The joke would get old too fast, but who knows.  I'm willing to give this a shot, so let's go!

The Master of Killing Time - Episode 1
0:00  Total length: 7:39.  Yep, it's a short, but a long one at that.
0:07  EVEN POWER TOOLS!?!??! Already?!  Anyway, while I was laughing, I didn't even catch that the intro song started.  It's fairly typical and gets the job done.  And background scenes establishes everything going on.  There's some normal but white-haired girl, and that guy.
0:47  It's over.  Boring class.
1:15  Dominos.
1:28  With block erasers.
1:52  I'm with her.  How does he have so many?!
2:45  And he's only getting started.
3:00  Any it only gets more elaborate.
4:15  After a close call.  It's even more elaborate.
4:35  I declare this guy to be Japanese Rube Goldberg.  And a ninja.
4:50  FIREWORKS!?!?!
5:06  Against all sense, he starts the chain reaction.
5:50  This is the most epic domino scene ever.
6:01  Of course nothing would happen. He's obviously not using a live one.
6:30  And this is the part where the girl gets in trouble, and the guy as quickly as possible cleans up his act.
6:57  And that's that.  The ending song plays, with that guy playing drums improvised out of school supplies.

Okay, the show is a one trick pony, but it's a good one and doesn't overstay its welcome.  Once a week, this is great.  I hereby approve of The Master of Killing Time for having the most epic domino scene ever, and can give it an all-ages certification.

Film Review: Elite Squad: The Enemy Within

For once I'm reviewing something which isn't an anime.  Unbelievable, right?  Anyway, Elite Squad: The Enemy Within is a thriller from Brazil about the struggles of BOPE, the Special Police Operations Battalion of the Rio de Janeiro Military Police, against the multitude of cartels, as well as internal corruption within the force and government.  It is the sequel to the original Elite Squad movie, which focuses more on the culture of BOPE and the people it recruits.  Elite Squad 2 takes place significantly later, and aside from recurring characters and some similar themes has little to do with the original movie.

When watching this movie, you will very quickly learn that Brazil is an incredibly messed up place.  The cartels are violent, the police is incredibly corrupt, and human rights are routinely violated by the police.  The worst part is that public opinion supports this police brutality, because the cartels are really that bad, and they go unpunished due to corruption.  If the choice is brutal or corruption, the people of Brazil overwhelmingly choose brutality and human rights violations.

That's not to say that the human rights activists don't exist.  They do exist, but they don't have much of a voice.  It takes one to nearly be murdered by police for them to have any say, and all they accomplish is get one human rights violator to leave the force, and instead get promoted because of public backlash to the firing.

This is the state of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil; it's a brutal, corrupt mess.  The corrupt justify themselves by saying that at least they're not violent, while the violent justify themselves by saying that at least they're not corrupt.  And they all hate the human rights activists.

All of this is apparent with the character of our hero, Colonel Nascimento.  He's the leader of BOPE, the Special Police Operations Battalion, and also the movie's narrator.  He makes very clear what it is he believes in.  And that's in brutal assaults against the cartel members.  He has absolutely no respect for any of them, and if it were up to him he'd just shoot and kill everyone in the cartels, or better yet, let them kill themselves in a gang war.

The movie starts with our hero being called in alongside BOPE to deal with a prison break.  One cartel in the prison managed to get a hold of guns, and is killing other inmates, members of a rival cartel.  They take several officers hostage, and yet our hero orders BOPE to hold back until they finish off as many members of other cartels.

The order changes into holding back until their negotiator, a human rights activist and college professor married to Nascimento's ex-wife named Fraga, arrives by helicopter to attempt a peaceful solution.  Even apart from the whole thing about marrying his ex-wife, Nascimento hates this guy's guts.

If it were my call, I'd just throw out the keys let [the cartel members] kill themselves.  But left-wing intellectuals make a living out of scumbags.

It comes as no surprise that Nascimento uses his attempt at negotiating as a diversion.  As soon as the cartel lets their guard down, BOPE moves in and guns everyone down.  After a tense standoff, the leader of the gang, holding Fraga at gunpoint, is shot dead just as he starts to surrender, spilling blood on Fraga's t-shirt, which quite literally says, "HUMAN RIGHTS" in English text.  Naturally, the picture of blood splattered over a white HUMAN RIGHTS t-shirt causes a media frenzy which gets Nascimento fired.

Public opinion soon turns on the governor as the people as well as angry pundits with too many viewers support Nascimento's actions.  An alternate solution is then put forward: Nascimento's second in command Matias, the one who almost shot Fraga, agrees to take the fall, and Nascimento is given a job as the undersecretary of Rio de Janeiro Public Safety for Intelligence.  The role gives Nascimento even more power to make BOPE far stronger than before.  He uses his authority to wiretap almost every favela in Rio, uncovering organized crime in multiple areas, and forwarding the intel to BOPE.  BOPE in turn cleans up the streets, almost completely eliminating cartels it would seem.

Nascimento's whole reason for pushing BOPE forward is because he hates corrupt cops.  His goal is to eliminate the sources of bribery corrupt cops rely on by eliminating the cartels.  For the longest time, he believes that he's been highly successful.  The reality is that he's only made the problem worse, a reality which doesn't hit him until much later.

Dirty cops, realizing exactly what's going on, decide to fill the power vacuum by establishing their own organized crime militia.  They learn that because of all the BOPE drug busts, the drug trade is dying, but there's still money to be made in more creative means, such as pirated cable TV.  Soon, these dirty cops are heading the largest extortion ring in Rio, and are protected by virtue of being part of the system and buying votes for elected officials with their actions.  The elected officials then turn a blind eye to what the militia is doing, as the streets are safer under their control and the governor is getting the incredibly valuable slum voting block.

The heart of the movie is Nascimento finally discovering that the work he's been doing has only made the problem of police corruption worse.  Once he makes this discovery, a process which involves an assassination attempt on his own life among many, many other things, Nascimento ends up joining forces with Fraga, who has since become a state legislator.  Fraga uses his position to call for a congressional hearing, where Nascimento testifies to the incredible corruption.

What happens as a result is one of the largest sprees of witness executions in Brazilian history.  And despite the number of witnesses murdered, the governor of the state is rightfully put behind bars as a criminal.  The corruption and police-sponsored militia have received a massive blow.

Yet in spite of this the corruption soon returns, with the militia continuing its operations.  Nascimento as narrator asks a simple question, "Who do you think pays for all this?"  Silence follows, and then, "exactly."  The system is corrupt to the core, to the highest levels of government.  Rio gets the worst of it, and no matter what happens, the corruption persists.  It reorganizes itself, but will never truly vanish.  Nascimento's actions was a major blow, but ultimately only a temporary setback.  Only through hundreds or thousands of those blows can a significant change be made, a daunting task which Nascimento is not going to back down from.

Elite Squad: The Enemy Within paints a very dark picture of the worst aspects of Brazil.  Despite this, it ultimately paints a hopeful picture.  It doesn't do anything stupid like provide a happy ending; instead the ending is barely an improvement over the status quo.  Only in the context of how bad things could have gotten could the ending be considered happy.  The biggest takeaway is that Nascimento is in a position of high power, is much more aware of how tricky and deeply rooted the corruption is, and has made a powerful and unlikely ally of Fraga.

In my opinion, Elite Squad: The Enemy Within is one of the best movies ever made.  I can easily see why it is Brazil's highest grossing film, and an absolute sensation in the country.  I would recommend it to all audiences, except for the fact that it is very, very violent.  I would say parental supervision required for anyone under 16.  That being said, I can't imagine anyone under 16 finding this movie that interesting.  I highly recommend this movie for anyone interested in seeing a more realistic take on action films, because this one is much more plausible than the vast majority of American-made blockbusters.

Anime First Impressions: Recently, My Sister Is Unusual

Today I'm going to be reviewing what is very likely smut.  There's no other way to describe what I'm talking about.  The show I'm referring to is Recently, My Sister Is Unusual.  The show is about some guy likely in high school who discovers that his step sister suddenly started acting weird.  Weird, as in, like she's possessed by something and also is coming on to him.  Romantically and quite possibly sexually.

Basically, this is probably softcore porn featuring technically-not-incest.  And I already know for a fact that this is going to be messed up.  My only question is how messed up does it get, and how comedic of a spin does it take.  It's possible that this may actually be entertaining, but my hopes are definitely not high for this.  Currently, the show has a 2.6 star rating on Crunchyroll, and when you consider that every show on Crunchyroll is incredibly inflated, that score is probably closer to a 1.6 rating.  Also, confirmation that it's smut comes from a friendly warning:

Yeah, this is going to be incredibly perverted.  Crunchyroll does not give 18+ warnings lightly.  I am going to regret this.

Recently, My Sister is Unusual - Episode 1
0:00  Looks like a normal day in Japan.
0:15  Our main character wakes up to the sound of an alarm clock.
0:30  One day, he woke up and found that he had a younger sister.
1:00  Breakfast with the whole family, something every family should do.
1:30  Apparently, the father is flying to India soon.
2:04  It seems that the two kids are still strangers to each other, and each other's respective parent.
2:35  That was an awkward goodbye.
2:45  And now our main character is talking with a friend about this whole thing.
3:10  His friend has a serious fetish for little sisters, which is apparently culturally acceptable in Japan, and is surprised he hasn't slept with her yet.  Hint: DITCH THE FRIEND.  HE'S A TOTAL PERVERT.
3:50  Our hero looks out the window during his class to see that his new sister is terrible at athletics, but she is making friends.
4:05  And naturally the teacher is talking about marriage between siblings and how that used to be common.  Okay, maybe this is a cultural thing with Japan.  Or maybe this show is just bullshitting.
4:30  Another incredibly awkward conversation between brother and sister.
5:00  After trying just about every honorific, he finally gets her attention.
5:15  Okay, why did she just fall backwards off the stairs?
5:35  Well, she's dead.  That was a great show!
[Actually, this is where the fun all starts. And by fun, I mean smut.]
5:55  Darn it she only fainted.
6:04  Well no wonder she starts coming on to him later!  He's staring at her as she sleeps, and we all know how girls find that to be irresistably sexy.
6:30  Seems that she doesn't remember what
6:33  Damn, that heartbeat was so loud it knocked a painting off the wall in the next room over.
7:02  Oh no, here it all starts.  She just grabbed onto his coat after spending the last 30 seconds panting.
7:12  Wow, the most stereotypical porno music just started playing.  And now she's rubbing her hands across his back while in a hug, talking about how much she's always loved-
7:29 "DON'T TOUCH ME" she says as she kicks him out of the room and almost knocks down a doctor who was walking by.
7:39  Gee, I wonder what gave you that idea.  Though to be fair, that's the exact thing you tell a doctor after such a circumstance.
7:42  Finally, the opening theme.  It's exactly the kind of thing to expect.  A sickeningly sweet j-pop song.
9:16  Good it's over, and now it's sunset.
9:36  So, the mother is driving her home, and apparently she's about to run off as well.  What a setup to a wacky romantic comedy about technically-not-incest!  To be fair, Oreimo is also a wacky romantic comedy about incest, but it's a good comedic show which uses the incest as a subtext for social commentary.
9:55  And immediately she runs into her room.
10:40  She overhears the two talking about how they're going to both be leaving the house for a bit.
10:45  "Why did I do that?"  GOOD QUESTION!  So, apparently she also thinks that she was possessed or something.
11:15  WTF.
11:30  So, the reason she fell off the stairs is because some girl in a pink dress with angel wings suddenly appears, said she needed her to disappear, and flew into her.  I'm pretty sure that would cause anyone to fall off a flight of stairs.
12:00  So she wakes up to discover she's wearing bondage gear underneith her skirt.  She suddenly starts panicking.
12:05  Thank you censorship.  And I say that with no sarcasm whatsoever.
12:11  Hello magic floating pink dress angel girl.  Oh, she's a ghost.
12:20  I think screaming is the only right thing to do in this scenario.
12:40  And the ghost starts raping her or something.
12:55  Oh, the ghost was merely stealing her body.  But did they really have to animate it so that it looked bad?
13:20  Okay, yeah, smut 100% confirmed.  The first thing the ghost does now that she has a real body is masturbate.  Thank you censorship, but seriously?!

Okay, yeah, this is smut, just like I feared.  I'm done.  Such a shame too, because the rest of the show looks like it could have been good.  There's decent humor, the plot summaries I've read sound insane in a good way, and if not for the outright smut this would be an entertaining show.  Unfortunately, it crosses the line in my opinion, so I can not recommend it.

Anime Review: Sword Art Online EXTRA EDITION

The long awaited movie sequel to Sword Art Online is finally out and available for streaming on Crunchyroll, and the fans are going insane.  Personally, I could almost care less.  Even at the time, I thought Sword Art Online was really dumb, and the second half of the show had almost no narrative strength to it.  It was good to watch, but now that I've watched it, I'm not going to look back to it.  As far as wanting a second season, I'd probably watch it, but have no excitement for it.  These feelings were greatly amplified by watching Log Horizon, which takes the same concept of being trapped in an MMORPG video game and does just about everything better than Sword Art Online.  As a result, I wasn't too excited to watch EXTRA EDITION, but I figured that I'd give it a very fair shot, while keeping in mind that Log Horizon is biasing me against it.

To the best of my ability, I'm not going to lie about what I think about Sword Art Online EXTRA EDITION.  I'm not going to exaggerate how good or bad I think it is if I can help it; I'm going to be telling you exactly what I saw, what I was thinking then, and what I think now.  And it is going to upset a lot of people, because my opinion is significantly less than favorable to put it gently.  If you're the kind of person offended by disagreement, you may want to stop reading right now.

The movie starts off by playing the show's original opening theme, which brought back pleasant memories.  In the background are opening credits interspersed with main character Kirito and his sister Sugu riding to school on a motorcycle.  Once the credits are over, Kirito and Sugu arrive.  As it turns out, they were meeting with three of their friends, all girls Kirito met in the games, to have a pool party at the school, but Kirito instead has to deal with emergency counseling in the school building instead.  During this scene, Asuna, the female lead of the show and far left in the picture below, says something very, very wrong:

The problem with this line is that during the ALfheim Online arc, part two of the show, SHE WAS LOCKED IN A CAGE THE ENTIRE TIME.  She has no way of knowing that.  I'm sure the fanboys and fangirls will tell me that I'm wrong here and come up with some explanation, but this line is what tipped me off that EXTRA EDITION was going to be EXTRA bad.  Okay, well, maybe not EXTRA bad, but this was not a good sign.

So, Kirito heads off to the counseling office, and hello, nurse!  And then the "real" councilor turns around in his chair.  Kirito recognizes him as, "an elite member of the Virtual Division of the Ministry of Internal Affairs."  That a long enough title there?  It seems this federal agent wants to question Kirito about what happened in the games yet again.  Kirito is initially uncooperative, but after being bribed with candy and implicitly threatened with suddenly gaining media attention, he starts talking.

Before Kirito has a chance to say a single word, the scene cuts to the girls, who are now changing in the locker room.  When a movie has shameless fanservice in the first five minutes, that is a guarantee of the show sucking.  Fortunately for EXTRA EDITION, the shameless fanservice starts at five minutes and thirty-five seconds, passing the guarantee limit by less than a minute.  Also in this scene is lame comedy which was old before the first time someone ever attempted to make the event a joke.  In less than a minute, I was begging for the scene to change back to the interrogation.

Ten seconds later, my wish was granted.  Kirito finally starts talking to the fed, and we cut to the show, the scene which establishes the central conflict of the show.  You know, the same central conflict which I wrote a prior blog post pointing out how it's flat-out stupid.  And the best part is that the scene isn't even edited down in any way.  After three minutes, I realized that it's just going to be copying and pasting segments from the show.  After a 25 second break from flashbacks where Kirito and the agent exchange a few words, we see another flashback.

This flashback ends with Kirito yelling so loud the scene changes to the pool.  And at the pool, we learn that Sugu apparently can't swim and has a bit of a fear of water.  As a result, she gets teased for it by one of the other girls, to the point that the other girl starts sexually assaulting her, all for the laughs of the audience.  I shouldn't need to say this, but there is absolutely nothing funny about sexual assault.  At this point, I decided I would be skipping the remaining pool scenes, because this is just outright wrong.  I wanted to turn the movie off right at this point, only thirteen minutes in.

But I persisted anyway, and the reward for my persistence was nothing more than more flashbacks straight from the show.  I got so tired that I decided to start skipping in five minute intervals until the flashbacks finally stopped.  Here's an excerpt from the notes I was taking.

20:38  Recap.
25:49  More recap.
29:52  EVEN MORE recap.
34:54  re-
40:31  cap
45:30  And we're not even done with the first half of the show.
50:20  Now they are.
55:11  And now we're recapping part 2.
59:45  Yep.
65:55  YEP.
70:29  YAPPERS!
75:12  It's seriously a movie-length recap episode.
79:25  FANSERVICE!
79:45  DONE RECAPPING PART 2!

So, for the first hour and twenty minutes of EXTRA EDITION, all I have gotten is flashbacks to the original show mixed with incredibly lame fanservice and failed attempts at comedy which have served only to piss me off.  Only twenty minutes remain, but despite what I already failed to endure I remained optimistic that the remaining twenty minutes of material would still be worth watching.

The remaining twenty minutes takes place on a beach inside one of the virtual video game worlds, where all of the characters from earlier as well as two others are vacationing to.  During this scene something actually entertaining happens.  After the stupidest water-fight ever between the girls which is only there for the alleged fanservice appeal of seeing girls splash each other with water, we get the only genuinely funny moment in the show.  Kirito announces that it's time for their mission to start.  So the girls all start walking out of the water in slow motion, parodying baywatch.  One of the other guys, Klein, watches this, and is about to explode from the amount of sexy he's seeing.  Just before this happens, the girls press a floating button, and all of their clothes comes back on.  Cue Klein falling on his knees, crying tears of disappointment.

Aside from this joke, the rest of the twenty minutes is either boring or stupid.  The quest is one in which they have to dive deep underwater - good thing Sugu was taught how to swim earlier - to perform a quest where a whale then appears.  Yes, their goal is to go whale-watching while inside a video game.  The quest somehow involves them breaking into an underwater temple, stealing a pearl, discovering it's really an egg, getting their butts kicked by kraken, and then getting rescued by a stand-in for Poseidon and sent back to the beach riding on a whale.  If that sounds exciting, it's because I removed all of the cringeworthy fluff from that summary, including the part where the single best player of all VRMMORPGs falls into the most obvious pitfall trap ever.  Had the other characters not made fun of Kirito for this, I would have turned it off right then and there.

Somehow, I made it through to the end without having to skip through the final twenty minutes.  And when it ended, I was laughing. No, it wasn't because the ending was funny; I was laughing because I couldn't believe just how bad this whole thing was.  The twenty minutes of original material contained only one thing of any entertainment value whatsoever, and the plot of it is completely irrelevant.  Reading back through my notes only minutes later, I realized just how bad EXTRA EDITION was.

If I had any interest in watching a second season of Sword Art Online, EXTRA EDITION just completely killed it.  The short version is that EXTRA EDITION is to Sword Art Online as the Star Wars Holiday Special is to Star Wars.  The first eighty minutes of this movie are nothing more than recap, consisting of scenes copy-and-pasted straight from the show, mixed in with the tiniest amount of dialog between the main character and a federal agent trying to figure out what happened, alongside some of the most lame excuses for fanservice and comedy I've ever seen, all of it so bad I had to skip through it.  The remaining twenty minutes are worse than any other twenty minute segment in the show.  It contained no character development, nor did it advance the plot in any way.  If anything happened regarding characterization, either one's characterization was completely destroyed for the sake of lame comedy, or my memory of the character is really bad.  As for the plot, it contributes nothing to the overall story and can be completely ignored with no loss whatsoever.  There wasn't even any extra details of the setting given out for the fans as far as I could tell.  Seeing as how this movie is nothing but things I've aready seen or things which are just cringeworthy, there is literally no point to watching this movie, even if you're a fan of the series, and especially if you're not.  Just watch the show. Or better yet, don't;  Watch Log Horizon instead.  It's the same concept, but done so much better!

Anime First Impressions - Rurouni Kenshin (Samurai X)

It's hard to believe it, but a couple of years back, when I first started getting interested in Anime, somebody suggested I watch a show called Rurouni Kenshin, also known as Samurai X.  I don't remember who, but I never did get around to it, likely because of my intention of only watching shows which are available in an unquestionably legal manner.  At the time, Rurouni Kenshin was not available for streaming, and even today I'm not going to spend money to buy DVDs of a show I don't know if I'll like.  Today, Rurouni Kenshin is available on the steaming site Crunchyroll, subtitled and dubbed, but only for Premium members as of right now, and today I am also bored out of my mind, so I'm going to go ahead and watch it.

Rurouni Kenshin is based in Meiji Era Japan, where samurai are common.  From the description on Crunchyroll, it seems the major civil wars have finally ended, replaced by an unsettling peacefulness.  A former assassin tasked with enforcing this uneasy peace eventually has enough and wanders his way into starting his life over, preferably not as a murderer.  This is the story of an antihero searching for redemption, one which has been told many times before.  I'll admit that I'm not too interested in it, but for an older show to be so well-renowned, it has to at least be decent.

Rurouni Kenshin - Episode 1
0:00  Most dubbed anime have terrible dubs, so let's see if the pattern holds true here.
0:03  Starting straight off with the opening theme.  Pretty nice guitar shredding here, I'm going to like...
0:14  WHAT THE $@#& IS THIS SHIT?!  Now it's some sissy pop song about freckles or something.
0:30  Wow, I totally got trolled.  Nice one there, Rurouni.
1:00  ...you're serious about this, aren't you?
1:36  Okay it's over.
1:40  Background about our main character as covered earlier.
2:23  And the episode officially starts in Tokyo, as all anime do.
2:42  Some stupid girl is seriously threatening the most deadly assassin ever.  This will not end well for her.
3:00  And he effortlessly dodges, jumps onto a roof, and it collapses.
3:30  He has a reverse-blade sword!  That must
3:55  Apparently someone claiming to be the assassin has been murdering people all around.
4:30  And this stupid girl charges this guy too.
4:45  Naturally, saved by the goofy idiot with the backwards sword.
5:25  And the bandit gets away.
You know, this is the exact same plot setup as Trigun.
6:20  So, the wandering fool brought her to her home, a dojo, and made friends with her younger sisters who technically aren't.
8:05  Ms. Reckless decides to let the joker stay at her place as long as he likes
8:35  Her motive is that the murderer is claiming to use her family's style of swordfighting, which is defaming her family.
9:30  Also, it just cost the dojo its last students.
It's obvious at this point...
9:45  FANSERVICE!  Yes, we really needed to see suicide girl taking a bath.
10:25  Naturally he walks in on her.
Anyway, it's obvious at this point that the traveling lunatic is going to turn out to be the real assassin and beat the crap out of (not kill) the real assassin.
12:50  So, the wanderer seems to have escaped from the shed he was locked in after he walked in on her.  Oh no!  I wonder what he could possibly be doing.
15:00  The murder's motive really is because he just likes killing all that much and for some stupid reason blames the girl for his breaking a thumb.  Lame.
15:20  Heeeeeeere's JOHNNY!
16:30  This is the most cliche "she's about to die" scene ever.  Come here and get this over with already.
16:50  Thank you.
17:30  Wow, he's actually incredibly dark when he's serious.
18:00  Magic Ninja Warping!
18:45  And they finally figure out that he's the real guy.
19:00  The idiotic murderer challenges the most deadly assassin ever.
19:10  And loses instantly.
20:00  The wanderer leaves, but then the girl decides to yell at him and beg him to stay.  Then changes her mind five times like a true Tsundre.
21:20  "Goofy" slapstick ends the episode.

Really?  This is Rurouni Kenshin?  This is one of the best animes ever, one that I have to watch?  Sorry, but I'm not impressed.  The ending song is actually pretty good and the dub actually isn't terrible, but overall this show is not really that good.  It gets very cliche at points, though it does some things right, such as the main character actually being extremely dark inside; this communicates he has a sincere desire to mend for his past, yet isn't naive at all in how he goes about it.  If I get bored enough, I'll watch the next episode, but overall I was disappointed in it, if only because it was so hyped up.

Anime First Impressions - Diabolik Lovers

It's that time again.  A ton of new anime shows are coming out for simulcasting right about now.  So with the change in anime-seasons, I figure now is as good of a time to update my list with last season's shows and start writing up first impressions of all the new shows coming out this season.

Fall 2013 First Impressions:
 - Diabolik Lovers

In this post, I'm going to be giving a first impression review of Diabolik Lovers.  What is this show about?  Heck if I know!  The description Crunchyroll gives is a pretentious pile of quotes from the show.

“The girl learns her fate amongst the beautiful scent of wild roses. The girl encounters them, as if being drawn there by the threads of fate. ‘Yours Truly is going to take her every first experience.’ ‘Tell me, do you hate me? Do you want to learn more about me?’ ‘Does it hurt? You poor thing... Okay, I'll make it hurt even more, little bitch.’ ‘I know why you came to this house. This blood (of yours) is of the finest quality.’ ‘Humans are nothing more than containers of blood.’ ‘Stay out of my business! Come any closer, and I'll destroy you!’

Seriously, Castlevania Symphony of the Night's dialog made more sense than this.

"The man finalizes his fate amongst the moldy stones of the ancient castle.  The man encounters him, as if being drawn there by the threads of fate.  'Die monster. You don't belong in this world!'  'It was not by my hand that I am once again given flesh. I was called here by humans who wish to pay me tribute.'  'Tribute!?! You steal men's souls and make them your slaves!' 'Perhaps the same could be said of all religions...' 'Your words are as empty as your soul! Mankind ill needs a savior such as you!' 'What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets. But enough talk. Have at you!'

You see, it makes about as much sense.  Actually no, Symphony of the Night's dialog makes more sense, because at least the context is a bit more clear.  About the only thing I can glean is that there's some girl, and at least one character sees humans as bloodpacks, which probably indicates vampires.  This had better not be a Twilight knockoff.

Diabolik Lovers - Episode 1
0:00  So, there's this black-painted taxi driving across the countryside.
0:30  Some girl drawn to evoke pity looks out the window.
0:34  There's this large house/mansion.
0:38  Here it is from above.
0:45  At the front gates, the girl gets dropped off and stares blankly into the distance.
1:05  Her staring is interrupted by the title card.
1:08  And by the time she stops staring blankly, it starts raining.
1:18  We didn't need you to tell us that!
1:24  Thank goodness for that thunder.  If it didn't strike, who knows how long she would have stared blankly up into the rain?!
1:35  Knock knock.
1:50  Look, just because nobody answered doesn't mean you can just break in.  Then again, they really should have locked their doors.
2:20  GET ON WITH IT!
2:30  OH MY GAHD!  A sexy guy is napping on the couch half-undressed!  SOMETHING HAPPENED!
2:45  Okay no pulse, either he's dead or undead.  Whatever the case, lady, GTFO!
2:50  911 CAN NOT SAVE YOU FROM THIS, ONLY CLEAN UP YOUR CORPSE.
3:00  Yes, he's waking up!  KILL HER!  KILL THE DUMB BROAD!
3:20  I said kill her, not rape her!  Though I imagine most anime fans would unfortunately prefer to see things that way.
3:34  Cock-blocked! By the only remotely sensible character I might add.
3:45  The dumb broad still hasn't figured it out.
3:48  Yes, please, tell us who you are.  Oh, nothing.  Okay.
4:30  See to her luggage, extremely creepy vampire butler.  She still hasn't figured it out.
5:00  Hey, it's the obligatory douchebag vampire!
5:15  And now it's the ultra creepy quiet vampire who carries a stuffed animal around still.
5:55  Oh, another douchebag vampire!  And the first one is also a douchebag.
6:20  She's trying to leave.  Has the dumb broad finally figured it out?!
6:40  Wow, another vampire napping on the couch.  He's the "doesn't give a damn" type with earphones in his ears.
7:25  Finally the vampires can stand it no longer, and are going to tell her straight to her face.
7:58  "You're all kind of weird..."  YOU STUPID BITCH! THE FIRST GUY HAD NO PULSE AND TRIED TO SEXUALLY ASSAULT YOU!  It doesn't matter what's going on, GTFO!
8:26  "How could you?" (break her cell phone)  Maybe because SHE'S BEING KIDNAPPED AND HELD AGAINST HER WILL!
8:45  Finally she starts running and screaming...
8:50  ...making it all of three steps away before tripping.
9:00  Oh heck no.  She scraped her knee and is now bleeding.  I can see it now.  Everyone else in the room, being vampires, are going to go crazy now.  Hey, maybe she'll at least finally figure out what's going on.
9:06  SHE DID IT!  SHE FINALLY FIGURED IT OUT!
9:10  Wow really, a cross?  First off, she just happened to have that in her back pocket (or was it up her butt?  Hard to tell).  Second, that NEVER WORKS!
9:22  They're making fun of her.  Thankfully somebody has some sense.
9:40  Finally, she starts running.  With the most pathetic stride ever, she attempts to flee.
9:50  The vampires all mess with her head as she runs pathetically, knowing that she is completely screwed.
10:05  A phone?  Cool.  Maybe the police can come and carry your blood-drained corpse to the morgue, because there's no way in hell they're prepared for vampire hunting.  Also the cord was cut anyway.
10:22  Another sexual assault on her!  And more beyond-pathetic running.
10:37  DOORS DON'T OPEN BECAUSE YOU ASK THEM NICELY TO!  YOU DUMB BROAD!
10:47  "You won't get away from me."  And she gets away from him.  Wow.  And I thought she was pathetic.
10:55  So she decides to RUN BACK INSIDE?!?!?!?!?
11:25  Hey, a room with a broken lock and chains on the door.  Clearly this is the safest place in the house!
11:45  Whoa.  Something actually scary just happened.  She looked out the window and saw the back of another woman.  The one out the window turned towards her, and immediately dumb broad recoiled back, covering her heart in pain.
12:26  Surprise, you're adopted!  Says her father's diary, which just happens to be right there in the room.
12:34  "Am I not my father's daughter?"  YES!  YES YOU STUPID BITCH!
12:40  Oh by the way everybody found you already.  And the next sexual assault begins!
14:00  "Please, God!"  That's how I feel after watching this show.  It was painful to watch.  Thankfully it was only this long.  Any longer, and I wouldn't have made it.

If I had to summarize this show in a sentence, it'd be, "Some dumb broad walks right into a house full of douchebag vampires and somehow completely misses every last hint about what they are until they all decide to gang-rape her."  It was not at all pleasant to watch.  There was one legitimately good moment in the show.  Right at 11:45, something genuinely frightening happens.  It does not in any way redeem the show.

The only thing that can redeem the show is a good riffing.  Comedic geniuses better than I am at it need to record a commentary track right over the top of the episode making fun of it, just like what Rifftrax does, and what Mystery Science Theater 3000 used to do.  This show is PERFECT for it.  If one ever comes out, I'll be sure to check it out.  Until then, don't watch this show.

Anime Review: A Certain Magical Index

The Short Version:

A completely luckless loser with the ability to cancel out supernatural phenomenon keeps getting worse and worse luck.  It all starts when he finds a nun named Index laying on the balcony of his dorm, and gets worse when he discovers that sorcerers are trying to kill her.

A Certain Magical Index is an animated action-comedy TV series from Japan.  It is based on a series of light novels by the same name.  The show itself takes place in a fantastical version of modern-day earth, where Japan, especially the fictitious Academy City where the show takes place, is the center for research into psychic powers, referred to as ESP.  Meanwhile, the Church of England is the center for research into magical arts, despite the real-life Bible outright forbidding sorcery and magic.  Just go along with it; they don't mean any offense.

Our hero is the extraordinarily unextraordinary Toma Kamijo, whose only special ability is the ability to cancel out other special abilities.  This makes him a complete failure at school, as mandatory testing for ESP powers always gives him a score of zero, no matter how many remedial classes they make him take, or how painfully obvious it is that his power is easily the strongest in the entire city.  His only other traits are his strong desire for justice - which usually results in him getting his butt kicked, and having an outstanding ability to bluff - even after having one of his arms gruesomely cut off.

The story starts out with Toma running like hell from a street gang, after trying to help a girl who was being harassed by one of the members.  He ends up getting saved by the girl he tried to help, who turns out to be an extremely powerful ESPer.  Mikoto Misaka, or Railgun, specializes in generating and manipulating electricity, specifically to fire projectiles at extremely high velocities, hence her nickname. Against all common sense, he picks a fight with her, and survives.

The next morning, he wakes up in his apartment to discover an unconscious nun hanging over the railing of his balcony, who's also hungry enough to try to bite Toma's arm off.  This nun is named Index, and is the titular Certain Magical Index this show is about.  It turns out that she's being relentlessly pursued by sorcerers who want her dead because of the 103,000 grimoires she has memorized, and she just happened to end up at Toma's place so she asks for his help.  He's extremely skeptical of the whole thing, and remains so until he returns home after classes to find her bleeding to death on the ground, with a self-proclaimed sorcerer taking the credit.

All of that is the first episode.  The story appears fairly simple, but in reality has its fair share of twists and turns.  The next five episodes alone have an extremely well-thought-out and executed plotline.  If you're already interested in watching the show, then consider this a Spoiler Alert until the text returns back to normal.

The sorcerers who attacked Index are actually on her side.  Basically, the knowledge of the 103,000 grimoires she has memorized greatly limits how long she can go without having her memory routinely wiped every year, which the sorcerers have no choice but to do.  Somewhere along the way Index started to see them as assassins trying to kill her, which is right in a sense, expect that they're really on the same side and hate doing what they have to do to her.  This doesn't at all sit right with Toma, so he resists them, at least until Index becomes seriously ill.  With that, he has no choice but to hand her over, but he isn't giving up yet.  After doing research on how the mind works, he discovers that even with her photographic memory and all those books memorized, there's no way Index's mind could ever become full, meaning that there's another reason Index fell ill, and another reason the sorcerers have to dump her memories.  Most likely, it's a spell meant to ensure that Index is always loyal to the Church, and that she won't fall into the wrong hands, and the sorcerers themselves weren't let in on this at all.  He attempts to use his ability to cancel it out, but all he succeeds in doing is activating a trap which causes Index to mindlessly attack him with spells, something the Church claims she should be unable to do.  Eventually he succeeds in nullifying the spell, but at great cost; a final attack spell sent by Index hits Toma square on the head, bypassing his ability causing severe brain damage.  Thanks to the highly sophisticated medical technology at Academy city, he was able to make a complete recovery...at least as far as everybody else is concerned.  Just between him and the doctor, every last one of his memories were destroyed, and there's no hope of ever recovering them.  Index is none the wiser, and demands that Toma continue to be her guardian after he heroically saved her life from the sorcerers, who she still doesn't know are on her side.  Toma is now stuck guarding her just so that he can hide the truth, and is now forced to bluff his way through the rest of his life just to hide what happened to him.

That is one long paragraph, and this is the END OF THE SPOILER ALERT.  That's also just the first six episodes of 24.  The plot itself continues to have intelligent twists and turns, and Toma's loss of memory [oops, forgot to mark this one] comes back to bite him big time when he has to meet his family and doesn't remember a thing about them.  Still, the process of Toma rediscovering everyone he knows while covering it up and solving his struggles not by simply using his fists, but by using his fists with intelligence, makes the show an absolute blast to watch.  Add to it plenty of comedic elements, and you have a recipe for an fun and surprisingly smart adventure.

By no means is A Certain Magical Index without its flaws, but those flaws are relatively minor.  They hold the show back from becoming one of my favorites, but it's still a very enjoyable experience with its unique take on an overused plot element.  I officially recommend this to anyone who can put up with bloody violence and foul language.  In terms of a family-friendliness rating, I give this a upper teens rating, younger with parental approval, and like most Anime, NOT FOR YOUNG CHILDREN.

A Certain Magical Index is licensed by FUNimation in the United States and can be found streaming on Hulu.  All episodes are available for free in Japanese with English subtitles, and as of writing this review the first four episodes are also available with an English-language dub.  Horribly-overpriced DVDs are also available, but if you're like me you'd rather put up with short commercial breaks every episode than spend $100 to get both parts of the series on DVD.

Maverick Rising - A Musical Review

One of my favorite video game series is the Mega Man X series.  Not only is its gameplay a good kind of challenging, but its background music is stuff of legends.  It's so amazing that people routinely remake it so that it's not limited by the Super NES game console's sound chip.  One website, OC Remix, went so far as to release a 5-disc mega album called Maverick Rising, with all tracks free to download and share.  When I found out about this, my sense of nostalgia overwhelmed me and compelled me to drop everything and check it out.

Before I begin the actual review I want to point something out.  I am not musically inclined.  I barely know any of the technical stuff that goes into music, so chances are if you do know what you're talking about, you'll have a good laugh at my expense.  Still, that doesn't mean I can't tell what is and isn't crap, and what is and isn't at all like the original tracks.  Also, I want to point out that I'm a complete metalhead, and have difficulties standing other types of music, especially techno, which is ironic considering how much of a nerd I am.

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Okay, first track.  Oh heck yeah.  This is going to be awesome.  The Symphonic Metal soundtrack of the game is going to come out in full force and blow me away, just like it did here.  Oh yeah!  I'm Pumped!

Track 1-2 "Super Fighting Robot X":  Wait.  This isn't right.  Yeah, the tune's the same as the original, but the feeling is off.  I know why.  The first three X games, released on the Super NES, had a symphonic metal soundtrack with some techno overtones, but starting with X4 the games were released on the Sony Playstation and their soundtracks decided to go with a more techno and less heavy feel.  This track emulates the Playstation era's style, despite coming from X3, an SNES era game.  It's not bad, but isn't really my favorite.

Track 1-3 "21XX War Was Beginning": Now it is a Playstation era song, and they kept the feel intact.  But because of that alone, I'm not all that into it.  Still, it isn't bad, but it's not what I was hoping for, or hyped up for from the first track.

Track 1-4 "Stealth Lizard":  This is much better.  Still, it doesn't quite do the original justice, but it's a major step up from the previous two.

Track 1-5 "Insecta Robotica":  What.  What?  WHAT?!  I don't even know what this is, but I hate it immensely.  The original is from X6, which of all the games I think had the most underwhelming soundtrack.  And gameplay.  And everything else.  Hopefully it's just this one song that's bad.

Track 1-6 "Spin Gator": HOW COULD THEY?!  THEY RUINED WHEEL GATOR!  No.  I refuse to accept this.

Track 1-7 "STING": NO!  NO!  WRONG!  THAT ISN'T EVEN CLOSE!  Okay, calm down, calm down.  Maybe the second album has better music.  So I'll just skip ahead to that and play things by ear.

Track 2-2 "On the Highway": NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!  This isn't happening!  There's no reason for me to go on!  What am I fighting FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRR!!?!?!?!?!?
(For comparison, here's the original.)

What a disappoint.  Almost every track in this album is crap for one or [usually] more of the following reasons:

1. It completely destroys the original track.
2. It chooses a new style which is ill-fitting to what it was originally made for.
3. It just plain sounds like crap.

This all being said, there are a few masterpieces on the album that make it worth checking out.

Track 1-11 "Tuck 'n Roll": Right off the bat I can tell that this track is completely faithful to the original.  And yet, it strives beyond and surpasses the original in a very unique way: it adds lyrics.  That's right, there are vocals in this remix, and they fit perfectly, like the song was made for it.

Track 2-11 "Let There Be Light": A calm and peaceful non-metal track got remade into a relatively calm and peaceful metal track complete with screeching guitars and a faster tempo, and it works.  I don't know how the remixer did it, but this is outstanding, and a prime example of a true remix done right.

Track 3-08 "Bibamus, Moriendum Est": It takes the already heavy boss themes from X3, and makes them even more heavy, you know, as boss themes should be.  They should have a feeling of fighting for your life against all odds, with there being little hope unless you give them everything you have.

Track 3-09 "Crawfish Crackdown": While mostly faithful to the original, this remix chooses a different instrument choice which I think makes it work out far better.

Track 4-11 "X-Hunted": The original is great.  This is even better.  It keeps the feel, while expanding the track into being more than a simple melody that doesn't get old.  It makes more metal while keeping the techno overtones intact.  And it sounds awesome.

Track 5-02 "Into the Rebellion!!":  Finally a Playstation era remix that sounds amazing.  It includes voice clips from the Anime cutscenes they made for the game (exploiting the fact that they went from Cartridges to CDs, which meant a massive increase in storage space).  Usually tracks that do this end up sucking, but this one made it work.  Props to the remixer behind this.

Sturgeon's Law dictates that 90% of everything is crap.  Considering that I only found 6 of the 62 tracks to be of noteworthy quality, measuring up to or even surpassing the originals, I'd say it holds up very well.  Except for the fact that I was accentuating the negative heavily early on.  45 of those 62 (including the 6 I highlighted before) are of at least a listenable quality.  They may not be as good as I was hoping for, but they aren't bad by any means.

There are still other remixes of Mega Man X songs other than Maverick Rising, but there is no collection like it.  Still, I'll highlight a few of the ones I found below.

Mega Man X2 - X Hunter Stage Metal Version: Another take on the same original track as X-Hunted.  This version goes for more of a true Metal sound, and does a very good job of it.  I can never get tired of this track.

Spark Mandrill - Short Circuit: Faithful to the original? CHECK.  Amazing sounding?  CHECK.  Easily one of my favorites, along with just about every other metal track this guy has made.  Check them out here.  Also, included in the bonus content for his second album is another remix from Mega

 Man X, "Abandoned Highway," which properly does justice to the original track which 2-2 "On the Highway" is based on, to such an extent that it more than makes up for the damage "On the Highway" did to it.

Amazon Moon (Mega Man X6 Remix): Another track by the same author as "Spark Mandrill - Short Circuit."  It's nowhere near as amazing as his others, but it's included here because it does a much better job than 1-5 "Insecta Robotica."

So, these are only three (or four) remixes that I found independently of and far superior to Maverick Rising's selection.  I'm sure there are many more out there, but I need some help.  I simply couldn't find a remix that does justice to Vile's Factory from Mega Man X3.  This one by Mandilore comes close, but poor balancing of his instruments ruins the feel, and if I could just play with the levels I could make it that much better.  If you know of any other remix that you think I'd like, regardless of whether or not it's from the Mega Man X series, feel free to leave a comment.