LaGrange - The Flower of Rin-ne [Anime Review]

This is an anime I had no idea really about when I put it in the player. I remembered liking the preview before ordering it, but that was really it. I had to make sure I liked it before ordering season two, and so it went to the top of the watch list.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug [Movie Review]

 The fire was red, it flaming spread;
The trees like torches blazed with light.

Last night, for the first time in a long while I saw a movie at the midnight early release. I went with a friend who had invited me, and I had not seen for some time. They were good enough reasons to move forward the time I was planning on seeing the movie. I tend to watch things during matinee hours. But this once I would see the movie at night. Steeling myself, I bought my tickets through fandango and headed out into the cold night. Others came with me. The journey was not perilous when we set off.

James May's Man Lab - Series 1 [BBC Review]

I first discovered James May's Man Lab back in 2011, a little before the second series aired in the UK. I simply watched it because the titular host was James May from Top Gear, and I really like Top Gear. Man Lab has a total of three series covering thirteen episodes, and hopefully there will be more.

Ookami Kakushi - Mask of the Wolf [Anime Review]

There are lots of anime that seem to have evolved from video games. This one does not seem to come from an eroge (which is where a lot of them seem to come from), it is just a normal mystery-adventure style visual novel for the PSP.

Ghosthouse (1988) [Rifftrax Review]

I love watching bad movies. They really make you appreciate the average mediocre drivel that comes out of Hollywood. Thankfully, there is a tried and true method to watching bad movies. It was created in 1988 by Joel Hodgeson and it is called Mystery Science Theater 3000, which celebrated it's 25th anniversary this past November. There are two modern sucessors to MST3K's legacy, Cinematic Titanic and Rifftrax.

Today's review is a Rifftrax riff of Ghosthouse (1988), a horror movie so bad that it's actually funny.

We Without Wings - Under the Innocent Sky [Anime Review]

Character count: 4 so far.

This might be one of the most difficult anime to ever review without giving away the whole story at once. That not withstanding, I watched it, you get to read about it.

Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special - Day of the Doctor [TV Review]

From 1963 to 2013, the faces of the Doctor.

I suppose it should be stated at the outset that I am a Whovian.
I have the DVD of every episode that is available. This is important.
More after the fold.

X-Com Enemy Within [Review]

 Early in November, I picked up the expansion pack for X-Com: Enemy Unknown. The base game was good, it hailed back to the same feeling as the original X-Com and X-Com Terror From the Deep. Both where much better than the 3rd X-Com game, whose name escapes me and was not worth the effort of even looking it up in Google. (Yes, the 3rd game was that bad.) 

Rurouni Kenshin: New Kyoto Arc [Anime Review]

I've been watching a backlog of Bleach & Naruto on DVD, so its been a while since I've written a review. I've also failed to make it to the theater, so no reviews from that front either.

But tonight that changes, I'm finally reviewing a relatively new anime blu-ray: Rurouni Kenshin New Kyoto Arc. More after the fold.

Ender's Game [Movie Review]

 Tonight I went to the theater to see a movie that was twenty some years in the making. I saw the movie adaptation of the 1985 novel, Ender's Game.

High School DxD [Anime Review]

Our main characters, sans the males, the reason you'd watch this...

This is going to be a rather short review. This is a pretty simple and straightforward anime to review. So without further ado, I present High School DxD. 

Escape Plan [Movie Review]

This was not the movie I was expecting.

My expectations were simple: Action, nonsense, and violence. I got those, but I also got a lot more. I went in expecting a way to just go mindless for two hours, instead I actually got a character driven movie.

Beyond Two Souls (Demo Review) [PS3]

Two days ago I downloaded the PS3 demo of Beyond Two Souls. I do not normally download a lot of demos for PS3 games. I never played Heavy Rain either, but this game has a lot of hype so I downloaded it.

Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere - Seasons 1 & 2 [Anime Review]

There are some anime series that just beg you to watch them.

This is one of them. Everything I learned about the series before I sat down to watch made me wonder what the heck I was getting into.

A classroom filled with the student council. Leaders of a nation.

And now that I've seen both seasons, I'm still not sure I can tell you completely what I watched. This is a very Japanese anime, in that it appears to be an insane jumble of a hundred ideas all at once. Take a look at a Japanese magazine. That's what this anime is like. Lots and lots of information and action and dozens of characters thrown at you.  

Tori, our Hero?! Yes... yes that is our main protagonist.

Ok. I'm going to give a real brief overview of the world the story takes place in. Well, I'll try to be brief... that could be tough because the idea is rather bonkers.

In the future, humans try to flee a devastated Earth. But they can't travel through space for some reason... I do not remember the reason being explained, seriously. Plot contrivance!

Humanity returns to Earth, but the only land that remains inhabitable is Japan (sure, why not, I suppose if an American wrote this it would be set in California or New York). But humanity cannot fit on Japan so they create pocket dimensions to live in. Fine. That sounds perfectly reasonable. 

But that's not all. See, humanity still wants to escape into space. So in order to do so they begin to reenact history according to a Holy Testament. Now, this is just weird but it doesn't stop there. Eventually the nations of the pocket dimensions invade Japan and conquer it, dividing Japan into six Feudal nations and forcing the Japanese to flee. That was five hundred years before the main story starts.

It is 1648 of the Testament Era and Musashi is a city-ship that travels about their lost homeland of Japan. This is where our story begins. Rumors of a great war and of the oncoming apocalypse begin circulating through the Testament Union. When the Testament ends the Apocalypse will occur. There are forces both seeking to usher in the apocalypse and other forces opposing its arrival. 

I'm serious, he's our Protagonist.

 Into this chaos steps Tori Aoi, student council President of the Musashi Ariadust Academy, the ruling body of Musashi. He goal, well... to marry his dead friend. Oh, and maybe retake their homeland in the process... 

Shakespeare vs Toussaint Neshinbara, I think.

Was that confusing enough?

Tenzo, he's kinda the co-protagonist of season II.

That's not even much beyond the introduction of the very first episode. Not even half an episode which spends most of its time introducing you to a class full of characters and their abilities. But don't worry, there will be loads more characters introduced through the season and a whole bunch of English characters introduced in season II, like Shakespeare and Francis Drake.

Now don't get me wrong.

Horizon is a fun series. It's just a whole lot of series jammed into two 13 episode seasons. I re-watched the first season twice in a row just to try and comprehend it. I've seen this anime both subbed and dubbed (both were fine).

Also, he wins the series so far...

It is fantastically animated, you get sucked into the insanity, and once again I've stumbled upon an anime with an excellent music. Unlike the past few anime I've reviewed the intro music is not as excellent. In this series its the insert music, the music in the episodes. Specifically the song sung by a character called P-01s. The song is called 'Toorimase' or 'Let us pass.' A sad melancholic song, but very beautiful.

Excellent music, odd but fun story, and very good animation. I'm looking forward to a third season, but I doubt that either the light novels or the game will be localized this side of the Pacific.

I am confident in my rating for this series. It's biggest faults are too much information and too many characters. Everything else, from the comedy to the drama, from the animation to the music, is very good. It's a solid viewing experience.  It's definitely one I look forward to seeing more of, and there better be more...

4.0 Stars

And you can buy a Tenzo hat! With alternate expressions!

Fabler's Legend [Book Review]

Exact cover art on my copy.

Kirt Hickman's Fabler's Legend might have one of the more banal and nonsensical tag line's I've ever read. Seriously, "All is legal in the fight against evil..." which is a phrase uttered by the most memorable character in the book. Fabler's Legend was a finalist in the New Mexico Book Awards, so there's that.