First impressions: Attack On Titan

Last night was finally the night that this show premiered , and not just the show subtitled, but english dubbed on cartoon network. Now this is a show I have received so many "Dude you have to watch it, I mean HAVE TO, or else all life on earth and the galaxy will seize to exist." Even though I've explained to said people that I would rather wait for the dubbed version than the subtitled for personal reasons, I still had the ever living crap bugged out of me to watch this thing. So I wasn't too thrilled to watch this show because so many people just kind of ruined the excitement for me. Anyway, i got to watch the first episode last night and it was completely new to me. let's find out if the hype (and I really mean HYPE) was worth it.

This story starts off with a with these giants called titans existing without any rhyme or reason (just go with it). Their primary food source, apparently, is humans. Because of this there is only a few towns left with huge walls and the people inside these walls trying to live as normal of lives as possible. A select few brave souls can enlist to be a part of the scouts, a group of people keeping the people inside the walls safe by going outside the wall to kill these titans. Thats the basic jist of the plot and it will develop from there.

First off, I was thrilled when I heard that Funimation was doing the dubbing to this, they usually do a fantastic job when it comes to the dubbing of anime, this is no exception. The dialog was pretty accurate to the original (according to my brother), The voice acting was pretty good and in sync, and it was the standard I expect to see from funimation.

I like the art style the series has so far. It is very clean and I kinda like how the dark outlines are pronounced with the characters and buildings. The way they drew the lighting reminded me to how similar it looked to like modern cel shaded, or fps video games, to try and describe it with non-artsy words. I also like how it is not too clean, and there is a bit of dirt and grime to the feel, after all, its war we are talking about here.

I have a few criticisms here. The voice actor of main character, Eren Yaeger, just sounds super annoying to me. if thats what they were trying to go for, good for them, but I don't like it. Another criticism I have is the final scene of the first episode. We all knew what was going to happen, so could you spare us the gore of it. I know it was like that in the manga and it sets the tone for the series, but I found it unnecessary. I guess it was required for them to leave that scene in there just to not piss off the manga fanboys of the series.

Overall, I like the story. It has a very original story and it is told, so far, in a good way. This series is almost like a breath of fresh air when every other series is not trying to innovate the genre. What I do think is, so far, this show has received too much unnecessary hype. It is good so far, but i don't feel the need to shout it from every mountaintop around me, it could also be me still being a little sour from everyone giving me crap about the show

The lesson is to my friends who read this is please don't be one of those people. Telling me once is enough, and respect the choices I make. Doing the crap you guys did just ruins the show for me. I know thats not your intention, but thats what happens if you do that. Just be smart people who make smart choices.

Movie Review: Spirited Away

   I finally got my hands on the movie "Spirited Away". I've been waiting for years to see this movie, is it worth the hype? Let's find out!

   Released in 2001, Spirited away is about a girl named Chihiro, and her family, who is moving to a new home in a new town. On their way to their house, they stop by this strange structure with a long tunnel. On the end of the tunnel, they arrive in a huge grassy field with some abandoned structures they thought was an old "amusement park". Exploring around and following their noses, they stop by a food stand with steamy hot food, with no one around at all. The parents take part in the bounty, and while Chihiro, being the scardy cat she is, explore the abandoned structures and scenery around her, because she doesn't want to eat the food. She ends up in front of a huge bath house and meets Haku. Haku warns Chihiro about the impending night and advises her to leave before the torches are lit. She hurries back to her parents too late and discovers they have been turned into pigs and the abandoned structures are actually a refuge for the spirits, who loves taking baths for some reason. With the help of Haku, and the other friends she meets along the way, She summons up the courage she never knew she had, to find her way home while trying to save her parents from being eaten by these spirits.

•    First and foremost, this movie is beautiful. Everything is rich, vibrant, and is basically, food for your eyes. I still get a warm feeling inside when I think about it.
•    The characters are full of personality and character. I like that diversity in the movie, it made it funny, serious, and magical. I think it definitely gave this movie some depth.
• No problems with the voice acting and dubbing, Pixar/Disney did a great job with this one.
• I would've loved to see more character or plot development, It felt a bit rushed with that. Even though it was like that, you are still not missing much from the story.
• This is a pretty long movie. It felt a little dragged out near the end, but then when I thought I had enough, the credits rolled. This movie originally was supposed to be longer, and I credit Miyazaki for shortening this film. Even though it would be interesting to see the parts he cut out from the story.

   I didn't think much of this movie when I first was watching, to be honest, I find any fantasy thing to be a little weird. I've learned with these type of movies, you have to get past the weird to see the greatness within, and this is no exception. Looking back at this film, it was a wild journey, but a fantastic one. This movie has hit something deep inside me with its beauty and raw magic, that it just keeps me speechless and feeling warm inside, thinking about this movie. This movie has won several awards, and I can now see why. This movie will be on my top 10 list of greatest movies ever, and I highly recommend this to anyone looking for a unique, fun adventure. It's also a no brainer for any anime or movie fan. If you excuse me, I have some shopping to do on amazon!

I recommend this google chrome theme for Spirited Away:

 

 

Update 2: Sailor Moon

Hey guys, whats up? I'm making this post just to let you know that I'm well and I have been doing my best at watching anime. This will be just a small update post.

Sailor Moon 2013:

It has been announced for quite sometime now on Sailor Moon's 20th anniversary that they are going to reboot the anime and plan to broadcast it simultaneously worldwide. I have been watching the original Sailor Moon by coincidence, I am on episode 87 right now and I'm am trying to watch it all before this new series airs. As soon as I am done watching all the episodes I will post a MEGA REVIEW of this series, because its a beast of a series. Even if I don't watch all the episodes in time, I will still post it before the show is on TV, even though I've heard nothing about specifics, but whatever. I do plan on having a new type of review when this series airs called First Impressions, where I look at the series so far from the first episode, if I like it or not, and where I think the series is going. I hope you've gained a little insight of my future plans on this post, and thanks for reading! Don't forget to let me know how excited you are for the series, or anything about Sailor Moon in the comments, just so I know you exist, AND ALSO, I love reading other peoples point of view on any topic. Have a nice day my fellow jinjos!

Update 1: Farewell JustDubs

Hello everyone, how are you doing today?

This is just a little update on things that have been going on with this site. I'm sorry I haven't been doing a review in a while, life happened!

• Farewell JustDubs :(

The site I use to watch anime that I can't watch on Netflix, Just Dubs, has closed down their website. This really makes me sad because their website was awesome, this site was the only site that had their videos working 100% of the time. I really have no idea what i'm going to do with my watching my anime, so if you have an awesome site that you would like to suggest, PLEASE LET ME KNOW. The only requirement is that the site can't have the typical 4 video mirrors (Veoh, Myspace, etc. etc) because those sites videos have never worked on any computer I tried.

• Back burner Series

If you haven't noticed yet, on the sidebar there is a new category on the anime series called "Series on the Back burner." well what is it? This is a place where there is a series that I've watched for a little bit and it lost my interest, but I feel that I haven't watched enough episodes to do a proper review. So I put it on "the Back burner" and some day I will go back to this series, and watch it again. 

That's it guys, please remember to comment on what website is the best at watching anime from, and hopefully i will start getting back in the swing of things and continue reviewing. Thanks for reading!

Video Games: Ripples

I play a lot of video games in my free time, so I thought in order to post more frequently on this blog, why not do a video game review of an anime/manga style video game that I've played. The first video game review is going to be a virtual novel called Ripples.

 Ripples is a virtual novel about Koda, who has a pessimistic and dismal outlook on life, deciding to practice his hobby and passion, photography, at a local park. While at the park he runs into a girl named Kuu, who is at the park feeding some stray cats some cookies she's made because no one else appreciates them. What Kuu says to Koda completely changes his outlook of life.

•    The controls are as simple as it gets, point and click. There isn't much to do, just click to advance to the next line of text.
•    The music while you're reading through this story is nice, just a couple of little piano tunes. Which fits  with this story.
•    There is some voice acting at the end of the story, and it sounds great! I just wish they could have  voice acted the whole story, and have an option to turn it off if you don't want to.
•    Everything was drawn beautifully. The objects looked like objects, the backgrounds really set the scene, and the only character drawn in the game, Kuu, looks beautiful and perfect.

   Overall this virtual novel is a great story that has a message for everyone in the end. This game is very short, it roughly takes about 15 minutes to complete, depending on how fast you read. I recommend this game for everyone because it is a fantastic story, its nice to look at, and it has a message that everyone can take away from it. 

You can download it at the chrome store as an app, or go to the website and play it there. 

HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

Angel Beats!

   Angel Beats! is about a high school limbo sort of place that people go to when they die. The story follows Otonashi, the main character, waking up in this high school right next to Yuri, holding this huge ass gun aiming at "angel" (Her real name being Kanade Tachibana). Yuri asks Otonashi to join her group, afterlife battlefront, this group fights against god for all the bad things he has done! Otonashi reluctantly joins the group and learns that he and everyone there is dead, no one can die, and he's the only one who has lost his memories of his previous life.
   In this high school, There are the group of people who are in afterlife battlefront, and the npc's, or fake people. The battlefront tries to be disobedient to the school because they think that if you follow the rules, you will disappear forever. The story line grows from there, I don't want to explain in detail because from that point it will just be one big spoiler, sorry. You are just trying to figure out what exactly is going on.

•    The voice actors and the dubbing is superb. The voice are synced well to the cartoon and most importantly the voices aren't cheesy in the slightest.
•    I love the way they drew the characters. I really like the art style they were going for. There was also a variety of colors that each character had, it was really nice. The characters also had their own personalities which makes some of the interaction with the other characters very interesting.
•    There were so many elements in this series, it was nice. I've read some reviews dinging this series for having so many elements, but to me its a good thing, because there's never a dull moment in the series. You had action, sci-fi, fantasy, romance, comedy, music, it goes on and on.
•    Speaking of music, OMG THE MUSIC WAS F****** AWESOME. I am Highly considering buying or downloading the soundtrack. The intro and ending music was awesome, the school band in the series that played for some episodes (Girls Dead Monster) was awesome, all the music in my opinion was fantastic!
•    What really made this series shine for me was the back stories, everyone had a different story for when they were living. My biggest con with this is that they did not tell everyone's back story which pissed me off, well, at least they told most of the main characters stories, which is better than nothing, I guess.
• Another big con was the ending. It was really good the way is it but it could've been so much more at the same time.

   Overall this series is fantastic, even with its two cons. It was a rushed short series, but they did a great job telling the story.  The series has you guessing the entire time what exactly is going on, you never get bored with the series because so much stuff is going on, and it is overall great. This series makes you laugh, feel emotional, and you get the sense of actually being friends and going on the adventure with these kids.I highly recommend this series to anyone. Let's just hope the Angel Beats! video game is going to be a real thing!

Happy Thanksgiving if you're in the United States of  'Merica!

My favorite chrome theme for this series ( Requires a weird resolution of 1920 X 1200 ):

     

Fruits Basket

Fruits Basket begins when Tohru Honda, a high school student, stays at a "friends house" so that her grandpa can renovate the house. In reality, her friends house is actually camping out in a tent, because she doesn't want to trouble anyone. She goes on with her normal everyday life when she realized early on the series that she's actually camping in a property belonging to the Sohma family. She meets Shigure, the oldest, at the house and Yuki, around the same age as Tohru, on the way to school. After going to school she goes to work to pay for school. If that wasn't enough for her to handle, when she gets to her tent, the 2 Sohmas finds out she lives in a tent and invite her in the house to visit. While at the house, a landslide happens and completely destroys her tent. At this point she is freaking out because a picture of her mom is in the tent which is very important to her. They invite her to stay the night and eventually invite her to live there for a little while. They are a bit reluctant to invite her because the Sohmas have a family curse. The curse is whenever a certain thing happens (don't want to spoil what that certain thing is) they are transformed into an animal from the Chinese Zodiac. Yuki is the rat, Shigure is the dog, and Kyo (who will live in the house a little bit later in the series) is the rejected animal, the cat. Yuki, being the rat, and Kyo, being the cat, hate each other with a fiery passion. The calamity and romance ensue through out the whole series as they live daily life, with the family curse.

Since the series was once again dubbed by Funimation, there was no problems with that and they did a fantastic job on it.

In this series you really feel for Tohru Honda. If she was real, she is to most caring, kindharted, nice, and thoughtful person on the face of the planet, no, galaxy. She inspires everyone, or me, to become a better person every day. Since she lost her mother, you would expect her to breakdown, but no, she keeps on smiling because her new friends give her the strength to keep on smiling.

This sort of brings me to my next point. I have never, EVER been moved this much from any media at all except for this series. I almost shed a tear or two at some of the back story's and messages. The story was soo well done it really made you feel for her. I remember after watching one episode, it was so moving I couldn't watch anything except for reality tv afterwards. Because I wasn't in the mood for anything afterwards because I felt so much empathy for her.

This series is also very funny. It made me laugh at a certain spots.

The only thing I didn't like was the intro to the prince yuki fan club (yes there's a fan club for yuki) It was absolutely ridiculous, not in a good way. Thank god they decided to speed up that one clip they've used towards the end of the series when they have already played the clip a couple of times earlier in the series.

Overall this series is very VERY good. It made you feel good at the end of every episode. I tend to prefer the episodes that were rich in story over the fan club episodes (ughh). I watched this series because I thought it was a funny name and I would watch it for kicks and giggles, expecting this not to be good. I have to say I am very sorry for thinking this was a bad series and it was a privilege to watch it. This is a series you should absolutely watch, no doubt about it. Just watch out for the last episodes, you might need a Kleenex.

My favorite Google Chrome Theme for this series: