[Manga Review - 12/28/12] Bleach, One Piece and Naruto

Happy New years, everyone! I apologize again for the delay getting this review out. A couple things came up that prevented me from releasing this. One is a bit of a writer's block of some sorts, but I'll get to that later. Another is that I caught two colds, both before and after New Years, that knocked me on my ass. But enough about me and my projectile puking, let's get to the stuff you want to hear about.

Bleach 522

Recap: Ichigo, Renji and Kon arrive in the Palace of the Phoenix and are greeted by Oetsu Nimaiya, the apparent creator of the zanpuktos. All of them are quickly surrounded by brothel-dressed women who all turn out to be zanpuktos. Oetsu is hassled a bit by his zanpukto, Mera, and so he leads them to the "real" Phoenix Palace, made to look like a shack, where Renji and Ichigo fall into a dark pit-like area after walking in the front door. Oetsu summons up the two Shinigami's swords, Zangetsu and Zabimaru, and tells Ichigo and Renji that he'll reforge their zanpukto if they can survive the zanpukto's rage inside the pit and climb out alive.

Commentary: Yet another chapter that really doesn't advance anything and just gives an excuse to show more busty women. However, this may surprise you, but Bleach is NOT my least favorite manga this week. This maybe bad, but it's not on par with the shafting that is in store for a certain manga's fans.

One Piece 694

Recap: The battle between Franky (in mech form) against Baby 5 and Buffalo rages on. Caesar is nearby, looks at the heart in his hand, and declares that Smoker's going to die before he does. Meanwhile Don Flamingo, through a den-den mushi, talks one last time to Vergo, seemingly comforting him in Vergo's last moments alive before the island's self-destruct gets him. Elsewhere, the Strawhat crew, Trafalgar Law, Smoker, Tashigi, the giant children and their marines are escaping via minecart as the island explodes around them. Momonosuke discovers his father is turned to stone from the gas and mourns. Caesar stabs the heart with a spike and Smoker is unaffected; however, Monet suddenly topples over and reveals that her heart is missing from her chest, then finally collapses. Smoker asks Law about why Caesar believed he had his heart, to which Law reveals that he handed Monet's heart to Caesar instead and Caesar mistook it for Smoker's heart. Failing to contact Monet, but aware there wasn't any explosion, Doflamingo leaves his castle and heads towards Vega Punk island.

Commentary: Surprisingly, there was a lot that happened in this chapter. Again, there's no real complaints, but if I might nitpick: how the hell did Doflamingo know there wasn't any "earth shattering kaboom"? Logic would dictate that after Monet pressed the button there wouldn't be anyone to respond to. I guess maybe the den-den mushi would only produce static or something? Other than that, it was a fun read of a chapter, still a bit rushed because of the compressed story, but entertaining none-the-less.

Naruto 615

Recap: Neji's death shocks the battlefield. Naruto is horrified and Obito taunts him, telling him to side with Madara and him instead, to help the Eye of the Moon plan. Hinata slaps Naruto awake and tells him to never give up. Naruto regains his resolve, then he and Hinata stand up together, holding hands.

Commentary: Alright, this is where I really had to struggle for words, because as much as I love Masashi Kishimoto's writing, this is the stuff I'm talking about when it comes to his bias towards certain characters. I'll just say it outright: Hinata is a terribly written character. Her relationship with Naruto is almost always forced, with the ONE exception being their interaction during the Chuunin exams. Every time we saw her, she was either with someone else besides Naruto, hiding in the shadows away from Naruto, on a rare joint mission with Team 7, or putting her self in danger for Naruto like a suicidal tool. If you want a comparison as to what Hinata acts like, she is basically like Sakura was towards Sasuke in nearly all of the pre-time skip Naruto.

Now, if you want to see a well-written character that would be compatible with Naruto, look at Sakura: she has gone from hating/ignoring him, to respecting him, to seeing him as someone to look up to and help, to finally wanting to protect him from both threats and his over-eagerness. Sakura has developed as a character from being a talented damsel in distress to a helpful assistant to people. If you really want a view as to how much Hinata really understands Naruto, just take a look at the battle between Tobi and the 8 man Konoha team, where Hinata is worried after Naruto is struck by an attack, but Sakura is resolved that Naruto is okay, which he was and gets up a moment later, and Hinata should concentrate on the enemy instead of worrying.

This may seem like a nitpick, discussing the relationships of characters, but relationships are a part of the story and if the relationships of characters are unnatural, then the story will also seem unnatural. If Kishimoto really wanted Hinata and Naruto to get together so badly, then he should have set time aside for honest character development for Hinata instead of focusing on other characters like Shikamaru. That's not to say I hate Shikamaru's character development (quite the opposite infact), but it would have greatly benefited Hinata's character and her relationship with Naruto if she had interacted with him, gave the two of them time together instead of using events such as the battle with Tobi, the battle with Pain, or Neji's death as sort of a way to force them together.

As of right now, Hinata and Naruto's relationship is probably just one step above Edward Cullen and Bella Swan from the Twilight novels.

With that, this manga review comes to a close, I did promise I'd have something between last week and this week, but I've yet to actually think about what else to review. I'll think of something though, so stay tuned!

[Manga Review - 12/14/12 and 12/21/12] Bleach, One Piece, and Naruto

Happy Holidays to everyone! Hope everyone ate plenty of food and had lots of fun!

Sorry for the massive delay on the weekly BOPaN review, both the holiday season as well as a new job opportunity came knocking on my door. But, I'm back and ready to rip the shit out of these mangas, then throw them into the air like confetti. I've got two weeks worth of mangas to review, with a third up and coming shortly, so let's get started...

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Bleach 520 and 521

Recap: In chapter 520 of Bleach, Captains Shunsui Souzousa and Jirou Kyoraku have both been elected to be Captain of the First squad. Meanwhile Ichigo's healing hot spring dip is over and he's launched to the next wacky training stage, joined by a recently healed Renji Abari. Then Captain Souzousa is addressing the Central 46 and suggests teaching Captain Zaraki Kenpachi the "Art of Killing", with his trainer being Captain Unohana Yachiru, who was the original Kenpachi (the title being given to the strongest soul reaper).

In chapter 521 of Bleach, Ichigo and Renji arrive in the Piggy Palace and chow down on a meal prepared by a fat chick. She transforms into a busty and skinny, very Rangiku Matsumoto-looking really, chick due to her expending a huge portion of her reiatsu after preparing their meal. They eat their fill and apparently her work is done, so she gives a warning to them about the next training ground and the manga ends.

Commentary: Chapter 520, the only real plot development seems to be the Soul Society stuff, but that's probably the part that I have the biggest problem with. The key being this title of "Kenpachi", which is apparently given to the strongest soul reaper. Okay, first question: "What is their definition of 'strongest', exactly?" Second question: "If Kenpachi is the 'strongest' Soul Reaper, then where the hell is the First Captain on this 'scale of strength'?" Third and fourth questions: "If Captain Unohana Yachiru is the original Kenpachi, then why is she only a healer and as far away from the intense battle that Soul Society faced?" The only questions that I think really will be answered is the third and fourth questions, but even that...I doubt will really be answered.

Chapter 521 is the very definition of the word "filler" and probably a real big example of Tite Kubo's misogynistic style of writing/drawing with the fat chick turning skinny and busty because her reiatsu is tied into her fat cells somehow. I don't think Tite knows that tits are naturally made of mostly fat, because if this "reiatsu expenditure = fat loss" is to be believed, then her tits would also shrink to an appropriate size in proportion to the rest of her body as well, wouldn't they? Meaning they would probably have shrunk to a C or B cup or something like that. But that wouldn't be sexy, would it? Oh and Tite Kubo...I do read Naruto, so I know exactly where you get this idea from.

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One Piece 692 and 693

Recap: In Chapter 692 of One Piece, Luffy finishes off Caesar with his Gum Gum Grizzly Magnum, sending him flying throughout and out of the facility. Almost everyone (save for Chopper, Mocha and Brook) gathers together to escape the crumbling laboratory in a mine cart. Meanwhile two devil fruit using pirates from Donquixote/Joker's crew arrive, they are Baby 5 (she can transform her body into different weapons) and Buffalo (he can spin parts of his body, allowing him to fly like a plane or create strong winds). They see both Caesar's unconscious body come flying out and crashing into a boat, but before they can retrieve him, Franky appears in his mech form.

In Chapter 693 a fight ignites between Baby 5/Buffalo against Franky over Caesar, who has woken up and is about to kill Smoker by crushing his heart (given to him by Law). Brook, Chopper and Mocha have joined up with the rest of the Strawhats, who unintentionally held up the rest of the group from leaving before the rest of their crew arrived. Elsewhere, Monet is shown to be still alive after her fight against Tashigi and Zoro, she is told by Joker to sacrifice herself to destroy the laboratory and everyone in it by self-destructing it. She seems to be willing to give her life willingly for Joker, even if he hadn't asked her to do it. It ends with her about to press the self-destruct button.

Commentary: The pacing is very rushed for both chapters, but it's to be expected with so many events transpiring together, so the focus is more towards what everyone is doing as opposed to consistency. Honestly, apart from that, nothing really offensive to make note of. But, I do kinda wish we could see more of Monet, because she's a very interesting character, but whatever...

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Naruto 613 and 614

Recap:  In Chapter 613 of Naruto, the Jyuubi breaks free of the recent encasing and transforms into a horned beast with a single ear, a large rinnegan + sharingan eye, and a Joker-looking mouth on its head. Both Madara and Obito are forced to use Hashirama's cells to link up to the Jyuubi to control it better and they begin to unleash powerful bijuu-damas at far away locations. Meanwhile Shikaku is formulating a plan and talking to Kakashi to confirm certain suspicions to hopefully devise a strategy for defeating the Jyuubi, Madara and Obito. Unfortunately, the Jyuubi unleashes a bijuu-dama towards where the intelligence corp is gathered, leaving Shikaku, Inoichi, Ao and possibly several other minor characters, precious little time to prepare for their deaths. Shikaku uses this time to convey a final message to everyone, leaving his last strategy in the hands of the Shinobi Alliance. A blast seen by Obito and Madara seems to imply that the intelligence corp was successfully wiped out.

In Chapter 614, Naruto is shown to be ignorant to the fact that Shikaku and the intelligence corp were wiped out. The Jyuubi begins to attack by spraying giant thorns across the battlefield. The Hyuugas step up and defend Naruto, but are quickly overwhelmed and Neji sacrifices himself to save both Hinata and Naruto from being impaled. Neji then shares a final farewell with both Hinata and Naruto, then the manga ends as he dies.

Commentary: For Chapter 613, all I can really say is that this year has not been good to both Shikamaru and Ino. If Shikaku and the rest of the Intelligence corp are actually dead, I actually will applaud Masashi Kishimoto for killing them in such a noble way where they have a choice between trying to escape an inescapable death or doing what they can to help out their team before the end. Unfortunately I fear that Kishimoto will kinda cave under pressure and resurrect a lot of these guys through a future Edo Tensei.

As for Chapter 614, I have no argument against Neji dying or how he dies, but what I am pissed off about is why he died. I know for a fact that this entire death scene is to build towards forcing Hinata and Naruto together, which doesn't need to happen at all and is in fact almost stopping the narrative cold to do it. Don't get me wrong, I would love for Hinata and Naruto to get together, but I feel character and relationship development must happen naturally or not at all. If you try to force them together, they will simply look like an unrealistic couple that simply fell in love by simply bumping into one another and that the writer is biased towards characters...but I'll get into that further after I talk about the next manga, believe me, I will.

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That's it for the past two week's manga recaps. Stay tuned, around Friday or Saturday I'll probably have my next set of mangas available just in time for the arrival of the new year. By the way, a future note: my BOPaN manga recaps will not be posted over the next two weeks after this one, because of the holidays these mangas will not be produced for the next two weeks. But, I'll try and get something to review so as to fill in the gap though, so look forwards to that.

[Manga Recap - 12/5/12] Bleach, One Piece, and Naruto

Time for today's weekly BOPaN recap! Remember, it's spoiler city while reading this.

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Bleach 519

Recap: Ichigo takes a bromanctic dip in the hot springs with the yakuza-looking member of the 0 Squad, Byakuya, Renji and Rukia, with the latter three being unconscious and regaining their reiatsu through the healing powers of the hot spring of vagueness. The hot spring is apparently the inspiration for the one in Urahara and Yoruichi's secret grotto. The Spirit King apparently lives in the Monarch's floating cocoon-lair (Venture Brothers). Oh, and apparently the Spirit King is Lord Xenu...where the hell did that come from?

Commentary: Healing hot springs again? Also, the Spirit King is Lord Xenu...where the hell did that come from? No, really. I seriously want to know what the hell is going on here. When did Scientology become a part of Japanese lore? This is a pretty awesome chapter, only because of how ridiculous it was.

 

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Naruto 612

Recap: Now that the entire Allied nation army has arrived, Naruto and Obito square off with a battle of words, but it's really a ploy on the part of Naruto and Shikaku to buy some time to formulate a coordinated attack plan. The stall was successful and they launch a grand attack of several jutsus being used at once to incapacitate the Jyuubi: blinding it, Obito and Madara, with lightning, then using earth, sand, water and fire to capture and encase the Jyuubi in cement. The Allied nation army, seemingly led by Naruto, then launches an attack on a lax Madara and Obito, with the Jyuubi beginning to transform a bit.

Commentary: I really enjoyed the feint that Naruto and Shikaku pull at the beginning, kinda simple but effective. The mass-jutsu use could have been pulled off better, but I suppose it's okay for now. Other than that, the dialogue between Obito, Madara and Naruto is getting kinda stilted. Not a bad chapter, but could have been better.

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One Piece 691

Recap: After Law cuts the entire mountain laboratory apart, the amorphous blob of gas starts leaking in, threatening the Marines and Luffy's crew. Law takes the liberty of slicing up Vergo little by little and putting each part of him up on a nearby railing. He then tells Smoker that they have to get off the island before it explodes. Meanwhile, Caesar decides to step up his game after the loss of his SAD chemical, he tells his henchmen to open up the vents to allow the blob of gas into the room. They hesitate, but end up doing so anyway and allowing Caesar to power up. However, Caesar turns on his henchmen that are in the room, only for Luffy to prepare a super move that looks like a Gomu Gomu no Bazooka enhanced by Haki.

Commentary: This is probably my favorite manga for the week. It has lots of action and interesting stuff happening in it. The part where Law punishes Vergo for his betrayal is extremely cool and probably will be remembered for days to come.

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That's it for the Weekly BOPaN! Check back next week for more!

[Manga - Introductions] Bleach, One Piece and Naruto (BOPaN)

I have been debating for a while about how I should introduce the manga reviews, so I decided to just give a quick summary of what each manga is about, my thoughts on them, and what has recently happened in each one. Yes, there will of course be spoilers.

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"Bleach" by Tite Kubo

We're starting off with the most unintentionally ridiculous of the three mangas, but I'll get to that when I talk about the manga itself.
Bleach is initially about a high school student named Ichigo Kurosaki, who can see the souls of the dead. One night he encounters a Soul Reaper named Rukia Kuchiki who gives him her powers in a moment of desperation, transforming him into a temporary Soul Reaper, granting his own sword (a zanpakuto). He takes up Rukia's job until she can recover as she in turn assists him with her job. Later on, Rukia is captured and taken to Soul Society for giving up her powers to Ichigo, leading to a series of complicated events.
As of the time of this post, the current manga chapter (518) has Ichigo fighting a new group of baddies, revealed to be a long-thought-to-be-dead Quincy group, along side the rest of Soul Society. Soul Society's been heavily damaged, Yammato has been killed, his powers taken by the main bad, and Ichigo's zanpakuto has been shattered.
My thoughts on the manga series: This has got to be the most ridiculously hilarious of the three manga I read on a weekly basis, but it also pisses me off the most. What pisses me off is that, excluding the 'red shirts' of Soul Society and the humans, the manga has a current death counter of 2 for the hero's side and the two deaths have only been in the last ten or so manga chapters. That's right, no good guy has ever died until just recently and I'm not counting the fake out death they pulled with Ichigo. Another thing that pisses me off is that this comic really is the most misogynistic of the three manga, mostly because the "power level" of the women are almost always equal to the size of their chest (yes, I will explain myself when it gets to One Piece, so bear with me). But I think what makes me more pissed of all, is that Bleach really doesn't know what it wants to be: a serious drama, a comedy, a action adventure, a character study, or a sultry manga. There's a difference between being one, some, or all of those and just happening to be one of them, but I'll get to that and a few other points when I talk about One Piece and Naruto. In the most recent chapters, there's a lot of inconsistencies and rushed plot devices that lead to plot holes up the ass, I'll probably talk more about those as I do the weekly manga recap.
Do I recommend reading it?  Not really, but I see no harm in picking it up to read a few chapters to see if it's your cup of tea. Where should you start reading? Anywhere will do just fine, but I would say pick it up at the start of the Soul Society Arc since that's where the most interesting stuff begins to happen.

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"One Piece" By Eiichiro Oda

This is probably one of my favorites, if only because it's all about the adventure and comedy more so than anything else. Unlike Bleach, One Piece is a comedic, action adventure manga with a bit of drama and sultry thrown in. It knows what it wants to be and revels in it with every moment.
One Piece is about a kid named Monkey D. Luffy, refered to as just "Luffy", who is inspired to become the Pirate King by the legend of Gol D. Rogers as well as a visit from a mysterious pirate captain known as Red Haired Shanks. During Shank's visit, Luffy ends up eating a forbidden devil fruit that ends up making his body much like that of rubber. However, the trade-off is that anyone who eats a devil fruit will become unable to act while submerged in water, risking drowning if they are ever thrown into the sea. Despite this, Luffy is determined to go forth with his dream and starts gathering members to form an unlikely pirate crew.
In the current chapter (690), a shichibukai (short explanation: one of seven pirate lords who have all allied with the World Government) named Trafalgar Law has temporarily teamed up with Luffy, along with the Marine Captain Smoker. While Law and Smoker have uncovered a scheme setup by another shichibukai "Joker", aka Donquixote Doflamingo, and the World Government, Luffy and his crew have discovered a secret test facility operated by a vaporous devil-fruit user named Caesar. The facility has several dark secrets, one being an experimentation on a bunch of kids and another being an experimental amorphous blob (now turned gas) that can turn anyone it touches into ash/stone. Currently, Luffy's crew is trying to escape the blob/gas and Luffy is fighting Caesar.
My thoughts on the manga: I honestly love it. As I've said before, One Piece knows what it wants to be: it's a story about the misadventures Luffy and his crew have in their quest to be the very best, like no one ever was. While it certainly delves into cheesecake a lot with the women, I can say that every notable woman displayed has their distinctive character that makes them stand out from the rest; Oda gives them chances to shine while developing their characters, and so I really can't call this manga as misogynistic as Bleach. If I have one complaint about this series, it just feels like there's no real direction that they're going with it, so they're trying to go for whatever direction they have available, which I can't fault it for since that's kinda the way it's supposed to be.
Do I recommend picking up this book? Yeah, I highly recommend it. If you just want to read wacky misadventure type stories with lots of mystical lands, strange powers and tons of adventure available, then One Piece is definitely a good read. Where should you jump on? Any chapter is fine. Since it's basically just about misadventures, you can just pick up the most recent one or any chapter you can find and it'll make a good starting point into the series.

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"Naruto" and "Naruto: Shippuden" by Masashi Kishimoto

Finally we arrive at the last of the three, but definitely not the least of the three. Naruto's a typical comedic action/adventure drama with a wide cast of unique and distinctive characters.

Naruto follows the adventures of Naruto Uzumaki, an orphan boy who lives in the ninja village of Konoha (Village Hidden in the Leaves). He originally is considered an outcast of the village because he contains the chakra of the legendary nine-tailed demon fox that nearly destroyed Konoha a few years before the start of the series. Because of this, he became a troublemaker that desired attention, but through several trials became determined to become not only the next Hokage, but the greatest ninja ever. At the conclusion to Naruto, his best friend Sasuke Uchiha leaves the village and Naruto, with the help of his other classmates, fails to bring him back. With the urging of his mentor, Jiraya, Naruto decides to set out on a 2 1/2 year journey to train with Jiraya before attempting to retrieve Sasuke again.

Naruto: Shippuden (Naruto: Hurricane Chronicles) picks up after the 2 1/2 time jump, where Naruto returns after his long leave of absence. He returns to the village and picks up where he left off with his attempt to retrieve Sasuke along with the help of his teacher, Hakate Kakashi, and his teammate, Haruno Sakura.

The current chapter (611) has the battle between the ten tails, controlled by Madara and Obito Uchiha, versus Naruto, supported by the nine-tails, Bee, supported by the eight-tails, Kakashi and Might Guy rages on. Unfortunately the chakra for both the eight and nine tails runs dry for now, but the entire allied ninja army arrives on the scene to back them up.

My thoughts on the manga: It's not the best manga in the world, but it's definitely one of my favorites, if not my absolute favorite. While it still delves into the cheesecake with the women, I think it does it sparingly enough to not make them all into sex objects and to prefer to emphasize their character more than their physique. But that's not to say that I don't have a problem with this series, oh no...the problem I have with it is that the writer, Kishimoto, seems to not really understand relationships all that well, he seems to have a bias towards certain characters that force the others to act out of character sometimes only so that the end result is in the bias character's favor. Hard to describe that without going into a long-rant, so will have to explain that later. Another problem I have is that the most recent action scenes seems to be just random fighting that doesn't really have any rhyme or reason as to why its happening as opposed to the "tactical plans" of Kabuto's.

Do I recommend it? Yeah, I would highly recommend it. It's not perfect, but it's a pretty damn good read I would say with lots of really likable characters. Where would I suggest jumping on? Probably either at chapter 1-5 of the original Naruto or Naruto Shippuden chapter 1.

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With that, this concludes my introduction section for the weekly manga I'll be reviewing. I might decide to add in Fairy Tail at a later date, but I have to read it from the beginning and that could take some time that I don't have at the moment. Enjoy!

If you're interested in where you can pick up a copy of these Japanese manga, then check websites like Ebay.com or Amazon.com and Asian markets like Marukai, Mitsuwa or any other Asian market bookstore that may be available in your town.

A Very Schism Thanksgiving

To all that celebrate this holiday and even to those who don't (but use it as an excuse to get free food and beer) a very Happy Thanksgiving from me to you!

I thought long and hard about what I wanted to do for this Thanksgiving, but I ultimately decided to go the easy route and just name off a few games or game series that I played that I'm thankful to have played that got me started on the road to being a NE~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~RD. Sorry, I've gotten used to hearing that being said like that, so now I have to even type it as such...I don't know why. Anyway...as such, this is my list of games from different genres that I'm thankful for having played.

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Street Fighter II

(Fighting)

Ah, nothing says "thank you" like video games characters beating the shit out of each other and players raging whenever someone has discovered a new series of combos that just get cheaper and cheaper each time you play. I remember seeing a Street Fighter II arcade cabinet over at the local hamburger joint at around the early 1990's, putting in a coin and being sent home to be a family man by Guile...well, family kid since I was about 7 or 8 at the time. Since then I have grown to appreciate playing the fighting genre, no matter how often it leaves me throwing my controller out the window and forcing me to retrieve it every time I lose. While I have my problems with Capcom and their shady business decisions, I honestly think they still do good work when it comes to making their fighter games feel unique in a lot of ways. However, if you'd ask me which game company I'd follow when it comes to fighters, I'd have to go with Aksys Games who have made it big in the fighting genre with such titles as Guilty Gear, Blaz Blue and Persona 4 Arena.

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 Legend of Zelda

(Action/Adventure)

I remember spending so much time on this game when I was a kid; hell I even had my grandfather, a wood carver, craft me a shield and a sword, that's how much I loved this game. As a kid, I viewed Link as the prototypical hero: get cool swords/shields/magic/items, slay the big bad, rescue the princess and live happily ever after. To this day, I'm still trying to devise a time machine to go back in time to kick my younger self in the ass, but until that happens, I'm stuck with the shame of forever being a NE~~~~~~~~~~~~~RD. But to me that's what this game was all about: the gateway to something far greater from the video game world. From here, seeing the adventure that I could take was no longer set into stone (from the limited days of the Commodore 64 and the Atari), but was almost seemingly infinite, it just made my imagination soar as to what game companies could think of next. Which is why I'm always thankful for having played the original Zelda; to this day, I still think the Zelda series remains one of the best Action/Adventure game series out there. Of course, there are games like Devil May Cry, Dante's Inferno, Rygar the Legendary Adventure, and so on, but I don't think they ever quite capture the simplicity of it all.

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Metroid

(Platformer)

Now before you get on me about me not picking Mario or Castlevania, just hear me out: I love all of the damn good platformers that you can think of! Kirby, Mega Man, Kid Icarus, Rygar, Contra, Blaster Master, and the list goes on and on and on and on! Don't stop believin'! Hold on to the feelin'!...Whoa, sorry about that folks, had a musical interlude there for a minute. Anyway, it ultimately boiled down to which game I thought had not only all of the elements that modern platformers seem to take after, but also balances of all of its elements with finesse; Metroid was that game. I got lost many times trying to figure this entire game out, but when I finally beat it fair and square, I felt like I was truly a man...only to find out the character I was playing was a woman (thank you Justin Bailey ------ ------)...but no matter what, it was all worth it in the end and left me thankful for having played such a revolutionary game. However, I've got mixed feelings on the modern day Metroid series, but Mario and Kirby continue to somehow remain classic platformers in the modern day age. As for Castlevania series...well...like the original Metroid, its series has left me wondering a very serious question: "WHAT IS A MAN!?"

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 Dragon Warrior/Dragon Quest

(Role Playing Game)

Ah, yes...scream more for me, my children, I feed upon your suffering as you scream about "Final Fantasy". But honestly, much like the platformer genre, I love all old school RPGs: Faxanadu, Elder Scrolls, Final Fantasy, Ultima, Quest for Glory, Bard's Tale, Challenge of the Five Realms, and so forth. What I believe sets Dragon Warrior (Dragon Quest for the Japanese/modern day release) apart from the rest is the fact that you're actually on an adventure that's guided only by your desire to explore the land, searching for a way to save a princess and to slay an evil dragon lord. Unless you bought a copy of Nintendo Power, you were almost always lost and trying to search towns in order to see who needs what and where to go next, or searching around those towns to find a nearby dungeon to find the magic treasure hidden within. But that was part of the fun of the game, just exploring to see where your journey takes you next. If I had to explain it by comparing it to a modern day concept, think of the Elder Scrolls: Oblivion or Skyrim made on an NES platform. I'll be straight though, I think modern day Square-Enix is terrible at making RPGs, but I would recommend picking up the modern Elder Scrolls series or the Fallout series.

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Harvest Moon

(Simulator)

Okay, I'll admit, this genre is a guilty pleasure; but can you really blame me? Put down those pitchforks and torches right now, or I'll put you all in time out! But seriously, the idea of Harvest Moon is quite brilliant: I don't think anyone can argue against the fact that it's highly addicting to just tend a field, forage supplies, harvest crops, date/marry a woman, raise a kid and care for animals. It's part of the entire reason why I included this game and genre as part of my Thanksgiving list, a good game doesn't need to be complex or elaborate, sometimes it just needs to be something simple but done in a fun way. With a few exceptions, Natsume has continued to impress me with their farming simulator games, like their most recent Harvest Moon-spinoff series: Rune Factory. That's not to say there aren't other games like this, such as Shepard's Crossing, but nothing really left a lasting impact with me as much as this game did.

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Now, I could go on forever talking about the many different genres out there and my personal favorites within them, but I just wanted to give you guys and gals a glimpse into the past. It makes you want to look at how far we've come in just a few short decades and ponder about where will we go from here, doesn't it? For now though, let's just shut up, stuff our mouths full of food, get drunk and maybe get some gaming in...maybe not all in that order. Happy Thanksgiving everyone! This is the Schism, signing out!

[Movie - The Spoiling] Silent Hill Revelations 3D

Okay, so now is the time I rip and riff the shit out of this movie from beginning to end.

"But, Schism!" you say, "Video game adapted movies are always bad! Why is this so surprising?" No, it's not that it's surprising me that a video game adapted movie (VGaM) sucks ass; trust me, I stopped believing in them long before Mortal Kombat: Anal-hilation. What does surprise me is that they are still being made. Why? Well, it's a really easy answer: they still make money for Hollywood thanks to the audiences who think the movie is actually going to be good. Which brings me to my question: Why are people still wanting to watch this? I've got an excuse: I go in there wanting to review it. Who thinks this movie is actually going to be good?

With that out the way, let's get down to business:

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The movie opens with Heather Mason (Adelaide Clemens) being pursued through Lakeside Amusement Park, a famous landmark within the town of Silent Hill. We get some weird scenes that make no sense and are just an excuse to clumsily foreshadow an event later on in the movie. NEXT SCENE!

Heather wakes up from her nightmare, finds herself in her own bed, when suddenly her dad enters into the room. Harry Mason/Christopher Da Silva (Sean Bean) talks to her for a bit in a few different accents to get her to calm down, before he is sliced in half by a monster...what? Sean Bean has to die in every single movie he's in...right? Anyway, Heather wakes up again and writes her dreams into her diary, then goes down to breakfast. Her father has unlocked the Heather Mason (Silent Hill 3) outfit for her as a gift and then gets very incestuously close to his daughter before he sends her off to her new school. Harry sees Heather's diary and rips out the pages, then puts it into a box with the Halo of the Sun on it. Huh...that almost meant something...NEXT!

Heather meets up with Douglas Cartland (Martin Donovan) at the bus stop, he acts like his game counterpart...including the digitized acting. At school, when asked by a teacher to talk about herself at school, Heather gives a monologue that would have sounded better had they been said in the vacuum of space, where all true logic resides. Of course, the teacher seems to agree with me, since she ignores her monologue and asks Vincent "I am the love interest of Heather Mason" Cooper (Kit Harington) about himself, but he makes a witty comment about Heather's monologue. Scene of Heather in the hallway, Silent Hill transformation, blah blah, Vincent wakes her up from the dream, she runs away, she sees Douglas again and then calls her dad. He tells her to meet up with him at the Central Square Shopping Center, from the beginning of Silent Hill 3, because we need to remind the audience that they're watching a "Silent Hill" movie and not the movie "Taken". Harry gets captured, so after waiting for her dad for hours, Heather ends up meeting up with Douglas instead. He reveals, Heather is Sharon and she is being chased by the Order from the first movie...who are all supposedly dead from the events of the first movie! Then he's killed by a Missionary monster in front of Heather, but she escapes and meets up with Vincent. Heather talks crazily about her dreams and her worry for her dad, but that's all good, because random contrived love interest sparks out of nowhere and they begin to grow feelings for each other. Aw, it almost makes you forget about the fact that your father maybe hurt or worse and the fact you just saw some guy get killed by a monster, doesn't it? Don't think about it! Quick! Bring in the next scene!

They arrive at her house, Heather goes in and finds a message written in blood, acts like she's from the original Resident Evil game for a while and then finds the box with the Halo of the Sun on it. SEE! It meant something! Never mind the fact that it makes no sense that Harry would have a box with the apparent seal of the Order on it, except to connect the dots between the blood message and the box. Anyway, Heather gets the Seal of Metatron item and the Handgun weapon *Silent Hill "item received" sound*! She and Vincent head to Silent Hill, because Heather's sort of an idiot like that. On their way there, they stop at the motel from probably another Silent Hill game, but I care not at the slightest, because it's just a reference and nothing more. Vincent reveals he's a child of the Order and that he's been tasked to bring Alessa/Heather back to Silent Hill, but now that he loves her, he begs her not to go. Heather is still being stupid, so the Otherworld takes effect and Vincent is captured, Heather decides to go to Silent Hill...again. Heather arrives in Silent Hill, meets Dahlia Gillespie (Deborah Kara Unger), who is Alessa's mother. Good! Another Silent Hill reference! We're really "revealing" things now, right?...Wait... Anyway, Heather goes into the Silent Hill movie studio's warehouse, where the shittiest special effects monster kills one girl and then chases her and another random minor character. Did you know that "nothing ever x-plained today" spells NEXT!?

Heather finds herself at Brookhaven Asylum, where she meets Leonard Wolfe (Malcolm McDowell), who is on screen for 5 minutes, takes her Seal of Metatron, combines it with his own inside himself, and then he is killed by CGI...er...I mean he transforms into a shitty CGI monster, but then is killed by Heather taking out both pieces of the Seal of Metatron. Wow! How pointless! She sees Pyramid Head, then finds and frees Vincent from a bunch of nurse demons. They escape to the Lakeside Amusement Park, where Vincent decides to be randomly noble and sacrifice himself to save Heather...which ends up being pointless because Heather is discovered as fast as anyone playing through Metal Gear Solid their first time (!). She runs to the merry go round and it catches on fire like it did in her dream. Oh, didn't I tell you about that? Well no matter, it was pointlessly foreshadowed anyway. She meets her dark half, Alessa, and destroys her with the power of love by hugging her as Pyramid Head watches from the merry go round's middle section as they descend into a plot hole. !TXEN

Heather finds Claudia Wolfe (Carrie-Anne Moss), who is the current leader of the Order, the sister to Christabella from the first Silent Hill film, daughter of Leonard Wolfe and the mother of Vincent Cooper. Along with Claudia, she finds her father and Vincent, who are both restrained. Claudia gives some speech of birth of a god and other things seeming to be related to, but not at all relating to, Silent Hill. Heather gives a one liner and hands her the Seal of Megatron...whoops...I mean, Metatron, and Claudia transforms into the Missionary monster from the beginning of the movie that killed Douglas. Why? How? These are questions that would leave even Batman scratching his head. Then Pyramid Head shows up and fights the Claudia-Missionary monster, because Pyramid Head is a good guy! Why not!? Pyramid Head wins, flawless victory! The three confused humans go up to the surface because we don't want the audience questioning anything after that CGI battle of epic proportions, which puts the polar bear fight from the Golden Compass to shame...tch, hah! Anyway, Harry/Chris decides to stay in the town to look for his wife Rose (remember her from the first movie?) while Vincent and Heather decide to go home, because they need a happy ending. As they exit town, they're picked up by Travis Grady (who cares?...okay, fine...Peter Outerbridge), from Silent Hill Origins, and they bypass a police convoy heading to the town, which is a Silent Hill Downpour reference.

The End!

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Now I'll be fair, I have read about the hardships the movie suffered with the original Silent Hill movie's director and the writer leaving the project, which forced the director of the sequel (Michael J. Bassett) to write and direct the sequel himself. But, here's where I won't be as merciful: if you don't know what you're doing, then either hire someone who does or don't make your stupid movie.

Movie Review: Silent Hill Revelations 3D [Rating: 2/7]

When it comes to the horror genre, I am always giddy to see horror movies and play horror games; which is one of the many reasons why "Silent Hill Revelations 3D" pisses me off!

For those of you who do not know what this movie is about, I'll explain in brief. "Silent Hill Revelations 3D" is the sequel to the movie "Silent Hill", both movies are based off of the "Silent Hill", a survival horror video game, franchise that are notable for their use of symbolic, psychological and disturbing imagery to invoke horror. They are notable for their dark and complex story-lines as well as memorable characters and chilling moments.

Trust me when I say that almost none of that made it into this film. For those people who still want to go see it without too much spoiled about the plot itself, here's a brief list of what to expect from this movie: Bad acting, bad dialogue, confusing story, a baker's dozen batch of McGuffins, poor consistency between shots, emotional inconsistency between scenes, direct-to-video quality CGI, over-reliance on CGI, many characters that are unspent cannon fodder, over-reliance on references to the Silent Hill 3 video game, random references to other games that are thrown in, missing iconic scenes from Silent Hill 3, characters and monsters seem to be aware that they are in a movie, butchering of iconic characters from the games, lack of consistency for a sequel to the first movie, and almost every scare in the movie is a jump scare. Yes, that is a BRIEF list of things that you should expect from this movie, there was plenty more that I left out.

If I have one thing to say that's genuinely nice about this film, it's that its 3D is quite passable, but is extremely hindered by the poor quality CGI. Also, another thing is that when the movie shuts up and gives the atmosphere a chance to set in, the ambiance within the silence is actually beautiful; footsteps sound creepy, breathing is suspenseful, and the tension is pretty good, but those moments are undercut by the fact that you just know that something is going to pop out and ruin it. So, even the golden parts of the movie are still covered in shit.

Do I recommend this movie? No, not in the slightest. I would actually recommend watching the original Silent Hill movie over this, because that movie was more faithful to the games, even despite the massive re-haul to the story and characters, than this one was. Silent Hill Revelations 3D SUCKS, it's just another example of a shameful cash-in on a game license. If I find a time machine sometime in the future, I will go back in time and tell my past self to just throw my money into the gutter and watch it drift into the storm-drain, because that would be a higher quality entertainment and more worth my time than this piece of crap movie.

I'll follow this review up with another post or two sometime soon and I'll try to explain myself a bit more in depth as to why this movie failed so hard and could have been so much more. But in order to do that properly, I think I need to explain a bit about the horror genre. But until then, stay tuned for another review from your glorious lord master internet reviewer: The Schism!