Magi Episode One: The Review Of Ultimate Doom!

Instead of watching the series Inuyasha like a good little girl (although I technically did it for the sake of nostalgia and also to prove to Ewan that it did not suck monkeys, although I found the first episode so corny that it almost burnt my eyes out; thankfully I remembered that the manga was much better and that most anime flat out sucks. Like turning books into movies. It doesn't work.) and found myself drawn to the mysterious series Magi which was based off 1001 Arabian Nights; a book of short stories I thoroughly enjoyed and found myself enjoying albeit in a malicious fashion because I appear to take pleasure in seeing people get killed by evil djinns of evilness.

Anyway, since I got the first book of the manga for my birthday, and since my companion has said book after I finished skimming it over and generally complaining about how out-of-order I thought it was at the time, I decided to amuse myself (or horrify depending on ones perspective) by watching the first episode of the animated series and finding out just how brutally they destroyed the manga.

That is, of course, where this review kicks in with all it's muscly might. Sadly, this review is not muscly, but it is very mighty and may in fact get me killed when a group of fans uncover this and some of them decide to make it their soul duty in life to hunt me down and ultimately turn me into meat.

We of course start with a flashback involving glowy butterflies at night time and a scream from a young child (oooo... spooky) and generally get this whole back story that isn't quite a back story because we haven't actually learnt anything beyond the fact that some kid has been in a room, has just screamed, and now has a massive blue muscly guy in the room with him. Perfect logic.

Anyway, most of the episode surrounds said boy who turns out to be a lad called Aladdin who has said blue hulk living in a flute around his neck (how he fits into said flute has the same logic as the Disney version of Aladdin: there is none). Anyway, he casually devours the delicious watermelons (mmm) and looks like a ravenous blob as a lovely gentleman called Alibaba sees him eating his caravan food.

There's a lot of stuff in the middle about Alibaba being a liar, something about this slave girl with pink hair, some blob man and his wine, the saving of a young girl from a plant that can get drunk on said wine, Alibaba almost drowns in said satanic plant of doom, Aladdin decides to stop being cryptic and saves him, they head for a massive tower of treasure (well the treasure is inside and apparently no one has made it out alive which brings into question the fact that people don't know whether they are still alive inside since they would not have gone in).

So I'm not going to nag too much about the plot; I'm going to leave you to watch it and try to get a grasp of it. It's generally grouped together much better than volume one of the series, although they push a lot into one episode. However, I feel it's done pretty well considering just how much they put in; but the main goal seems somewhat weak (but it's probably not the whole plot and just a temporary one until someone decides to destroy the world or something along those lines; I mean who could resist the urge to blow up the universe?)

So I'm going to focus on other aspects of this episode; the character's for example. Since it's only a first episode, I shouldn't really expect much in terms of character development. The two main figures in this episode are Aladdin and Alibaba. We already have a bit of understanding of Aladdin within the first episode through our fabulous flashback, but he appears to be a cheerful (if not comic relief) boy that seems to be generally ignorant of the world (whether this is to do with the room he was trapped in may bring out my Theorist side but I shall wait until after this review), and a general grasp of Alibaba who helps the rich by carting their goods across the desert that covers this entire bloody planet to their next location. Alibaba appears to be greedy and a bit of a jerk as well as an opportunist, but near the end of this episode we see he's a jerk with a heart of gold (check out TV tropes for that one mortals! Ha!), and they seem to be an alright pair that will hopefully continue to develop as the series continues.

The setting is very interesting and certainly brings out the deserty hell of 1001 Arabian Nights well. I've only seen a few sets and they are all varied and very beautiful and I certainly look forward to seeing more. Another thing done well is the character designs; they're individual and creative and even the minor characters have different appearances and attention to detail.

The use of music is beautiful, and I find the animation and voice acting very well done and very well scripted (especially considering this is a first episode), although I won't deny that I find Aladdin's voice a little too squeaky for comfort, but you can't have it all now can you?

There are three things I have a problem with in this episode. First of all, the villain is absolutely terrible. I found him amusing in the manga, but he was only there for a short while and thus I could endure him. However, he's here for the entire bloody episode; I can't take that much exaggerated evil, wealthy guys; it drives me crazy. If they wanted to make a good villain, even if only for one episode, give him some redeeming factor that will make him appear somewhat less bleh and more meh. I find the comedy to be weak in this episode. Again, I know that this is a first episode and that if there is comedy in a first episode it usually sucks. Honestly, the only thing that got a giggle out of me was when the prostitute (or whatever she was) karate chopped off the top of the bottle. Perhaps it will get better, perhaps it will not; I don't know. I also find myself complaining about the white-washing. I mean this is in a huge desert planet, and yet it's more difficult to find tanned people than it is to find light. I could understand it in the manga, considering how expensive it is to buy tones for tanned people, but you would honestly think they would try to put in more effort in the animated edition.

Anyway, enough rants about that. It was an okay episode. I'm intrigued by the next one. I suspect that one they get inside that tower of ultimate doom blob monsters will come and try to eat them or something along those lines. Maybe they'll find nothing and find it's already been looted. That would be ironic.

This is around the time I get theoretical. One cannot help but wonder how Aladdin got in that room. He himself has no memories around it and asked: "What am I?" and the genie hanging around in said room called him "my king". Could this mean that, some time in the past, Aladdin was a king and the genie was a servant of sorts. This would mean that someone must have put him in said room (or he went there himself) and there must have been some seal that kept him from aging and also erased his memories. But why prevent him from aging? Why simply lock him away if you could kill him for his title? Were they preserving him for something catastrophic in the future? On that note, why do these towers just pop out of nowhere? Is someone creating them? If that's the case; why?

So many mysteries; so little time.

See you next time maybe.

You'd honestly think they would have some colour...

Inuyasha Episode One Review

Also known as the resurrection of the blog. Having lazed around for a few months, I decided I would attempt to bring this corpse back to life through some slightly racist Voodoo mumbo-jumbo and found that I sucked at it, so I went with a different method: I decided to update it slowly and painful. And through updating it continuously, others would have no choice but to become involved to stop my path of destruction. And what better way to torture people into submission than the old historical fantasy classic known as Inuyasha. 

Before I ramble about what I fan I am, I am going to give a little background information on the series for anyone that has not heard of it. The series began November 13th 1996 and concluded June 18th 2008. The artist and writer is a woman called Rumiko Takahashi (she also published a number of other stories and is still going on). The series was animated in 2000 and continued into 2004 before it took a five year hiatus where it was finally continued and completed in 2010, translated into English in 2000 after increasing popularity in America. Some people love it, some people hate it. The question is why?

I personally love the series for a number of reasons and I have watched it three times (once without actually knowing it since I was around six at the time). However, this is not about my love of the series, this is about taking a critic's view of the series (otherwise known as the professor's view) and will be judging this from an entirely different perspective. 

The first thing that draws me in is the beautiful opening song. It was quite literally a blast from the past and has a nostalgic, classic atmosphere to it that I enjoy. (Said opening gives out spoilers as to how this is going to go, but that's to be expected with all anime opening songs.) Once the opening song is over, we get an interesting view of the landscape and a less than pleasant flashback in the past of a village being attacked by none other than one of the characters shown in the opening: Inuyasha. He steals a jewel from one of the buildings and is suddenly pinned to a tree, left there to die while the high priestess asks her sister to burn the jewel with her body.

Now the voice acting, animation, and music all work perfectly in this flashback. I must say I have always been a fan of the Inuyasha music for it's traditional atmosphere, and still find it good for writing fantasy music. However, the dialogue is far too forced and clunky. Most of what is said is weak and cliche, definitely unnatural and while the actors try to fix this, some of it just does not work. If you get past this you then flash forward to Modern Day (1996 for the sake of the original series)Japan.

We catch a glimpse of the main character Kagome and her family and life within an old shrine with an occult grandfather who seems obsessed with history (he almost breaks into conversation about the history of pickles) Kagome appears to be a rather bored teenage girl who has no such interest in the occult (because of her lovely grandfather's 15 year obsession) and seems to prefer playing with her cat (if I had that cat I would want to do the same). As she is on her way to school her cat seems to have sneaked into the closed off well and goes in to pick up the cat since her brother is afraid to go in. She finds the cat but a centipede creature from hell (it's not actually described as that but damn it's ugly) bursts out the well and pulls her in, healing itself and mentioning none other than the very jewel Inuyasha once tried to steal. 

It's a pretty basic introduction to our main character and seems to give a decent setting for her life at home. Her brother and mother seem a little like cardboard cut outs (whether this is because they don't have enough screen time I don't know) and so far the characters I like the most are the grandfather and the cat (but that's just because the cat is awesome and animals always beat people). Kagome's rather dull at the moment, but I'm sure that will develop once she gets to the feudal era. At times her voice can appear a bit forced, but it's not too noticeable, considering she has a weird voice in all translations.

Well after that little slip into what looks like a worm hole made worse, Kagome climbs out of the well and finds herself not at home. She assumes that she is dreaming and wanders aimlessly until she spots the shrin tree and runs towards it, hoping somewhere in her mind it will lead to home. Here she meets a still-not-rotting Inuyasha and plays with his ears (who can resist puppy ears of all things?) before she is shot and and carried to the village where she is condemned a demon or spy from another village. Kaede, the last priestess' younger sister now old, inspects Kagome and orders her release before they head inside where Kaede explains the situation to Kagome who never once mentions she is from the future, but she does explain she's lost. It's a peaceful moment quickly ruined by the return of the centipede hell fiend.

Let me start by saying that the scenery here is absolutely wonderful, especially in the forest scene at the beginning where everything is serene and peaceful. The use of music is beautiful, and the dialogue is a lot less forced. Perhaps it was just the author's way of getting everything started and it did not turn out well, but it seems more natural at this point. I won't deny that Kaede herself is a lovely character, but I dislike her dialogue and old talk (such as using "ye" all the time; no one else does it). Another thing I dislike is how relaxed Kagome is after she's tied up in the village. Maybe she is still under the assumption that she is in a dream or she hit her head, but it still bothers me quite a bit and I feel she needs to feel more panicked about the situation. Also, I know it's just a fault of the animators since Kagome and Kikyo look the same in the manga, but Kikyo and Kagome look nothing alike in this. Again, animators fault, not authors.

Kagome, seeing that the Centipede lady is after her, runs into the forest in hopes of distracting her long enough, oddly enough towards a glowing light no one else can see. We see that Inuyasha has awoken again (well it is a full moon and them dogs need to howl at some point) and that he's hungry for blood. Kagome continues to run (damn this girl can run) before she crashes in front of the awakened Inuyasha who thinks she's Kikyo and begins to mock her. After their mock session of around 12 seconds, Mistress Centipede arrives and so do the men. Unfortunately it's useless and said Centipede tears the Sacred Jewel out of Kagome's side (how the doctor's missed it, I don't know). The Centipede Lady then proceeds to slowly crush Inuyasha and Kagome, swallowing the jewel and getting uglier (if that is somehow possible). Inuyasha convinces Kagome to remove the arrow pinning him to the tree (she either gets crushed to death or releases him so it's not like she has much of a choice) and he goes ballistic, tearing Mistress Centipede into itty bitty pieces. Kagome then has to remove the jewel from said pieces, following the glow no one else can, and reclaims it as Mistress Centipede turns back into a skeleton. Inuyasha, now free, demands the Sacred Jewel or he will do the same to her. It is only then that she realizes he's not the hero of the story.

And that is how it ends. A lot happened in this episode, and I personally feel it needed more time to develop, but I can't really complain considering the average length of an episode of something in Japan is around 15 minutes and this took 20. In terms of visuals and sound, it's very good for the time and the music is still enjoyable to listen to now (I won't deny the main reason I got into this series was because of the music). The voice acting is alright; nothing to complain too much about. The plot is a little cliche for my liking (except the old dog demon doesn't side with the main character) and the dialogue is a little clunky at the beginning. I feel that the flashback was a little unnecessary, but I can understand why it was put there. There's not much to say on characters as this is the first episode and there's a lot of development to go through. I feel that the method of Kagome entering the feudal era was weak and expected. If such a thing were to happen, would it mean that she had not entered the closed off well at any point before then, because if it was because of the jewel that Mistress Centipede resurrected then she would have had to have never entered the well beforehand. I'm assuming Kagome gained Kikyo's priestess powers if she could see the jewel and the spiritual energy of the forest as well as breaking the arrow. If that was the case, had she had such things in the modern world? Or perhaps it was activated upon entering the well and the jewel awakened also (maybe it replaced her real appendix or something). These are questions I want answered soon, although considering this has 167 episodes it might take a while.

Either way I'll be doing just as long a review tomorrow when I get to episode two. 

Until then, Rinrei out.

Dem ears.

Extinction, Heating Elements and Reasonably Large Tea Cosies

It disturbs me that, for some reason, this blog is still getting hits.

To all intents and purposes, the blog has been dead. The Kettle boiled and the tea was made, and that seemed to be that. Of course, there were attempts made to inspire some sort of restart, but at that point it was discovered that the heating element had mysteriously disappeared. That rather concise story, swaddled in metaphor, brings us quite neatly to the present moment.

Without going into temporal logistics, the present moment is a rare yet ever-present beast, its behavior something of a puzzle. It seems that, at present, I (Pisces) am replacing the aforementioned heating element in the Kettle in the undoubtedly over-optimistic hope of possibly making another pot of tea. Needless to say, even if I am successful in replacing the heating element, I will likely find that there is a country-wide power cut and I shall, once again, be left without the means by which to heat water sufficiently.

It is worth noting that in the land of metaphor, there is a law against such cliched similes that use fire as a main component. Blame the metaphorical government.

If you are of sound mind, that explanation probably fell between 'Little' and 'No' on the Sense-O-Meter. To those of you wondering as to where the tea cosy mentioned in the title factors into the equation, I must solemnly admit that I never had any intention of referring to a tea cosy in this post.

You may be expecting more from me, assorted peoples of the world. Tea may still be made using lukewarm water... it just takes a long time, and the result is highly disappointing.

The Top Ten Most Disturbing Anime Characters: #6: Yami Malik

Oh look at me, distracting myself once more. Anyway, I brought this back to life it seems. As you can tell from the title, my number six is Yami Malik, and let me tell you why. First, let's look at the creepy little bugger.

Yeah... nice tongue.

I think I can safely say that he is batmonkey insane, and he doesn't hesitate to show it. Now, initially he was not like this (duh), and his 'light' side is more cool and collected, even nice. This other personality was formed due to extreme abuse from his father and an intense level of pressure put onto him as a child which eventually made him snap.

This other personality only came out two times in his life, once to deal with the lovely, lovely pain of having a tattoo forcibly carved into his back as a small child, and then when his 'brother' was put in danger when his father tried to kill him. And oh boy did this kid get his revenge. He skinned his father alive, and then when the normal Malik returned he had a nervous breakdown because he couldn't remember it. Yami Malik returned roughly six years later when Malik dealt with another extremely stressful situation where his 'brother' was almost killed. 

This lovely little Malik sees everything as a game, almost like a child, and gleefully takes his wins through force. In some way, he is a child (a deranged, insane child) as he has only existed for seven years and he has only experienced extremely traumatic incidents, so I think it's safe to say he'd go a little coo-coo. 

I feel like pointing out (just for you folks out there) that his hair probably doesn't actually spike up and veins don't actually bulge in his face when he comes out, and that's just the animators way of showing that he is the more dangerous personality and not the ordinary Malik. If we casually learned how to jump into other anime universes, he would probably look the same but his personality would be batmonkey insane. Just felt I would toss that out for you, but I can safely say it definitely adds to showing just how crazy he is.

This villain in undoubtedly the most unsettling out of the ones in the Yu-Gi-Oh series, mainly because he has no true purpose other than to cause havoc because he finds it fun. He has probably known nothing more than  people hurting him, so naturally he doesn't give a monkey bear about hurting them back. And if he beats you in a game, you go straight to Hell. Lovely, no? I heard the Summers were great down there.

Anyway, Yami Malik seems to be ultimately defeated by his other half, although we all know that he was most likely only defeated for a short while and the chances are he's going to be coming back once Malik let's his guard down, and let's just say he can kill with more than a Millennium Rod...

I kinda actually wanna give him a hug... who said I was sane?

Saiyuki Review

Hello minions who thought this blog was dead! It is I, Rinrei, back with a new review! If you put in the effort to read the title then you will know that I am reviewing something called Saiyuki.

Saiyuki is a manga series that was created between the years of 1997 and 2002 with recent updates occurring now after the artist and author recovered from a critical surgery. The author is Kazuya Minekura who also wrote the sequels Saiyuki Reload, Saiyuki Reload Blast and the prequel Saiyuki Gaiden. This series is focused on four main characters who are loosely based on the main characters of the Chinese classic novel 'Journey to the West' and focuses on these main characters as they travel across a world infested with demons gone feral aiming to prevent the resurrection of Gyumaoh and prevent the madness from further causing conflicts between the humans and the demons. On the way they face assassins, dangerous adventures, and their own tragic pasts.

First of all, I'm going to go over what I find good about this series. My first choice is the characters. Gosh darn these characters. To start with, they seem to have basic personalities that clash with one another causing conflicts within the group. However, as the series progresses, these characters develop greatly into characters you can't help but love.

Let's start of with Goku. Goku appears to be a very cheerful, happy-go-lucky moron who only cares about what's up for dinner and fighting. That's just barely scratching the surface, though. The truth is that Goku was sealed away for 500 years in a prison completely isolated from the outside world with no memories of his previous life other than his name. The main reasons for this are revealed in Saiyuki Gaiden and will undoubtedly wrench your heart out, stomp on it, and then roll it into a pancake. That whole series makes you cry because you know what will happen. In some way, this is the main reason you love Goku, because he can still smile and be happy.

This connection with the characters spreads not only to our anti-heroes, but to our 'villains'. Unlike most villains in anime and manga, these villains have a good, legit reason for doing what they're doing and you can really sympathize with them (except Gyokumen Koushou who you just want dead, but knowing this show she'll also end up having a good reason and you will probably feel bad about hating her so much).

This series is also very capable of pulling on your heart strings by making you really connect with these character, both minor and major, and when a character actually cries (a rare occurrence unlike some anime) you feel really uncomfortable. The number of times I just wanted to hug a character because of something bad happening to them is unbelievable. The way they do this is with the use of music (mainly in seasons other than the first season) and the fact that this really is a sad moment. At times, the voice acting can be really good, and it's the dialogue of a vast amount of the series that really gets to you; you can really feel their pain and that's what makes this series good.

Now onto the not-so-good parts of this series. I must point out that a large majority of this is due to the first season where the author and the animation artists were trying to understand where the story was actually going, but I feel that if you want to keep a good fanbase you got to make a good first impression, and I feel the first season did not pull that off as well as it should have.

The voice acting was not so pleasant in my opinion. Sanzo's voice was too high, Hakkai's too airy, and Goku's too forced. Now I won't deny this was only in the first half of the first season where the actors were trying to get their bearings (much like how the author was trying to figure out what to do) and this definitely improved in the Gaiden series, but it still made it very difficult to find realistic. The dubbing in the second and third season was better, but I still didn't like how Goku's voice sounded and I would have felt more comfortable if Greg Ayres had stayed and used one of his more realistic voices. Other than that, it was okay and the only voice actors I particularly liked were Gojyo and later on Sanzo.

Again, this is just the first season, but I found the animation and colouring to be incredibly poor quality with overused speedline backgrounds and cheap angle shots that made us feel less engaged with the show. The only real reason I didn't like the colouring was because they made Gojyo's hair hot pink. The half-breeds in this series are all stated to have red hair and red eyes and yet here's Gojyo with hot pink hair. It's just a nit-pick but I still don't like it. Fortunately, the second season clears this up for us, allowing for more realistic colours and better fight sequences that make us feel more engaged with the incident.

In the first season near the beginning, some music is used at the wrong time. The music itself is amazing, definitely something to get addicted to, but in the first half it is definitely used when not necessary. Again, this is fixed in the second season.

A final little nit-pick of mine is the sloppy writing of the first half of the first season. The dialogue seems somewhat forced and the flashbacks appear unnecessary and awkward when they are used. This gradually improves as you get closer towards the end of the first season and seems almost entirely fixed by the second season and only gets better and better. The show hasn't ended yet (considering the author only just got back onto it), but I can safely tell you it's going to be an epic ending.

So, we've finally come to our conclusion. Saiyuki is actually a very good show, and if you watch from beginning to end you can see it progress from an amateur series into something you can really engage with. The only thing that drags this series down is the first season, but good news is that you don't have to watch the first season to understand the entire show since almost none of the episodes are completely linked together (mainly because it's a journey series), so I definitely recommend avoiding the first season if you want a good first impression.

Overall, I give this series a 4/5. Good job!

Avatar: The Last Airbender (Movie)

It's been a while, hasn't it peasants? This is the almighty Rinrei back with a new review. This time it's on the monstrosity known as The Last Airbender Movie. This was created in 2012 by M. Night Shyamalan based off the cartoon series Avatar which is known as probably one of the best animated series of American culture, and with good reason. The characters are well-rounded, the comedy is brilliant, the music is fantastic, and the episodes are so intense you're either crying because it's so blinking sad or you're shaking because it's so intense. It's just that great a series. It was unavoidable there would be a live-action movie based on it.

First of all, I'm going to list what is good about the movie. Firstly, the costumes. Amazing work was put into it, costumes and they still maintain an Asian look whilst looking out of this world and just plain wazaam! Secondly, the SFX. I have never seen such good SFX in a movie before and the fact that the fight scenes are so skillfully done really do accomplish that factor in the fights. Thirdly, the sets. They look so realistic that one can't help but become absorbed into the series. The one thing I enjoyed from this movie was looking at the sets. It was done amazingly and deserves appreciation for that much.

Now... onto the bad part. While the creative side of things had been done wonderfully, the other half, including acting and the script itself... not so much. The people who played the roles of Aang and Sokka upset me especially.

Anyone who knows about Aang in the cartoon series knows that he's a happy-go-lucky, goofy little kid, as expected of anyone his age. He may appear childish, and generally carefree for a large majority of the series, but he does have a sense of maturity that later develops in the series whilst maintaining his cheerful attitude. The movie pushed this sense of maturity into a sense of cynicism with us almost never seeing him smile and him never goofing off. This, of course, upsets me for the fact that they completely got rid of the one thing that made Aang Aang.

They're even worse when it comes to Sokka. You can see that the actor tries to maintain his sarcastic role, but the thing is that Sokka is funny in his sarcasm. The actor... not so much. If there was one thing I would ask of the director in order to make the movie at least a little bit better, it would be to put in Sokka's goofiness. He may be serious at times, but overall Sokka is a typical teenage boy who acts stupid and goofy like everyone else. This was the one character that disappointed me the most.

Then there is Iroh. Seriously people he's my favourite character; what did you do to him? Not only has his appearance been altered, but his entire attitude. What happened to him?

I feel that if this film is to have any way of maintaining an audience in the slightest, it needs to at least consider fixing the characters. As a writer of scripts myself, the first thing I do is I keep the characters in character! This movie is like a terribly written fan-fiction! The characters have been mauled and the script writing has hacked up whatever good was in the series. Allow me to elaborate with just one scene and one alone.

The village. I feel that in this scene they attempted to combine Katara being stuck in an earth-bending prison and the Kyoshi Island. If you were going to combine the two, then at least stick it on an island! The whole purpose is that they are isolated from the outside world and thus have to battle on their own! Worst of all, the Kyoshi Warriors weren't even seen, and they are vital to the later series. Especially Tsuki. He will probably include her in the next movie, but the fact that he forgot about the Kyoshi Warriors here means that people will presume they were excluded from the series, and will result in just plain anger towards him.

The dialogue is clunky and this makes the acting wooden. Before he even considers writing the sequel (which he is interested in doing), the director better get his act together and work on his scriptwriting skills. If this sequel is to ever make us forgive him, he better fix it. And Toph better be her usual blind self. And Bumi better be crazy and have his funny snort. And... you know what? Just watch the series again. Watch the series again and realize what you did wrong, and fix it. And please, for the sake of the population, get the Kyoshi Warriors in there somewhere.

I give this a 3/10. This was a very disappointing movie, and the dialogue as well as the acting requires immediate attention.

That's Rinrei out!