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Julia's Reviews on Various Media

This review was written on April 16th, 2021, just this past Friday.

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I give this low-key magical girl/slice-of-life anime...a 63/100.

For anyone who's into shoujo manga, particularly from the late 90s to early 2000s, who among you has heard the name Wataru Yoshizumi? Or if not that, ever heard of a previously popular show called Marmalade Boy? Yoshizumi, real name Mariko Nakai, created that. Marmalade Boy was a pretty popular shoujo anime and manga around the late nineties and early 2000s, but that's not the only thing they made. In 2001, Yoshizumi published what would be her first fantasy/magical girl manga, Ultra Maniac, which was adapted into a TV anime two years later, which is the subject of today's review. It had been on my radar, but I never got around to watching it due to other obligations and the Geneon DVDs going out of print. But in 2017, Discotek Media rescued the series, re-releasing it on DVD, and now it's officially streaming on sites like RetroCrush for free. Magical girl anime don't normally get uncut releases here in the US, much less even faithful English dubs, so this was a rarity. But by magical girl standards...as much as I hate to say it, Ultra Maniac isn't one of the better ones.

On the outside, Ayu Tateishi seems like the coolest girl around. She's pretty, popular, smart, mature, and has a good head on her shoulders, but inside, she's actually rather awkward and really wants to ask out the coolest guy in school, Kaji. One day, she has a strange encounter with a mysterious but clumsy girl named Nina Sakura. It turns out, Nina is a witch from a magical kingdom sent to Earth on a mission to collect five holy stones, all of which are in the human world. But the problem is, Nina is utterly lousy at magic. Even so, the two of them wind up becoming friends and decide to help each other out. They have to deal with all sorts of mishaps, from one annoying kid constantly trying to find out Nina's secret, to Nina's callous rival Maya, who is not only better than her at magic in every way, but wants to get those holy stones at any cost. Ayu's life just became a little more magical.

For anyone who's read my review for Mahou Tsukai Pretty Cure, remember how I said on there that the main characters of that show were the weakest part of the series, with the side characters coming off as far more interesting and less obnoxious? Well, Ultra Maniac has the opposite problem. Ayu, the main character, isn't like most lead characters you'd find in shoujo manga, and she's actually the best character in the series. She's mature, intelligent, and has plenty of flaws but is competent enough to carry the series and grows as a person. Granted, she's not the most three-dimensional—and neither is anyone else—but she's definitely the kind of lead character that you want to root for and won't want to strangle. The other main characters...are rather bland. Nina is your typical klutzy but sweet magical girl who can never seem to do anything right, the two male characters, Kaji and Tsujiai, are really just there to be love interests and are about as bland as white toast. But the main quartet are an absolute blessing compared to the minor characters, because every single minor character, even random characters who only appear for one episode, are not only utterly abysmal, but annoying as hell!! Seriously, I have honestly never seen a show that actually goes out of its way to make every single minor character be as utterly annoying and rage-inducing as possible! Tsujiai's cat Shinnosuke, Luna, the three little kids from the magic world, Maya's butler Sebastian, Nina's grandfather, that Kawanakajima kid, dear lord! Most of them are just there to be violently possessive (Sebastian) or creepily clingy (Luna and Shinnosuke), and Nina's grandfather in particular completely ruins every scene he's in. He's such a raging asshat it's not even funny, and not only is he verbally abusive to Nina even when she improves her magic, he often goes out of his way to mess with her friends in ways that are downright criminal...and the show expects us to forgive him for it JUST because he was worried about Nina. As a result, many of his more heroic actions later in the series feel completely unearned. Ugh, bite me.

But while everyone except the main characters is the worst thing about this series, it's unfortunately not the only problem holding the show back. Ultra Maniac as a show is mainly a slice-of-life magical girl series consisting of the girls encountering a problem and Nina trying to help with magic, with most of her solutions going wrong. This isn't necessarily a bad premise, as other shows I like have done similar premises, like Fancy Lala. But Ultra Maniac doesn't do anything new with it. A lot of the show consists of teenage angst revolving around trying to get with the guys, with only very few moments of brilliance here and there. There are times when the show tries to flesh out some of its ideas, like Nina being unfamiliar with how most human customs work due to being from another world, but they're never really expanded upon, and I feel like the show could really benefit from fleshing out the more fantastical parts of its premise and ditching the romance and teenaged angst. Plus, the animation and soundtrack are pretty typical of early 2000s fare, and are completely unmemorable in any way.

So with all this, does Ultra Maniac have anything to offer that's actually good? Well, yes. For one, it's a fairly safe, kid friendly show that you can totally show your little sister, daughter, niece, or whoever else without feeling skeeved out. Secondly, like I mentioned before, the main cast of characters, while nothing noteworthy, are a fun little group to follow with good, light-hearted chemistry between one another. Thirdly, it does have little moments where it actually subverts a lot of cliches that it follows (Example: Girl sees her crush and another girl together, assumes they're in love and angsts about it, only in here, the show actually has the real situation explained to her, and the characters ACTUALLY TALK TO EACH OTHER about their issues rather than angsting about it or believing a misinformed third party!). Unfortunately, for me, these aren't enough to save the series from being utterly cliche, generic, shallow, and ultimately uninspired. Though from what I've heard, the anime diverges a lot from the manga, so for all I know, maybe the manga did the premise better. Who knows? I ought to check it out. That being said, I do admit to being a hypocrite and buying the DVD set for Ultra Maniac anyway, mainly because I want to support Discotek and because magical girl anime don't get a lot of love in the US, so I thought I'd give some support to the genre.

All in all, it's just a cutesy slice-of-life magical girl anime, and nothing more. But if you want something better, I'd recommend stuff like Fancy Lala or Cardcaptor Sakura.
 
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This review was written on April 5th, 2021.

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I give the second season of this lovely camping anime...an 83/100!

Who would have thought an anime about cute girls going camping would wind up being popular? And popular enough to warrant not only a second season, but a movie set to release next year! This second season takes place immediately after the first one, with the girls doing more camping and learning about all the ways one can experience it. I was surprised when I found myself liking the first season, so I couldn't wait to watch the second season. But often times, sequels don't really add anything new to the first installment. Most of the time, they take a nosedive in quality, or are just retreads of the first installment without trying to do anything new with it. Having seen Laid-Back Camp's second season now, I can say that while most of the time it retreads the same ground as the first season, it does manage to find time to offer more than what the previous season did.

First off, we actually see the characters get fleshed out and look back on what they used to be like before they met. The first episode begins with Rin in middle school and showing her rather rough first attempt at camping, a stark contrast to the camping veteran she is now. We even get to meet new characters who pop in every now and again, such as a childhood friend of Nadeshiko's from before she moved to town, and Aoi's younger sister Akari who actually gets quite a lot of screentime in the latter half of this season. It helps that none of the characters, old or new, feel shoehorned in or out of place when they get introduced, making them really feel like a part of the core casts' lives in some capacity. There's a scene where two shopkeepers talk about seeing Nadeshiko gazing at a gaslamp she wants, and little moments like that really make the show and its setting feel more alive.

I know in my review of the first season that I said not to expect much in the way of character development, as this is a slice-of-life show, but the second season seemed to turn that on its head by throwing in something that the first season didn't have: Conflict. Well, only in episode six, but the way the show introduces said conflict into the episode actually feels warranted, because while the show isn't shy about extolling the wonders of winter camping, it also isn't afraid to remind you that it has its downsides as well, especially in regards to stressing the importance of proper preparation and planning. Checking the weather, the conditions in the area, having the proper gear and money to buy said gear, and so on, and failure to do such will result in life threatening situations and tragedy. Having the characters actually confront the results of their own reckless decisions and lack of preparation makes them feel much more three-dimensional and fleshed out than they were in the first season, and I applaud Laid-Back Camp for not shying away from reality. Besides, having everything go smoothly all the time would be boring, now wouldn't it? Of course, the development isn't limited to just those three, as Nadeshiko and Rin are also given moments where they go out of their comfort zones and try new things.

As far as the animation and music go, it's the same quality as the previous season, so I think belaboring how good both of them are would be kind of redundant. I will say this though: I feel this season's opening theme song is way better than the first season's opening, even though they're sung by the same singer. Yes, I said it, I think Seize The Day is better than Shiny Days. Fight me. It helps that the camping tips and narration have been dialed back a bit, and while I never found them to be obnoxious, they could be a little much, and I like that season two cut down on them. After the disappointment that was the Heya Camp shorts, I'm glad to see this adorable camping show going back to its roots and expanding its horizons just a bit. One thing I want to mention is that while on the surface, the show in general seems to have a moe aesthetic going for it, since it focuses on cute looking girls, one of the producers said in an interview that he and his team tried really hard not to make it seem or feel moe when making the show, as the story itself and the camping segments were just as important as seeing the girls having fun. Plus, he also said that having the characters act more cutesy-moe than they were would be disingenuous, as they don't act like that in the manga. I really wish more creators tackled moe anime with this thought in mind, as most anime feel they can only sell their shows on cute girls alone, when that in and of itself can't carry an entire piece of media.

To reiterate from my review of the first season, if you just want to kick back, relax, wrap yourself in a blanket, drink some hot chocolate, and watch a comfy anime, then let it be Laid-Back Camp. It may not be full of action or fanservice, but it can be fulfilling in its own way.
 
Infinity Train is an absolutely underrated gem of a show and I will never not be furious that we won't get the other four seasons that were planned. Such a garbage decision on CN/HBO's part.

I know, right? The show deserved so much better. It's like CN hates good shows and continually underestimates children's intelligence.

Anyway, this review was written on March 15th, 2021.

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I give this sweet book about two middle schoolers experiencing romance and coffee...a 78/100!

Has anyone ever picked up a book because they thought it's title was cute, catchy, or cool? Yeah, I admit to having done so with this one. Now, I admit that I've never been the biggest fan of the romance genre. Most romance-themed media I've seen, be it books, TV shows, movies, anime, or video games, are often very formulaic and melodramatic, and often play out the same predictable stories with the same predictable cliches. I especially hate the trope of two girls falling for the same guy and getting into catfights over it, because it's old, it's a dead horse that's been beaten to death, and there's really no way to do a new, original spin on it. But lately I have found some romance-themed media that has been genuinely good, like The Luckiest Girl by Beverly Cleary, Masaaki Yuasa's Ride Your Wave, that Ghibli movie Whisper of the Heart, and a few others. I went into Pumpkin Spice Up Your Life with low expectations, and while it's still rather...by the numbers, it manages to subvert just as many romance cliches as it indulges in them, and is actually a pretty sweet book on its own.

The story centers on 13-year-old Nadine Durand, who loves going to the local coffee shop, the Snug Mug, and playing the cello. But the main reason she goes there is because her best friend, Daniel Dae Cho, works there. The two have been best friends since they were very young, and while Nadine is busy with music rehearsals and Daniel with his snowboarding, they always manage to make time for one another, sharing pumpkin spice lattes over whatever else they talk about. But their routine is shaken up when a new girl, Kiya Renaud, moves into town, and Daniel falls head over heels for her. Normally this wouldn't bother Nadine, but the fact that Kiya's family bought the Snug Mug and are changing it to fit their standards, along with the lengths Daniel goes to try and impress her, are sending her unchanged world upside down. There's also the fact that her mother, who left the family years before, has come back into the picture and Nadine wants nothing to do with her. Can Nadine make sense of all these changes and tell Daniel how she feels?

On the surface, the book doesn't seem like anything special, and reading it, it's still a rather by the numbers romance. Girl likes guy, guy crushes on another girl, first girl gets jealous, and so on. But I can definitely praise Pumpkin Spice Up Your Life for its deft handling of this plot and not taking it into the really idiotic cliche places that most romance media usually take this storyline. For one, the characters, while middle schoolers, are far more mature about handling the various conflicts that arise, and even when they aren't, the characters react appropriately and realistically, as middle schoolers do. They don't make it into something bigger than it is, nor jump to conclusions about it based on what they see on the surface. Plus, I like how the main conflict isn't that Nadine is solely jealous of Kiya getting Daniel's attention, but more that she's concerned that Daniel is making up these elaborate schemes just to impress some girl he barely knows but is putting her on a pedestal and idealizing her for his own gain, and realizing how unhealthy this behavior is, both for him and for Kiya. I also found the resolution to be both sweet and satisfying, cheesy but appropriate for the story Suzanne Nelson wanted to tell. Basically, while the characters may not be anything special in terms of their development, I liked how the story used them and I found their individual arcs to be sweet and well done.

Seeing as this is a children's book aimed at a middle school crowd, the prose is rather simplistic and easy to understand. Kind of barebones, with only a few notable passages that made an effort to be engaging. Not bad, but I can see eight-year-olds reading this with no problem. While I do like the book just fine, it does have a few signicant flaws that hold it back. Like I said before, I'm not generally a fan of romance, and there's no new way to tell a romance story anymore. Pumpkin Spice Up Your Life follows the same story beats as any other romance media does, and while I liked how it turned out, any romance readers who know their tropes can predict the story's events coming from a mile away. It's nothing you haven't seen before, and it's the same kind of romance story that's been told in a million other iterations over the past hundred or so years. Another thing that irked me is that...the book is depicting middle schoolers drinking copious amounts of coffee. When I was these kids' age, nobody in my age group ever drank coffee or lattes at all. This premise might be easier to swallow if the characters were in high school or something, but middle school? What middle schoolers drink coffee and lattes every day? I found this part in particular to be very unrealistic, as I've never met any middle schoolers who drank coffee or lattes, much less the amounts that Nadine and her friends consume on a daily basis. I know I certainly didn't! Eh, I'm sure the authoress had good intentions, and other than those things, I still like this book and I can definitely say the romance aspect of it is very well executed.

Pumpkin Spice Up Your Life may not be breaking any new ground in terms of its genre, but like a nice latte, it's sure to warm you up and leave a sweet aftertaste.
 
Hooo boy. This one's a stinker, reviewed on April 14th, 2021.

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I give Bang Dream's first ever movie...a 35/100.

Now before anyone comes at me with their pitch forks, let me clarify something: I NEVER go into something wanting to hate it. I admit that I haven't seen the Bang Dream anime beyond the first episode of season one, nor have I played the game. I did read one of the spin-off mangas (The one centered around Roselia) and liked it. Seeing that Bang Dream has become a popular franchise since its initial failed launch, it's inevitable that it would eventually get a movie. Then I heard what the movie actually turned out to be. Curious, I decided to check it out for myself since HIDIVE started streaming it the other day. And...seriously, I can't fathom just why this movie was even made and why the creators were even serious about making a movie like this. I'm talking about this purely from the perspective of someone who has seen very little of Bang Dream. But even with that, I don't know if this is meant to be fanservice for the fans, or some kind of promotional vehicle for the series. Usually movies are given leeway to tell bigger or more experimental stories with their franchise. But you won't find an actual story here. Want to know what this movie is? It's literally an animated concert showing the main bands from the series performing various songs, with a little bit of banter in between.

That is literally it. No, really. The whole anime is just a 3D animated concert sequence. I'm not even kidding. The characters literally just show up, sing a bunch of songs, have some banter between themselves, rinse and repeat for every band. I'm normally fine with movies wanting to do something different from their original source material, but the way Bang Dream's first movie did it just reeks of laziness and making a quick buck with minimal effort. For one, the 3D CGI animation is just awful. Whose bright idea was it to animate not only this, but Bang Dream's second and third seasons in this herky-jerky Barbie doll style? I know the first season's animation wasn't great, but it looked a hell of a lot better than this! Everyone has creepy-looking plastic faces that have little to no expression whatsoever, and while the character movement is okay at best, the 3D models have this weird glossy look that just makes them all look doll-like. All of the animation just feels uninspired and mediocre.

For what it's worth, most of the music in this series isn't bad. But most of the good songs, I feel, only consisted of the ones by Afterglow and Roselia, and a little bit of Poppin Party's songs. Everything else just sounds like rip-offs of other songs. Also, Hello Happy World's music is just painful to listen to, trying too hard to be as aggressively cute and saccharine as possible and nothing else. I wanted to rip my eardrums out every time spaghetti hair marching band girl opened her mouth and belted out her screechy voice. In all honesty though, the music is pretty much the only thing this movie has going for it, and even that can't save it from just how bland and lazy this movie feels. I honestly have to question why Bushiroad felt the need to pour so much money into what is literally a one and a half hour long animated concert, possibly to rake in more money, when the same effect could be achieved by going to the bands' actual, real life concerts. That is literally what concerts are for! Because of this, the movie feels unnecessarily padded out, and nothing happens in between songs. I can't comment on the characters because, again, all they do is perform and chat amongst each other, nothing else. They don't change, they don't do anything noteworthy, they're just kind of there, and their dialogue is just so boring that I couldn't bring myself to care about these people.

I don't know. Maybe I'd like this movie better if I was a fan of Bang Dream as a whole. But seriously, this whole movie feels like a waste of time and money. They really could have done something different with Bang Dream's first movie. They could have expanded on the stories told in the first three seasons in some way, or focused on the bands that the anime didn't get to cover, like the new one called Morfonica. Hell, it could have even been one of those compliation movies that animation companies love to shell out! But even for a movie like this, Bang Dream Film Live is incredibly cheap and feels wholly lazy and uninspired. I honestly wouldn't recommend this even to fans of Bang Dream. But if you like a time killer that won't make you use your brain too much, feel free to check it out. Otherwise, give it a miss.
 
This review was written on June 22nd, 2013.

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I give the second season of one of the most well known magical girl anime...a 60/100.

Sequels tend to be not as good as the original source. This isn't to say all sequels to certain works are all bad. In fact, some may even be done well or even prove to improve upon or even be better than the original work. But those tend to be rather rare, as usually sequels are made to squeeze out more cash from fanbases. Some works don't even need sequels but wind up getting them anyway (Land Before Time and Secret of NIMH being egregious examples). Sailor Moon has five seasons total, Sailor Moon R being the second season. I've watched it and...eh, it has its good points, but unfortunately there's just a bit too much bad stuff convoluting it and ruining it for me.

The first thirteen episodes are just a filler arc because Naoko Takeuchi didn't start on the manga version quite yet so they needed to pad it out somehow. Those thirteen episodes are about two aliens who suck energy out of things in order to bring their beloved tree back to life. I actually liked this arc and the story behind it, pointless as it is. From episode 14 onward, the story becomes about Usagi and Mamoru discovering a pink haired girl who comes from the future, who is actually their daughter. She is being pursued by the Black Moon Clan, who took over Crystal Tokyo, and Queen Serenity sent Chibiusa to find the sailor soldiers and save the future. But Mamoru begins having odd dreams that he can't seem to understand, and isn't sure what to do, driving a rift between him and Usagi.

Now before I get to anything, that last sentence of the previous paragraph is one of the biggest flaws of this second season. Mamoru gets bad dreams, and instead of telling Usagi about them and trying to find a reasonable solution, he spends about 70% of the entire series not only avoiding her, but degrading her and forcing her away from him, absolutely refusing to tell her anything and outright cutting her off to the point of bordering on psychological abuse. For nearly thirty whole episodes. He doesn't even give her a reason, and just angsts about it throughout most of the series. Not only that, nobody questions him about it nor do they call him out on it, and even when it's revealed who's responsible for giving him those dreams, they don't even be angry or call him out on it. Yeah, there's bad writing and just writing that's so stupid, contrived, and idiotic that it really puts a huge damper on both a show and the characters. From what I hear, the director from episode 14 onward, Kunihiko Ikuhara (Yes, the Utena guy) absolutely hated Mamoru (which is why he's hardly ever around in the above mentioned filler arc). Just because you hate a character doesn't mean you have to go against the original source material and turn him and other characters into complete idiots! Sailor Moon R isn't the worst season, but the idiocy of the whole Mamoru/Usagi break-up fiasco is a sore spot with fans.

Anyway, the animation and music haven't changed much since the first season, but I actually like the new music for Usagi's Sailor Moon transformation. That's about it for that part. The main characters haven't changed much over the series. They're still typical anime archetypes of the time, but they do have their moments. The aliens from the first arc actually have a good back story. But the villains in the second part of the anime range between bland and very good, with Rubeus being bland and Prince Saphir being the best villain (and he's not even a villain. He's my favorite). The four sisters have their moments, and they're the few villains who don't die in the entire series. One character, however, has fans heavily divided: Chibiusa, Usagi's future daughter. Some fans of the anime absolutely HATE her for the fact that she's an annoying little brat who's always getting her way, always getting Usagi in trouble, and never admitting her own mistakes. While I can see where the hate comes from, I'm not one of those people who absolutely loathe her. I thought she was just kinda there, and I actually thought her brattiness was rather realistic. She's like, five years old in this season, and really, what five year old DOESN'T act the way she does? Plus, I thought it was cool that her flaws and brattiness actually bit her in the butt near the end where she gets captured by the main villain and turned evil for a while.

While I like R for what it adds to the Sailor Moon universe, it has far too many dark spots on it to be considered a good season. I liked parts of it, especially Saphir and Chibiusa's crowning moment of awesome in one episode (it was the episode where the sailor soldiers except Usagi get kidnapped by Rubeus), but the Usagi/Mamoru break up fiasco killed it for me, and I think it did for a lot of other people too. I don't hate Chibiusa like other people do. I actually didn't mind her in this season, but I've warmed up to Usagi when she appeared. I even felt sorry for Usagi when Chibiusa kept doing bad things and Usagi wound up having to take the blame for it when she didn't do it.

Not the best season, but it has its good points.
 
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Here's a slightly older review I posted a while back for Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. But...you're probably not gonna like what I have to say about it, especially if you're a fan. This review was originally made on my LJ on June 21st, 2018.

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I give what's considered one of the greatest American novels ever written...a 45/100.

So I finally managed to read Of Mice and Men. After finishing it, I thought: Seriously? THIS is considered one of the greatest American novels ever? I'm sorry, but I didn't find myself liking this one. At all. I heard that this was Steinbeck's first foray into writing, and it shows. The story is about these two men, George and Lennie, who try to find work on a nearby plantation during the Great Depression. Times are tough, and work is very hard to come by. Luckily, after a bit of travel, they manage to find work at a farm in the town of Soledad, with the intention of earning enough to get their own land and start their own farm. But when Lennie accidentally does something he shouldn't, both he and George are thrown into a heap of trouble and have to make some heartbreaking decisions in order to get by.

For anyone who's wondering, I don't expect all famous novels to be full of purple prose or super pretentious or anything like that. Even novels with simple, beige prose can be well written if done well. Some of my favorite books such as A Boy Called Bat and When The Mountain Meets The Moon use their simple writing to great effect. Of Mice and Men, on the other hand, feels more like it's written in script rather than making any attempt to resemble a novel in any way. From what I've heard, John Steinbeck did this deliberately, intentionally writing it as both a novella and as a script for a play. While I admit I can somewhat understand his intentions in writing it that way, the prose is very simple and doesn't really engage the reader much. The only good parts of the writing were where he describes nature and the setting. Those segments were actually good and understandable. Unfortunately, the rest of the prose doesn't really work, and considering this was his first novel, it really shows how unpolished he was back in the day.

The story itself doesn't really offer much. It's just five chapters of some guys hanging out at a farm and doing work, that's it, with a few dramatic moments thrown in near the end. I like simple stories when they're told well and have something to offer, but this one didn't really do it for me. With the way everything was written, it felt like I was being made to sit at a meeting where a bunch of drunk guys talked to each other about stuff that was completely irrelevant to everything. Nothing changed, nothing progressed, and none of the characters really did much of anything of note other than work to make a few bucks. There's literally no conflict save for George trying to make sure Lennie doesn't do anything that'll get them fired, but even that isn't enough to really carry the story.

Honestly, I felt the worst thing about Of Mice and Men were the characters, especially George. Everyone was so one-note and uninteresting, only having one personality trait and not much else. But George! God, I could go on about how much I hate this guy. He's supposed to be seen as a diligent, hardworking man who cares for Lennie, but all I saw was a whiny, petulant, annoying, irritating little prick who never stopped complaining about Lennie every chance he got. In fact, the fact that he constantly degrades, demeans, and complains about Lennie like he's some kind of parasite is what turned me off to him immediately. Throughout the entire novel, especially the first chapter, George constantly bitches and moans about how Lennie is such an annoying nuisance who's always causing trouble, leeching off of George, and how his life would be so much better if Lennie wasn't around. Not once does he ever, EVER, show any kind of genuine concern for Lennie, and in the rare moments that he does, the writing made it seem like George was more trying to save his own skin than actually help Lennie in any way whatsoever. In the second chapter, when George lies to his boss about Lennie being his cousin, he later tells Lennie that if he really was his relative, he'd shoot himself.

No. NO. NO! You DO NOT say that to a mentally handicapped person at all! Ever! Not does saying those things hurt their self-esteem and self-worth (And it does hurt Lennie, as shown in the end of the book), they internalize things like that and contributes to the idea that disabled people are burdens who can't do anything right and who will always be bothersome little leeches. Sorry if this is kind of personal, and normally I try not to take stuff like this personally. I really don't. I know it's fiction, and it makes sense for the time period the book takes place in, and I get that. But if someone said this to you in real life, even as a joke, would you really just brush it off and try to say that that's normal? I know I wouldn't, because stuff like that is really hurtful and demeaning. That's like telling the parent of an autistic child that they'd shoot themselves if their kid ever turned out autistic, and considering most disabled people are killed because their caretakers either don't want to deal with them or feel their lives are being ruined with them around, without even trying to learn what disabilities are actually like and trying to understand the disabled people in question, it's especially bad in today's world. Even sadder is that Lennie actually believes all of the mean things George tells him. At one point, after a tragic incident, Lennie has daydreams about his aunt and an imaginary rabbit telling him that he's nothing but an idiot who hurts everyone around him and that the world would be so much better off without him, how everyone had to sacrifice their dreams and lives because they had to deal with him. That's not the kind of message writers should send to people of any kind, disabled or not. It felt like the entire book was shitting on poor Lennie just for the sake of crapping on him, nothing else. Honestly, Lennie deserved so much better than this.

Okay, I'm done ranting. Not gonna lie, I didn't like this one, and while I can understand and appreciate the impact its had on literature, especially during the time it was written, I don't feel it's one of the greatest novels ever written. No, not even close. I can name several books that I like way better than Of Mice and Men. Eh, who knows? If you like it, that's cool. But in the end, it just wasn't for me, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. I guess not even revered classics are immune to having flaws. Then again, nothing's perfect, and we shouldn't expect things to be perfect.
Kinda laughed at the part where you was ranting on that now known bastard George. In my opinion classic literature is kinda boring. Sure it delivered back then but not so much now....it doesn't hold up for me. Kinda don't read a book about a couple of dudes chilling on a farm doing nothing but trying to make a quick buck. also I don't know why I decided to quote the whole thing sorry 'bout that.
 
This review was written on March 7th, 2021, but only just finished today. I've been wanting to talk about this one for a while!

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I give this book about children dealing with the trauma of sexual abuse...an 80/100.

Growing up, my childhood was pretty good, and my parents love and accept me for who I am. But when I started getting really into reading in 6th or 7th grade, I always found myself morbidly curious about books exploring tough topics like bullying, child abuse, illness, and even sexual abuse. Don't worry, I don't mean this in a creepy, fetishistic way either. That's gross and unethical. It was more in the "Why would anyone, let alone a parent, want to hurt their child?" kind of way. I actively sought out any media that dealt with these kinds of topics, via movies, TV series, books (Both fiction and non-fiction), and so on. I even met and befriended people who went through similar experiences themselves, and I can bet that they would have loved to have read a book like this, if only to let them know that they weren't alone in their struggles and to give them something they can relate to. I was already interested in Kim Brubaker Bradley's work after reading The War That Saved My Life and its sequel, but the second I read the premise of Fighting Words, I knew I wanted to read it as soon as my local library reopened. Having read it, I can say it met my expectations. It's not a masterpiece in any way, but it is an important book.

The story centers on two sisters, ten-year-old Della and sixteen-year-old Suki, who have just been put into a new foster home under the care of a woman named Francine. Their mother's in prison for blowing up a meth lab and endangering her kids, and said mother's evil boyfriend was cruel to the both of them in ways no child should ever have to go through. Della and Suki are trying their hardest to carve out a normal life for themselves, and Della is confident that she'll be fine as long as Suki is there to protect her, like she's always done. But Suki hasn't had anyone to protect her throughout her life, and is still reeling from the trauma she had to endure, trying desperately to hide the extent of what happened to her out of fear and shame. It gets so bad that she attempts to kill herself one day, and Della's life is turned upside down.

I knew reading Fighting Words was going to be a different experience compared to reading her War That Saved My Life duology, especially considering that this book takes place in the modern day rather than in the forties, so I had a feeling that the prose would be different as well. It's not as overly detailed and eloquent here as it was in TWTSML, but it's perfectly easy to understand and breeze through. It helps that the chapters are short and Della's narration, while not entirely believable, does hit more than it misses. I did find the overusage of snow as a substitute for cursing to be really irritating though, and while I can understand why the authoress did this (Presumably to keep it in the children's novel rating, as adding in profanity would ramp it up to a teen rating), I just found it to be obnoxious, and it took me out of the story more often than not. Luckily, this is mitigated by the wonderful cast of main characters, all of whom all have the right amount of pagetime and development, or at least manage to get it overtime. The minor characters are okay, but aren't as fleshed out as the main trio. I definitely wanted to see more of Teena and Luisa.

I liked how the story played out, and everything felt natural and realistic. Well, about as realistic as can be expected in regards to tough topics like suicide, sexual abuse, awful parents, and so on. I've never been through stuff like that myself, so I can't really comment on the authenticity of it. Bradley does say in the afterword that the book is based on some of her own experiences as a CSA survivor, and for what it's worth, none of the sexual abuse is described graphically or in detail, but definitely implied, and it's never used for shock value or forced drama as far as I can tell. It also helps that the book doesn't try to resolve every issue and tie it up in a neat little bow at the end, as that's not how life works, but that doesn't mean the characters can't find happiness. Now, I know a lot of people are going to take issue with the fact that this book, aimed at children, is covering topics like suicide and sexual abuse at all, claiming that kids shouldn't learn about those things in any way, or at least only have this book be shown to teenagers or older.

Personally, I think the idea of trying to hide tough topics from kids at all is utter bullshit. People are constantly underestimating children's intelligence when it comes to whether they can handle tough topics or not, and I really don't think actively trying to sanitize everything aimed at kids is the best way to go about this. I know every person handles these things differently, and with every kid that does want to know about tough topics like these, there are just as many who are sensitive and don't want to know about them until they're old enough to handle it, and that's fine. But I've always held the philosophy that kids should at least learn about these tough topics so they can learn how to deal with them, should they ever find themselves in that sort of situation. Why not use them as teaching tools in order to teach kids things like kindess, empathy, and the importance of reaching out for help? Kids are much smarter and more resilient than people give them credit for. I think every child should form their own opinion about whether they know they can handle tough topics in their media or not and make the decision for themselves whether they want to learn about them or not. Oh, and any overzealous Karens trying to claim that even the mere knowledge of suicide and CSA will somehow "corrupt the children" can go jump in an ocean of sulfuric acid.

Not perfect, but it's definitely an important book that absolutely deserves to be read at least once, especially for people going through the same situations as the main characters are. Remember, you're not alone, and all the bad things that happened to you are never your fault.
 
This review was written on December 27th, 2014.

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I give 2014's newest magical girl anime...a 83/100!

(Caveat: When this review was written, it only had one season, and there was no indication whether it was ever going to get a second season. Not only had one come out a few years after this, but it was just revealed today—April 30th, 2021—that a third season, titled Dai-Mankai no Shou, is due to come out in the future. This review only talks about the first season.)

Ever since Madoka Magica's popularity skyrocketed, many people have tried to emulate it and imitate it's success. Some have succeeded whereas others failed, with Daybreak Illusion being one such failure. It focused too much on shock value and being dark without properly developing its characters and giving us reasons to care about them. The most important thing in making a form of media is making it stand out from the rest. If it's too much like another work, people won't be interested in it. A form of media needs to stand on its own two feet and give us something other forms of media haven't Thankfully, Yuuki Yuna Is A Hero isn't yet another Madoka Magica rip-off, and succeeded where Daybreak Illusion failed. It even did some things better than Madoka!

The story is about four girls, soon to be five, who form a club at school called the Hero Club (why they don't call it the Magical Girl Club since it's about magical girls is beyond me) who go around doing good things for people, such as putting on puppet shows for kids, giving abandoned pets permanent homes, and just doing community service for their town. Every day, they pray to a divine tree that protects them. But one day, out of the blue, they're forced into another world, fighting monsters called Vertexes that threaten the peace of the world. They become magical girls to protect their precious world because it's the right thing to do. But...there are many secrets about the Vertexes and the concept of Heroes, and what happens when they find out the truth?

The animation has a bright, soft color palette during the slice-of-life scenes, but the battle scenes are bombastic, epic, and extremely colorful, going from light to dark in a matter of seconds depending on the situation, complete with flashy lights, fiery punches, and explosions. The character designs are relatively decent, and the transformation scenes are very well animated...though I'd prefer it if the camera didn't close in so much on Togo's chest and sexualize the girls so much. But for the most part, there's pretty much no ecchiness at all, even though it's a magical girl anime aimed at adults, so for the most part, it's okay. The soundtrack isn't really anything special, and some of the battle tracks with vocals sound too much like bad imitations of Madoka Magica's soundtrack. But I do love the opening and ending themes. They're soft, well sung, and know when to be subtle and when to hit hard.

The characters are a bit hard to talk about. They're all amalgamations of typical magical girl cliches at first glance: the cheerful pink girl, the smart and reliable older girl, the polite blue girl, the shy cutie, and the arrogant snob. I do admit they're a bit bland and could have used more development and fleshing out, but for the most part they're relatively decent, and do have their fair shares of hobbies and interests, so they're not entirely bland. I think a few more filler episodes dedicated to them just having fun and doing what they like could have benefitted the show a lot. But they do have a decent amount of character and personality, so we have more reasons to care about them. My favorite out of all of them is Itsuki. She's the most well developed out of all of them. She wants to be strong, has a dream she wants to fulfill, is trying to overcome her flaws in whatever ways possible, and loves her friends dearly, and she isn't the cute pure girl who doesn't know anything about the situation either, no matter how much her sister tries to hide it from her. She wants to throw herself into danger, be brave, and help her friends. To me, that's a character worth respecting. Why couldn't she be the main character?! Although I will say, I do like Yuna way more than, say, Megumi from Happiness Charge Pretty Cure.

Unfortunately, there is one character I seriously cannot stand: Karin. God, I can't stand her! She's a typical tsundere, she's arrogant and has a superiority complex, acts like she's better than everyone else because she's supposedly an artificial human, her annoying voice makes my ears bleed, and she does nothing throughout the entire show until too late in the series. Really, you could cut her out of the show entirely and nothing would be lost! Worst of all, the characters actually approve of her bad attitude and don't make a big deal out of it. I'm seeing this a LOT in most anime, and it's bugging me. I know it's probably shoehorning in the moral "Be nice to someone in the hopes that they'll reciprocate, see the errors of their ways, and change for the better," but wouldn't it be more believable if SOMEBODY got angry at her or called her out for being such an annoying, whiny little brat?

But this isn't the only flaw the show has. Since the series is only 12 episodes long, there isn't time to really develop the characters and explain some very crucial plot related issues. There's also the ending. I won't give anything away, but I feel it's just too happy and convenient for it's own good, and with some things not being permanent raises a lot of unfortunate implications. But I won't let those kill my enjoyment of the show. It has its problems, some minor and some major, but I really enjoyed it for what it was. I also praise it for managing to keep a good balance of both lightheartedness and seriousness without going overboard with both, complete with subtle hints and a general sense of unease throughout the series, keeping us on our toes. Daybreak Illusion tried too hard to be grimdark, and it failed in its presentation with its bland characters and no usage of basic characterization and storytelling techniques to make itself better. Yuuki Yuuna knows what it wants, but knows it has to make us care about the characters and restrain itself in getting there in order to be effective, and for the most part, it did very well.

It's not the best magical girl show out there, but I found it enjoyable. Feel free to check it out if you have the chance.
 
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Now here's something I didn't expect to see, let alone like and review. This was written on May 5th, 2021, and what do you know? It's a Chinese movie for once!

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I give this cute, well animated, action packed Chinese cartoon movie...a 88/100!

Some may say that the only countries that really produce good cartoons and animation are America and Japan, but that's not necessarily true. Other countries like France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and even China have produced a variety of their own cartoons, even since animation as an art form was first conceived, though it can't be denied that they're often stuck in America and Japan's shadows. I know China in particular has a lot of restrictions on the kind of content they're allowed to produce, with an example being outright banning depictions of homosexuality of any kind. I remember often seeing news stories on Anime News Network about how some studios not only stole backgrounds wholesale from other, more popular movies and shows (Finding Nemo and Pretty Cure in particular were often subject to this), but outright plagiarizing them on occasion. But in recent years, Chinese animation has really stepped up, which is insane since the world is still in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. I watched Big Fish and Begonia a while ago, and while I liked it okay, I didn't find it to be great. On the other hand, I stumbled upon The Legend of Hei, and wanted to see it. I rented it off of Vudu recently, and...wow. I honestly didn't expect this movie to be as good as it turned out to be.

For this review, with the exceptions of Xiaohei and Wuxian, I'm going to refer to everyone by their English dub names for the sake of convenience for myself. Anyway, the story begins when Xiaohei, a cat spirit, is driven out of his forest home when humans do construction work on it. He's taken in by a rogue spirit named Stormend and his friends, staying with them for the time being. But a human with mysterious powers, Wuxian, steals him away from Stormend, intent on taking him to a place called the Guild. Thinking he's a villain who hurt his new friends, Xiaohei doesn't trust Wuxian one bit, but gradually, Xiaohei does warm up to Wuxian on their voyage, along with learning the true nature of his fledgling powers. But as the truth about Stormend comes to light, Xiaohei finds that Stormend's kindness and reasons for helping him before might not be so noble.

The only reason I learned about this movie was because I saw a clip of it in an English voice actress's demo, and the art style really caught my eye. Having watched the movie in its entirety now, I can see why: The movie feels like it's a mixture of Ghibli and CalArts (the latter referring to the style used for shows like Steven Universe and Hilda). Xiaohei in particular has the CalArts bean mouth on occasion, and he looks like he came straight out of an episode of Hilda, but the other humans and demons have slightly more realistic albeit anime-esque designs, with sharper lines and less round limbs. But that's not the only way the animation stands out. For one, there's practically zero shading on the humans. The backgrounds are colorful and utilize shading, but for the characters, there are no shadows on their faces, hair, or anywhere else, making them really contrast the more detailed backgrounds. I think this style works for this movie because it really makes the characters pop, and it lets the animators focus more on the actual character movement, which is thankfully very kinetic and fluid, with very little in the way of still frames or shortcuts...though it does fall into the trope of having some characters move so fast that they disappear into thin air, which I think is really cliche and overdone at this point. I don't have much to say on the soundtrack, but I do remember it being good.

Granted, you can't have a good movie without good characters, and the main duo, Xiaohei and Wuxian, are pretty good! Both have subtle nuances to them that make them feel like more than just stock archetypes, and the fact that the first half of the movie is a road trip they go on, a lot of time is devoted to showing them growing closer and bonding, even if the circumstances that forced them to be together don't have them start off on a good note. The movie does have a lot of side characters, and many of them are fun and likeable, but there's so much of them that don't get a lot of screen time when they could have really benefited from it. As a result, some parts of the movie feel crowded, and a lot of characters are woefully underutilized. Thankfully, none of them are outright bad or anything, as they all have their own roles, motives, and purposes. Xiaohei and Wuxian are the ones that carry the movie, so it's inevitable that a lot of the focus would be on them, and even the villain has a surprisingly sympathetic backstory, though the movie makes it clear his actions aren't necessarily the right ones. I really wished that purple haired flower spirit got more screen time, or even a name for that matter, because she and Flow (the fox spirit girl) are adorable!

Story-wise, the movie is divided into two halves, with the first part being a low key road trip, and the second half being a more action-packed, fast paced, save the world kind of deal with higher stakes, and while I personally like how the movie shifted between the two halves, others may not. The pacing in the first half is very slow and deliberate, and the second half much faster paced, complete with shounen style fight scenes and bombast. The movie is really about Xiaohei's journey of self-discovery and learning that a home doesn't have to be a place, but where the people you love and cherish are. Granted, Legend of Hei does leave a lot of questions unanswered, such as why Xiaohei has the powers that he does and how Stormend even got his, and a lot of the themes it tackles can come across as heavy-handed to some, though I personally didn't think so. I will say though: This movie has a great sense of humor and comedic timing. A lot of really good comedy comes from quick cutaway gags and character actions that always managed to get a genuine laugh out of me. So if you want to watch The Legend of Hei, you're in luck! Shout Factory just released the movie on DVD and Blu-Ray this past week, complete with the original Chinese audio and an English dub (Which, BTW, is made up of Chinese-American actors. I checked), and you can also purchase it on digital platforms like YouTube, Amazon Prime, and so on. I wasn't sure I'd dip my toes back into watching Chinese donghua movies after Big Fish and Begonia, but I'm glad I decided to try out The Legend of Hei.

While it does suffer from being a little bloated and doing too much near the end, The Legend of Hei is a really nice, fun movie that really deserves more love.
 
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This review was written on May 12th, 2021.

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I give this book about a dog trying to find her owner...an 77/100!

Hey, kids! Remember during the fifties and sixties, when TV only had two or three channels? One of the most popular shows back in that era was one called Lassie, about a rough collie dog and the heroic feats she performs to protect her family. The show was so popular it ran for a whopping 19 seasons and made huge amounts of money. But what many didn't know was that it was based on a British book written in 1940 by Eric Knight, and the premise of the TV show is absolutely nothing like the book. My only knowledge of Lassie is the 25-episode anime series (Yes, that exists) and the book in question. Being a dog lover myself, I decided to pick it up at my local Barnes and Noble and give it a read to see if it's any good.

Rather than being about a boy named Timmy living with his family on an American farm, the story is about one 12-year-old Joe Carraclough, who lives on the outskirts of a British village with his family. He and his rough collie Lassie are best friends, and when school ends at four o'clock, Lassie is always there to walk him home. But one day, his family falls on tough times, and behind his back, his parents make the tough decision to sell Lassie to the local Duke of Rudling. Naturally, neither Joe nor Lassie are happy about this, but while Joe is made to accept that Lassie can never come back, Lassie manages to escape several times before getting dragged off to a far part of Scotland, several hundred miles away. Lassie isn't going to give up though, as she intends on returning to her family by any means necessary, no matter how long or how hard the journey gets.

As far as the prose goes, I think it's fine. It's simple enough for kids aged 9-12 to understand, though sometimes the accents and dialects on some of the other characters can really make understanding their dialogue harder than is necessary. Plus, a lot of the story is told from Lassie's point of view, and unlike most authors that try to make animals act and think more like humans, Eric Knight doesn't do that. He doesn't try to make Lassie into some sort of magical dog that always manages to understand what people want from her, something the TV series was pretty guilty of from what I can tell. She's just a dog who follows her instincts, does what she needs to survive, and loves her family, that's it. Good on Eric Knight for keeping her as a somewhat regular dog. Granted, not many dogs are able to travel hundreds of miles, but they do exist, albeit those are very rare cases.

Because the majority of the book is told from Lassie's point of view though, the human characters don't get much in the way of development. Many of them are rather one-note, with the Duke of Rudling just being an old bat who constantly complains about how everything isn't as good as the old days, Joe just being a kid, his mother being grumpy and unsympathetic to his plight, and so on. They're not bad in any way, just kind of bland, as they don't get as much page time as Lassie does. I will say though, I REALLY didn't like Joe's mother. All she ever did throughout the book was complain, whine, and get mad at Joe at the mere mention of Lassie. As far as the story goes, it's alright. I don't know if it's the actual first book telling the story of a dog traveling hundreds of miles to find its owner, but it probably made the trope popular, and as of now, that premise is considered a cliche and has been used for a lot of other media.

Not necessarily one of the best books, but it's easy to see why it's considered a classic in literature, and even with its issues, I personally like it. It's a good book for any dog lover looking for something wholesome to read.
 
The original review of this was written on October 28th, 2014, though finished later, but I wrote a new review (more like added new stuff to the old review) on September 4th, 2020.

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I give the 11th Pretty Cure series...a 55/100.

Wait, didn't I already review this back when it first aired? Yes I did. But after rewatching it and doing some thinking, I decided to lower its rating, because out of all the Pretty Cure seasons I've seen, I feel Happiness Charge Pretty Cure is by far the weakest. But before I elaborate, I want to explain something: Some people I've talked to a few years ago have gotten the impression that I hate light hearted magical girl shows and only like stuff that's dark and gritty, but I'd like to clarify that that's not true. I like Madoka Magica, but not because it's dark. My favorite magical girl anime of all time is Fancy Lala, and some of my other favorites are the Pretty Sammy TV series, Cardcaptor Sakura, Yuki Yuna is a Hero, Nurse Angel Ririka SOS, and Princess Tutu. I watched the first episode of Magical Girl Site and I absolutely hated it because of how over-the-top dark and violent it tried to be, and it was clear it was only doing it for the sake of being as violent as possible and nothing else. I don't go anywhere near the Nanoha series because of its more fanservicey elements. The point I'm trying to make is that I like both happy and serious magical girl shows, but I also like my magical girl anime to have substance. I want magical girl anime, nay anime in general, to be more than just a sugar fest or a grimdark violence fest. Magical Girl Site is obviously the latter, but having watched Happiness Charge Precure in its entirety...I won't say it's the worst show I've seen, nor even the worst Precure series out there, but to put it plainly, Happiness Charge is trite, uninspired, hollow, and superfluous, encapsulating the overall franchise's worst problems.

The story is about Hime Shirayuki, a princess of the Blue Sky Kingdom. Her kingdom was attacked by the Phantom Empire, and despite becoming a Pretty Cure, she is utterly hopeless at fighting, and has to go to Earth for her own safety, accompanied by her friend Ribbon. Her rival, Cure Fortune, blames her for everything and Hime is at a loss as to what to do. She does, however, find a new friend in a young girl named Megumi Aino, a happy-go-lucky girl who is obsessed with love and making people happy. Megumi actually winds up becoming a Pretty Cure alongside Hime—Cure Lovely. Together, along with two new allies, the girls try to fight the Phantom Empire's minions, the Saiarks, and try to stop them from spreading despair. But there's a lot more to the Phantom Empire than meets the eye, and there are many secrets to be revealed.

The animation...fluctuates a LOT throughout the series. Some episodes, it's good, other episodes...are pretty badly animated, with kooky faces with parts out of place, movement being stilted, the animation style being really cloudy and too cartoony for my tastes (but I got used to it), etc. The budget for the episodes is clearly limited, but when they use it, boy do they use it! Hime's transformation is the most well animated and visually pleasing transformation in the entire series, and that's saying a lot. But other than that, the show's animation is sub-par. The music...I don't know what to say about this one. The opening theme is too bubblegummy for me, the ending themes more so. The actual soundtrack...ugh, to be honest, I can't tell if the show even has its own pieces at all, because since the show has the same composer as Doki Doki Precure before it, the anime reuses pieces from Doki Doki in EVERY SINGLE EPISODE! Now, if the show was a direct sequel to Doki Doki, I wouldn't have a problem if they're the same series taking place in the same universe, but HapiCha is an entity completely separate from Doki Doki, so the fact that they reuse music from Doki Doki makes the production team really come off as lazy and uninspired. I get that there are budget issues involved, and other series used music from other series too, but at least Suite made sure to not use Heartcatch and Fresh pieces in EVERY episode.

The characters...are arguably a mixed bag. However, before I get to the bad, I really need to talk about what I feel is THE best part of the entire show: Hime. She is by far the best main character in any anime I've seen. She's well developed, has plenty of flaws and weaknesses, good qualities and strengths, has the best executed character arc in the show, is proactive despite her royal upbringing and occasionally selfish personality, grows as a character throughout the series awesomely, and has more spotlight on her than the pink character. The show seems to be making her out to be the main character, even though it's sort of not the case. And seriously, why can't Hime be the main character? Because she's easily the best character in the entire show even though she's made of traits that people would absolutely hate if done wrong, and Hime's character is done so right it's not even funny. I'm glad the writers really pulled out all the stops when it came to Hime. Also, Glasan is awesome.

Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the other characters. Now don't get me wrong, they're not bad. They're all engagingly flawed...except for Yuuko. I'll get to that in a bit. One thing I like about the series is that the characters all come off as annoying at first, but when you least expect it, the writers realize it and completely redeem them for you. I used to hate Iona for being a straight up jerk to Hime for plot reasons, but she dropped the act and realized her own faults as well. The other characters all have engaging flaws...except for one: Yuuko. Sorry, guys. I hate to admit it, as I like her too, but there's no denying it: Yuuko is woefully underutilized, and because of this, she comes off as extremely perfect, almost Mary Sue-ish. She's unfailingly kind and friendly, loves food and rice to insane levels, doesn't make any mistakes, all of her potential flaws are presented as cute character quirks instead of realistic flaws, everything she does is praised by everyone, she's always in the right, nobody questions what she does (save for a few, but even they change their views later on), and she's loved by everyone. Her character writing is one of the show's low points, as a character like Yuuko just isn't very interesting, and her focus episodes were all poorly executed, especially the cheesy episode 31, with the fact that the entire episode implied she had a love interest that turned out to be something else entirely. Both her character and that episode could have been handled so much better. But I do appreciate that she contributes no more or less than any of the other characters, that her attacks aren't foolproof, and that she's still on the same level as the girls, so I can give kudos to the creators for that.

The villains are pretty much the same. Mirage and Phantom are the only good villains in the show, whereas the bumbling bad trio are the worst. They're never developed, their backstories aren't elaborated on, and they're very bland, one note characters who don't do much throughout the entire show. They were the biggest waste of characters ever. Also, I absolutely hate Hosshiwa. Her voice was annoying, her character was annoying, her personality was annoying, her evil laugh was annoying, God everytime she opened her mouth I just wanted to deck her! Another contender is the final villain. I won't spoil anything, but he is the whiniest, most annoying, most pathetic villain I've ever seen. He constantly whines and moans about how love is bad every five minutes any time he's on screen! He doesn't even do anything really threatening, just brainwashing people and being annoying, and he REFUSES TO SHUT UP!!! Seriously, I can write a better villain character than him! And the thing is, the show constantly builds him up as being this really dangerous, threatening force, so when it turns out he's little more than a whiny simp, the show basically crapped on all of the build-up it used for him and made it all go to waste.

That said, the main heroine of this series, Megumi, is also one of the show's biggest detriments, especially compared to other leads in Precure shows. Now, Pretty Cure is notorious for being very clingy to its own formula, rehashing the same character archetypes, color schemes, and personalities all throughout their shows, with only a few changes every now and again. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but using the same character type over and over again gets boring. At times, Toei knows this, and one of the reasons seasons like Heartcatch and the original series are so popular is because they had stories and characters that were different from the typical klutzy, cheerful, always happy archetype. Nagisa was tomboyish and could be a brat. Tsubomi was shy and timid. Hana from Hugtto Precure, behind her cheerful facade, was deeply insecure and felt like she couldn't keep up with the other girls as a Precure. Even the current series, Healin Good, has Nodoka, who is nice and kind, but also down to earth and frail because of having been sick for most of her life. People love magical girl shows that take risks and give their characters flaws that they have to overcome in order to grow as people. Those make characters interesting and relatable when done well. Watching those particular seasons, you can tell right away there was more to the characters than just one basic trait. The problem with Megumi is that the creators were less concerned about making her interesting and three-dimensional, and more with making her as over-the-top cutesy and nice and sweet as humanly possible, having her say her catchphrase "Shiawase Happiness" every other episode and having her talk non-stop about love and kindness and how being nice is good just for the sake of it. Even during episodes where she's supposed to experience real character growth and mature as a person, the writers still insist on having her act extremely childish and nauseatingly idealistic, like they're convinced children can't handle human characters who don't spout cutesy catchphrases all the time. Think Charlie from Tim Burton's Willy Wonka movie level of overly idealistic. For example, when she finds out Hime is running away after finding out the truth about why the Phantom Empire attacked, what does she do? She magically puts on a cutesy wootsy dog costume and chases after her. She basically comes off as an overly saccharine five-year-old in a 14-year-old girl's body, almost a caricature, and kids don't like having over-the-top sweetness and sugar shoved down their throats. And no, the show being a giant toy commercial is no excuse, because there are plenty of toy-based shows that actually put in the effort to write nuanced characters when they want to. My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, and hell, even several of the early Precure shows, are great examples of this. And no, this also doesn't mean I hate cheerful, perky, happy characters. I just don't like it when writers go way over the top with it, have it be their only character trait, and amping it up to ridiculous levels. My point: Have the cheerful characters act like people, not like hyperactive five year olds who do nothing but spout cutesy catchphrases all the damn time! But I know there are people who like Megumi and the rest of the cast as characters, so if you like them, cool! More power to you. This is just how I feel about the cast as a whole, not me dissing anyone who likes them.

Which also brings me to the show's biggest flaw. Now, let me say this: when it knows what it wants to do, Happiness Charge is great. But when it doesn't, it sinks. Hard. What do I mean? Well, some episodes are written well, while others are very poorly executed, like the writers were battling over what the moral of the episode should be and wind up making an episode that's a big mess. Unfortunately, Happiness Charge is pretty guilty of this. Episode 17 is one such example. To me it looked like the moral was going to be about Hime learning that it's okay to share your friends with other friends, but Megumi and Yuuko force Hime to support Seiji's karate tournament, and at one point Hime says "Curse you, Seiji!" for no reason at all, implying that she secretly hated him. I won't go into detail about other episodes, as it'd take waaaay too long. But yeah, it's like the show is at a fork in the road and it goes on one road, only to constantly zigzag between that road and the other, and in the end it finally decides on a road, only to still have doubts and regrets and the feeling of not having reached their destination. That's how Happiness Charge's filler episodes are to me. But different strokes for different blokes, I suppose. Plus, all the romance was really forced, and in a way, it didn't really need to be there. My mom often says "don't buy the car if you can't drive it." For this series? Don't try to write about something if you're going to write it badly...or in this case, indecisively. So lack of focus is Happiness Charge's biggest problem. But there are shows that did this far worse, and when the show knows what it wants to do, boy does it shine! I only wish it was this focused during its filler episodes, too.

That said, even its main plot suffers from lack of proper planning. For one, Happiness Charge establishes that certain items and plot points are important very early on, the PreCards being one of them...but then completely forgets about them by the show's end, never doing anything with them. I hear a lot of the show's problems are because it's meant to celebrate the franchise's 10th anniversary, and because the creators knew fans of the franchise love Heartcatch, they tried emulating it in a variety of ways. But that decision really hurt the show's quality, as Happiness Charge's lack of focus, tendency to forget important plot points or not mention anything until the last minute, uneven character writing, and shallow storytelling make it utterly unable to stand on its own two feet as a Precure series. Thankfully, the creators seem to have realized this, as the next season, Go Princess Precure, was a vast improvement over HapiCha in every way, even though it also reused Doki Doki's music at times. Plus, other magical girl shows, and other shows in general, tackled Happiness Charge's premise and did them better. Toei, if you really wanted to celebrate the franchise's tenth anniversary, this was NOT the way to do it.

I originally rated this a 70/100, but after some critical thinking, and having seen later seasons, and others, I knocked it down to a 55. I don't know if I would call this one the worst season, as I haven't seen every Precure season. But having seen a good chunk of them in their entirety, this one included, I really didn't enjoy Happiness Charge Precure at all. Not only is it overly saccharine and milquetoast compared to other magical girl shows, hell even compared to other seasons of its mother franchise, it simply tries too hard to be something its not. It's definitely not one of the better seasons, and I wouldn't recommend wasting time on it in any fashion. It's still better than Magical Girl Site, though!
 
This review was written on October 17th, 2016, but not finished until this year.

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I give this drastically formula-changing Harvest Moon game...a 73/100.

Looking at Harvest Moon: The Tale of Two Towns' premise, you would think this would be one of the best Harvest Moon games out there. It completely changes the formula of the series in many different ways, such as having a substantial storyline instead of just raise animals, grow food, and get married. It also lets you change your characters' clothes, you get to go to two places instead of being stuck in one place, it offers a new variety of pets such as alpacas, owls, and St. Bernard dogs, all of the bachelor/ettes look great, you can actually go on real dates with them rather than just trigger their flower events, and there are even ones you have to unlock manually if you want them hard enough. With a new and improved animation style and a catchy soundtrack that changes depending on the events that happen, you would think that Harvest Moon: The Tale of Two Towns would be an undisputed masterpiece among Harvest Moon games.

Unfortunately, that's not the case. Don't get me wrong, this definitely isn't a bad game by any means. But it has a lot of problems and flaws that really hold it back.

The general premise is simple. Two towns, Bluebell and Konohana, have been feuding since olden times, namely because their mayors are too stupid and immature to be civil for two seconds. Their behavior angers the equally stupid Harvest Goddess, so much so that she causes an earthquake where rocks fall in the tunnel in the mountain that connects the two towns, blocking both of them off for good. Years later, you, the farmer, move into one of the towns, and are tasked with making the two towns stop fighting, because obviously the Harvest Goddess can't be bothered to fix her own mistake because she's too shallow, selfish, and lazy for her own good. You also get to fulfill requests for people, kinda like Pokemon Mystery Dungeon's requests, only people want items and give items in return if you're able to give them what they want, and you can participate in cooking contests, which is the fastest way to make the mayors stop hating each other.

As you can't tell, Harvest Moon: Tale of Two Towns does have an overarching storyline rather than just run a farm, grow food, raise animals, and get married. Unfortunately, one of this game's biggest flaws is that said story relies completely on certain characters acting as immature, stupid, and downright idiotic as possible, to rage-inducing levels. The whole feud could have been solved had the two mayors been civil for just two seconds, rather than just flinging terrible, G-rated insults at each other like little kids in the school yard, and the mayors are fully grown adults, for crying out loud! Not only that, any hatred the two have for each other doesn't even last long anyway, as if you win the cooking contests enough times, they actually do start to become civil with each other, making the entire conflict not only completely pointless, but leaving it with no lasting impact on anything or anyone whatsoever. You could cut the storyline out entirely and nothing would be lost.

I wish that was the end of Tale of Two Towns' flaws, but unfortunately, it isn't. Two Towns has a lot holding it back from being a truly great game. One is that it takes FOREVER for anything to get done! Oftentimes, people request items you're not able to get right away, and the requests are always on a deadline, so even if you manage to get the item, you might miss the deadline for the request, which is really stupid. Why make them request items that are impossible to even get the first time around? This also applies to really important things, like expanding your field or house. These particular achievements only appear once a month, and if you don't have enough materials, you're not going to be able to fulfill that request again until it pops back up at random, and even those acquire hard to get materials such as Ore Stones. It can take many in-game years for you to even get anything done, especially if you want your character to get married and have a child. And if your request involves crops, do be careful not to let those things rot! Yes, crops can actually rot and spoil if you keep them for too long. This can be rectified somewhat if you have horse carts at a certain level, but those don't keep them fresh completely. So even if you have the crops, they could very well spoil if enough time passes! And you NEED certain crops if you even have a sliver of a chance of winning those cooking contests, let alone entering them! Speaking of crops and cooking, the game holds cooking contests every week, each with a different theme. You're basically browbeaten into participating because of how frequently the game throws these cooking festivals at you, more so because you cannot progress through the main story without participating in them. Combined with the game not allowing you to grow as many crops as you'd like, along with making crops spoil after time passes, it makes the cooking festivals feel more tedious than enjoyable. Oh, and did I mention you can't even access the mine until you completed certain requests, even AFTER you finish the main story?

Not helping matters are the mechanics behind feritlizers and increasing your crops' star quality. The game practically forces you to buy fertilizer, which is expensive in-game, and not just one batch of it either, but huge amounts of it if you want your crops to even get past three stars. Plus, when tilling your fields, the game wants you to make trenches, which allows you to make fertilizing your crops easier rather than having them take up one individual hole. But the game also wants you to completely circle your crops with it, and I could never figure out how to make trenches for the life of me. For a game part of a franchise that's supposed to be relaxing and laid-back, it seems like it's actively trying to turn you off to actually doing anything.

But wait, you say, surely Tale of Two Towns has SOME redeeming qualities about it, right? As few as they are, it goes have some good points. For one, when you're trying to romance someone, you not only get to go on dates with them, and having the locations of said dates affect how it turns out, you can't simply increase their heart level and then marry them. You also have to raise the heart levels of their family members and close friends, making the dating sim aspect feel much more organic and true to life in the fact that you really have to put in the work to woo your chosen bachelor/ette. The soundtrack is pleasant to listen to, the graphics are cute and look really good by Nintendo DS standards, and other than Cheryl, the mayors in the beginning, and the awful, egotistical Harvest Goddess, I found the characters to be pretty likeable. Not the most three-dimensional or fleshed out, but serviceable enough. I only wish several characters had been expanded on more, like Georgia, Nori, and Kamil. I also find it adorable that the 3DS version of the game made petting your animals into a cute mini game and that you can literally get an owl for a pet! How cool is that?! Fair warning, though: For anyone wanting to buy the game in any way, for the love of the Harvest Goddess, DO NOT buy the 3DS cartridge version! I hear that it is HORRIBLY buggy, from being unable to load character sprites to even outright deleting your save data! But if you do want to play it on the 3DS, either just get the DS version, or buy it off the 3DS eShop. You'll save yourself a LOT of pain that way.

I feel bad for being so hard on Tale of Two Towns, because it could have been a great game had it been free of so many of the problems mentioned above. While it's by no means a BAD Harvest Moon game, it's definitely one of the more flawed and tedious ones, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone looking for a leisurely gaming experience.
 
This review was written on May 18th, 2021.

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I give this cute manga about VR idols...an 85/100!

Media about Japanese idol singers are about as commonplace as seeing candy in a convenience store. In particular, anime and manga about them have been around since the eighties, and the idol craze doesn't seem to be dying down any time soon. But out in the West, idol anime don't exactly get the best reputation, mostly because they come across as generic or have little to no substance to them. Many of them just rehash the same premises over and over again, with very few daring to try anything new with them. There are some exceptions, key word being some, but many of them are just there to either promote real life idols or are little more than cash grabs for multimedia franchises trying to make a quick buck. But there are hidden gems to be found, and one idol manga that I've come across, Hop Step Sing, actually manages to stand above a lot of the more generic idol fare and try something new.

Middle schooler Niina Nijikawa loves idols and singing, but she gets terrible stage fright when in front of an audience, mainly due to being told she's way too loud, so she thinks that dream is dead before she can even fulfill it. But when a new friend introduces her to virtual reality and all it has to offer, she thinks she found the solution to her problem: Why not become a VR idol? She can sing in front of an audience without actually being in front of them herself! Joining her in her endeavor are polite rich girl Shikiri Shiishiba and bossy, arrogant shut-in Mikasa Minowa. Together, the three of them become the VR idol group Hop Step Sing! But the trio have to face one adversary after another if they have even a chance of making it into the idol scene.

The manga is based on a set of actual VR music videos that are actually available on Steam. Don't worry, you don't need to have played the games to understand or enjoy the manga, as it pretty much acts as an origin story for the group in question. Plus, with the manga, you don't have to worry about weird CGI either. The manga's artwork is pretty nice. Not as details as others I've seen, but it does its job decently well, and parts of it remind me of a straight shoujo manga, like the characters' big, sparkly eyes, the cute outfits they wear, and the themes of overcoming adversity through friendship and working hard. The scenery during the VR segments are especially well drawn, and it's made clear that the artist had quite a bit of fun experimenting with the more detailed backgrounds whenever the occasion calls for it.

Of course, you can't have a story without characters to follow. Admittedly, they do start off adhering to some typical anime archetypes, like the shy girl, the polite rich girl, and the arrogant little brat, but even over the course of the manga's short run time, the series never forgets to give them some degree of depth and character development that fit their character arcs, even if the transition isn't always the most smooth for one character in particular (Mikasa). I definitely liked this little trio a lot more than I do characters in certain other idol anime I've seen or heard about, that's for sure, and it's rare for idol series to make me genuinely care about their characters and stories. The shy girls doesn't always get to be main characters in idol media, as that's usually reserved for the more peppy, cheerful characters. But the biggest strength the manga has to offer is its usage of VR technology and how the characters make use of it to achieve idolhood and overcome their own insecurities. It's not something that most idol media have tried to use, and the way Hop Step Sing incorporates it into its story definitely makes for a lot of interesting ideas and scenarios that it manages to utilize perfectly, making it stand out among the millions of other idol media that rely too much on the same generic premises over and over again.

In terms of flaws, I can really only think of four:
1. Mikasa makes a VERY bad first impression when she first appears. She does get better as a character later on, but I don't blame you at all if you decided to drop the manga because of her alone.
2. Many of the side characters don't receive as much screentime or development as they should, so they wind up coming across as one-note.
3. The manga doesn't really have the girls face any real adversaries or actually experience the more problematic aspects of the idol industry. Several subplots imply that they likely will, but they all either wind up never happening or just pushed to the wayside, never mentioned again, and everything that happens to the girls winds up going swimmingly for them in the end.
4. ITS TOO DAMN SHORT!!! By short, I mean this manga only has three volumes, that's it. The story has so much potential and I really wanted to read more of this and see these characters grow!

If you want to own this manga, it unfortunately doesn't have physical copies made available, as it's digital only. If Kodansha USA ever decides to put out paperbacks of this, I'm buying the whole series again in a heartbeat, because I think this manga is genuinely good and deserves more love and appreciation than it gets! But I know this won't appeal to everyone, especially anime fans who are utterly sick of idols being shoehorned into everything, and I can understand where they're coming from. But if you just want a short, light read that does something new with the idol formula and is full of heart rather than cheese, definitely give Hop Step Sing a try if you can.
 
Now I'm definitely sure anime fans have heard of this one. This review was finished just yesterday.

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I give this long-standing magical girl manga...an 90/100!

Unlike most anime fans I know of, I never grew up watching Cardcaptor Sakura. The English dubbed version of the anime, called Cardcaptors, did air when I was younger, but I stayed the hell away from it. Why? Because I saw one of the commercials and dismissed it as some babyish girly show where the characters would talk about nothing but fashion and boys, be petty and nasty to one another over stupid things, and assumed it was something like Bratz. Yeah, I admit, I was a pretty judgmental kid. To seven/eight year old me, nothing could beat Pokemon and Digimon in my eyes. Over the years, I started to warm up to the series upon learning more about it, even managing to finally watch the whole anime when I was in college, though I saw the movies before that, and even bought Tokyopop's release of the manga at my local bookstore. In fact, I still have those manga volumes on my shelf to this day, even after other companies put out newer, better prints of it with new translations and everything. Cardcaptor Sakura is considered one of the best children's anime of all time, and one of many manga that put CLAMP on the map in the anime fandom. It's easy to see why, and now, as an adult, I appreciate it a lot more than I did when I was younger. That being said, how does it hold up today in my eyes?

Sakura Kinomoto is a normal ten-year-old girl with a pretty easy life. One day, she finds a mysterious book in her basement, and upon opening it, a slew of magical tarot cards fly out, spreading all across the city. She also accidentally awakens one of the guardians of said book, Cerberus, aka Kero-chan. It turns out the cards she released are called Clow Cards, magical cards created by a famous magician, Clow Reed. Kero tells her that since she released the cards, she has to be the one to stop them from wreaking havoc on the world. With this, Sakura is christened as a cardcaptor, and with her loyal friends by her side, she's determined to collect all the Clow Cards.

Really, what is there to say about CLAMP's art that hasn't been said already? It's luscious and beautiful, and in this case, since CCS is a children's manga, they manage to make the kids look cute without bordering on overly saccharine. The linework is clean and sharp, the backgrounds are packed with detail, the character designs are great, and the fight scenes are all packed with action and effects that really make them pop. I do feel that sometimes the billowy costumes can be a little over the top though, making some panels and frames look busier than they should be. Also, having read Magic Knight Rayearth, which came out before CCS and had thicker lines, sharper eyes for the characters, and the character designs did make the characters have overly long, thin noodle limbs, CCS is noticeably an improvement on that front, with more realistic character designs and nicer looking eyes.

There's also no denying that CLAMP are masters of creating diverse, versatile, and likeable characters that immediately win you over with their charm. Every character, from the main leads to minor characters such as this one group of Sakura's school friends, are all given their time in the limelight, getting equal amounts of development and depth to them, really making the world the series takes place in come alive. One problem I had with Magic Knight Rayearth's manga is that it was moving at such a fast pace that it didn't bother to leave time to show what the characters were like outside of saving the world. CCS remedies that flaw impeccably, as the manga has 12 volumes, giving CLAMP plenty of freedom to balance out the more action packed chapters with ones where the characters just hang out and have fun. My favorite chapters were the ones where Sakura goes to the festival and gets the Glow card and one where she meets a nice old man. That being said, the manga is rather vague in regards to what Kaho Mizuki's deal is, and I wish more had been done with her. Anime fans are probably wondering "Where's Meiling?" Y'know, Syaoran's cousin in the anime. Technically, she doesn't exist in the manga. Meiling is a completely original character made solely for the anime, so she's nowhere to be found in the manga.

Given that this is, indeed, a children's series, CLAMP obviously can't indulge in some of their favorite tropes, like having the series just end with many questions unanswered, or a lot of the things they use in their more teenager-oriented works, such as more detailed violence. Of course, they're self-aware enough that they didn't try to dumb down the story they had for CCS. The premise is still child-friendly, but there's enough intrigue and depth to Sakura's card collecting quest that it never feels like the manga is insulting you for expecting something more from it, offering plenty of worldbuilding and backstory that manages to seamlessly fit into CCS's narrative. That being said, CCS isn't a perfect manga. Like I said earlier, I still think the manga should have done more with the character of Kaho Mizuki. Plus...there is one thing about the manga that might be a potential turn-off for a lot of people. CLAMP has a pretty accepting view of age-gap romances, even ones that would normally be considered creepy and unethical, like Sakura's mother, who married a teacher while she was a 16-year-old high school student (Japan considers 16 the legal age of marriage), with the most egregious one being one of Sakura's friends, a ten year old girl, crushing on a teacher who's in his thirties...and having said teacher actually reciprocate those feelings. Granted, nothing sexual or explicit happens, and the anime changed it to just a one sided crush on the girl's part, but anyone who really doesn't like seeing this stuff at all is going to have a hard time with it, and I honestly have to question why CLAMP put this in at all. Luckily, they seem to have realized how stupid and creepy this was, so when they made the sequel manga Clear Card years later, they cut the teacher character in question out of the story while also having Sakura's friend go to another school, downplaying her role in the story. So for me, while that particular element doesn't exactly sit right with me, I'm glad CLAMP didn't go further with it than they did, and I can at least take comfort in the fact that they addressed the issue later on, so kudos to them.

Overall, this is my more objective analysis of Cardcaptor Sakura as a manga series. But the thing is, one thing that makes me decide whether something will be one of my all-time favorites is whether it really resonates with me, blows me away, and hits me in the feels. So, I pose the question: Did Cardcaptor Sakura resonate with me, to the point that it becomes one of my favorite series? Sadly, the answer is no. This is not me saying CCS is a bad manga. It's very good, and I can absolutely see why it made the impact it did on not only magical girl anime, but anime as a whole. I like it, but I don't necessarily LOVE it, per se. It just didn't really add any extra spices to its storytelling and takes on various magical girl tropes. There are plenty of other anime and manga that I just happen to love a lot more. I guess I would have appreciated it more had I watched it as a kid, or even saw the uncut version earlier, but who can say? That being said, Cardcaptor Sakura is a great manga that I can wholly recommend to anyone looking for something sweet and heartwarming to read without it being too saccharine, and I think it absolutely earned its designation as a beloved classic, as it should.
 
This newest review was just finished today, a remake of the one from August 10th, 2011.

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I give this colorful, eclectic children's movie...an 85/100!

In the year 2010, the company A-1 Pictures decided to try their hand at making their first feature length movie (I think? Do correct me if I'm wrong), titled Welcome To The Space Show. It was their attempt to make a children's movie with as wide appeal as possible, similar to how most of Ghibli's movies do. Having seen this back when it first got fansubbed, I really liked it...but it never got an official home video release in the US until four years later, surprisingly enough. We can thanks GKids for eventually getting the license for it. I remember reviewing this back when it first came out, but having rewatched the movie this year, with the English dub, my opinions on it have changes slightly. I do think Welcome To The Space Show is a very beautifully animated and fun children's movie. It does have a lot of the cliches that usually come with the genre, but it's still surprisingly well executed.

It starts off a bit like Digimon at first glance. So basically five young kids decide to spend a week or so at a self-run camp at their school, totally all by themselves in order to induce a sense of responsibility, trust, and teamwork (though this is rather hard for two kids in particular as they got in a fight regarding a lost rabbit named Pyonkichi). One day, one of the kids finds an injured dog and they nurse it back to health. But the dog, whose name is Pochi Rickman, is actually an alien scientist who's studying plants and searching for a species of plant long believed to be extinct. To thank them for saving him, he takes them to the moon, where they're exposed to all kinds of new sights and wonders. But before they know it, the gates to Earth get closed and the kids have to find some alternate way to get back to Earth before summer break ends or else their parents will worry. But they'll find themselves getting wrapped up in a far bigger situation than they bargained for.

Yeah yeah, cliche premise, kids get taken to another world they never seen before and meet monsters, yada yada yada. Digimon-esque, I know. The premise isn't exactly new, but I don't think this is why the movie was made. Plus, you have to admit the movie does tackle a bit too many stories at once. Kids seeing the moon, being trapped on the moon, watch the space show, something about an extinct plant, aliens hunt down Pochi, etc. There's no denying that the movies does take a lot of influence from other stuff, like some of the more kid-oriented movies in Ghibli's library, with the space train parts being lifted straight out of Galaxy Express 999. It often feels like the movie switches from one storyline to another whenever it feels like it. I personally didn't mind it, as parts of it made sense in the context of the story and how it progresses, but I can understand how others would find the sudden transitions to be jarring and make the movie as a whole a big mess. Though I have seen worse in that regard, so I'm not going to diss Space Show for doing it the way it did.

Honestly, the best thing about the movie is the graphics, and A-1 really went all out here. The colors are bright and imaginative, the artwork is gorgeous, both in the foreground and background, and the actual animation is very expressive and never static. The characters in the movie really come to life in how they're animated, and they're extremely dynamic in their emotions, poses, and constantly changing expressions. The movie packs in tons of details, with plenty of nonverbal communication between the characters that you have to work to be able to find. Say what you will about A-1 Pictures and the fact that all they work on is Sword Art Online nowadays, but when they go all out, they really go all out. It's a shame they don't do more stuff like this anymore. I don't have as much to say about the soundtrack, as I think it feels too much like a Saban-style action movie score, except for one thing: How the hell did the creators of the movie manage to get Susan Boyle of all people to sing the ending song?! How?! I know she got famous literally a year before the movie came out, but doesn't it cost a lot of money to use a British singer's song for a Japanese movie? Don't they have tons of copyright issues surrounding that kind of stuff? How did A-1 pony up the money to do that?!

It also helps that the cast of characters, while not the most developed, are pretty likeable and charming. Because most of the movie consists of the kids exploring space and learning all it has to offer, the movie gives us a good sense of who they are, their strengths, weaknesses, and quirks. Because of it's limited time frame as a movie, it doesn't have a whole lot of room to flesh them out, but the time they do get is fairly well done. There's a bit of drama near the end that is very effective and realistic because the movie never forgets that it's dealing with children who make mistakes and aren't always the smartest. I also liked a lot of the side characters as well, even though I wish the movie had done more with them. I wasn't a big fan of the villain, though, and apparently the security staff in this movie was too incompetent for their own good. There is one other flaw that keeps me from bumping my rating higher: The movie has some bits of child nudity that, while not outright explicit or anything, might ruffle more than a few feathers. I mean, who wants to see a four-year-old boy's cartoon penis in the beginning of the movie? These scenes are very small and are only a few seconds long, but while I personally wasn't bothered by it, as I know Japan has different views on child nudity than America does, but I can see overzealous parents seeing even brief shots like this and foaming at the mouth.

So in the end, Welcome To The Space Show suffered from trying to be too epic and trying to bite off more than it can chew. That being said, for this being A-1's first ever movie, and I say they still did a bang-up job for their first effort. It's a fun, cheerful, enjoyable family movie that manages to balance life-like characterization and imaginative space adventures.

Old review under spoilers. Warning: Excessive fangirliness and unpolished critique follows:

I give this adorable anime movie a 90/100!

For those of you who don't know and those who think this might be a Miyazaki movie, this movie is produced by A-1 Pictures, a company well known for series such as Big Windup, Kuroshitsuji, Valkyria Chronicles, and the three animes that aired on the Anime no Chikara timeslot (which kicked the bucket). But in mid or late 2010, they produced this anime movie, Welcome To The Space Show. I have no idea why they did this or how (and why the heck they had Susan Boyle of all people sing the ending theme for this), but they sure did a heck of a good job in making this come alive!...and I sure am glad I saw this movie!

So basically five young kids decide to spend a week or so at a self-run camp at their school, totally all by themselves in order to induce a sense of responsibility, trust, and teamwork (though this is rather hard for two kids in particular as they got in a fight regarding a lost rabbit named Pyon-Kichi). One day, one of the kids finds an injured dog and they nurse it back to health. But the dog, whose name is Pochi Rickman, is actually an alien scientist who's studying plants and searching for a species of plant long believed to be extinct. To thank them for saving him, he takes them to the moon, where they're exposed to all kinds of new sights and wonders, piquing their curiosity and overstimulating their excitement to high levels. But before they know it, the gates to Earth get closed and the kids have to get back to Earth before summer break ends or else their parents will worry. But they're not the only ones put in a bad situation.

Yeah yeah, cliche premise, kids get taken to world they never seen before and meet monsters, yada yada yada. Digimon-esque, I know. The premise isn't exactly new, but I don't think this is why the movie was made. Plus you have to admit the movie does tackle a bit too many stories at once. Kids seeing the moon, being trapped on the moon, watch the space show, aliens hunt down Pochi, etc. The end may be a bit overkill for some people, but I for one really liked it. Yeah, it's a kids anime after all so it does have the cliches that most kids movies have. But durn is it an awesomely executed one!

The animation...yeah. Just GUESS what I'm gonna say. The animation here is one of the BEST I've seen in movies for a VERY long time. Colors are lively and vibrant, characters move fluently and realistically, there's lots of facial expressions that are well animated, fight scenes are well choreographed, jeez! There has to be a limit to how much colors and brightness should be used in a movie. Sure the graphics and visuals MIGHT give people seizures (maybe to a Gankutsuou degree), but you have to admit, this movie has amazingly top-tier animation that not even Kyoto Animation can top. A-1 Pictures really seems to be getting a following. I have NO idea where the heck they get funding and budgets from, but they seem to have bottomless buckets of it (if they weren't wasted on Blue Exorcist and Fairy Tail, of course). This has to be one of the best animated things I've seen from them (RIIIIIGHT next to AnoHana). I think the animation is why this movie is made. It's striking, that's for sure!

The characters in this movie, despite being kids, are very likeable. The staff really knows that they're dealing with children in this movie, and made sure to make them look, (don't expect to see any purple haired, big boobed characters in here unless you like anthropomorphized aliens like that) act, and sound like normal, realistic children (one of my favorite child seiyuus is in the cast! Matsumoto Tamaki! YEAH!!!). Natsuki and Noriko were my favorites. Although the movie itself has a plot, it focuses more on the adventures on the moon that the children have, like getting jobs and seeing aliens and all that fun stuff! Sure the characters personalities are kinda cliche (leader, smart guy, shy girl, etc.), but they all have sides to them that really shine near the end of the movie, and boy do they shine! Plus Pochi and the other aliens were awesome too, even though I would've liked more backstory on him and his enemies.

As much as I'd like to continue glorifying this movie, as a critic, I HAVE to acknowledge the fact that it has it's flaws. One big flaw is that it does tend to tie too many plots together into one. Normally I don't have a problem with this so I'll let it slide. There isn't much character development, even in a two hour movie like this one. Like I mentioned before, I wish there was more explanation as to why Pochi and the villains hate each other. Sometimes it doesn't really make sense. But nonetheless, I enjoyed this movie immensely.

All in all, Welcome To The Space Show is a cute and colorful anime movie which you can show to anyone who's new to anime! I can't wait until it comes out on DVD! I'm definitely using this movie to convert people to the anime side!
 
This review was just finished today...and surprisingly, it's based on a standalone doujinshi, not an official manga or anime at all.

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I give this short doujin about an autistic woman dealing with problems...an 85/100!

So...I have a bit of explaining to do. When I started my reviews, I told myself I wouldn't review doujinshi because I prefer to write about official stuff. Doujinshi is more self-published, and many of them are just drawn fan fics for other stuff, like Naruto or Sailor Moon, and many of them contain explicit sexual content. So imagine my surprise when I randomly stumbled on a TVTropes page about a doujin called Sazanka, centering around an autistic woman dealing with various problems. I read it as soon as I could find it, and it turned out a whole lot better than I expected, even if it did leave me wanting more at the end. Seeing as I really liked it, I'm going to go against my rule and review it, mainly because I want more people to know about it, and it doesn't meet a lot of criteria that most doujinshi tend to fall into.

This one-shot manga, published by Aya Kamiyama and the doujin circle Aquilegia, centers on a young woman, Tatsuki Nakagawa, who's always had a hard time in her life due to being autistic and not being able to keep up with the ever changing social norms. It doesn't help that one of her friends jokes that she's an Aspie, not realizing how accurate it really is. She often wonders if she should tell people that she's autistic, as it would help explain to them why she has a hard time following conversations, but feels they'd just accuse her of making excuses for herself, so she keeps silent. But there is one person she decides to tell: her boyfriend Keita. Unfortunately, doing so proves to be a mistake, as not only has Keita decided he needs to cure her, he resorts to beating and abusing her for every slight, both physically and verbally, making her feel worse about herself. Tatsuki isn't sure what to do and who to rely on. Can she find a way out before it's too late?

Now, some clarification: In the story, Tatsuki is explicitly referred to as having Asperger Syndrome. In the United States, Asperger Syndrome as a diagnosis was removed from the official DSM in 2013 for a variety of reasons, mainly that people with Asperger's and autism were too similar, resulting in diagnostic criteria being too inconsistently applied, and that no matter the name, people with those diagnosees are still autistic, so they thought it'd be better to just get rid of the term Asperger's entirely. There was also evidence that Hans Asperger, the man the term is named after, had connections to Nazi Germany and the eugenics movement, so they likely removed the term to disassociate autism from that. I can't say I blame them for not wanting anything to do with a party that committed genocide. However, since Japan hasn't made the same strides in understanding mental illness and developmental disorders like the United States has, they still use Asperger's as a term for autistic people who aren't as severely affected as others. Yeah...mental illness has a pretty big stigma against it in Japan, and that unfortunately hasn't changed much in recent years.

But what about the one-shot itself? For one, the art is really good, if a little unpolished. You can tell this was done by people who were passionate about what they wanted to do, as all the characters have realistic designs, and there's no cutesy moeness in sight. It helps that the thick linework has a slightly messy, rough look about it, similar to A Silent Voice, though here you don't see any over-the-top facial expressions. I think it works here because it conveys a world that Tatsuki is having trouble navigating on her own. The backgrounds are well drawn as well, and in the afterword, Kamiyama herself says that she had the story take place in her hometown, even using actual places as backdrops that the characters visit, even using place names for the characters' surnames. People who go out of their way to put a lot of thought into the setting deserve more recognition than they get, and I commend Kamiyama for really putting a lot of effort into bringing her story to life. The backgrounds aren't on the level of, say, Sakura Gari or Our Wonderful Days, but they get the job done.

As for the characters, this is where things get a little muggy. The cast is fairly small, but because this one-shot has a limited number of pages to tell its story, the authoress wasn't able to flesh them out more than is depicted here. I liked the characters just fine, and they serve their roles well enough, but I feel like there could have been more to them. Aoi is the nice, non-judgmental friend who is concerned for Tatsuki's well being, Tatsuki herself is constantly worrying about how she comes across to others and not much else, and Keita is just an ableist, abusive jackass. We don't really see them do things outside of the main conflict, like engage in hobbies or hang out with family members. I think had Kamiyama been given more pages to work with, she might have been able to flesh them out more and give them more depth. That being said, as far as it's depiction of a person with autism goes, I think it's one of the best ones so far, especially by Japan's standards. In most media, the most common ways to depict people with autism are as eccentric geniuses who can do things no regular human can do, such as do hard math equations in their head, just children, or as useless overgrown man children who are meant to only be seen as burdens on their caretakers. Not very flattering depictions, but they've become so common that those are the images people think of when they hear about autistic people in general. Sia's recent movie, Music, has caused a lot of recent controversy because of all the bad decisions it's made because of adhering too closely to these unflattering stereotypes. That has been changing somewhat, but unfortunately not enough to completely fight the stigma that the previous depictions have contributed to. Tatsuki, on the other hand, is a fully grown, somewhat self-sufficient woman who is shy, awkward, insecure, filled with self-loathing, and has her flaws and weaknesses, but is still depicted as a well-rounded person, like any other woman you'd meet on the street. It helps that the manga doesn't go out of its way to present her as someone the audience should laugh at or just pity, and not solely because she's autistic either. She's just a woman in a bad situation and confused over how she should handle it, and the manga still treats her with respect. Seriously, more autism-centered media really need to understand this.

The story isn't an uncommon one either. It's just a woman dealing with an abusive boyfriend and confused over whether to open up about her issues. Nothing really new, and the manga ends on an open note, so there are still a lot of things left unresolved, something the author said was deliberate. If anything, the doujin's main problem is that it's just too short. I would honestly love to see this be made into a whole series that really explores the potential Sazanka has, both in its story and its characters. It'd have much more opportunities to flesh out the cast and show what they're like outside the main conflict. But for what it is now, I think Sazanka as a doujin is pretty nice. For anyone wondering, the authoress said that the title Sazanka comes from a broadleaf tree with red flowers on it called Camellia sasanqua, which has the Japanese flower language meanings of "earnest" and "overcoming adversity" implying that Tatsuki's life isn't going to be easy, but she'll find a way to make it, which was what she intended for the ending to mean and why it was left open the way it was. I really hope to see more stories like Sazanka in the future from any region around the world, be it the USA or Japan. Hell, my favorite manga of all time is With The Light: Raising an Autistic Child. I also liked this one manga called Asper Girl, which tackled similar subject matter, but I dropped it and refuse to go anywhere near it again because it decided to play sexual assault for comedy, which anyone who talks to me at all knows I ABSOLUTELY FUCKING LOATHE WITH ALL OF MY BEING!! Sazanka may not have reached the levels With The Light did, but again, I really want more stories like those two to be made.

While hampered by its short length and inability to flesh out its characters more, Sazanka is a wonderful, if heartbreaking little doujin that absolutely deserves way more love and recognition than it gets. I sincerely hope Aya Kamiyama gets to make more manga like this, or even make Sazanka into a full on series, because I'd eat it up!
 
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This review was written on May 4th, 2021.

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I give this comedic anime about a not!damsel in distress princess...an 86/100!

How far will you go to get the perfect night's sleep? For many, comedy can be very subjective, especially depending on the execution. Some shows rely on constant violence and slapstick, which can work with good timing, but can get very old very fast. Other shows rely on rehashing the same joke over and over, or dragging the joke out for longer than it needs to. Sometimes, you can get equally fun comedy out of characters bouncing off each other and getting into mischief. Usage of animation techniques such as sight gags or jump cuts can also work wonders, but only with a deft hand. I've never personally been big on comedy shows, and oftentimes, anime in particular, or at least the ones I know of personally, tend to reuse the same jokes and gags, even outright dead horses that really need to die. But where on earth can you find a show that's solely about a kidnapped princess wanting to get a good night's sleep and doing whatever the hell is necessary to get it, to the point of making her captors' lives a living hell? Well, this is Japan, and you'd think a show like Sleepy Princess In The Demon Castle would be boring or unfunny, right? Actually...I really liked this one! Why did I miss out on this when it was airing?!

In an unnamed magical fantasy land, demons and humans hate each other's existence, and thus have tried to stay away from one another. But the kingdom of Goodreste is thrown into upheaval when the Demon King Twilight kidnaps the princess Syalis. Goodreste sends a hero, Dawner, to try and rescue her. Normally, the princess would be a weepy, helpless, pure-hearted damsel who's just there to worry and pray and not do anything, right? Well...Syalis is different. Rather than whine about being rescued, she's more concerned about getting a good night's sleep, and her sleeping quarters don't exactly help in that regard. There's only one thing for Syalis to do: make whatever she needs to get the best night's sleep she can, from fluffy pillows to high thread count sheets, and she does whatever she can to do so...namely casually murdering demons, stealing and vandalizing their property for her own personal use, and generally being such a little shit that the demons are outright afraid of her.

Based on the manga by Kagiji Kumanomata, the animation was done by a company called Doga Kobo. You might be familiar with them, as they've done a lot of slice-of-life or moe anime like Anima Yell, Uzamaid, Wataten, Asteroid in Love, Helpful Fox Senko-san, and the more recent Diary of Our Days at the Breakwater. They don't exclusively work on those kinds of anime, as they have produced more serious anime in the past, but the former titles I mentioned are what they're mainly known for. Whether you like them or not, it's made clear from the beginning that the staff on Sleepy Princess really tried to make this game look as good as humanly possible, and I think they pulled it off. Even if the actual character movement isn't the most smooth, the anime makes up for that by making use of a lot of visual gags and comedic facial expressions, along with bright colors and a few off the wall design choices. It does help that because the setting is only limited to a few places, all the character designs stand out and look distinct, and no character looks the same as another. I don't have much to say on the soundtrack, as it can be good, but I didn't find it very memorable.

As far as character development goes, since this is a comedy series, you're not going to find the characters changing much over the course of the show. They go from being afraid of Syalis to helping her out on occasion, but that's really as far as it goes, as this is a comedy series through and through. Be that as it may, the characters themselves are pretty likeable and fun to follow, even if many of them are rather one-note. Syalis in particular stands out in that she isn't some damsel in distress whining to be rescued and is intent on doing all she can to get the best night's sleep ever...and is kind of a huge brat. Whether it be slicing demon shrouds or snuggling with the teddy demons, Syalis is a girl on a mission, and admittedly, part of the fun is seeing just what she does to get the best night's sleep she can in any way possible. We do learn more about her near the end of the series, but it doesn't do much to really develop her as a person. The hero sent to save her, Dawner, is pretty much every RPG hero stereotype made manifest, and the anime even lampshades how much of a complete non-entity he is on every occasion they're able. Other than Dawner, the cast is fine.

If you really need one good reason to check this show out, do it for the Teddy Demons. No seriously, LOOK AT THEM!

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I would die for these adorable fluffers!!! And Harpy, too. Seriously, the poor harpy girl deserves more loooooove!! I would totally be her BFF!!!

If you're not into a show playing the same formula over and over again, this isn't going to be the show for you. But if you like wholesome anime that'll let you kick back, relax, and have a good laugh, definitely give the show a try. Oh, and check out the English dub for it, too. It's also funny as hell, especially with plenty of puns and some punched up lines that make certain scenes even funnier. So yeah, Sleepy Princess is a fun, cute show that's sure to not only give you a good laugh, but put you to sleep and have you feeling refreshed afterward.
 
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This review was written on May 17th, 2013.

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I give this war movie...a 75/100.

I'm not into war movies. I don't hate the genre. I just never really found any war movies that really interested me or caught my eyes. A lot of the war movies that are made in America are much too melodramatic, action packed, and political for my tastes, and they focus too much on the struggles of the adults, especially adults in high positions like in the government or the White House, than on the struggles of middle class families and especially the children, and I've seen a few war movies that focus on the struggles of the children that are done surprisingly well, even if they have different takes on their subject matter, like Grave of the Fireflies (I really need to finish that) and Who's Left Behind. However, this doesn't automatically mean that there aren't war movies about children that are generic or bad. I saw Glass Rabbit before I saw Who's Left Behind, mostly because I FINALLY found a place where I can watch it, even though the bad sound quality kinda irked me, though I endured it anyway. Where else would I be able to find it? However, while I did like Glass Rabbit to an extent and acknowledge the good things it does have, overall, it IS rather generic despite being based on a real person's story (just like Who's Left Behind).

Basically, the story's about Toshiko Ei who lives in Tokyo with her mother, father, older brothers, and two little sisters. Her father works in a glass factory and makes her a rabbit made out of glass (which is pretty much a MacGuffin used to symbolize the happy memories they had before the war went out of control). Soon, her brothers are drafted to work as soldiers in the war and once the destruction comes sneaking up on them, they have to evacuate in case they get hit by firebombs. Not everyone in her family is happy about the sudden changes in their lives, however. But in the end, it doesn't even matter, as Toshiko loses the majority of her family members one by one, and wonders how she'll be able to survive in a war torn country with little to no infrastructure.

Sound familiar? Yeah, one reviewer I know who also saw this movie accused it of being a blatant rip-off of Who's Left Behind (and really, you can see the similarities). While I wouldn't accuse it of being this, as there are probably a lot of people who suffered the same tragedies as Toshiko did, the presentation of this movie is rather mediocre. It really doesn't have much personality or charm or themes other than the usual war is bad scenario. The animation isn't much to write home about, and some of the characters looked a bit off model at points. While I did like the music, it was rather dull. However, I definitely appreciated some details in this anime. For one thing, I learned in my Modern Japan class that after World War II, Japan made a new constitution preventing them from ever entering any wars, along with never having an Army, Navy, or any other military-related government. This movie reminds us of exactly that, and they at least get those details right, which definitely gives me the right to give the movie some credit. I also liked the little twist where a little baby saw the airplanes about to fire at them before they actually attacked. That was pretty cool.

Admittedly though, some of the things that happened in this movie really baffled me, especially since this is based on a real person's life. For one thing, Toshiko's little sisters, unhappy with living with their relatives, suddenly decide to GO BACK TO THEIR HOUSE ALL ON THEIR OWN and choose to stay there, even though it's practically a death sentence. Questions: how did they manage to get back? Did they take a train? And if they did, how did they get the money for it in a country where it's impossible to receive any kind of monetary income amongst internal turmoil? Are they even old enough to even know how to travel a long distance by foot and with the proper means? What? Yeah, I'm completely flummoxed. That was a pretty stupid decision on their part, and I have to wonder if kids in Japan are trained to be really self-sufficient, way before they even get put in situations where they should be self-sufficient. Also, did people really build makeshift houses like that back then? I don't remember my Modern Japan class talking about how people pitched in and built houses like that (though I know people made makeshift houses, cars, and even restaurants during an earthquake that hit Mexico in 1985 when the police and government decided to hide under a rock instead of help the citizens). Speaking of characters, admittedly they're rather one dimensional. We're constantly being reminded that Toshiko is strong, but we don't see her grow or develop, even though she does show some weakness, which I can appreciate. I did like the slice of life moments, especially the scenes where she befriends a goat and receives a lot of support from her friends after tragedy strikes. I liked those little moments, as things like that really do happen in real life. But no, I didn't cry at this. This movie's a bit too cheesy for me.

If you're not into sad movies, war movies, or generic melodrama, give it a miss. If you want something to kill some time with, this'll give you some solid entertainment.
 
This review was written yesterday.

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I give these remakes of the very first set of Pokemon games...an 81/100!

Back in the early 2000s, the idea of old games being remade for modern consoles seemed like a pipe dream. There were ports, yes, but outright remaking and rebuilding them from the ground up with new graphics wasn't considered possible quite yet. With the advent of consoles such as the Playstation 2 and GameBoy Advance, developers were starting to see that this was, indeed, possible. Nintendo hit it big with Pokemon Red and Blue back when they first came out, and since newer consoles at the time could do more than older ones did in terms of graphics and internal storage, why not take a chance on remaking Red and Blue? And thus, Pokemon Fire Red and Leaf Green appeared, using the same graphics as Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire, which had come out a short while before. Having played both the originals, these versions, and the second set of remakes, Let's Go! Pikachu and Eevee, I think out of all of them, Fire Red and Leaf Green are the best in terms of content and all of the new features they put in.

The story is exactly the same as Red and Blue, where you play as a kid, get sent out to catch Pokemon, battle trainers, collect badges, and stop an evil criminal syndicate Team Rocket from doing bad things. I won't repeat myself here. But while the core narrative remains the same, Fire Red and Leaf Green introduce a lot of new features that weren't present in the originals. Carried over from Pokemon Gold and Silver are genders for Pokemon, breeding, and hatching eggs, the latter two not being unlockable until the post-game. You're also not allowed to evolve certain Kanto Pokemon such as Golbat and Chansey into their next-gen evolutions until the post-game as well. The games also carry over new features introduced in Ruby and Sapphire, such as Pokemon abilities, being able to run, which improves the game's pacing a lot, and the new box system that completely does away with the old clunky system used in the GameBoy games, allowing you to catch as many Pokemon as you want without being told you can't catch any more until you manually change the box yourself. There are several new features that FRLG does introduce that were very well received among players: Wireless linking, allowing you to trade or battle people with wireless machines instead of a link cable, which would later reach its zenith in the DS and 3DS eras, and the VS Seeker, which allows you to rebattle NPC trainers as many times as you want.

But those are nothing compared to the mountain of post-game content FRLG introduces during the post-game. The creators made a series of islands you unlock after you beat the Elite Four called the Sevii Islands. You're introduced to three of them late in the main game, but unlock the other four after you defeat the Elite Four, and they introduce a lot of new Pokemon, new locations, new trainers for you to battle, and new areas to explore. So this time around, you're not solely limited to just catching Mewtwo in the Cerulean Cave with a Master Ball. As much as I appreciate Red and Blue for launching Pokemon into existence, its post game was pretty much non-existent, which was the standard for games using the GameBoy hardware at the time. With the GameBoy Advance's internal hardware being more expansive and capable of holding more data, GameFreak seemed to capitalize on this and made whole new areas for you to explore, along with catching Pokemon from later games. This is one feature that I definitely appreciate, as the Sevii Islands provide far more to do than the original games ever did. Sadly, these new features did not reappear in the Let's Go games that would come out a decade later, something that really pissed off a lot of Pokemaniacs, me included.

Although I like a lot of what FRLG has to offer, it does show a bit of its age, and some changes weren't exactly the best. For once, no matter how much you grind, you're still going to wind up underleveled by the time you battle the Elite Four, even with rebattling trainers with the VS Seeker, because the trainers' you battle don't level up their Pokemon when you get into rematches with them. For people who really don't like sidequests, the game won't let you access Mewtwo until you complete one in the Sevii Islands in the post-game, with said sidequest unlocking trading with Ruby and Sapphire. I personally didn't mind this sidequest myself, but I know others won't like it because of how much time it takes. Furthermore, you can't even start said sidequest until you catch 60 Pokemon in-game before completing the main story, making this even more arbitrary. Thankfully, later games would drop this, and again, I personally didn't mind them.

So, as far as remakes of the original Red and Blue go, how does FRLG fare, along with the Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee games? Well, the latter has improved graphics, a nicer soundtrack, and gives your starter Pokemon some much needed buffs to make them more viable in battles. However, they also stripped down a lot of content that Fire Red and Leaf Green introduced, making it no better than the original Red and Blue games in terms of its content. They don't even let you use any Pokemon from later generations other than Meltan, and it's post game, while not as hopelessly sparse as the originals, is still rather shallow, and the producers made it clear that the Let's Go games were deliberately made to be easy gateway games for both kids and people who got into the franchise through Pokemon Go. In contrast, Fire Red and Leaf Green, while not without their flaws, really brought new life to the first generation of Pokemon, really allowing players to do way more with it than they could before, something the Let's Go games refused to do over a decade later. Personally, I think Fire Red and Leaf Green games are the best iterations of Red and Blue, keeping the core story in tact while introducing new elements to make it run better and smoother, so in that aspect, I think the games succeeded in doing what remakes need to do.
 
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