Manga

Manga Review: H.P. Lovecraft’s The Hound and Other Stories

A few weeks ago (as of when I write this in October) I came to learn that the most popular tabletop RPG in Japan right now was neither D&D nor a homegrown RPG like Sword World, but Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu. Also, I learned Dark Horse Comics had released a collection of adaptations of the works of H.P. Lovecraft by artist Gou Tanabe and had announced a planned release of Tanabe’s adaptation of At The Mountains of Madness. Thus, it seemed appropriate to read the first of Tanabe’s adaptations and get a feel for his take on Lovecraft’s work. Continue reading

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Video games

Video Game Review: Castlevania – Lords of Shadow 2

I had previously reviewed Castlevania: Lords of Shadow on Bureau42, and I had meant to get around to the sequel for quite some time. I did do a partial play-through of the portable title, Mirror of Fate, but I ran into something of a wall over how the game handled porting 3D melee animations in a 2.5D environment. However, at long last, I have played and beaten Lords of Shadow 2, along with its DLC, and have some thoughts on the game. Continue reading

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film

Film Review: Electric Dragon 80,000V

It’s been a while since I watched what I’d call a “Weird Japan” movie – a Japanese film with a degree of creativity and un-reality that is uncommon in Western cinema – and indeed is generally rejected outright in Western independent cinema (see Dogme ’95 and Ethan Hawke’s comments about superhero films). Instead, these films openly embrace science fiction, fantasy, and horror concepts in a way that Western independent cinema (outside of horror) fails to do.

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comics

Graphic Novel Review: Detective Comics Vol. 1 – Faces of Death

While in the main Batman book, after Flashpoint, Scott Snyder jumped more or less straight into the Court of Owls storyline, over in Detective Comics writer Tony S. Daniel has a couple stories that fit in a little more with members of Batman’s existing rogues gallery – with a story featuring two existing members and re-interpreted versions of a couple others. Continue reading

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