Movie Review: Big Hero 6

Big Hero 6

Manga Review: Cronos Haze

This review originally appeared on Organization of Anti-Social Geniuses.

Title: Cronos Haze
Genre: Action
Publisher: Futabasha (JP), Crunchyroll (US)
Story/Artist: Takano Masayuki
Serialized in: Manga Action
Reviewed: 7 out of 11 chapters
Review copy provided by Crunchyroll.

Readers could be forgiven for looking at this series, which involves fights using sentient “jackets” and the original publication date, and thinking “is this a Kill la Kill rip-off?” Since this series is a reboot of a 2001 title of the same name the answer is no and upon a closer look the details of these two series are rather dissimilar after all. In Cronos Haze, Touya aims to find out more about his missing father by attending the same high school he did, Amagiri Academy, and quickly discovers that this school is bizarre by anyone’s standards. The school possess mecha, the student body president wields a military gun, and as mentioned earlier some of the students fight using “jackets” which when not activated take the form of a person and change their appearance to suit their wearer. Despite all of it’s shonen trappings the series runs in Manga Action magazine which means it’s actually a seinen series although it hasn’t done anything that would feel out of place in a shonen manga aimed at 14 year olds yet.

When Touya isn’t on screen there’s a subplot emerging in the background: Gigantes is a group of beings who have ruled the world (secretly I assume) for centuries and Amagiri is the one group that has been able to oppose them, despite their supernatural abilities. The abilities themselves are a bit vague, all of the ones presented so far seem to be related to probability, but more confusing is the fact that they have never caught onto the fact that their mysterious nemesis shares a name with an enormous, famous school and then when they’re searching for the headquarters (tipped off that it might be found at sea) run straight into the island.

None of this is portrayed humorously, which therefore means that the readers are supposed to take these characters seriously, yet the series hasn’t explained why Gigantes and Amagiri are fighting each other besides making vague speeches about ruling the world. Touya is as flat as a protagonist can be, with the vague goal of “I want to learn more about my father” but shows no interest in actually doing anything and the side characters are nothing more than walking exposition speech bubbles (except for when the series indulges in some particularly pathetic fanservice, just because you had a girl in a guys dorm instead of the other way around doesn’t suddenly make it funny). The exposition is also among the worst I’ve ever seen, the series literally waits a few chapters and then has one, two-page monologue by a new character explaining everything he thought Touya already knew and it still doesn’t answer many key questions.

If you want a series with the characters uncovering complex, hidden schemes there are better series out there and there are also plenty of series which combine that with action as well. If it wasn’t for the fact that this is a reboot I would have assumed Cronos Haze was a manga-ka’s first work where they were really passionate about their story but had no storytelling skills. As it stands I’m scared to look at what they’ve created in the 13 year gap between these versions.

Anime Review: Blood Blockade Battlefront

Before this show aired I had so many people asking me "so are you going to watch BBB?" that I felt like my status as a Rei Matsumoto fan was in peril! It's true that I wasn't really expecting to like the series (the premise sounded a bit generic and the original manga is from the creator of Trigun which is a series that I didn't like) but of course I was going to at least try it. And wow, I didn't realize that I needed a mash-up of Kyousogiga and Baccano! in my life but apparently I did and it was fun

Blood Blockade Battlefront (Kekkai Sensen)

Anime Review: Garo

Most of the buzz I saw for Studio MAPPA last fall was their unexpectedly good series Rage of Bahamut: Genesis which I found enjoyable and way better than any card game-based series ever has a right to be, but it was there other series that first caught my eye. I've seen bits and pieces of tokusatsu shows before but the hamminess of Japanese live action is a mild turnoff at the very least so it's not a genre I actively seek out. Put it in anime however, which for some reason has that same hamminess much less frequently, and I'm game for trying it out!

Garo

Movie Review: The Avengers: Age of Ultron

My schedule has such few, odd free hours at this point that I thought I just wouldn't have the time to see The Age of Ultron until sometime in June at this rate but as I was playing catch-up with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. I got to the tie-in episode and realized, I really wanted to see the movie right now! The tie-in seems to be that the "Operation THETA" that was mentioned a few times prior to the episode was Coulson working out a way to get into a HYDRA base to learn where Loki's scepter is and then I think they end the episode on the line "It's time to call in the Avengers." Oh and there's also a wonderful bit of Coulson sass earlier in the episode saying to someone "Here's Fury's toolbox, you can have it until he wants it back. Oh, spoilers." I'm so grumpy that they still aren't working this guy back into these movies since he really is my favorite Avenger. 

The Avengers: Age of Ultron

TV Series Review: Agent Carter

Sorry that this is late folks, there's no really good answer for it except general tiredness coupled with knowing this was going to be a long review and not wanting to start it. Since I did really love this show, hence why I knew it was going to be a longer one! 

Agent Carter

Anime Review: Yona of the Dawn

As probably everyone already knows, I have been a huge fan of the Akatsuki no Yona manga for years so I was happy was an anime adaptation was announced, thrilled when I heard it was going to be two cours (since adapting any part of the story into just 13 episodes was going to be a mess), and then shocked when it was picked up by Funimation from the get-go, I guess successes like Kamisama Kiss are making people a little less hesitant about shojo again. So why do I love this show so much? Well, this adaptation does a pretty good job at explaining it!

Yona of the Dawn

Manga Review: Spirit Circle

Funny story, I actually had this post all ready to go last night and completely forgot until 11:30 to actually hit post so I decided to wait until morning. Which means, this post originally appeared on Organization of Anti-Social Geniuses!

This is one of the many manga I first tried out when I was using friends' guest passes on Crunchyroll and frankly my luck for finding good series on there was pretty terrible. Honestly it still is but I'm lad I stumbled across this one, I actually had no idea it was by the same manga-ka as The Biscuit Hammer and after I enjoyed this series so much I was convinced to try The Biscuit Hammer again and I think that one is growing on me too!

Spirit Circle by Satoshi Mizukami

Anime Review: Rage of Bahamut: Genesis

This is another title that wasn't on my to-watch list for the fall initially but good buzz, and some persistent friends, convinced me to try it out. Hmm, it seems as if I've been saying that about quite a few shows that aired this past fall....

Rage of Bahamut: Genesis

Anime Review: Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works (television series, part one)

Despite the fact that I enjoyed Fate/Zero when I watched it a few years back, this series wasn't on my to-watch list when the fall season started since I had heard that the original Fate/Stay Night visual novel is, well, kind of terrible. And the F/SN VN is a little weird, while all three routes (Fate, Unlimited Blade Works, and Heavens Feel) are canon, Heavens Feel is the "most canon" so why watch something that wasn't going to matter as much in the long run? Plus, they did already make a movie about this route a few years ago and it sounded like that was an alright adaptation, why should I check out this one instead? But then, all of the people on my feed who had played the VN, who had said it was terrible, said that this adaptation was really cutting out sexist dialogue and other less-than-savory moments and turning it into a better story. And after seeing so much good buzz for it I was interested in it again, funny enough I think that's also exactly how I ended up watching F/Z in the first place....

Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works (television series, fall 2014)

Book Review: Waistcoats and Weaponry

As a general heads-up, no anime/cartoon review on Monday since all of my plans to watch something have fallen short this week and I'm feeling rather grumpy about it honestly.

Like many things in life, author visits/book-signings seem to be something that happens sporadically and in groupings. I only found out about this one a week beforehand and was rather grumpy since I do own the Parasol Protectorate omnibuses and would have liked to get them signed but they were several hundred miles away from me and I didn't trust the post office to get them up to me in time. I only found out because the local indie bookstore that was helping with the events posted it in their newsletter, Carriger never goes on tour on the East Coast and didn't announce it on her blog until just two days in advance! Grumbling aside, it was a good talk and I was quite happy to spot this book just a couple of weeks later at my other library system since I still recalled some of the things Carriger said in her talk that were rather pertinent to this book!

Waistcoats & Weaponry by Gail Carriger

Book Review: Rampant

Apologies for the lateness of this review and this time I have no explanation for it, I've just been feeling a bit down lately and that makes it surprisingly hard to pull myself together and care enough to write. Wish I could say that it should get better soon but since I'm about to start NaNoWriMo right after this I'm going to take next week off and see how trying to do two different kinds of writing each night goes. I have plenty to review but just no motivation, even though I've figured out a way to pre-write most of these at work!

Rampant by Diana Peterfreund

Anime Review: Haikyuu!!

In case anyone is wondering what happened to the movie review last week, a combination of my library woes and Anime USA just left me with no time to watch the film let alone think about it and talk about it so it's happening this Wednesday instead. Sorry folks, I had like a month of no missed updates there!

Moving onto this review, this year has been an odd one for me anime-wise so far and I realized that might be the case when I looked at my upcoming spring shows and noticed tha I wasn't, over the moon excited for any show and the only one I was confident would be good was a volleyball manga I hadn't even read. Thankfully I did enjoy some of the other shows like Captain Earth and Mushi-shi: The Next Passage but I was right to believe the tumblr hype for this show and thanks to how early it aired I always had something to look forward to during lunch at work on Sundays!

Haikyuu!!

Comic Review: Battling Boy

Another comic I would have read earlier if my library had let me, although this time it's my own fault since I simply forgot to check earlier to see if they had it, still haven't figured out how my city library buys their comics yet (especially since they have volumes 3-5 of Gundam: The Origin but not one or two, I'm really confused by this one!). I'm also confused how it seemed like I was seeing reviews for the next book, The Rise of Aurora West back at the end of July when it's not even out yet, wonder how soon my library can get that one..... 

Battling Boy by Paul Pope

Movie Review: Guardians of the Glaxay

When I saw the trailer for this film before Captain America 2: The Winter Solider all I could think was Thank God for Marvel and how they've convinced the movie-going public to give sci-fi films another chance and I don't think I'm going to stop being thankful for this for a while (and it's also proving just how loose the definition of superhero really is which is also a good thing in my opinion). I knew absolutely nothing about this franchise going in except what I saw in those trailers but it looked like it was going to be a fun, spaghetti-space-western romp and that sounded like a pretty great summer movie to me!

Guardians of the Galaxy

Book Review: Crown of Midnight

Well that didn't go as planned, apologies that my schedule is so off, between HTTYD2 taking longer than usual to write, my work deciding that I should work 8 days in a row (heck, anytime my reviews are late just assume it's work related), and having three family crises in 12 hours just completely threw me off and I'm going to work as hard as I can to get back on track as quickly as I can!

After reading Throne of Glass I was fairly excited to read the next book as well and, between when it came out and when I read it, the author announced that while she had originally signed a three book deal for the series, it had been extended into a six book deal which was how she originally outlined it and that the series would completely finish. It seems as if she's already finished with the editing for Heir of Fire but I'm still happy since I do actually have a few YA series that are in unfinished limbo and have no desire to add to that list. Also, whatever my feelings on the individual books might be, I have to say that they have the best short, snappy but not one word, titles out there right now, they're rather fun to keep typing out!

Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas

Anime Review: Gundam Build Fighters

If some shows I've reviewed lately are a bit surprising but not wholly so since I've mentioned them before this has to be the oddest of the bunch. Considering that last fall people had next to no hopes for this show, that I remember seeing, there's no reason I would see the latest sort-of installment in a franchise I don't have any experience with (other than that one time my anime club watched a few episodes of Gundam Wing and I was deeply bored) and it seemed like a pretty blatant grab to get kids to buy toys, nope I have better things to spend my time on! But after the new year I was seeing more and more chatter about the show online and it seemed like people were really enjoying it and I actually had a number of friends who were also becoming interested in the show for the same reasons. Considering that Sunrise had done the rather unprecedented move of putting the show legally on youtube subbed in at least a half a dozen different languages I didn't have any reason to not try the show out when I found myself with some free time during my lunch and I was pretty quickly able to see why so many people were enjoying it.

Gundam Build Fighters

Anime Review: Space Dandy

When I was looking at the panel listing for Otakon I noticed that Shinichiro Watanabe had a panel on Sunday which was listed as something along the lines of "the second Watanabe panel" and I though "Oh so are they finally going to announce Space Dandy?" Some fans online had already found out about the project (I believe through searching who was buying what site titles) and sure enough the project was announced during his Saturday panel and they spent the first bit of the Sunday panel showing all the material again (and it was pretty fun to see the trailer that practically no one else had seen, and it wasn't a crappy cam-rip either!). It also lead to the most surreal moment of my life where I was on twitter, live-tweeting a tiny bit, sat back during the Q& A to just listen and read my own feed, to have someone in line say that they were live-tweeting as well, they had actually shown up on my feed, and that a staff member who had worked on the show had responded to something he had reported that Watanabe had said about him. So it was a given that I was going to watch it and when Funimation said that it would actually air on American tv before Japanese tv dubbed well that makes it even better, gotta take special situations like that as they come!

Space Dandy

Anime Review: Kill la Kill

Last year when I went to my first Otakon I decided to try and hit up all the industry panels I could since I'd never been to a con large enough to host industry panels at before (well, Funimation had one at Animazement my last year there which was actually talking about how the company worked and was actually rather cool!). In the end I decided it was a worthy experiment but there wasn't much of a difference between reading the news online in a few minutes and sitting for an hour in a room while they slowly dole it out to you. "Much" anyway, it was rather fantastic being in the room when Funimation started playing the Cowboy Bebop theme and when I was in the Aniplex panel my jaw actually dropped when they said "oh and we've got one more title for the fall, it's a new show" and started playing Kill la Kill's trailer. By that point the internet was practically in raptures about how great Studio Trigger's new show would look ("sasuga sakuga!") and while I wasn't so sure about the show based on the premise it was still more than enough to get me to try it out!

Kill la Kill

Spring 2014 Anime Round-UP

It's that time of year again folks, time for me to talk about the sudden onslaught of new anime and I'm starting off this season with almost a blank slate since just about all my shows have ended, as is usually the case since winter shows tend to be one-cour and it's rare to have a show run for more than two-cour so all my fall shows have ended as well. The one exception (well, Space Dandy is split cour but it's currently off the air) is the latest Pretty Cure series, Happiness Charge (nicknamed Hacha! by fans because that's just fun to say). In case people are trying to remember, no I didn't finish Doki Doki Precure since, well, it turns out that wasn't one of the better series. This I'm still a little cautious about, once burned twice shy after all, but I already like how they're fleshing out the character better and the fights are rather fun and silly, just what I want from a children's show!

Not included here are Break Blade and Knights of Sidonia since I already saw the BB movie's years ago and this is just a re-edit of those (possibly with a few new scenes and a new opening but nothing can compare to the movie's wonderful opening song) and Sidonia is actually getting broadcast, dubbed, on Netflix in the summer so I'm waiting for that. Well, that and Sidona's CGI is making me nervous, I hope it looks fine in the series but those trailers do not fill me with hope.