Manga

Silent Mobius Vol. 9-12: Manga Review

The last 4 volumes of the Silent Mobius Manga are, in a lot of respects, representative of everything about the manga that works, and everything that really doesn’t. We have some truly spectacular action in these volumes, but also a reiteration of some of the more considerably cringy elements of the series. There will be spoilers for the ending below the cut.

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Anime

SK8: The Infinity: Anime Review

Much as how Yawara! A Fashionable Judo Girl was created by legendary manga writer and artist Naoki Urasawa in advance of the Barcelona Olympics having the first women’s Olympic Judo competition, the 2020 (now 2021) Tokyo Summer Olympics has had several sports anime released for the various new sports for those games. I’ve already discussed the bouldering anime, and we also got a surfing anime which I wasn’t really able to get into – at least not enough that I felt comfortable reviewing it. However, arguably the best of these is has been SK8: The Infinity, which wrapped just last season.

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Video games

Spider-Man: Miles Morales – Video Game Review

Last year, I played through and reviewed Marvel’s Spider-Man for the PlayStation 4. It was a fun game that played very well, but had some narrative issues – some of which were iffy at the time of the game’s initial release, and had aged even worse by the time George Floyd had been murdered by a police officer. So, we now have a new expansion for the game, focusing on Miles Morales, who had developed his powers at the end of the last game, and centering him in the story. The question is, can it also address some of the main game’s narrative hiccups?

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Anime

Log Horizon: The Destruction of the Round Table: Anime Review

It’s been a long time since the last Log Horizon series came out. That series ended with several mysteries still in play, and several new plot hooks set up, like Krusty having been teleported to the Chinese server, and the introduction of Geniuses – more powerful monsters with their own weird, metagame logic sent by whoever on the moon server had brought them to this world in the first place. This season doesn’t resolve those issues particularly, but it does push some plot developments forward in that regard, particularly related to the characters’ plot development.

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Anime

Sorcerous Stabber Orphen: Battle of Kimluck: Anime Review

Orphen’s second season is, arguably, a lot more focused than its first. That, unfortunately, doesn’t stop the show from tripping over its own feet when it comes to the world-building of the setting. In particular, it’s where the mythology of the setting is concerned, especially related to the organization known as the “Kimluck Church.”

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film

1917: Movie Review

1917 is a movie that is two things at once. It’s a movie that is a bleak and striking depiction of the horrors of ground warfare in the First World War, and presents those horrors in a way that respects what  the people who fought in that war went through, and without glamorizing those horrors. It’s also an intricately done magic trick, presenting the illusion of this story being told in one (mostly) unbroken take. This review will contain some spoilers.

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Manga

Knights of Sidonia Volumes 14 & 15: Manga Review

It’s interesting looking at Knights of Sidonia’s ending on context of the endings of Blame and Biomega, and the tones of those series overall. Blame and Biomega were stories with a generally small cast. Blame with one person, later 3 people. Biomega with 3 people. Those stories were also generally travelogues, with the protagonists traveling the Megastructure or the World (respectively) to find a solution. Knights of Sidonia on the other hand, has the story more (generally) locked down to a location, and has a much larger cast. So, the question becomes how does the ending pan out. There will be spoilers in this post.

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Video games

Cyberpunk 2077 Video Game Review

Normally, I do a review of the video games that I’ve beaten once I beat them, on top of whatever I’m doing for Nintendo Power Retrospectives or other works. Cyberpunk 2077 puts me in a weird spot, because due to how spectacularly high-profile it was and how high profile its failings were, it’s a game that has been picked apart by hordes of other critics, like starlings attacking a freshly restocked suet bird feeder. So, on the one hand, what do I say that other people haven’t said while picking this game apart? On the other, it would be somewhat negligent if I didn’t say anything. So, here goes.

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