Synopsis: A young girl named Madoka and her friend Sayaka are offered to become magical girls by the enigmatic creature called Kyubey. In exchange for a life of fighting witches, Kyubey offers to grant them a single wish.

The Steve Group Rating: 4.9 (Out of 5)

Pros:

• It is one of the best anime series I have ever seen.
• A brilliant look at the philosophy of morality, the depth of friendship, and duty.
• A satisfying ending.
• Brilliant soundtrack, great animation, and compelling characters.
• Several genius twists and turns which make the show. Seriously, stop reading this review and watch the show. This isn’t a show you want to spoil for yourself.

Cons:

• While it adds to the show, the opening sequence and the first episode is VERY misleading and is not a good indication of what the show is about. At least give this show the 3 episode test before passing judgement.
• Without the mysteries and the element of surprise, the show isn’t all that special.

Misleading Opening: Heed my advice and watch at least 3 episodes of this series before you make a judgment on if you like it or not. Without me trying to give anything away, the first 3 episodes are a bit misleading as to what the show is about, but set the rest of the series up perfectly.

For People Who Liked: Now and Then, Here and There; People who like Anime.

Overall: Simply, one of the best anime series ever created. Watch it.

I Can’t Tell You Much About This Show Without Ruining It

Now you are probably wondering why I and others would give Puella Magica Madoka, a magical girl show, so much praise. And I’d love to tell you, but if I did I’d spoil the show.

No really, it’s almost impossible to give an honest review of the show without spoiling parts of it. Please just take my advice and watch the show. It’s good. Really good.

If for some reason you aren’t convinced, fine, I’ll then give my minor spoiler review of the show.

Don’t scroll down and read the rest of the review if you haven’t watched the show.

I mean it.

You Should Have Trusted Me

Since you insist on knowing about the show, I might as well spoil the basic premise for you. Puella Magika Madoka pushes itself as a standard, happy go lucky Magical Girl Show. In the first 3 episodes we are introduced to Kyubey, the cute fuzzy animal thing that gives young girls the power to become magical girls. And to make the deal even sweeter, Kyubey also offers a free wish to anyone that signs up to be a one. However in exchange for these magical powers and the free wish, Kyubey asks that each magical girl fight evil witches that appear throughout the city.

At the start of the show, the city is protected by a magical girl named Mami, who can create flint lock rifles from thin air. She and Kyubey are trying to recruit Madoka, a young girl with pigtails, and Sayaka, a girl with blue hair who has a crush on a boy, into the magical girl club. However everything isn’t as it seems. The wishes the magical girls make seem to always back fire, some of the girls are brutally killed by witches, and Kyubey constantly “forgets” to tell the girls about some of the side effects of being a magical girl. To make matters even more complicated, a mysterious magical girl named Homura keeps going to great lengths to prevent Madoka from making a deal with Kyubey. Undeterred, Kyubey makes it his #1 goal to make Madoka a magical girl, while coincidently claiming Madoka would be the most powerful magical girl ever.

Very quickly the show goes from the girls taking on the “witch of the week” and becomes more of a nail biting mystery for the audience. Who is Kyubey? What would happen if Madoka became a magical girl and why does Homura think this is a bad thing? Where do these witches come from and what do they want? And what really is a “magical girl”?

These questions and their answers is what makes the show absolutely brilliant and will keep you speculating right till the very end of the series.

Stop Reading This Review And Watch The Show Already

Probably my biggest problem with the show is that it relies almost too much on the element of surprise to hook in the audience. Most of the fun in the show is speculating on what is going on and being surprised with what the show ends up doing. While this is really great and I highly recommend the series, I can’t see anyone enjoying it too much if they already know what’s happening. Just by reading this review, I have already spoiled you to part of the shock you’d get in the first 3 episodes, and I haven’t written much. It’s like watching “The Six Sense” and knowing the twist ahead of time, it’s still ok but it’s so much better when you are surprised.

Aside from surprise and the genius of the plot, the show isn’t all that special. The fight scenes are boring, the show’s art is stylish at times but isn’t all that special, and most of the characters are fairly forgettable as I usually refer to them as “that girl that died in the beginning” or “the one that went crazy”

Kyubey and Homura are exceptions to this, and I’d say their characters help elevate the show to being one of the best anime shows ever created, however they are both somewhat side characters and they aren’t around in the show much. For most of the series, Homura is simply “mysterious” and we don’t get to know her very well. And Kyubey also doesn’t do much of anything of note until a few episodes in, and even then it’s very subtle. Both of them are great pillars of the show, but you won’t be able to truly appreciate them till the second half of the sereis.

It’s not that any of these features are terrible or bad, they just aren’t that great, and if it wasn’t for the brilliant plot of the show this would be just a decent anime. Yes there are great philosophical points made in the show, but without the surprises and plot twists, I doubt these points would carry the same weight. And in order for you to truly appreciate characters like Homura and Kyubey, you need to be incredibly patient and trust the thousands of fans who say that they are going to be awesome at some point. The show completely depends on the idea that you are able to keep watching for at least 3 episodes, and continue to watch because you think that there are some huge payoffs (which there are).

So in conclusion, the show is great if you watch it unspoiled and sadly I have ruined the first part of it for you. Now please go and watch it before it gets spoiled for you further.

Related posts:

1. Review: My Little Ponies – Friendship is Magic
2. Review: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
3. Retro Review: Baccano!

Pros:

• The series featured some excellent acting. Robert Carlyle, who plays the character Rush, particularly puts out strong and compelling performances.
• It made an attempt to feature aliens that didn’t speak English. In fact, many of the aliens they did meet were actually alien and different as opposed to people with weird ridges on their forehead.
• The idea of having a group of people trapped on an alien ship they can’t control and travel the universe is a good idea and had the potential for good story telling.

Cons:

• The writing for the show is horrible. The ship acts as a Deus Ex Machina which constantly solves any problem the crew has. And if the ship doesn’t solve the problem, the communication stones do.
• Speaking of the communication stones, communicating with Earth through body swapping is simply the worst plot device ever made.
• Aside from having “Stargates” and some cameo appearances, I have no idea why they made this show part of the Stargate franchise. The directing style, the witty humor, and the fun that previous Stargate shows had are completely absent from Universe. The show might have been better if they had dropped the “Stargate” mythos completely and tried to run with an original series.
• For some bizarre reason, character’s romantic relationships mostly occur off screen. Characters break up and hook up without any mention being made to the audience, leaving people confused when suddenly two characters hook up or break up.
• The franchise that brought us strong female characters like Samantha Carter and Elizabeth Weir, I can’t believe they created Chloe Armstrong- the attractive senator’s daughter who only serves to either be rescued or act as a love interest. Sometimes the writers mix things up and give her super powers, but otherwise her character serves no purpose.

For People That Liked: Star Trek Voyager, Battlestar Galactica: Caprica

The End of Stargate: After 10 years, Stargate Universe ends a successful American-Canadian science fiction franchise with a whimper. Questions like if the crew of Destiny ever return home and if Rodney McKay married Jennifer Keller will forever go unanswered.

Overall: The show has the elements and the setting for a great science fiction show, but it never manages to put everything together. Even hardcore fans of Stargate should avoid this show.

They Cancelled Stargate: Atlantis for This?

When Stargate: Atlantis was cancelled in favor of a new series, Stargate: Universe, I applauded the decision. Thank goodness, I told myself, they are dumping the show with space vampires and are going to create something good. Granted Atlantis was a fun show, but after 5 seasons it was a good time to end it. Things were running stale, all of their major opponents had been defeated , and it was clear that the writers didn’t know where to go with Atlantis. It was about time to try something different.

Stargate: Universe looked like it would take the franchise in a different, but good direction. Having a team trapped on an ancient ship, with no control where the ship was going, seemed like a fantastic idea. You could have plots about them figuring stuff about the ship, exploring new worlds, contact with new civilizations, and it could be fun.

Now I’m the kind of person that likes it when shows try something different. I believe that the art industry doesn’t take enough risks and plays things too safe these days. But with failures like Stargate: Universe, I can’t blame them.

The first and biggest problem Stargate: Universe had for most of it’s run was that it was boring. Episode after episode would pass and it would feel like nothing has happened. There wouldn’t be anything new except the crew would think of some new drama to fight over, they’d have some technical problem to solve with destiny, and everyone would conspire against each other. It was like watching a show about life in High School, if all the students were in their twenties and were stuck on a space ship.

Sometimes, the show would try and spice things up and aliens would show up to break the mind numbing bordom of the show. And to the shows credit their aliens were one of the high points of the show. Unlike other science fiction shows, the aliens were actually aliens.  Stargate: Universe actually put in the effort to portray the problems humans would have trying to communicate with other sentient life and avoided the clinched ”Universal Translator” or “everyone in the universe speaks English” which plagues other shows. Combine this with having the aliens be very different from humans, we had the potential for interesting story telling. After all, adding mystery towards an alien race or any antagonist is a mark of good writing.

Unfortunately any interest the audience would have in alien races Stargate: Universe would quickly evaporate as the show reveals little to nothing about any of the aliens it encounters, ever. I know it’s cool and a mark of good writing to leave the audience in the dark about the nature of the aliens, but never revealing anything about any of the races encounters made things boring fast. Especially since every alien race is “mysterious” and is out to screw over humanity in some why.

Doing the whole mysterious alien race is trying to screw over humanity once is great. Twice was pushing it. And three times was just terrible.

The Communication Stones

Now you’d think that in a show where people are trapped thousands of light-years away from Earth, communications would be a problem. Since the plot is that they are trapped on this ship they can’t control, isolation and not knowing what is happening with Earth should be a strong theme of the show. It’s actually something Star Trek: Voyager did in it’s run as they did make sure the ship couldn’t communicate with the Federation and one of the themes of the show was being separated from your loved ones, and possibly never seeing them again.

Stargate: Atlantis also tried this in it’s first season, but even then they didn’t really try and play up the themes of isolation and separation. And after a single season, they dumped the whole “no communications with Earth or reinforcements thing” very quickly. So I wasn’t surprised when Stargate: Universe featured a way for the crew to be in constant communication with Earth.

Through use of devices called “the communication stones”, the humans trapped on the ancient ship could communicate with Earth with complete ease. Just by touching the stones, Stargate: Universe’s characters could consult Earth about their problems, talk to their loved ones, and ensure the show could have cameo’s of Stargate characters from other shows. In some ways this was a great idea for keeping Stargate: Universe “connected” with the rest of the franchise. But they took things a little too far.

The problem with the communication stones was that they didn’t just allow for the crew to communicate with Earth, it allowed them to switch bodies with people on Earth and vice-versa. So a character in Stargate Universe could say switch bodies with General Jack O’Niel so he could walk around destiny, while the Stargate Universe character could wander around Stargate Command.

This could have been an ok plot device to use every once in a while– I could have forgiven that. But they used it almost every episode. And it wasn’t even for communication, they’d use the stones for characters on Destiny to go on spy missions on Earth, bring special scientists on to the ship to fix problems, and even use the stones to expose traitors in their ranks. I was begining to wonder why they didn’t use the stones to bring world class cooks onto the ship to cook their food.

Because of these magic stones and the “mysterious” nature of the ship, almost every problem on the ship could be solved by using either one. Medical emergency? Use the stones to bring a world class brain surgeon. Surgeon doesn’t cut it? Use the ships ancient database to find a solution. Even that isn’t enough? Combine the stones and some ancient technology on the ship and the problem is solved.

The power of the communications stones and the ship to solve any problem became so bad that, I kid you not, they were using them to bring back dead characters. No joke, they spent a whole episode resurrecting some characters through the stones and ancient magic technology on the ship.

But It Could Have Been a Great Show

One of the pros of the show was that it featured some amazing acting talent. All of Stargate: Universe’s ensemble cast put out great performance after great performance ever episode. However Robert Carlyle’s portrayal of Nicholas Rush needs to be mentioned specifically because he does such an amazing job. A lesser actor could have portrayed Rush as a mad scientist that is constantly putting the ship and his compatriots in danger, but Carlyle adds so much humanity to the character that he becomes sympathetic and interesting. For example, whenever Rush states something cold such as they should leave a crew member to die, you can see in his performance he doesn’t emotionally want to say those things, but he believes that it’s for the best. It makes the character interesting, compelling, and one of the few reasons to watch this series. It’s actually sad that this show featured one of Carlyle’s best performances of his career, and it was wasted on such a lack luster show.

Another person that needs mention is Elyse Levesque for her performance of Chloe Armstrong. The daughter of a Senator who dies in the first episode, Chloe’s place on Stargate: Universe seems to be the resident love interest and damsel in distress. Sometimes the writers mix things up and give her superpowers, but otherwise her character serves no purpose but to look pretty and be kidnapped by aliens. Considering this was the franchise that brought us strong female characters like Samantha Carter and Elizabeth Weir, I’m surprised that they made such a useless character such an important part of the show.

To her credit, Elyse Levesque does a fantastic job with such a horrible character and terrible writing. It takes talent to make a character that exists to look attractive somewhat interesting with so little work with. And I have admire someone who could just walk on set with a tight pink shirt and then collect a paycheck, but still has the professionalism to try and act. I applaud you Miss. Levesque. May you go on to a role that is worthy of your talents someday.

I think the main reason for the failure of this show was that it really wasn’t part of the Stargate franchise. The directing style had changed, it was darker, the witty one lines were absent, and for some reason ever show had to have a musical montage. Yes, the show had Stargates and cameo’s from the previous series, but it always felt more like Battlestar Galactic then any of the previous Stargate shows.

In fact, I’d say that it really should have been it’s own show separate from the Stargate franchise.  The concept was a good one, the set designs were fantastic, many of the characters were compelling, and really there was no reason to make it a “Stargate” show. If they had made the show separate from the Stargate franchise, they could have  dumped all the communication stones and stargate command stuff and focus on making the show stand on it’s own. Sadly this didn’t happen.

Related posts:

1. Review: My Little Ponies – Friendship is Magic
2. Review: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
3. Retro Review: Royal Space Force – The Wings of Honneamise

Pros:

• The show has moments where it’s genuinly funny and witty for people that are not 8 year old girls.
• It’s one of the only children’s shows that actually has something that can be called a plot.
• The art style is great and surprisingly high quality.
• The shows characters really shine and move beyond the stereotypes they are modeled on.

Cons

• A few of the episodes are really boring for anyone who isn’t an 8 year old girl.
• Some of the episodes are… odd. Like when the pony Rarity defeats an enemy through incessant whining or when the Pony’s mitigate a dispute between cowboy ponies and Buffalo Native Americans. (Not Joking)
• This show has some of the worst villains in cartoon history. I yern for the days of Cobra Commander.
• Every episode ends with a “Friendship Report.”

For People that Like: Azumanga Daioh and K-On.

Episodes People Over The Age of 8 Can Enjoy:

• Ep 4. Apple Buck Season
• Ep 7. Dragonshy
• Ep 10. Swarm of the Century
• Ep. 14. Suited for Success
• Ep 15: Feeling Pinkie Keen
• Ep 16: Sonic Rainboom
• Ep 17: Stare Master
• Ep 20: Green Isn’t Your Color
• Ep 22: A Bird in the Hoof
• Ep 24: Owl’s Well That Ends Well
• Ep 25: Party of One
• Ep 26: The Best Night Ever

Creepy Episodes You Won’t Believe They Made

• Ep 2: Friendship is Magic Part 2 – They forgive the Pony version of Lucifer and she becomes friends with everyone.
• Ep 5: Griffon the Brush-Off – One of the Pony’s old friends, who happens to be a Griffin, is mean to the other Pony’s when RainboDash isn’t looking. Another of the Pony’s becomes an outright stalker. The Griffon is being mean and stuck up, I get that, but I never understood why it was so important for the Griffon to try and hide it from Rainbowdaash. That and why no one isn’t a little woried about PinkiePie.
• Ep 19: A Dog and Pony Show – One of the Pony’s saves the days through the power of complaining and whining. No seriously.
• Ep 21: Over a Barrel – The Pony’s settle a dispute between the Native American Buffalo’s and the Cowboy Pony’s. Political incorrectness ensues.

Overall: The show is definitely geared towards 8 year old girls and can even be a bit creepy at times. But any creepy moment can easily be forgiven. This is the best cartoon directed at young girls made in North America, and even adults can enjoy it.

More Male Characters Than K-On

With all the pony threads popping up across the internet, the My Little Pony meme is by far the strangest meme to have come out of 4chan I can think of. Why, I asked, would men 20 and older watch “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic?” So I decided to watch it, and I have admit it isn’t bad.

The latest incarnation of the “My Little Pony” franchise has actually managed to be more then a mere toy commercial and features interesting characters, well written episodes, and is actually funny. Like I mean really funny for people who aren’t 8 year old girls. Combined with great animation and some clever jokes, this is one of the better cartoons to have come out in a few years.

Episode 1 shows us the world of “Equestria”, which is run by magical pony’s who are ruled by Princess Celestia, a magical unicorn pony who is thousands of years old and also happens to be the Pony’s version of God (no joke). In fact, we learn in the first few minutes that Princess Celestia is responsible for making sure the sun rises every day in addition to being the undisputed and total ruler of all Equestria. (also no joke). She has an apprentice named “Twilight Sparke”, another powerful unicorn spell casting pony, who is learning the art of magic but happens to be anti-social or in Twilight’s words, “doesn’t have time for friends.” Celestia then commands Twilight Sparkle to go to Ponyville in order to make friends and send her regular “friendship reports”.

Eventually Twilight sparkle makes some friends such as Fluttershy, the very shy pony that has a relationship with nature; Rainbow Dash, an arrogant pony who dreams of joining the Wonderbolts; Rarity, a high class pony who is trying to make it in the fashion world; Pinkie Pie, an insane Pony who throws parties; and AppleJack, a pony who grows apples and represents the Southern United States. They then proceed to save Equestria from evil.

As terrible and lame as this sounds, the show gets

At Episode 14 and beyond, the show becomes good. The pony’s largely stop going on quests to save Equestria from the villain of the week and the episodes become about them overcoming their own flaws. Sure it becomes a slice of life like show with pony’s, but the wit in the writing and the plot lines become much more interesting and original. Stories like Rarity dealing with being jealous of her friends success and Fluttershy trying to care for kids are really great stories. In fact, I’d say this show is a great show for children of all ages and even adults… except for a few small things which rub me the wrong way.

Yes, Lets Forgive Pony Lucifer

When I heard that My Little Pony has some fascist allusions, I thought people were just joking. Then I noticed how the “Earth Ponies” tend to do all the manual labor, the unicorn magic ponies have the middle class service jobs, and the pegasus ponies seem to play and have fun all day… oh and manufacture clouds in their cloud city paradise other ponies can’t reach normally. Admittedly, this was a little weird but I thought, “whatever” it’s a kid’s show.

Then came the end of Episode Two where the Ponies defeat their evil nemesis “Nightmare Moon”, an evil Pony god who cast the whole world in an eternal night. After trying her best to kill our pony heroes, vowing to torture ponykind for all time, and basically being a stand in for the pony version of the Devil the Pony’s defeat her with the power of friendship. Great! Wonderful! I can accept that, it’s a kid’s show afterall. The Pony’s can defeat enemies with a carebear stare. What got me was the part where all the pony’s forgave Nightmare moon and they all decided to be her friend since all she really wanted was friends.

No seriously, that’s what happens. They like forgave the pony version of Hitler because all Nightmare Moon wanted was friends. Then came the episode where they decided to stop being friends with a Griffin because she didn’t like some of the other Pony’s. Or the episode where Rarity defeats her enemies with the power of whining and complaining. Or my favorite episode, My Little Pony’s versus the Native American Buffalo’s who want their land back.

But I seriously doubt any 8 year old kid would get any of this, so I wouldn’t worry about your kids getting the wrong idea… except for Episode 19: A Dog and Pony Show aka “Whining makes everything better” Never let kids watch that. But for the most part, any perceived ”interesting” commentary should fly over their heads and I personally wouldn’t be worried about it.

I Am Secure Enough In My Manliness To Recommend This Show

Most of the early episodes are boring and cliched, and the odd creepy episodes will hit you every once in a while, but most of the later episodes like “Party of One” or “Green Isn’t Your Color” are really great and make it worth watching the whole series.  So yes, if you want a show with witty humor and great characters, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is a show I would recommend for you.  But if you don’t think that you can stand things like a “friendship report”, I suggest you find another show.

Related posts:

1. Review: Puella Magi Madoka Magica ／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼
2. Review: Wakfu Season 1
3. Review: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

Pros:

• Unique animation style
• Humor for all ages
• Good pacing that draws the viewer on to the next episode, and the next, and the next…
• Voice acting is quite well done, especially for a country that typically shuns “non-classical” television and movie forms
• Great end to the first season.
• French (like France French not Quebec French), it is nice to see some quality animated shows from other countries, especially with the declining quality of shows seen coming out of Japan.

Cons:

• Very cliché, while it can be considered a con it also contributed to the humor a lot.
• Unusual animation style can deter some viewers
• Sales pitch for upcoming tactics style MMORPG of the same name
• Not from Japan, while not a bad thing in and of itself some anime fans can be a little over zealous (read: out right crazy) when it comes to things not from Japan being called anime.

For People That Like: RPG games (Especially things like D&D), Fans of the tactics style MMORPG Dofus, Slayers, The Dorkness Rising, other fantasy slapstick action comedies.

Overall: Probably one of the better shows I have watched in the last year or so, the humour was spot on, the action was well done, the ending was a bit of a surprise. There are a lot of external references in the first season, especially in the boufball episodes. Ultimately it was an enjoyable light hearted romp through a cliché, comedic and often times “pun”ny fantasy world, with enough serious events to build a fairly good story line.

Bonus points: Say Grougaloragran ten time fast.

Show Preview:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2JrWJfdoqk

Related posts:

1. Review: My Little Ponies – Friendship is Magic
2. Review: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
3. Retro Review: Baccano!

Pros:

• A well thought out world with a rich and intriguing mythos.
• Wonderful, detailed art from veterans of the craft.
• A consistently potent blend of comedy and action.
• Mad SCIENCE!

Cons:

• When it boils down to it, the entire mythos seems to center on one character.
• Huge cast means months will pass without seeing favorite characters.
• The Foglio’s art style is a love it or hate it proposition.

Random Point: The Jagers are one of the most fun and imaginative fantasy races in quite a long time.

Website: http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/

For People that Liked: If you like old Universal horror movies, If you’ve played Genius: the Transgression, If you can’t get enough Steampunk, and if you’ve enjoyed any of the Foglios’ previous works, Girl Genius is for you.

Overall: One of the best long-form webcomics today.

The Method in the Maddness

Phil and Kaja Foglio are old hands at the art and comics game. My first exposure to them was their contributions to the Magic: the Gathering card game, and Phil’s What’s New? Comic that ran in Dragon magazine. They’ve been part of the geek consciousness since I’ve been a geek.

So it’s sort of fitting that, having conquered the hearts and minds of gamers, their current most well known project would blend tons of the things we love together into a singular whole. Girl Genius does just that, combining fantasy, steampunk (the Foglios prefer the term Gaslamp Fantasy), and all sorts of mad science into a comic book.

And then, like a site I reviewed previously, PS238, they put it on the web. Boy did they put it on the web. Girl Genius not only digitizes a physical comic book, the site itself is a hub of extra material including sketches and a character twitter.

Unfortunately, all this leads to a very busy website. Webcomic sites usually come in various flavors of meh, ranging from incredibly Spartan to ‘mismatched vote button hell’ with hosted sites, with both billions of vote buttons AND ads, dropdowns, and five billion banners for other comics hosted by the same site being among the worst. So it’s actually a complement when I call the Girl Genius site ‘not horrible’, especially since I’ve yet to meet a webcomic site that rates a ‘good’. Apparently creativity does not translate to website creation or even the ability to instal Drupal.

But I digress. Amid the many, many button and images, the site at least allows you a dropdown with pages listed by name. This is a blessing because you won’t be forced to remember what week a comic was posted on when trying to show a friend an awesome panel.

And awesome panels are in abundance. As the tagline says, “Mad scientists rule the world… badly” and the comic does not disappoint. Set in an alternate history where mad science in basically every form that can have a Jacob’s ladder or Tesla coil strapped to it works, the story follows Agatha, a young woman who just discovered that she is a spark (mad scientist) as she revels in her new abilities and deals with the globe spanning consequences of it all.

The ongoing narrative takes the reader across an alternate Europe and explores the world’s cultures, legends and history. And that is where the one weak point of this otherwise great comic comes in.

Agatha’s core group of traveling companions is made up of an eccentric and quite interesting cast, each with hints of a larger, even more interesting backstory. However, every bit of lore, or myth or rumor, and every prophecy we ever see seems to be focused squarely on Agatha.

Not to call the character a Mary Sue, because she’s not: she’s great character in her own right, with her own flaws and character development to spare. But it’s all but scientific fact in the GG-verse that the world revolves around the girl.

Yes, she’s the main character, but the other characters are themselves so enjoyable, you’re left not so much wanting more, but starving. This is actually the opposite problems a lot of webcomics have, wherein they dilly dally with side plots and the main plot gets in the way.

In Girl Genius, the side plots are so tantalizing, it sometimes feels that the main plot is intruding on them. Which is strange, because the comic also features intermissions, which can pause the storyline for weeks at a time. This isn’t a bad thing, however, as they are always incredibly entertaining out of canon stories featuring the characters.

If the lack of character focus for other members of the cast is the weak point, it’s only because the cast itself is a strong point. As mentioned, Agatha is developing into an almost frighteningly capable character from her panicky roots early in the beginning. She forms the apex of a love triangle between two male characters; Gil and Tarvek who, unlike is often the case with a female lead in this position, manage to be effective and complex characters all without overshadowing Agatha.

Also on deck as part of the core series is Krosp, the apparent king of all cats, who walks on two legs, wears a badass coat (but all clothing in this series is badass), and is the sole font of sanity in a group that consists of 70% mad science. He’s joined in the ‘B’ rank of the cast by Zeetha, a warrior woman who provides considerable snark and dirty comments to the proceedings.

The initial villain if the story is the Klaus Wulfenbach, the nigh unstoppable Baron who has put down many of the ‘rogue’ sparks in Europe and rules from a gigantic flying fortress. What sets him apart, especially in a story where mad scientist is a given, is the fact that in the end, his motivations, to stabilize Europe, are completely understandable, and when put in the context of a world where raising an army of robot super-soldiers is a snap for a spark, one might even start to wonder if his methods are all that extreme. Still, his conviction and his doggedness makes him a force to be reckoned with.

And special credit has to go to the Jagermonsters, an entire race created by the legendary (in the time of the story) Heterodyne family. They make up another large group of diverse characters who contribute heavily to the comedy and awesome moments in the series. If I had to choose a best part of the comic, I would cheat and say, ‘the part that has Jagers in it.”

As for art, the Foglios can often be controversial. Phil’s style is best described as ‘exaggerated cheesecake’. Women have prominent hips and busts, men are bulging with muscles (regardless of frame), and everything is shiny and cartoony. Some people don’t like kind of character design, and I’ll admit that it had to grow on me.

However, one can’t deny how detailed everything is. The clothing is unique and dynamic, the world is littered with little flourishes like signs of failed experiments, or GG’s trademark trilobite symbol showing up in odd places. Reading Girl Genius makes you very much feel that you are looking at a living, breathing organic world, no matter how cartoonish the character models are.

All told, if you do like the art, and do like the basic concept, I see no reason that you wouldn’t like Girl Genius. It’s an incredibly slick production from all corners with the already seasoned creators throwing in every tool at their disposal when it comes to making it great. I would go as far as to say that it is one of the best comics on the web today and the single most professional in terms of production and finished product.

If you even tangentially enjoy mad science and adventure comics, then you owe it to yourself to Give This A Click.

—————————–

Landon Porter puts method to his madness in his weekly webserial The Descendantss (http:/www.decendantsserial.com)

Related posts:

1. Webcomic Review: PS238
2. Review: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
3. Retro Review: Baccano!

Pros:

• Excellent plots
• Memorable characters
• Starts simple enough to entertain anyone.
• Becomes complex enough to satisfy a serious reader.

Cons:

• Black and White
• The website. My god.

Random Point: This series manages to make both it’s largely preteen cast look utterly badass, while avoiding
making their teachers look lame.

For People that Liked: If you liked Tiny Titans or Mini Marvels but found the plots too simple, or just wanted longer stories, welcome the your new favorite comic. If you like Aaron Williams’ other work, you will appreciate his brand of humor in a whole new genre.

Website: http://nodwick.humor.gamespy.com/ps238/index.htm

Overall: This comic doesn’t get enough love, either as a webcomic, or as a print publication. If not for the crippling problem of its website, it would be flawless.

In the Beginning …

I was part of the webcomics community around the time it first started to get its legs under it enough to start being called an industry. Back when Megatokyo was performing a miracle by making the jump to print, and the guys from Penny Arcade were only insanely popular artists and not the kings of an empire.

On all the forums and blogs, people were making a stunning discovery: A certain percentage of people who read your webcomic for free will then give you money to have the exact same thing in paper form. That, plus merch and ad revenue meant that with a given number of readers, a comic could become a business. The comic could effectively become an ad for people to buy it!

Yes, this was a revelation. I was there. And yes, that’s exactly what television is in the Age of DVD. The thing was, up to that point, most people saw webcomics as an all amateur affair and ‘giving away’ the comic a foolish endeavor.

No more. Today, many creators have learned that the typical indy comic schedule of one 22-page book every two months, or an anthology every year can be supplemented by simply turning to the web. On a standard MWF schedule, a 22-page comic can easily make up two months of webcomic, which brings in ad revenue and advertises your print book!

This is the background in which we find Aaron Williams’s PS238, a webcomic version of an ongoing print series. It’s important to keep this in mind, as artifacts of this origin does crop up when reading the series.

Set in a world where superheroes are not only real, but so numerous that such a place is justified, PS238 is a public school for the powered children of superheroes, villains and the various other entities that those folks run into from time to time.

The first pages are almost completely standalone gags featuring spoofs of various Marvel and DC heroes including (of all people) Morpheus of Sandman. Taken alone, they might lead many to believe that the series to be another disposable gag comics. Do not be fooled.

Soon enough, we are introduced to Tyler Marlocke, the powerless son of two of the most powerful (both politically and the super kind) heroes in the world. His parents dump him at the school in hopes that either some powers will rub off on him, or he’ll suffer some sort of empowering accident. From that point on, the story, while sometimes changing focus for a story arc, mostly follows Tyler’s desperate attempts to not get seriously injured while learning along side kids with powers like those of The Incredible Hulk or Firestar.

And that’s where the story really shines. Despite most of the student body looking like shameless ripoffs of everyone from Superman and Green Lantern to MODOK and Dr. Doom, each and every one of them is eventually given a moment in the spotlight to show that they really are their own characters.

Of particular note are kids like 84, who seemed to show up specifically so she could be the butt of a joke about how many heroes have the ‘flight, speed, strength’ suite of powers (she’s the 84th). Instead, she becomes a regular cast member with multiple arcs centered around her and a great deal of fleshing out both her background and her issues with her powers.

Another great example is Captain Clarinet, the son of a Superman pastiche who has the same powers. While he suffers from a typical ‘torn between two worlds’ problems superman has, those worlds aren’t Earth and an alien planet, but his parents. And his method of dealing with them leads him on a path you wouldn’t expect Supes to go (even Hyperion [you're welcome fellow comic nerds]).

Tyler naturally gets a great deal of development himself, eventually (with an absolutely awesome mentor) gaining real confidence despite being merely a warm, squishable human.

But if you only come for the characters, you will stay for the plots and the back story. Much like the characters, they seem superficially to be rehashes of classic Silver Age plots (alien invasion, an attack on the heroes’ base, being lost in space), but Williams manages to breath life into these old saws with witty humor and surprisingly deep character development woven directly into them.

The art on the site is black and white, which might turn some people off, but unlike some web comics, PS238 is inked, removing any signs of sketches and leaving a very slick, clean feel.

Slick and clean however cannot be said for the site. The front end is a cluttered mess of mismatched banners of different sizes pointing to merchandise, extras and Williams’s other projects (such as Nodwick or Full Frontal Nerdity) without even a simple table to keep them in line as the page loads. The archive is date only, making it utterly useless to find favorite strips, and the individual pages are presented on stark white backgrounds with minimal top and bottom navigation.

But all of this might be forgiven considering that if the website were too nice and friendly, fewer people might feel the tug to buy the books. However, what is unacceptable is the hosting arrangement. Like Williams’s Nodwick, PS238 is hosted on the website Gamespy, which embeds a redirect script on every page that will occasionally shunt the reader to a full page ad with a link to allow you the privilege of moving on to the page you were really trying to navigate to.

There is absolutely no reason in this day and age of PHP page generation and flash ads for a website to stoop to hijacking your browser. If we, the internet savvy users who are the primary patrons of these sites wouldn’t abide by pop-ups, we shouldn’t stand for this. And I believe that Aaron Williams, in the interest of simple courtesy to his potential customers, should consider moving to other hosting, or joining a webcomic group that would give him banner/webring supported hosting.

Aside from the unfortunate albatross around it’s neck (one a reader can mitigate by installing the Firefox extension Redirect Remover), PS238 is a solid work and a wonderful example of superheroes done right at any age. If you like superheroes, and you like character driven stories, you owe it to yourself to give this a click.

———————-
Landon Porter should know superheroes, he writes the superheroic webseiral The Descendants (http:// www.descendantsserial.com)

Want to comment on this review? You can by going here.

Related posts:

1. Webcomic Review: Girl Genius
2. Review: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
3. Retro Review: Baccano!

Pros:

• Novel approaches to Sci-Fi staples that rarely see the light of day in TV shows.
• Sprees of often movie quality animation
• The most unique story you’re likely to run into.
• Everyone involved in the series is an awesome kind of insane. The main character is listed as a producer, and that reflects the attitude involved in everything Haruhi.

Cons:

• Haruhi, as a character, might be too far on the Jerk Scale for some viewers.
• American dub unable to be saved even with Crispin Freeman aboard.
• The show has no genre. Episodes jump from Slice if Life to Murder Mystery to All Out Sci-fi

The Correct Viewing Order: 2, 3, 5, 10, 13, 14, 4, 7, 6, 8, 1, 12, 11, 9.

For People that Liked: Excel Saga, Lucky Star, or any show with pushy, insanely energetic females being bad people.

Overall: This show is weird and proud of it. Luckily, it manages to make something like sense by the end, and is well worth it. A pity that the Big Secret is inevitably spoiled for anyone that spends more than thirty seconds on the internet.

Really, You Haven’t Heard of Haruhi?

If you haven’t heard of Haruhi, this is your first day on the internet. If you don’t know the name, you probably have seen the face: large brown eyes, matching hair   in yellow ribbons, and an expression that says that you disappoint her just  by existing.

The girl of a thousand memes and the show that bears her name might be the singly most hyped anime ever (rivaled only by Gurren Lagann and Cowboy Bebop). The hype is so pervasive and the show so brutally difficult to explain, that the big twist at the end of its original airing has joined ‘Frodo Lives’ and ‘Luke, I am Your Father’ in the ranks of spoilers you can never escape.

Out of respect for the one miraculous person who stumbles upon this page and doesn’t know, I’m going to avoid adding to the free for all in spoiling the Big Important Thing, or BIT of the series.

Sadly, the so called “Complete Collection” being sold in America arranges the episodes in chronological order, resulting in the BIT being revealed in the sixth episode instead of the fifteenth. To avoid this, just Google for “Haruhi Viewing Order” and change your discs accordingly.

Is it worth it? In a word, yes. It makes the show more interesting by introducing a central mystery (the simple but powerful question of ‘what the hell is going on?). The show is still enjoyable in chronological order, but all the mystery is gone and all of the clever references to ‘future’ shows are just things following their normal order.

The difference is so much better that the rest of this review is written assuming you’ll be watching it the ‘right’ way.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is a show based on a light novel series, both of which enjoy messing with reader expectations and piling on the weirdness. It starts with that workhorse of anime tropes ‘The Ordinary High School Guy’ meeting the ‘Energetic and Bossy Girl’.

That’s where it stops even pretending to be normal and before long, you’re being asked to contemplate a future so advanced that they’ve forgotten what boats are for, or wondering if someone’s been killed by an overactive imagination. Even voice-overs aren’t safe with characters often responding to narration without noticing. And then, just when you’re totally expecting magic space lasers… you get an episode about a school festival or a lazy, rainy day.

It’s this property that makes the show and the light novels into mental crack. Your brain can’t stop trying to figure things out and making increasingly bizarre theories largely because no matter how bizarre or mundane, it can fit into the universe as presented.

The characters help in this. Without giving too much away, you have that aforementioned ‘Ordinary Guy’ in Kyon, who is actually the main character and narrator (despite certain titles would leave you to believe). Being the viewpoint character, he lets the viewer feel more comfortable with suspending disbelief in the well of crazy he inhabits by usually refusing to be baffled or distressed when some new random even occurs, moving straight to mildly annoyed.

And then that’s Haruhi herself. I’ll be blunt: she is a terrible person. She’s hyperactive, blunt, bossy, and has trouble seeing other people as more than big toys for her to play with. You will either find this annoying or hilarious. Once you find out the Big Important Thing, you will find this terrifying… on top of annoying or hilarious.

Luckily, Kyon’s narration and actions let us know that we’re not supposed to be okay with how Haruhi acts with other people. Unfortunately, many people miss this and feel that all of Haruhi’s terrible behavior is played for laughs. Haruhi is more of a bouncy, animated Archie bunker in that respect; a character whose flaw is that they are in some respect, just a bad person.

The other three mains serve as Haruhi’s favorite ‘toys’. To a person, they each have their own (utterly strange) motives for striving to keep Haruhi happy and then let her do as she pleases with them (And when this involves dressing one, Mikuru, in various costumes, some people have found this situation very disturbing indeed). Notable among them is Yuki, who as opposed to Haruhi’s chief Yes-man, Itsuki, displays an independent streak that’s very satisfying to watch develop.

But I don’t want you to think that this show is about a spoiled brat and her crew of friends who make sure she gets everything she wants. On the contrary, the whole point of Kyon is to provide someone who doesn’t particularly care if she gets her way or not. Through the friction between their two personalities, Haruhi develops her own character arc, which bears fruit in the episode “Live Alive”.

The animation is very nice and modern, but suffers from a small library of cut and paste mouths on the characters, which appear jarringly when a lot of dialogue is needed and disappear into drawn mouths during dramatic sequences. On the other hand, there are whole scenes that have quality equal to a big budget production. Most memorable to me are a cycle of Haruhi running down the stairs with Kyon in tow that looks particularly realistic and the famous choreographed dance sequence in the credits.

Beware of gratuitous scenery shots, especially of the club room. One begins to wonder if the rest of the animation was so expensive that they were forced to mandate three minutes of still shots per episode. Then you reach the episode “Some Day In Rain” and you become certain.

I hesitate to subtract points for these though, as it might have been intentional. You can’t just assume these things are a mistake considering the fact that this is the studio that put out eight instances of the same episode with minor changes in season 2.

Voice acting. To borrow a bit from Adam Richman: Today in the battle between Dubs vs. Subs… Subs win!

The Japanese voice cast is good, but not great. Itsuki sounds like a villain to me for some reason.

But the English voice cast… Crispin Freeman (Kyon) and Wendee Lee (Haruhi) deliver as one would expect. Everyone else, however, seems to have been caught in some sort of time warp and arrived here fresh from their recordings for Tenchi Muyo. The dialogue (especially Itsuki’s) is delivered in a stilted, breathless manner and laughter and incidentals are incredibly forced. It isn’t that their performances are bad perse, just horribly, horribly dated.

As for extras, in the complete collection, you’ll find what I imagine to be every scrap of film used in the promotion of the first season. Unfortunately, only  few of these are properly subbed (like the adorable Haruhi puppet shows) and only a scant handful are dubbed. The dubbing quality on the interviews is to be expected, exactly like the BBC’s dubbing of UN meetings.

In the end, the show is worth watching. Even without the special order, and with the dub, it remains a smart energetic, and highly entertaining show. Haruhi, the character, might not be your cup of tea, but keep in mind that she is a lump of clay to be molded into a better person and you should be able to put up with her if you don’t find her antics funny. In the meantime, you still have Kyon’s narration and interaction with the other main characters to keep you busy.

If you like quirky, light-heated anime and don’t mind occasionally diving head first into a variety of genres, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is definitely worth your time and money.

———————

In addition to reviews on this site, Landon Porter writes the weekly webserial The Descendants (http://www.descendantsserial.com)

Want to comment on this review? You can by going to our forums over here.

Related posts:

1. Review: Puella Magi Madoka Magica ／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼
2. Review: My Little Ponies – Friendship is Magic
3. Review: Wakfu Season 1

Content Warning: Baccano! has quite a lot of blood and violence. Viewer discretion is advised.

Pros:

• A unique setting filled with interesting characters.
• A fun and lighthearted series that easily stands out among a sea of melodramatic peers.
• An interesting brand of storytelling that isn’t afraid to take risks with a unique non-linear narrative that is constantly moving forward and backward in time across the viewpoints of a large cast of characters.

Cons:

• Non-linear storytelling can make keeping track of the show’s massive cast and plot confusing.
• A weak and unsatisfying ending.
• Some definite weak spots in the animation, especially from the backgrounds.

Random Point:  1930′s Slang

For People that Liked: Cowboy Bebop, Durarara!!, Pulp Fiction, the Godfather films

Dub vs. Sub: Funimation actually managed to pull off one of the best dubs I’ve ever seen with a cast that actually manages to enhance the entire experience with realistic accents. While the sub can be seen for free on Hulu or the Funimation website, I actually find myself leaning towards the dub version.

Overall: An extremely entertaining romp with unique characters that risks a lot in order to be original and for the most part succeeds. A strong recommendation for anyone who is tired of cookie cutter series with characters and settings that have started to blend together.

What’s Your Story, Morning Glory?

When you become a fan of just about anything you have a tendency to run into the exact same wall of complacency and conformity that seems to follow just about any medium. After a while everything starts looking the same and you start entertaining yourself by ripping apart just about everything in attempt to find anything new or original.

But sometimes something comes along all decked out in weird fashions like Lady Gaga on the red carpet throwing it’s original sense of style right in your face and stunning poor internet reviewers to the point where they come back to their computers and type up very poor metaphors.

Baccano! is kind of like that. You don’t really have to go looking for what makes it stand out because it’s stamped all over it. From the non-linear narrative to the unique setting it easily stands out from a crowd of hot-blooded protagonist and awkward eternally virginal romances.

Baccano! Takes place in the United States during the heady days of Prohibition where we all learned that the government banning illicit substances is a great idea with no unforeseen consequences. If you had to summarize the plot it’s about an attack on a railroad train known as the Flying Pussyfoot going terribly wrong and the events that both preceded and succeeded this event. But the series isn’t too concerned with it’s plot. In fact I’d have to admit that the plot is generally very light and straightforward. Nothing you’d write home about and nothing the series concerns itself with.

What it is concerned with is the nature of stories versus reality, most notably lampshaded by the first and last episode that have us question the difference between the two. Is there a main character? Do stories have a real beginning or ending? Baccano! throws all of these standard storytelling devices to the wayside. It introduces us to a huge cast of interesting characters that area all fairly entertaining in their own right, but arguing that any of them is the protagonist is an exercise in futility. And the story itself is told with no care given to the linear nature of time, constantly moving between various time periods and viewpoints.

In the hands of a poor storyteller this could be pretty annoying and an exercise in pure post-modern pretension, but the series manages to make it work using the stories non-linear nature to hide information, build suspense and just plain have fun. And that’s what makes this series truly effective is that despite it’s originality and unique sense of style it seems to concern itself most with having a good time. It’s a lighthearted ruckus of the best sort where we can marvel at the mayhem and laugh alongside the characters as they blend action and comedy in a high flying adventure story that doesn’t bother to take itself too seriously.

The strongest quality of the entire show comes across in it’s characters. It’s hard to create such a large cast while still giving everyone unique and entertaining personalities but the show pulls it off fantastically from crybaby leader of a band of explosive delinquents Jacuzzi Splot to the mysterious and deadly monster The Rail Tracer. Everyone gets their own moment to shine and they’re all a delight to watch.

That’s not to say that the entire thing is without flaws. Even with their adept handling of the narrative, it still comes off as confusing and hard to follow at times. Someone I watched the show with honestly had a lot of difficulties keeping track of what was going on when and resented the show for it and it was hard to say that I blamed her.

The biggest flaw is probably the last three episodes where the series ends with a bit of a whimper. The characters seem to go through the motions as these episodes act as a sort of epilogue, tying up a few of the loose ends of the series. Unfortunately, the excitement is gone and a lot of it comes off as annoying. When a good three quarters of an episode is dedicated to a brand new villain’s nonsensical ranting and navel gazing I found myself  quietly eyeing the fast forward button.

Finally, I have to admit that I wasn’t terribly impressed by some of the animation. I know it’s a terrible nitpick and in general the production values of the entire effort was impressive, especially from a smaller studio like Brain’s Base. The music, character design and setting research both show a lot of love and work went into the entire endeavor. But unfortunately several bits of the background animation and character movements had me rolling my eyes at what were very obviously cost-saving measures. And poorly done ones at that.

But those all amount to nitpicks in my mind. It’s always nice to see an original effort come down the pipe and it’s twice as good when it actually succeeds in it’s efforts and manages to be pretty entertaining to boot. If you’ve been looking for something outside the typical anime plots and characters, Baccano! is quite possibly just what you’ve been looking for.

Want to comment on this review? You can do so by going here.

Related posts:

1. Webcomic Review: Girl Genius
2. Retro Review: Royal Space Force – The Wings of Honneamise
3. Retro Review: Evangellion, The Original Series

Pros:

• A smart science fiction story that takes its subject matter seriously.
• Spectacular visuals.
• Comedic timing of the highest order.
• It’s world building is something to marvel at.

Cons:

• Lack of action/adventure elements might turn people off.
• Riquinni’s passive personality might confuse/anger the hell out of some people.

Fun Fact:  Royal Space Force had an entire ‘special effects’ team just to produce its more intricate animation segments. And it shows.

For People that Liked: Apollo 13, The Right Stuff, Planetes

Overall: An oft overlooked science fiction classic, with spectacular visuals and sharp writing. Just don’t expect non-stop ‘bang bang shoot-em-up’ action.

Not Just a Footnote.

Before Gurren Lagann reignited the super-robot genre, before Fooly Cooly blew minds, before Evangelion confused everyone on Earth, before Gunbuster… busted guns… a brand new animation studio call Gainax brought to the table a film called Royal Space Force – The Wings of Honneamise. A movie with no giant fighting mecha, no cute girl extraterrestrials, and no crybaby teenage boys. Instead it was a story about ordinary astronauts, and the giant rockets that would lead them to man’s first steps into space.

Royal Space Force (referred as RSF from here on out) is the story of an cadet astronaut named Shiro in a struggling space program in an alternate world that is similar to Earth, but isn’t. As a boy Shiro dreamed of flying jet aircraft, so when he came of age he joined the army. But due to his aloof and rather lazy personality he was unceremoniously dumped into the Royal Space Force.  A political football with lofty dreams of conquering space, but plagued with funding problems and bureaucratic meddling. The Space Force wants to put a man into orbit, but government and public support is non-existent, and its astronaut pool is a group of goof-offs, wash-outs, and other undesirables no other military branch wants. In short the Space Force is a joke to everyone, including most of its service-members, and especially to Shiro. But a chance encounter with a devoutly religious woman, Riquinni, leads Shiro to wonder if the quest for putting men into space might mean something more… something almost spiritual. Meanwhile, war is brewing with a neighboring nation, and political leaders start seeing the manned space program as a potential flash point to exacerbate conflict between the two nations. Soon Shiro, with his new desire to be the first man in space, is caught up in a whirlwind of training, politics, assassination attempts, and trying like hell to get into a girl’s pants. It’s a well crafted story that is equal parts hard science fiction, coming-of-age drama, and clever comedy.

The Differences Are What Make it The Same.

The contrast between Shiro’s space program and the real-world space programs of the United States and USSR is fascinating. In our world Space Travel was presented as a noble goal, its participants painted as bold adventurers with no-fear whom the general public adored. But in RSF the manned space program is the butt of jokes. In this world civilians have more pressing concerns in their daily lives then the fantasies of mad scientists and saber-rattling generals. And yet… it feels believable, organic, like this is the way things could have happened in this world with the right catalysts. And that’s the thing about the world of RSF, it feels real. The world it paints is pure fiction; its culture, its customs, its clothing, its architecture, its technology, its religion, its politics… are all uniquely original. But it doesn’t just dump these things on you and expect you to believe them. It builds them up one on top of another brick by brick to create this living breathing world that feels familiar but is alien too. To me, that is the mark of good world building, not needing to make any great leaps of logic to believe in these people and their struggles and desires. I’ve yet to encounter a film to do this quite as well as RSF.

On the technical front I could gush for days over its lush cel-animation. Backgrounds are detailed, character movement is fluid, and when things ignite, explode, or crash your eyes will bug out. This is helped by the fact that the movie producers created an entire ‘special effects’ group just to animate the more complicated animation segments. For example, there is a scene where a tank is blown up by an artillery round. But it doesn’t just blow up in a spectacular fire ball, oh no, when it blows up thousands of shrapnel shards blanket the immediate area, causing thousands of water impact ripples on a nearby lake. This attention to small details in background interaction occurs throughout the film with some frankly astonishing results.

Forgiveness for Moments of Weakness.

If the film has any faults it lies in the relationship between Shiro and Riquinni. Riquinni is spiritual to a fault. She has thrown off all excessive pleasure in the quest to preach to a culture she sees to have fallen into decadence and sloth and away from spiritual enlightenment. For example, so devote to her pacifistic beliefs she outright forgives a redevelopment company for turning off her electricity and later bulldozing her home, and all of her possessions, to the ground. To some it would seem that she just rolls over and lets the world walk all over her, over and over again. These character moments may unsettle some people on their first viewing, thinking the movie is misogynistic to a high degree. And while it could be read into like that, I personally don’t see it that way any more.  These aspects of Riquinni’s personally actually showcasing her incredible force of will as a person.  But your mileage may vary.

There are several releases of this film, Manga Entertainment released it on DVD many years ago and it should be available if you poke around, but it is OOP. Bandai Visual rereleased it just a few years ago as a Blu-ray/DVD two-disc set with a brand new restoration that is, excuse the terrible pun, out of this world. But, it was part of their Honneamise line which while of amazing quality were priced like they were released in Japan, IE: insanely expensive. I believe the MSRP was $100. Now, the good news is you can find copies for a lot less than that, but you’re still looking on drop 40 bucks for the Blu-ray/DVD release.

Royal Space Force – The Wings of Honneamise is literally my favorite film of all time. I love it because it is more than an ‘anime’, it is a science fiction masterpiece. And it’s certainly should be held in higher regard then a footnote in Gainax’s Wikipedia bibliography, as I find many modern anime fans seem to express is the case.  Its smart, its thoughtful, its funny, and its beautiful, and a copy belongs on everyone’s movie shelf.

Want to comment on this review? You can by going to our forums here.

Related posts:

1. Review: Wakfu Season 1
2. Retro Review: Baccano!
3. Movie Review: Avatar, The Last Airbender Live Action

Pros:

• This movie might finally end M Night Shyamalan’s film career.
• It sort of completes a trilogy of bad live action remakes, beginning with Street Fighter: The Legend of Chung Li, then continuing with Dragonball: Evolution, and hopefully ending with Avatar: The Last Airbender.
• The Riff Tracks for this movie are going to be amazing.
• The soundtrack for this movie isn’t bad. Actually, I think I might buy some of this music.

Cons

• Acting, script, special effects, the cinematography, everything in this movie feels like punishment from God.
• A single dollar is too much to ask to see this movie.
• This movie also wasted $150 million dollars that could have went to make better movies.
• It’s not even funny in the way bad movies can be… it’s just bad.
• There is still the possibility of a trilogy.

Things I’d Rather Do Then See This Movie Again: Eat glass.

For People That Liked: Elektra.

Overall: If you want a movie to take little kids too, then take them to see Toy Story 3. Otherwise, only watch this movie if you hate yourself.

There is Nothing Good About This Movie

I like to find something good in a movie, even a film that I think is horrible. Usually I try to imagine a human being that would like that kind of movie, and try and write my review to explain why that person should watch that movie. But with M. Night Shyamalan’s Avatar: The Last Air Bender, I cannot imagine a single human being on Earth that could enjoy this film. Fans of the animated series will be disgusted by this adaptation, people who like martial arts movies will not find repetitive fight and uninteresting fight scenes, and parents wanting to take their kids to a children movie will spend the entire movie hearing  “why didn’t we go and see Toy Story 3 mommy?”.

It’s hard to narrow down what exactly is wrong with this Avater: The Last Airbender, because everything about this movie is done wrong. The back story is told to the audience through narration, character development is revealed through monologues, Noah Ringer performance of Aang is one of the worst things I’ve seen done by a child actor, the characters Katara and Sokka seem to follow Aang for no reason other then they have to be in the movie, the world is shown through annoying CGI clips of characters starring at the scenery for various contrived reasons, the CGI clips are annoying because they lack any real movement or life and portray the world as lifeless and stale, the fights are uninteresting and are poorly choreographed, the plot doesn’t feel like it’s building to anything epic, for that matter the plot doesn’t seem to be building up to anything interesting, and the whole movie feels like M. Night Shyamalan was trying to learn how to use CGI. This is a movie I’d expect from a film student that recruited his family and friends to act in his movie, not a professional hollywood production.

The only thing that was remotely good about this movie was some of the music composed by James Newton Howard. It’s not on the level of Hans Zimmer of Jerry Goldsmith, but I’d say it’s a decent soundtrack. Some of the tracks are good enough that I’d consider picking them up on iTunes. It’s just such a shame that Howard’s talents were wasted on scoring a movie this utterly bad.

I could go into more excruciating details about why this movie was bad, but I will simply use it’s Rotten Tomatoes Rating to show how bad it is.

Star Trek: Nemesis – 37%
M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening – 18%
Dragon Ball Evolution – 13%
Halle Berry’s Catwoman – 10%
Uwe Boll’s Postal – 8%
Mortal Kombat: Annhilation – 7%
Avatar: The Last Airbender Live Action – 6%
Battlefield Earth – 2%
Ballistic: Ecks versus Sever – 0%

That’s right! M. Night Shyamalan has managed to create a movie that is marginally better than Battlefield Earth and slightly worse then Mortal Kombat: Annhilation.

Why Did They Make This Movie?

Why give this project to M. Night Shyamalan?

Even if you forget that his last two movies were horrible and he’s known for being the twist guy, he’s never made a movie like this. He’s never made a movie with heavy CGI, or with lots of martial arts, or really any extended action scenes.  He’s the bloody “twist guy” who makes pseudo mystery and suspense movies, not “light hearted martial arts movies guy”. I know it’s good for him to try something new and take a chance, but a $150 million dollar epic that is slated to be a trilogy isn’t what could be called “acceptable risk”

Then there’s the casting of the Asian lead Aang with white actor Noah Ringer. Many fans complained that casting Noah Ringer was racist, but I held out hope that the decision was made because it’s hard to find a child actor that can act. So long as the kid could act, I’d be happy. Noah Ringer can’t act. He can’t do facial expressions, deliver lines, or show emotions appropriate to his scenes. And while his martial arts skills are considerable, the choreography of the movie fails to show them off.

For that matter, why make this movie? There wasn’t anyone clamoring for a live action remake of “Avatar: The Last Airbender.” A wiser use of the $150 million would be to just make another series in the Avatar universe, or an animated movie. Hopefully Hollywood will learn from it’s mistakes, and at least M. Night Shyamalan’s career should be over.

Oh wait. M. Night Shyamalan is having a secret project that features Bruce Willis, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Bradley Cooper. Why… oh god why…

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