What happens when you give the director of Ghost of Yotsuya $1.95 and a ham sandwich (or, in this case, 195 yen and an onigiri), say the studio is on the brink of bankruptcy and tell him to make a horror film – you get Jigoku. This is a dark, grim, surreal, and truly nightmarish film.
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Re-Main Anime Review
Re-Main is the latest of what I’d call a series of anime series made with the Summer Olympics in mind, highlighting various sports from the game, including Sk-8: The Infinity (Skateboarding), Sport Climbing Girls (Bouldering and Speed Climbing), and Wave!! (Surfing). While those covered some of the new sports at these Olympic games, Re-Main focuses a longer, more established Summer Olympic sport – Water Polo.
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Evangelion 3.0+1.01 Anime Review
I have, at long last, watched the (to date) final Evangelion film, Evangelion 3.0+1.01: Thrice Upon A Time. I have some considerable thoughts about this – and I’d like to talk about them with spoilers, so the entirety of my review will be below the cut.
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Breaking Down The Knightfall Saga: Knightfall, Act 9
This time, we get Jean Paul Valley’s first outing as Batman, taking on Scarecrow.
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Let’s Play Tactics Ogre PSP: Ep. 59 – Hostage Rescue III
We take out the boss, with the awkward revelations that come with it, and determine our next objective.
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Let’s Play Tactics Ogre PSP: Ep. 58 – Hostage Rescue II
We continue taking on this new boss, now fighting her directly, and finally taking action and unmuting our audio.
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Madhouse: Film Review
Madhouse is a very good film with a title that has effectively nothing to do with the plot, but that’s okay. It is – in short – Amicus making a very serious effort to do their take on giallo films, and they do fairly well.
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The Skull: Film Review
I have come to the conclusion that my first non-anthology Amicus film I watched, Scream and Scream Again, may have been an outlier, in terms of quality. By contrast, The Skull, while very light on narrative, has some very nicely done imagery and well done cinematography, which makes it an incredibly fun film.
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Let’s Play Tactics Ogre PSP: Ep. 57 – Hostage Rescue I
We go on to rescue our third Liberation Army member, blissfully unware of the horrible fact that my audio is still muted.
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Let’s Play Tactics Ogre PSP: Ep. 56 – Against the Pirates III
We finish off the pirates, and agree to rescue another member of the Liberation Army – but little do I know that I’m still muted.
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The Sentinel (1977): Film (Video) Review
I’m following up on my review of Paperbacks From Hell, with a video review of a novel covered in that book – 1977’s The Sentinel.
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Let’s Play Tactics Ogre PSP: Ep. 55 – Against the Pirates II
We continue trying to rescue the mage, while I continue to forget that I’m muted.
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Let’s Play Tactics Ogre PSP: Ep 54 – Against the Pirates I
We go to take on some pirates, and I fail to notice that I’m muted.
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Ghost of Yotsuya (1957): Movie Review
Ghost of Yotsuya is arguably a conventional horror film, though it’s one that also takes a little bit to get to the spooks. Like Kwaidan, it’s an adaptation of an existing horror story, in this case, one from a Kabuki play.
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Legend of the Mountain: Film Review
Legend of the Mountain is King Hu doing a ghost story. Not in the sense of a work of cover-to-cover overt horror, but more in the sense of a general vibe of dread, but never quite getting a heavy level of spookiness beyond a few moments.
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My Hero Academia Season 5: Anime Review
From the discussions I’ve seen online as the season went on, My Hero Academia Season 5 is probably the most divisive season of the show thus far, between those who have been reading the manga, and those who have been watching the show, and a lot of that comes down to the decisions made around the final arc of the season, the My Villain Academia arc. It’s not that the season is bad, it’s that the narrative decisions that were made about where they would include that arc in the season was very controversial.
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Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid S: Anime Review
Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid S is Kyoto Animation’s big return to television after the horrific fire of 2019, along with the pandemic, so it feels right for them to come back with something as cheerful and heartwarming – and also horny on main – as Dragon Maid.
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Paperbacks From Hell: Book Review
This week I’m starting off my Halloween horror reviews with a review of a nonfiction book about horror fiction.
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The Detective Is Already Dead: Anime Review
There’s a point, in a flashback sequence in The Detective Is Already Dead, where the titular Detective, Siesta, is asked by our protagonist and her sidekick, Kimihiko, why she calls herself a detective when she’s closer to being a spy. Siesta responds that she protects the interests of her client, which what a detective does, so she chooses to identify herself (professionally) as a Detective. This kind of encapsulates the show in a nutshell.
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Girlfriend, Girlfriend: Anime Review
Many romantic comedy anime series use misunderstandings as the focus of their humor. Something is misheard, or not told, and it sets up a snowballing series of events, like in Maison Ikkoku. Girlfriend, Girlfriend is the exact opposite of that. It is a series based on the fundamental premise of “What if people were maybe just a little too open and direct?”
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Saturn 3: Movie Review
Saturn 3 feels like a film coming off of the environmental dystopia films of the 1970s – like Silent Running – combined with a bit of horror. However, having a cast smaller than that of Alien – just 3 actors – ultimately ends up working against the film.
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It Came From Beneath The Sea: Film Review
It Came From Beneath The Sea is the kind of giant monster movie I can enjoy mostly guilt free. No appliances glued or stapled onto animals – just good old fashioned, cruelty-free Ray Harryhausen stop-motion. It’s how Willis O’Brian did it – it’s how the movie industry had done, and at that point in the ‘50s it had worked pretty well so far.
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HameFura Season 2: Anime Review
My Next Life As A Villainess All Routes Lead To Doom X (or HameFura Season 2 for short) – continues the adventures of Katarina Claes. In the first season she successfully survived the events of the otome game “Fortune Lover” after being reincarnated as that game’s antagonist – and in the process got every possible route (and rival, and the game’s protagonist) to fall for her, all without deliberately trying to do so, and she is still unaware of this fact. Now with a bright future ahead of her, clearly it’s all just slice of life comedy, right? Well… not exactly.
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Mother of the Goddess’ Dormitory: Anime Review
I have been known to enjoy a fan-service anime or two in varying circumstances – even series with premises that, at first glance can be skeezy, can be executed well – as with What The Hell Are You Doing Here, Teacher? I had hoped that Mother of the Goddess’ Dormitory would fit into that criteria – and it almost does. However, it has a few points that don’t quite make it work.
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