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Mike_Hunt_itches
Reviews
Ore dake Level Up na Ken (2024)
Not as revolutionary as the hype would suggest.
Don't get me wrong, this anime isn't bad, in fact I'm enjoying it so far. It's just that I was way overhyped. The way people were talking about this, you'd swear that this was going to be the best anime in a decade. Portals to another dimension in Japan✅. Video game inventory✅. Western fantasy inspiration✅. Protagonist has abnormal powers even in his world✅. Weak Protag gets in a life threatening accident and awakens to new abilities✅. Protag wants to get stronger to prove to himself that he's worth something ✅. Has to provide for his sick relative/younger sibling (it's always a sister)✅.
It's everything we've seen before, but so far this anime does it better than others of a similar genre. So don't go into this show thinking it's going to be groundbreaking. I see why people are fans of the source material, but you shouldn't try to raise peoples expectations through the roof. It usually backfires. (I'll correct myself and update my rating if something interesting happens later, but so far it's just a well polished power fantasy, almost isekai).
Edit: ok I took a break and binged the rest. I upped my vote to 8, mostly because as far as binging goes, this is peak. I definitely was losing interest watching this week to week, only because the story isn't all there for me. Neither is demon slayer, but I love that anime too. The last couple episodes were very well done, I really liked them. (major spoilers) Especially when he classes to necromancer. Its pretty rare for non enemy characters to be necromancers, and it's such a cool power. I hope they really expand on that.
Castlevania: Nocturne (2023)
I wanted to like this so badly, but I couldn't.
I'm gonna keep this short. Visually, this is fantastic. Everything else on the other hand...not so much. The characters are so bland, and I couldn't care less about any of them. It's really sad honestly. The original Castlevania series had very well written characters, for the most part. Especially the villains. Isaac was easily one of my favorite characters in all of recent fiction. This show made it feel like they wanted to write the climax of some of the characters' arcs, before anything even got started. "Just throwing a tragic backstory, I'm sure people will sympathize with them". The story was also very weak, and the main villain was not rememberable at all. The show is really only good for throwing on after you've smoked a bit of weed, because at that point pretty much anything with decent visuals is good.
Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari: A Promise Made (2019)
Fitoria is the dumbest character I've ever seen in a awhile.
This might be one of the most annoying episodes I've seen in an anime in a long time. How are you going to spew all of this idealistic garbage at the main character, when you literally have no idea what's really going on? (Self admitted btw. She literally says that her species have short memory spans). This is victim blaming at its finest. She tells him, that he didn't even try to clear his name, which he did multiple times. She tells him that he's the one who needs to try and talk things out, when everyone else literally wants to kill him on site. How is he supposed to negotiate with people who are going to capture him the second they see him?
The heroes aren't even the main issue, it's the king, the stupid first princess, and the rest of the racist kingdom. Why would you try and send them back to the place where he's going to be killed? They want to leave and go to a different kingdoms so we can get a class upgrade, and fight in another kingdom like the heroes were originally intended to do so. Why do they need to get along? They don't need to get along to fight the waves at all. They weren't even supposed to all the summoned in the same kingdom in the first place. They can't even train together because the weapons repel each other. Killing them and summoning new heroes would be setting them up for failure. They barely survived the last wave at max level for their class upgrade. How are brand new heroes supposed to fight another wave which is getting progressively harder, when they only have a few weeks to train for the next wave? This episode was horrible 0/10.
Prey (2022)
Better than the rest of the sequels, but not great.
Was this movie fantastic? No. Was it as good as it could have been? No. Was I entertained regardless? Yes. It's not horrible, and it's not great, but that's ok. I had fun watching it, despite it's flaws.
The 2 things that bothered me the most:
1. The modern mindset. I'm not a political person, by any standard. That being said, it was obvious what the underlying message was in this film. It stuck out like a sore thumb, and felt super out of place. It doesn't take a historian to know that men and women fell into gender rolls for a reason in tribal life. It wasn't men oppressing women. Men and women worked together for the betterment of the tribe. There were things that both gender excelled at, and they HAD to work as a cohesive unit to survive. It felt very disingenuous, and forced.
2. They clearly gave the main character plot armor at the end. I'm sorry but why was the predator fighting so sloppily in the hand to hand scenes, with the main character? She was running circles around him, while he was fighting like a hammered old man in a bar fight. Not even 5 minutes earlier he was bounding from tree to tree like the agile, and powerful killing machine he is. Yet he can't seem to land a strike on the main character who's standing right in front of him. It was... embarrassing to watch.
This was a decent movie. It's better than most, if not all, of the sequels prior to it. Obviously I didn't go into this movie expecting it to be better than the original. Let's face it, nothing will ever top that film. Luckily, I went into this movie expecting it to be utter garbage. So, I was actually not let down for once. It's really not that bad. If you want a movie where you can just turn your brain off, and watch some action...watch it. If you're looking for anything else...Don't.
The Terminal List (2022)
They actually payed attention to detail
As someone who was in the military, I always cringe whenever Hollywood tries to do military stuff. The uniforms, the "tactics", the jargon, going full auto with an M4 that has a bottomless mag etc. I'm aware that the author of the book this show is based off of was a SEAL, so that makes sense. I didn't know that going into it, and I had to look it up, because I was genuinely surprised how accurate everything felt. I appreciate that the people who made the show, didn't go way over board with the "hollywoodizing". The only thing I noticed was they use feet a lot when referring to distance, instead of meters. That's me nitpicking as hard as I can though, which is saying something. This is easily one of the most authentic feeling shows I've ever seen.
Stranger Things: Chapter Nine: The Piggyback (2022)
Really good, but they lost me toward the end
First of all I want to say, someone needs to give the sound department a raise. Wow, the music, and the sound design in this episode were beautiful. The set design was amazing as well.
I really love the way the story was going, and I was interested pretty much the entire runtime. They kind of lost me toward the end though. I was so disappointed when they killed Eddie. I should have seen it coming, since the writers love to introduce expendable characters. *cough bob cough*. Of course all of our main cast have plot armor though, nothing new there. Please... if you're going to put main characters in life threatening situations...actually have there be a threat sometimes. It kind of kills the suspense when I know, for a fact, that nobody is going to die.
Nancy, Steve, and robin were being choked by the vines for like 30 minutes. Lucas got lucky that he was born with a chin that would make Tyson cry. Not to mention the guy who tried to shoot him, doesn't know how to move his arms down, and just lets him duck the easiest shot of his life. As for Max, how did her surviving make any sense? Makes me think Vecna didn't even need to kill her. It actually kind of made me mad that eleven just... can bring people back to life now. I was like "dang that sucks, but at least there's real stakes now". Then immediately followed by "really? Grow a pair, and kill you're characters instead of constantly pretending to". Seriously though, they did the same thing with hopper in season 3, and eleven in season 1. Stop with the fake outs. It's a cheap tactic meant to get an emotional response, without actually following through. You can't keep having it both ways. If you keep doing that, nobody is going to react when you kill someone for real. I'll stop ranting now, because I DID like this episode. I just hate it when writers pull that crap.
At the end of the day, I really enjoyed this episode, and season. Definitely up there with season 1. Also, much better than season 2 and 3. Felt a lot more real than last season.
The Boys: Glorious Five Year Plan (2022)
Perfect way to set up the second half of the season.
This is how you make a great season of television. This episode is the pivotal moment in the season, and I'm ready for the second half. Easily one of my favorite episodes of the show. If not my favorite. I find it hilarious that a satire on super heroes is better than the garbage we've been getting from Disney the last few years.
Obi-Wan Kenobi: Part IV (2022)
Done with Disney
I'm pretty young, but I grew up on Star Wars. I still remember my dad spending the entire day downloading the trailer for the phantom menace so we could watch it together. Even though the prequels weren't as good as they could have been, you still feel like you're watching Star Wars when you watch them. Unlike this horrible show. Disney needs to seriously re evaluate how they're handling Star Wars. Marvel as well, but that's a whole other discussion. Until they get this mess together (if they ever do), I'm canceling Disney plus, and I encourage other frustrated people to do the same. The only way to make these corporations listen, is with our wallets. That the only language they understand.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)
I fell asleep
I fell asleep about halfway through. I'm giving it a 2/10 because I have really bad insomnia and I've tried all kinds of medication, but nothing works. Looks like I just have to watch this movie every night once it's available for purchase. Thanks Disney.
Halo: Contact (2022)
Once again we have a butchered video game adaptation
Can we just stop trying to turn video games into movies and TV shows? Or at the very least, can we actually stick to the source material? Let's take the Witcher series for example. It has its flaws, but it is acceptably close to the canon, and you can see the effort put in to make it as close as possible, while still translating well to the new format.
This show on the other hand completely dumps the canon and gives us a low budget, corny, made for TV movie feel of a show. I have to ask.... If you're going to write your own story, why even attach the name halo to it? Why not create something new? If you get rid of the character names, and re design the armor, you have a generic super soldier, futuristic action show about aliens.
To sum it up, if you are a fan of halo, this is going to be a hard watch. If you're not a fan of halo, it's just going to feel like a corny sci-fi action drama.
Hawkeye: So This Is Christmas? (2021)
Disney vs kingpin
Please tell me who decided to treat the character of kingpin in this way? The man ripped a car door from it's hinges like it was nothing, and he gets his butt kicked by Kate? Then they do the classic marvel off screen death gag, so they have an excuse to bring him back later with a flash back scene of him grabbing the gun right before it goes off. Not sure if I even want him to come back after what Disney did to him here. Turned him into a caricature. I just can't fathom the kingpin we all know leading a group of utter morons like the track suits. "But its comic book accurate, the track suits are supposed to be dumb". Disney switches stuff up all of the time and it's doesn't seem to bother anyone, so why could they not make this at least a little suspenseful, by having the possibility of real consequences. I went into this knowing EXACTLY how this would end. A nice happy ending where the good guys beat the bad guys and everyone lived happily ever after. I was so excited to see kingpin and I was immediately let down. I feel bad for everyone who worked on Daredevil, having to sit back and watch a character they carefully crafted over 3 seasons of amazing dramatic television, get absolutely dumped on in a single hour. I shut off my TV as soon as he got "shot". Honestly at this point Disney, just don't bring daredevil into the MCU. Just let everyone have something nice for Christmas. We don't need a watered down one liner daredevil. Eventually they're gonna have to add characters for dramatic relief. It's like watching a Disney show without the laugh track. Not everyone needs to be funny to be interesting.
Young Justice: Teg Ydaer! (2021)
Anyone know the main plot line yet?
I get that the 4 episode arc thing is normal for this show, but at least in the previous seasons we had an overarching enemy that tied everything together. This feels like a bunch of side quests so far. Obviously they'll tie things up later in the season but I'm starting to lose interest a little bit to be blunt. Also, I feel like they're trying to cram as many new characters into this season as humanly possible and I don't really care for most of them unfortunately. I can't name a single new character off the top of my head. One thing I can say for sure, I'm super hyped for the bat family arc that's eventually coming. Especially after the red hood/ Damien Wayne tease we got a while back. Hopefully they run with that plot line.
Don't get me wrong, I love this show, it's easily my favorite animated show currently running, and I wouldn't be throwing in my criticisms if I didn't care for it. This season has just been a little lack luster in my opinion, so far. Hopefully it picks up a bit.
Titans: Souls (2021)
Just when I thought this show was getting good...
Really? So I'm just supposed to just accept the fact that Donna and Tim magically end up together in the afterlife on a train? They both died at different points in time, so did Donna just stay on the train the whole time? Tim Drake apparently flatlined for 90 seconds, so time clearly goes by super slow in the afterlife. Which means Donna was just chilling on that train for years maybe? Who the heck knows? Not even the writers apparently.
Then Hank just happens to be in the area in a car. Was he using Ghost gasoline? Or maybe Death Diesel? Oh he must have just summoned the car and the gas because as we know he's been "getting in touch with his spiritual side". Guess what, he's heard of this magical bridge that you can cross to get back to earth. No I'm not making that up I promise. Just cross the bridge and you're good. That's all it takes. So was Hank gonna be able to cross? I mean his body was completely obliterated. If he made it over the bridge would he just get a new body? Would he wake up a pile of ashes? Doomed to live in an urn for all eternity?
Also, you know Batman? That hero we all love. The guy who never quits no matter the sacrifice, or how many of his friends and loved ones die. Yeah he tries to commit suicide by burning himself. Don't worry though, Donna Troy can teleport now to convenient locations. Such a stupid episode.
Titans: 51% (2021)
Definitely better than season 1/2
I would have given it a 10 but there's still a couple things bothering me with the show:
Red hood getting manipulated and easily controlled by scarecrow doesn't sit right with me. I understand that they're making an adaptation of the story, but you shouldn't sacrifice character traits for a key character like red hood. At least make him believable.
That and Barbra Gordon is pretty annoying all the time. Like every scene she's in.
Black Widow (2021)
Complete waste of talent
How are you going to bring David Harbour into the marvel universe, make him a super soldier, and give him absolutely nothing to do? His only purpose was to bring black widow and her sister to the mother. That was literally it. We didn't even get a badass fight scene. I won't go into my other complaints, like how they ruined the taskmaster character.