I’m a sucker for an anime that has an element of instruction and education to its premise, and as someone who also appreciates cosplay, but who does not cosplay himself, I’m interested in the craft behind it. So going into the Winter 2022 season, I’d already suspected that My Dress-Up Darling would be my jam on that front. What I wasn’t expecting was to get a tremendously sweet love story along the way.
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Boogiepop Phantom was an anime that came out in 2000 that very much served as a counterpoint to Serial Experiments Lain in the eyes of American anime fans. Both works are dark psychological suspense works containing conspiracies and supernatural elements. Both works are heavy on suspense, and depict their high school-aged protagonists dealing with a heavy weight of intense personal dread, psychological pressure, and often with that trauma based on the burdens of society and how they play on their peers.
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While Sir Christopher Lee was generally closely associated with Hammer films, his career there was often tied with three main kinds of roles. There was his stint as Frankenstein’s Monster and the Mummy, where in The Mummy’s case you couldn’t tell it was him, and in case of the Monster, the character was not as well spoken as his literary counterpart. There were a variety of genteel, semi-posh aristocrats who were calm and reserved, even if they had their own forms of menace (and I’m including Fu Manchu in this). And then there was Dracula – arguably his most famous role, full of animal magnetism, elegance, and menace, but quite frequently very little dialog to sink Lee’s teeth into (pun intended). Rasputin: The Mad Monk gave Lee a character with all the magnetism of Dracula, but with an incredibly solid script to work with.
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Lupin The Third: Part 6 is, unfortunately, a mess. Unlike previous Lupin series, this one neither has a serialized focus (like with Woman Called Fujiko Mine) or a primary episodic focus (like Parts 1 through 3). Instead, the series tries to be a hybrid, sort of like Part 4, but instead of the stand-alone episodes fitting in the overall continuity, they go off on their own directions in ways that are very hit-or-miss. This is all aggravated by splitting the show into two different serialized plots – one per cour.
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Yashahime was a sequel series to Inuyasha that was somewhat unique by the fact that it was a completely anime-original story, with a new generation of characters, that Rumiko Takahashi was not actively involved in. The first season felt somewhat aimless, though, and going in I had concerns that the second season would be similarly directionless. Thankfully, this is not the case.
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The 1.5 patch of Cyberpunk 2077 is out, so I played it some on the PS5 and give some thoughts on how it plays on that system now.
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Denam is reunited with his father, and learns the truth about Catuia.
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We take out the enemy commander, cutting the fight short.
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Bakemonogatari is my first introduction to Nisioisin and to Shaft as an anime studio. I had tried to watch the show in fansubs when it first came out, as it hadn’t been licensed, and I remember being struck by the visuals of the series and the level of visual style – I could tell that the show was doing something – but I couldn’t tell yet, and I ultimately decided that I’d get around to it once the show had finished. And then I forgot about it entirely until this past year, when I decided it was time to finally get around to watching the damn thing – and I’m glad I finally have.
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I have a soft spot for the El Santo movies. They are corny and campy, but universally sincere. No one in the films has any doubt that El Santo has the Doc Savage skill set he demonstrates over the series. There is no question that a professional wrestler can be a detective, an occultist, and a science hero. That said, the films are not without their flaws, and sadly Santo & the Treasure of Dracula is no exception.
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We are ambushed on our way to our negotiations.
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We check out the state of the world in Act 4 before we proceed.
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For the first Anime Appendix N Sidebar episode, I take a look at what use a “Recommended Works” section provides to an RPG, to GMs, and to Players, and how you can use one to help prepare players for your own game.
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We get the chapter break, and on the other side we find we’re not in a great spot.
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We take down Ozma, but Catuia is still with Lodis.
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It’s interesting looking at Guns of Navarone in the context of the World War 2 genre of films. It’s contemporaneous with movies like The Longest Day, which I mentioned in my review of that movie that it’s something of a last hurrah of old Hollywood. Guns of Navarone feels like a middle ground. On the one hand, most of the film’s cast fit in that general age range (and also has Gregory Peck). On the other hand, it’s a little more cynical than that film – but it is not as cynical as a Bridge Too Far was (and considering the historical context, than this film could be). However, it still makes for a very solid film.
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Tekkonkinkreet is an anime that I’ve been meaning to watch for years, but just never gotten around to it. It’s a film from Studio 4*C and fits a sort of middle ground between their more art-for-art’s sake films like the Genius Party anthologies and Mind Game, and the more clear-cut adaptations like their Berserk trilogy. It’s also an outlier in that it’s an anime film that is directed by an American (and not a Japanese American either) who didn’t come up through the industry.
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Ozma lays into the party, as we try to take her down.
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Bad RNG and the Stun effect have made the party all thumbs.
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Another slow issue this month – but this time we’ve got our first N64 first person shooter, with Turok. (Doom 64 will have to wait until next issue).
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So, we found out how Catuia is doing. That’s good. Turns out she’s been gaslit by the Dark Knight Lanselot. That’s bad.
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Thankfully, the Gatehouse commander has no sense of self-preservation.
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When re-watching a beloved childhood film as an adult, there is a worry that the film won’t stand up. That characters you loved will actually be grating, a story you thought was deep was paper-thin, dialog you thought was clever was trite. What you saw as a lake turns out with time to have only been a puddle. I will say upfront, before getting into the meat of the review, The Princess Bride does not have this problem.
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Season 1 of the Critical Role animated series, Legend of Vox Machina, has finished airing on Amazon Prime, and I have seen all of it. So, I’d like to give my thoughts – in the interest of full disclosure, I did back the series on Kickstarter.
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