When I reviewed Come Drink With Me on the blog, I described it as a “Wuxia Western,” as the initial plot of the film – with Golden Swallow going to rescue her brother from bandits holed up in a monastery – could easily be the plot of a western. It is only with the introduction of Drunken Cat’s plot that the wuxia elements come to the fore. Dragon Inn, by comparison, maintains a better balance of the concepts, melding them together to make a cohesive whole.
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Rush: Beyond The Lighted Stage – Film Review
In 2019 we lost Neil Peart, one of the greatest drummers of all time, and part of one of my favorite bands – Rush. So, when Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage came up on my Netflix recommendations, I figured it was time to check it out.
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A Place Further Than The Universe: Anime Review
Healing anime come in all shapes and sizes, from shows about sitting down to a home cooked meal to moving out to the country. So, why not a show about going on an Antarctic expedition, with A Place Further Than The Universe?
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Metal Skin Panic: MADOX-01 Anime Review
MADOX-01 is a short, straightforward, wish-fulfillment mecha anime that lasts just long enough to not overstay its welcome.
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My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! (HameFura) Anime Review
This past season of anime started with me having about 6-7 different series I was planning to watch… and then COVID-19 hit and with postponements, that number dropped down to two. One of those was Fruits Basket Season 2, which is still ongoing, but the other was a new Isekai series based on a Light Novel, and one with a premise that really caught my interest – My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! (or HameFura for short).
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Come Drink With Me: Film (Video) Review
It’s been a while since I reviewed a Shaw Brothers film – so it’s time to take a look at one of King Hu’s films with the studio – Come Drink With Me.
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The Big O: Anime Review
I have some significant gaps in the classics of Toonami. I watched most (though not quite all) of Gundam Wing when it first aired. Same with Outlaw Star, and a fair amount of Dragon Ball Z (at least through the end of the Namek arc). However, I never really watched much of Yu-Yu Hakusho, and I never got around to watching any of The Big O. Maybe it was the title of the show – it certainly wasn’t the aesthetic – the retro-futuristic style grabbed my interest. However, it wasn’t until recently that I finally got the opportunity to watch The Big O in its entirety – and it’s an interesting show to unpack.
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My Hero Academia Season 4: Anime Review
The gravity of pro hero work has always been kind of been in the background throughout the past few seasons of My Hero Academia. However, Season 4 of the show puts the situation the members of Class 1-A are going to be getting into once they graduate into much sharper relief.
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Space Battleship Yamato 2199: Anime Review
After completing Super Robot Wars V a year or so ago, I decided I wanted to watch some of the anime series from that show, particularly before moving on to X (along with wanting to watch a couple of the shows from X as well to set up the story for comparison). That, combined with the fact that I’d been watching various anime series on weekends with my parents, and that my mother had watched the original first season of Space Battleship Yamato while growing up in Hawaii, lead me to bump the reboot of that series up on my list.
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Scorching Ping-Pong Girls: Anime Review
This time I’ve got a review of an anime series from a few years ago that kind of slipped under the radar – probably for a good reason.
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Negadon The Monster From Mars: Anime Review
This week I’m reviewing a short anime film made as a tribute to Kaiju movies from the ’60 and ’70s.
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Come Drink With Me: Film Review
Come Drink With Me is a wuxia film that I’d describe as half of a conventional wuxia film, and then half a little more gonzo.
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Negadon: The Monster From Mars – Film Review
There’s something to be said about a short film that gets in, does what it sets out to do, and gets out. Negadon: The Monster From Mars does exactly that.
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Massacre Gun: Film Review
Massacre Gun is the other kind of conventional Yakuza film – if Blind Woman’s Curse is all about the honor of the Yakuza Code triumphing over other dishonorable gangsters, Massacre Gun is about keeping to the code even, and especially if it means your death.
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Blind Woman’s Curse: Film Review
When I was reviewing Yakuza films earlier on my show, after reviewing the Yakuza Papers series, and Outrage, I’d realized that I’d basically covered a bunch of deconstructions, without getting into what they were deconstructing.
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Phase IV: Video Review
Since we’re spending so much time cooped up indoors, I give my thoughts on a Base Under Siege horror movie.
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Royal Space Force – Wings of Honneamise: Anime Review
It’s interesting to watch Royal Space force for the first time after having seen 07-Ghost, because it feels like this film does right everything that 07-Ghost does wrong, from a world-building standpoint.
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Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken: Anime Video Review
It’s been a while since I did a review of a show that just finished airing, so it’s time to give my thoughts on Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken.
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Sorcerous Stabber Orphen (2019): Anime Review
By all rights, Sorcerous Stabber Orphen, at least this year’s show, should not exist. It’s an adaptation of a heroic fantasy light novel that not only isn’t an isekai, but is celebrating it’s 25th anniversary. That said, I’m glad it does.
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In/Spectre: Anime Review
In/Spectre is an urban fantasy mystery anime with something of a novel concept. It’s not based around finding justice or solving the crime, but instead on finding a solution that hurts the least number of people. It’s a take that manages to be both pragmatic while also being upbeat.
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07-Ghost: Anime Review
07-Ghost is a josei battle anime that I dropped years ago, but decided to revisit for a challenge for AniList. It is, for a variety of reasons, not great. As a disclaimer, I am unfamiliar with the manga that it’s based on, which has been licensed for the US release.
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Blade of the Immortal (2019): Anime Review
Blade of the Immortal has had a mixed adaptation history. The last anime adaptation came out while the manga was still ongoing. This past year, we finally got a new anime adaptation thanks to Amazon – who produced and distributed it.
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Azur Lane: Anime Review
Azur Lane is, basically, Ship Girl Tohou. World War II Warships from various navies are personified as cute girls, and they generally hang out at the bases of their respective factions and do cute things until the plot decides that they have to do combat in battles along the lines of shoot-em-up video games. It’s not quite at a danmaku level – but only because the game series is designed to be played on a cell phone, and you don’t have that level of control with a touchscreen.
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ID: Invaded – Anime Review
If I was going to describe ID: Invaded to someone in an elevator, it would be Inception crossed with Criminal Minds. It’s probably the closest I’ve come to a more standard procedural in a genre anime for quite some time, in a very imaginative way.
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