Posted on by Alexander Case

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. Read more

Posted on by Alexander Case

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. Read more

Posted on by Alexander Case

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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Posted on by Alexander Case

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. Read more

Posted on by Alexander Case

Anime Review: Holmes of Kyoto

Invoking the name of Sherlock Holmes sets a lot of expectations for a series. It sets the expectations that your series is going to be a mystery series, where the way the mysteries will be solved will be through the detective using deductive reasoning and through keen powers of observation – and also that the detective will have an audience-perspective sidekick who is intelligent and perceptive, but not as much as the detective. Holmes of Kyoto is, occasionally, that. However, just as much of the time, it’s a relationship drama, and not necessarily a well-executed relationship drama. Read more