Showing posts with label suspense. Show all posts
Showing posts with label suspense. Show all posts

Friday, May 22, 2015

Book Review: The Dead Key

This was the second of the free books I got from Amazon as part of my Prime trial membership, if anyone else here is thinking of doing the prime membership I highly recommend doing it so it falls over two calendar months (especially a 15th-15th if you can) so that you at least have the option of getting more than one book from this deal.

The Dead Key by D. M. Pulley



Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Movie Review: The Veronica Mars Movie

When the kickstarter for this movie appeared I was a bit hesitant, I mean sure a movie would be nice but when people pointed out that if the executives said no to the series' creators that there would be no movie no matter how much people pledged, well, that put me off pledging. And by that point even though it was within the first few days the kickstarter was already doing amazingly well so I knew that it was going to be funded regardless of whether or not I kicked something in. Happily the movie did end up happening after all and I made plans to see it as soon as I could, I might've had some problems with the later Veronica Mars seasons but not enough to keep me from giving this a shot!



The Veronica Mars Movie



It's been nine years since Veronica Mars left the town of Neptune behind with all of it's corruption and destructive practices it engrained into her ever since she took up sleuthing after her best friend's murder. She's sworn she'll never go back, and certainly not for her high school's 10 year reunion, but after her old friend and lover Logan calls her asking to clear his name in a murder trial, well, there are some things you can't refuse to do for a friend.

In case people don't remember my reviews of the tv series, since it has been a bit of a while since the last one, while I really enjoyed the first season, it's possibly my favorite bit of a tv series of all time, the second and third season had their ups and downs where I loved parts and really disliked others. This movie was much of the same and while I disagreed with parts of the movie for philosophical reasons (which is fine to a point) there also were parts of the story that just felt weak. A large part of it was that this story is set nine years after the third season, Veronica has spent nine whole years away from Neptune and while we don't see much of that life we don't see anything to suggest that she wasn't reasonably happy. I suppose you could argue that because we don't see much of her life in New York that's supposed to show that's she's unhappy, coupled with how her personal look becomes much more vibrant when she gets back to Neptune, but honestly that felt more like a budget/time constraint to me as well as an economy of storytelling (we all know she's going back to Neptune for this case so why spend a lot of time in Not!Neptune?). Yet the story wants us to believe that she spent nine years on the straight and narrow and then slipped completely back into the role in Neptune in a matter of days and that her personality hasn't changed at all. I think that's also the biggest barrier to entry for a non-fan watching the movie, so much of it is about what the characters have done in the past and how their lives have changed/not changed and that change vs lack of change is also my biggest problem with the movie. 



I actually plan to give this it's own blog post sometime in the upcoming month but, speaking as someone who has left their "hometown" for complicated reasons, that philosophical difference I mentioned earlier is how Veronica comes back to Neptune and really considers staying there again. The town did practically nothing good for her for the 19 years she lived there, and is possibly even more corrupt now, and yet ever cynical Veronica thinks there's a chance she can change it for the better? Perhaps if we weren't told that Veronica "didn't do the private investigator thing anymore" and instead saw that she kept working as PI to help people then it would fit but otherwise I read the movie as Veronica coming to help Logan because it's Logan, not because helping people is what she does. I also was a bit thrown by the fact that every other person is still in Neptune as well, for some characters like Wallace and the 49ers it fit, they never had as many complaints, but then you had characters like Mac who clearly doesn't like Neptune and had the skills to leave but didn't, considering this is nine years later that just didn't make any sense to me. And Weevil's ending was just plain counter-intuitive, especially since I didn't see what the point was story-wise or thematically to do it and went against what I remembered from the series, maybe the idea was to show that while some characters have "grown" (like, erm, Veronica I guess) some have "regressed" but that idea still just barely holds together. Finally, she and Piz have been dating for over nine years now and she's never met his parents? What a convenient and cheap way to build tension....

I have seen at least one person complaining that this movie had too many in-references and jokes for new fans to get into the movie and they made it sound as if this was a grievous error. Let me disagree then, while the hype surrounding the movie is a way to bring in new fans this is a sequel, one that heavily builds upon the three years and beyond of these characters lives. I consider it ludicrous for people to jump into a surprisingly plot heavy story like this cold, although they never did talk about who was the big bad of the first and second seasons so it doesn't spoil the actual conflicts. There were a few times when the references went over my head (like Veronica offers to show Piz's boss her impersonation of him, and apparently that was an actor playing himself there so there's at least one in-joke?) and other times I thought they were brilliant little nods to the fans ("I thought I heard you were in the FBI?" "Maybe in another life"). By and large however I felt like the references were winks and nods to the audiences and not the barrier to entry, that was instead the movie itself.


 I will say that I was a little impressed that the show broke its own setups that it was so fond of using, that Veronica would be close to the truth, investigates more on her own, and it goes downhill worse than you'd believe. For once Veronica was able to get out of this mess on her own and unhurt, although I was surprised by the body count in the movie (there was always a body count in the series too but at least there it was spread over 22 episodes, it's one of the noir stylings I'm not as fond of). And visually/sound-wise the movie was perfectly fine, this has never been a story that needed a really large budget, although the characters really don't look like they're nine years older when they were actors in their 20s trying to portray college students. 


So, to watch or not? If you're a fan I think the answer is clear, you want more of this show so you've probably already seen this and made plans to read/listen to the new book set after the movie as well. If you're not a fan, I think I've already made it clear that watching this movie is dumb but that I do recommend at least part of the series. While not surprised I am still sad that this story just wasn't as tight or sharp and I had hoped it could be, I'm not sure what happened but Veronica Mars a long time ago you used to be good and yet I haven't thought the same lately at all....

Friday, February 21, 2014

Manga Review: 20th Century Boys (volumes 15-18)

My new library has a few more volumes of 20th Century Boys which I was pretty thrilled to discover. True I'm still six volumes from the end but I think it'll be a lot easier for me to bug them and convince them to buy six volumes of manga for me to read instead of 10....

20th Century Boys by Naoki Urasawa



Monday, May 28, 2012

Anime Review: The Future Diary

I noticed that starting last year I always seem to be watching at least one action-y, gore-y show a season (which sometimes is horror like Blood-C and other times really isn't like Deadman Wonderland). Currently Zetman is filling that slot for me and back in the fall and winter The Future Diary which I had read the first volume (of the manga) a few years earlier and surprisingly managed to avoid all spoilers for the show as it was airing (well, except for one which sounded more like a promise of awesome than a spoiler and didn't make it into the show anyway). With a show that's so heavily twist-reliant I really recommend trying to avoid spoilers but I recommend avoiding spoilers for any series anyway (and as usual I shall try to keep this a spoiler free review, if I have to spoil anything it'll be in the footnotes).

The Future Diary


 Summary: Deus, the god of space time, is dying and with his death reality will collapse as well unless he can find someone to replace him. To determine his successor he selects twelve people, gives each of them a diary that can predict the future (based on how each of them used their own diaries), and the last person standing is the new god. The quiet, anti-social Yukiteru Amano isn't too happy with this turn of events but quickly finds that it's fight or be killed and teams up with another with another participant, the stalker-ish Yuno Gasai, to try and survive the game.


The Good: I was surprised that some of the side characters ended up being fleshed out and rather likable characters, even if they were still completely nuts. The pacing worked well and the twists certainly kept the show entertaining, and sometimes their ridiculous implausibility made the show quite entertainingly, although I suspect the story wasn't going for comedy in those instances. The best way to sum up this series is that it was entertaining in the way a summer blockbuster film is entertaining, fun but in a few years time you'll have seen so many others that you won't remember much about this one.

The Bad: Despite the fact that I grew to like some of the side characters more than I expected I could never get myself to care about any of the characters the way I normally do with a show. Almost everyone became so crazy that they almost stop being characters and are reduced to plot devices so it's a good thing that the plot was interesting. That said, the show is so twist heavy that I wonder how much re-watch value the show has. Yes it can certainly be fun to go back and see things be foreshadowed but so many of these twists came out of nowhere I simply don't see if there would be that much entertainment and for me my favorite shows are ones I want to re-watch because I can always find something new in them.

The Audio: Funimation sadly did not translate any of the opening and ending songs and when I tried translating the first ending song, piecemeal and with google translate, it just turned out to be a very odd love song (which makes more sense in retrospect) so this is one of those odd cases where I liked how the songs sounded more than what they meant. But overall none of the music left a really deep impression on me, if I had watched the show on DVD I would have skipped both of them after the first few times and none of the background music really grabbed me either.

The Visuals: As odd as this sounds when talking about a story in a visual medium, none of the art or the animation left an impression on me, good or bad. Everything was simply there, the art wasn't stunning but it wasn't the cheapest I had ever scene and all of the designs (sets/backgrounds, characters) were like that as well, they didn't add or take anything away from the overall product. And I suppose that is a bad thing, stories should be told in the medium that fits them best and, if the art wasn't contributing to the story, I wonder if I would feel any differently about it if it had simply been a novel instead.

In short, this felt like a series I watched and, while it wasn't bad, simply don't feel the need to purchase or rewatch. I can probably recommend it to a some of my friends and for anyone who is curious in checking it out Funimation has it streaming for the US and Canada and has licensed physical media rights as well (I believe both DVD and BRs). 

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Winter 2012 Anime Reviews

So it's that time again, a new season of anime has started and there's all sorts of stuff to try out. Only one post from me this time since, as is usual for winter seasons, there isn't a ton of stuff that interests me but there are still a few shows that caught my eye. I've seen the first one or two episodes of each series, for once all of these shows are legally being simulcast so I might be a few days behind some of them, but normally my opinion doesn't change too radically from my early impressions so onto the mini-reviews!


Ano Natsu de Matteru (Waiting in the Summer): High school student Kirishima Kaito is expecting to have a laid back summer shooting a movie with friends but then he apparently gets crushed by an alien space ship. Oops. So far he hasn’t remembered that detail but since the offending alien, and the one responsible for bringing him back, has now transferred to his school, agreed to help out with the movie and somehow moved in with him while his sister leaves for the summer, it might not be so quiet after all. Ignoring how much of that sounds like Birdy the Mighty Decode (since there have been plenty of shows with a similar arrangement of tropes) I was surprised at how much I liked this one. It took some classic romantic tropes, such as the mysterious and hot new transfer student moving in, and actually played around with them and made them funny again. Sure there were still some facepalm worthy moments when things became too clichéd but so far I think the writers stand at good chance at making this a fun little show.


Another:26 years ago, a talented student who was beloved by everyone died. Yet her classmates pretended that she was still alive up to graduation and there seems to be even more to the story than that. Fast forward to 1998 and Kouichi Sakakibara has moved to the small town of Yomiyama and will be attending the same middle school while his father is off researching in India. He spends some time in a hospital first however and from there the story starts creating an atmosphere that “not everything is as it seems!” and by creating atmosphere I mean beating you over the head with all the shots of people looking uncomfortable, shots that drag out way too long with “creepy sounds” played, and too many close-ups of people’s eyes dilating dramatically. The show does sound interesting and a like a lot of it but after two episodes I just can't take the "this is atmosphere!" moments seriously and I just become too annoyed at the show. I might pick it up later but for the moment the show is dropped.


Bodacious Space Pirates (Mouretsu Pirates): …..I am never typing out that title again if I can help it. Contrary to the title however, this isn’t a fanservice show (or at least not yet)! In the future there have been many planets that have been colonized and one of them, the Sea of the Morningstar, gained it’s independence from it’s mother system only 100 years ago with the help of privateers, space pirates who attack enemy ships with permission from the government (a “Letter of Marque”). This is all fairly unimportant for Marika Kato, an ordinary high school student who is very active in her school’s space yacht club, until she learns that she is the only living descendant of the captain of the ship Bentenmaru* and therefore is the only person who can be the next captain. Marika isn’t so sure about all of this pirate stuff but I definitely be checking out a few more episodes since this one seemed like a fairly fun show and I liked Marika a lot as well, she seems fairly sensible so I’m curious how they’ll convince her to become the captain. The show also has had the sense not to rush Marika into her new position, even if it’s clear to the audience that she’ll be the next captain, and I’m really enjoying the world building build up right now.


InuxBoku Secret Service: Ririchiyo is the newest tenant of the Mansion de Ayakashi, a super exclusive apartment complex where each person is assigned their very own Secret Service person. Ririchiyo, who moved in to try and work on her habit of covering up her true emotions by speaking disdainfully to people, doesn’t want her assigned Secret Service man but Soushi might wear her down yet. I read some of the manga for this series before this and it took me a few chapters to get into the swing of it and I feel like that might be the same case here. It’s kinda interesting but not a very gripping first episode, I did like the OP though which was nice since I haven’t liked most of the OP/ED I’ve seen this season.


Lagrange: The Flower of Rin-ne (Rinne no Lagrange: Flower Declaration of Your Heart): Madoka seems to be a fairly ordinary student, abet one who helps out everyone who asks and because someone asked her she ends up piloting a robot in the fight against alien invaders (she does object when she finds out this wasn't a one time thing however). It certainly feels like a lot of mecha/space/sci-fi-ish shows this season (this, Aquarion Evol, that pirate show, Senki Zessho Symphogear, Ano Natsu to a degree), I guess this is the accidental theme of the season (and perhaps the year) just like young girl detectives were the theme last year. I didn’t like the first episode that much, it felt bland and predictable, but I started warming up to the show in the second episode as Madoka and some of the other characters started to get a bit more fleshed out and there was a small twist on the monster-of-the-week style episode I was expecting. The show is (split) two cour so it has time to build up and I really hope that’s what they’re doing right now.


Natsume Yuujinchou Shi: You really shouldn’t be watching this show if you haven’t seen the previous three seasons and if you’ve seen them then you already know the drill here, Takashi Natsume can see spirits and inherited the Book of Friends from his grandmother who could also see spirits and decided to release all the names contained within it. He gets into trouble a lot however and mostly unrelated to the book such as the trouble he gets into in the two-parter that starts off the season. I like the more serious arcs of Natsume myself, especially since we might even get some back story on his parents this season (it popped up recently in the scanlations), and the theme of the season so far seems to be Natsume actively helping out yokai, but regardless which way Natsume goes I’ll be sure to keep watching.


In case you guys couldn't tell, Funico have been surprisingly mum about their pick-ups for this season, so far they only announced the DxD boobs show and honestly there aren't many other series this season I'm curious in trying. Possibly The Daily Lives of Highschool Boys or the new Aquarion Evol show but for the moment I'm good. I have 5 continuing shows, at least 5 new shows, Once Upon a Time, Grimm, MLP:FiM, 3 Nozomi shows (although the last episode of Emma streamed yesterday and the last episode of Antique Bakery streams next week), plus a few other things to watch so it's not like I'm getting bored anytime soon.

Soooo, what is everyone else trying out that they absolutely adore so far? 

*whose name keeps reminding me of a mash-up of Bettenou from Un-Go and Bishamaru from Kyosougiga, which is a pretty funny image 

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Continuing shows for Winter 2012

I should have a post up about the new winter anime I've been checking out next week (since I'm always one of the last people to post anyway) but today I've got a quick rundown of the two cour fall shows I'm continuing with and what they're doing right now. I've seen the latest episode for each of them (which means anything from episode 11 to 14) and I'll try to keep the spoilers down since that's never fun for anyone.


Chihayafuru: I still love this series but I’m loving Chihaya herself a little less now, I just wish she would train and get better already instead of having a freak out in nearly every match! For a josei show there are an awful lot of shonen tournament tropes in here and I’m really hoping the series moves away from them in order to let the story flow more naturally and to let the characters have more development.

Future Diary: It's odd but I am enjoying the show despite the fact that almost none of the characters are likable (I'm actually like Akise the most now and I was pretty sure I'd hate him when he first appeared). In a weird way the show has been fun, a little twisty, and I am really curious to see where it goes in the end (although I don't see myself buying the DVD/BRs of it).

Guilty Crown: Yes I’m still watching this and no I’m not entirely sure why. I almost wish I was blogging this show weekly because each episode does do one or two things right which makes me happy (characters freaking out after they kill people! Characters who don’t immediately want to team up with what amount to terrorists! Shuu’s mom appears to be a capable and smart lady!) but then they do so many things wrong or just plain odd (people in the Funeral Parlor: can someone PLEASE explain why you’re following Gai? No seriously Shuu’s right, your blind devotion to him is creepy!) that the overall review of this thing is going to be hard. It isn’t great and isn’t always even good but it does do enough things right that I want to see just what the heck they pull out of this series in the end.

Last Exile: Fam of the Silver Wing: The art is up and down (generally it’s the characters that look less detailed while the backgrounds are still nice, hoping that Gonzo has enough time/money to retouch bits for the DVDs) and some of the characters need more development (I swear that Fam is a shonen hero who got genderbent and put in here, her general confidence with small moments of self-doubt that she tries to hide from everyone else) but I still love this show. The world building is well done, the latest flashback episode shows that they put a lot of thought into the politics of the various countries and the characters have developed enough for me to be satisfied. I am a little worried about how this show is going to end, it’s almost half way done and no matter what the character’s end goal is they still have a long way to go, but I’m going to keep crossing my fingers and hope for the best.

Persona 4: Much like Guilty Crown I’m not entirely sure why I’m watching this show. I haven’t played the game (although I am watching the Let’s Play of it that Giant Bomb did, I prefer to listen to stuff in English when sewing so this was the perfect thing to watch recently) and it’s clear that the pacing is not the best here but, well, somehow I’m enjoying this. Mostly it’s the unintentional comedy in it (or sometimes the intentional bits) that keep me giggling but I am enjoying this for some reason or another. Enough to want to say buy fanart of the series, as well as continue watching the series and the LP, but not enough to buy DVDs/BRs down the road.

Again, next Wednesday I should have some quick blurbs up about the new shows this season I've tried out and at the top of yesterday's post I posted my new schedule that goes into effect next Sunday.