Deepwater Horizon (2016)

Deepwater Horizon is based on the true story of the events leading up to the oil spill from the titular drilling rig.  It follows Mike Williams, as he travels back to the drilling rig on what is supposed to be another day of work.  From the beginning, we start to see the cracks which lead to the disaster that happened.  It begins with bypassing a safety check, then further tests caused the pipe to burst which quickly escalated the incident.  The film is done extremely well.  You don't understand the significance of how big and dangerous it gets until the whole drilling rig goes up in flames and you realize that this actually occurred.  It gets even more terrible when you realize that people's lives were lost.  The film delivers a strong gripping story and message.

KonoSuba: God's Blessing in This Wonderful World! 2 (2017)

The second season of KonoSuba:  God's Blessing in This Wonderful World! is set at 10 episodes once again, plus an OVA that was released with the limited edition of the 12th light novel.  The premise is that Satou Kazuma, a NEET, died but he meets the goddess Aqua in the afterlife who offers him a choice.  He picks the one where he gets transported to an alternate reality where it is dictated with RPG elements, and as part of that choice, he decided to take Aqua along with him.

In the first season, two other party members join.  The first being Megumin, a powerful magical user with the handicap of only knowing the explosion spell and as a bonus, collapsing after one usage (aka she can only use it once per day).  The second is Darkness, a Crusader who has strong offensive and defensive abilities, but unfortunately she cannot ever hit anything and has a fetish for being hit and humiliated.  The second season starts off straight after the final episode of the first, where Kazuma is arrested for transporting the explosive from the Destroyer into a local lord's mansion.

In the first episode, he is imprisoned, interviewed and then grilled on trial and things are not looking well when he is sentenced to execution.  As Kazuma strives to clear his name (and huge debt), Darkness is forced to go to the Lord's house and suffers who knows what (although Kazuma, Aqua and Megumin had some lewd ideas.  With the party now being heavily in debt and having all their belongings taken away, everything they worked so hard for is... gone and it is sad.

KonoSuba has crazy slice of life type of episodes with plenty of surprises.  You get the giant toads making a reappearance, Megumin's childhood rival and Kazuma working hard to pay off the rising debt that somehow gets put into his name.  There are plenty of hilarious events such as Kazuma and Megumin facing off to see who gets to use the baths first and in the words of Kazuma, he goes against cliches which makes it all the better and more surprising when he actually sticks to those words.

Things get a lot more outrageous too plus there's a ton of fanservice.  It's like the characters blurt out whatever's in their mind and then ups it with even crazier stuff.  However, the second season also feels a lot stronger in its humor, with episode 5 being one of the best episodes in terms of humor, plot and using everyone's personalities to their full effect.  We get a great showdown between Kazuma and a strong enemy, some surprising characteristics from Darkness, and an epic ending that felt like that should have been the end of Season 1 instead of what we had gotten.

Kazuma is quite skilled at manipulating people as well as definitely not fighting fair in order to win.  One of the best recurring gags is how other Adventurers mistake Darkness's actions as noble, when in reality she is just succumbing to her perverted desires.  This extends to other members of the party when Kazuma gets into situations where the trouble that other people are asking them to solve was actually caused by them.  Kazuma gets extremely embarrassed in these situations and his comments are too funny.

There is a hot spring episode towards the end but it is not your typical one.  The journey to the hot springs was as funny as when they actually got there.  A big surprise awaits them as they get to the famous tourist hot spot where it tests Kazuma's patience and Aqua feels the need to prove that she is a goddess.  KonoSuba's biggest strength is its ability to defy your expectations to the point that when something seems to be going on as normal, you are just waiting for the punchline and the crazy stuff to happen.  It doesn't disappoint in that aspect at all.

While touched upon before, this season hammers home that there are plenty of reincarnated Japanese people before Kazuma had come into this world.  There's a pretty significant revelation towards the end regarding a particular hero which was clever.  Funnily enough, Kazuma is making good progress in his journey to vanquish the Devil King during this season, just not in the way you would expect a grand journey to be.  It does kind of seemingly boil down to luck and coincidences though.  Overall, KonoSuba:  God's Blessing in This Wonderful World! 2 is a fantastic follow up to the first season.  It ups the ante and gives us a lot more humor and cleverness such that it definitely feels too short, leaving you clamoring for more.

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Book Review: The World God Only Knows Vol. 23

Review:  #772
Title:  The World God Only Knows Vol. 23
Series:  The World God Only Knows - 23rd volume
Author:  Tamiki Wakaki
Comments:  The Urara arc ends in this volume but this doesn’t mean the whole past arc is resolved.  Despite all the mysteries surrounding Urara’s grandfather, and his immense power, the truth is pretty ordinary and something we have already seen before within the series.  Keima naturally wins the conquest and captures the runaway spirit and the next step of his plan proceeds.  Dokurou finally finds the opportunity to explain the situation to Keima and his ultimate objective, finally putting to light what the whole point of this exercise was.  It sounds neat, correcting the past to align with the future, but doesn’t really explain the mechanics of why it was like this, and throws away the cause and effect nature of time travel.  The second half of the volume introduces a new sub arc which gets even more exaggerated than what we have already seen.  Having the story focus on little kids isn’t as good as when they were high schoolers but still have plenty of chances for humor and drama.
Rating:  6.5/10

Toy Review: Transformers Generations Studio Series Optimus Prime (Voyager)

Review:  #460
Name:  Optimus Prime
Brand:  Transformers
Allegiance:  Autobot
Line:  Generations - Studio Series
Year of Release:  2018
Size Class:  Voyager (Wave 1)
Mold Status:  new

VEHICLE MODE:

Studio Series Optimus Prime is based upon the Revenge of the Fallen version.  Unfortunately, the smokestacks are shortened and ruins the look.

The underside of the robot feet is really obvious on the back but otherwise, this is a pretty good vehicle mode.

Optimus is on the smaller side, above is a comparison against Titans Return Optimus.

The two blades can store on the back by plugging there.  There's no play value in this mode apart from the six rolling wheels.

A good looking vehicle mode but like most Movie toys, they're realistic but static.

TRANSFORMATION:

Somehow, the designers keep managing to find new transformation schemes.  This Studio Series version is involved but still intuitive and not frustrating at all.  It relies heavily on panels though with most of the cab collapsing into the torso (and a fake windshield covering the real windshield).  There are a few clever sections where the panels neatly tucks away.  The legs are also different in that the front wheels don't end up on his ankles now, rather it is reversed.

ROBOT MODE:

The robot mode at first glance seems like a mess mainly due to the black strut between his chest windows, but is actually quite screen accurate and looks good.

He features a hefty amount of kibble on his back.  They are mainly the cab panels as well as the fuel tanks, which annoyingly does not peg in anywhere so will rotate out of alignment whenever you handle the figure.

The headsculpt is accurate and very detailed.  It is on a balljoint.

There's a lot of sculpted detailing and some of his blue and red parts are painted in a dark metallic paint, which looks awesome in hand.

In robot mode, he is average height for a Voyager.

A quick comparison against the previous Voyager ROTF Optimus and you can see how much they improved the proportions and freed up the limbs from kibble.

As part of the Studio Series he comes with a big cardboard diorama.

The diorama depicts an important scene to the character from a particular movie, and for Optimus, it is the forest fight from Revenge of the Fallen.

Articulation is excellent as in addition to all the standard joints, he features ankle tilts.

Optimus is a solid figure.  The biggest detractor to the robot is the fake chest windshields which looks too flat and not immediately obvious at first glance what they are.

The figure comes with a pair of Energon blades, they are cast from a smoke transparent orange plastic.

The blades do not actually peg outside his fists, rather, Optimus holds them underhand but the blades are sculpted in a way that you don't realize that.

The blades are a little bit too big proportionally but still looks menacing and suitable for the character.

When not in use, the blades can peg onto his back for storage.

Despite the abundance of grey and lack of any silver at all, Optimus doesn't come off as cheaply painted.

A fantastic robot mode that's surprisingly better than expected after having him in hand.

OVERALL:

It's a hard sell on yet another rendition of Movie Optimus Prime but this is a fun and solid figure that improves upon the previous toys.  He has two great modes, excellent sculpting and gorgeous detailing in robot mode.  He is a fun figure and deserves a chance to be on your shelf.

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Toy Review: The World God Only Knows Vol. 22

Review:  #771
Title:  The World God Only Knows Vol. 22
Series:  The World God Only Knows - 22nd volume
Author:  Tamiki Wakaki
Comments:  Keima continues to try to change the past in order to influence the future.  With the various new characters introduced, enough has been teased for the reader to get an idea of the objective, although how to achieve it is another story.  Most of the chapters in this volume do not seem to follow any sort of logic, it jumps from place to place and can be confusing in its leaps.  There are just too many unexplained plot points for it to make sense as of now.  However, the tie back to the core fundamental gimmick of the series, being Keima’s conquests, is welcomed here and done rather cleverly.  The chapters reuses some approaches and it has a tendency to spend a whole chapter on switching to another viewpoint that doesn’t have the same urgency nor does it add much to the plot.  The humor works well though and it does throw a few intriguing curveballs, enough to keep you engaged.
Rating:  6.5/10

Arrival (2016)

Arrival follows linguist Louise Banks during a period when 12 spacecrafts mysteriously appear around the world.  The aliens seem peaceful at first, and the US military has called upon Louise' help in order to try and figure out their language, and get the answer to the most important question of all, "why did they come to Earth?".  The plot is presented in an intriguing manner, and it keeps up the suspense as you come to realize how difficult it is to learn and try to teach a language without any sort of context.  The aliens are structured differently, culture is not the same and obviously the method of communication is complex.  During the film, considering the events, you hope that it will be able to present a satisfactory conclusion because otherwise, it would feel like a huge waste of time.  In this aspect, the resolution was acceptable, and while it wouldn't blow your mind away, the twist is interesting to say the least and explains some confusing plot points in the beginning.  The film is slow paced but manages to keep viewers engaged, Arrival's themes are solid and strong.

KonoSuba: God's Blessing in This Wonderful World! (2016)

KonoSuba:  God's Blessing in This Wonderful World! is based on the light novel series with the first season comprised of 10 episodes plus an OVA that was released with the ninth volume.  KonoSuba starts off with Sato Kazuma, who is a high school shut-in and obsessed with games.  So when he actually ventures out one day to buy a game, he ends up dying a humiliating death.  In the part before the afterlife, he is given a choice by the goddess Aqua:  1) continue on into boring heaven; 2) be reincarnated; or 3) as a special case, be transported into a parallel world with RPG mechanics with the aim to defeat the Demon King that is terrorizing the world.

To sweeten the deal, Aqua offers Kazuma any one thing to take into the world.  Through a series of jabs and insults, Kazuma ends up picking Aqua herself and thus the pair of them are thrown into the world and finds themselves in the starting town of Axel.  Aqua is the water goddess but in this world where she is worshiped, she has lost significant amounts of power.  Aqua has a high ranked job class, being an Arch Priest, one of the best healers int he game but has poor offensive abilities.

Aqua doesn't seem to take her plight seriously though, opting to learn useless skills, taking a carefree outlook and recklessly spending, leading to huge piles of debt in which Kazuma has to help repay (much to his annoyance).  On the other hand, Kazuma is a lowly adventurer and he has to work up from the bottom, slowly gaining levels and skills.  Despite that, it's hilarious when all the others in his party ends up failing despite being better in theory and Kazuma ends up saving the day.

The pair starts off doing mundane work since the kill quests are too high a difficulty.  They decide to recruit other characters to form a party.  The first to join is Megumin, an Arch Wizard, one o fthe most powerful magical users.  She is from the Crimson Demon race, with potent magical powers but looks like a young girl.  The second party member to join is Darkness, who is a Crusader (aka Knight) with powerful offense and defense.

Unfortunately for Kazuma, the other three party members each have some significant flaws that hinder their abilities.  Kazuma knew something was up and didn't want them to join their party but through various circumstances, they end up getting stuck with each other.  Of course, eventually, they learn to work as a team and build up a strong relationship.  During the beginning where they stuff up, it is hilarious, since their flaws are unexpected and are a severe handicap, so you are eager to see how they can overcome this.

As the main character, Kazuma is the only sensible one of the party and the only one who is serious and sees things as a normal person would.  That doesn't help when totally random unexpected things happen to him, and even when things seem serious, the story finds a way to make light of it and give a stupid hilarious reason.  KonoSuba strays from predictability and the main character's actions are completely on the opposite side of anime cliches.  Not only is this funny and refreshing, it keeps you guessing such as when Kazuma stole a rare sword, but instead of doing what a typical hero would do by returning it to teach them a lesson, he went ahead and sold it.

The first season is, as Kazuma says at the end, a tutorial.  This is because by the end of it, while Kazuma is definitely better off than when he started, he is still stuck in the beginning town with beginning abilities and nowhere near ready to start venturing out and attacking the Devil King's generals.  It ends on a weak point in terms of plot since it doesn't provide much closure, even when you consider that there is a second season.

The OVA has Kazuma wearing a choker that would tighten and eventually kill him unless he gets his wish granted.  This is just an excuse for him to command the other characters to do lewd things and like a lot of OVAs, it has a heaping of fan service but there are plenty of funny scenes.  It's kind of against the character portrayed in the main episodes since there, Kazuma was constantly being blackmailed by various female characters as they falsely speak out loud his lewd actions.  Overall, KonoSuba:  God's Blessing in This Wonderful World! is a fun, lighthearted and enjoyable fantasy anime.  The plot doesn't advance too far but this is about the journey and the journey of how Kazuma meets his weird party and how they solve problems with unorthodox solutions, more than makes up for it.

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Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga 2 (PS2)

Shin Megami Tensei:  Digital Devil Saga 2 is the second part of a JRPG duology, and a spin-off of the Shin Megami Tensei series with a standalone story.  After the cliffhanger ending of the first game, Digital Devil Saga 2 dishes out the heavy hitting revelations from the get go.  We get explanations of why the world of Digital Devil Saga was the way it was, the characters that appeared and what's happening in this current desolated world.  The battle system remains the same being the Press Start battle system.  You gain extra "half turns" if you target an enemy's weakness, but lose turns if you use something that they absorb or repel.  These rules bound the enemy as well and thus if you do not prepare well, you might be locked into a battle where the enemies end up doubling their amount of turns as they continually target your weakness.  You may also spend half a turn to pass with a character, to allow another character extra turns instead.  Battles go by faster than the first game as animations have increased in speed.

Unlike the mainline Shin Megami Tensei series, this game allows you to pick and choose what skills to equip your characters.  This is done through equipping Mantras, and gaining experience remains the way to get more skills for your characters.  The skill tree is not linear and grouped by similar skills anymore, instead, it is on a map-like board, giving you a bit more freedom and non-linear progression.  Gaining more skills remain as addictive as the first game, especially later on in the game where grinding for lower tiered Mantras to round out your characters is a lot more efficient.  The game mainly involves exploring dungeons.  It features random encounters but the encounter rate seems to be more reasonable than the first game.  It can be a little bit higher than normal at some places but it is really well paced for most of the game.  Dungeons can feel repetitive especially since it reuses the same environments many times in the one dungeon.  Thankfully, there is a map which you can pull up making it much easier to traverse and getting your bearings.

Unfortunately, the later dungeons have a gimmick to them which makes them extremely annoying and aggravating to push through.  Warps return but there is a really annoying section where you have to run away from a chasing enemy in the dungeon.  Action sequences are not the game's strong point and not what players would play this game for, so it is especially annoying when it decides to throw paralyzing traps that stop and pauses you for a sec before the enemy catches up to you requiring you to start the section again.  Then even if you pass the section, but forgot to heal, and you're unlucky enough to enter a random encounter where the enemy has the first strike and die, yay, you can now replay the whole section from the beginning again.  Like the first game, bosses are the highlights but they are trial and error.  You will rarely be able to defeat a boss on the first go.  This is because you need specific skills that you will only find out when you battle them at least once.

Bosses are also where you might need to grind for skills and having well rounded members is more important this time around as the game will force certain party members on you at specific points.  The grind can be painful at times, made worse if bosses decide to spam party wide status moves or multiple elements (since you can only put up protection against one element per turn).  This feels lame and cheap especially since you know your party is strong enough, just that you haven't developed the exact skills the developers wanted you to for that particular boss.  Even worse is when the game consistently rearranges the members of your party, throwing out your planning in the skills developed for each character to cover all your elemental weaknesses.  A nice bonus is if you have a cleared save file from the first game, you can import it to gain additional minor bonuses such as increased money at the start, extra items, sidequests and unlock hard mode from the get go.

All in all, Digital Devil Saga 2 feels easier than the first game, especially since you can gain a lot of levels easily if you're lucky and encounter the right enemies.  Despite that, some sections are still dependent on luck as you may just get a random encounter where the enemy consecutively gets critical hits and destroys your party in one turn.  There is also a massive difficulty spike in the final two bosses, requiring you to grind heavily for specific abilities.  It's annoying and frustrating since it stops you in your tracks to the finale that you know is very close.  It's pretty disappointing when the game up until then was perfectly balanced, no requiring excessive grinding and able to get away even if you don't have the optimal abilities.  While the first game had limited amounts of story, that is not the case here.  The story is a lot more developed and cutscenes are more frequent, giving you more purpose in the dungeon crawling.  The story is fantastic and really steps it up.

The story begins right after the first game where Serph and his tribe members are thrown from The Junkyard and into Nirvana.  Unfortunately, what they find there is not the paradise that they were promised.  Furthermore, Sera has been captured, thus the party aims to rescue Sera and along the way, rescue the world from the crisis it is currently facing.  The story gets really good towards the finale, with some saddening dramatic moments.  You feel that the game was building up towards these scenes and it delivered.  It culminates into a nice ending that is satisfying after two games.  Powering through the game, you can finish it within 25-40 hours, depending on how much you get lost during dungeons, how many times you died and how much time you spent on grinding abilities.  Overall, Digital Devil Saga 2 is a fun game.  You definitely have to have played the first game in order to fully appreciate this sequel (also given that there is no tutorial for the battle system either).  The game is a lot more balanced than the first game, which in addition to the higher amount of storytelling, makes it a rewarding and fun experience.

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Book Review: Sword Art Online 11: Alicization Turning

Review:  #770
Title:  Sword Art Online 11:  Alicization Turning
Series:  Sword Art Online - 11th volume
Author:  Reki Kawahara
Comments:  Things are heating up in the Alicization arc and this volume pushed the story forward even quicker than before.  The first half continues Kirito and Eugeo’s school life as they strive to become the number one and two ranked Elite Disciples in order to get a chance at being Integrity Knights.  It takes a surprising turn towards the middle by the author using one of his favourite plot devices.  The author seems to love putting various characters into a hopeless situation that serves to anger the readers from the injustice of it all.  The author lavishes in putting detailed descriptions of the character’ actions during this ordeal to the point where it feels somewhat perverted, like a fixation.  At least you push through hoping that justice will be served.  Then the plot continues to move on past the school section and into the grand objective.  Once again, several clichéd events happen including forgotten memories and Kirito being forced to participate in a duel where he is at a severe disadvantage.  During that fight, you wonder how Kirito will be able to prevail and the author just seems to keep pulling things out of a hat again and again.  At the end, we finally start to get answers, from backstory of the big bad of the arc to the history of Underworld, and then to how various mechanics work.  It would be rewarding... except for the fact that it abruptly ends with a “To be continued”.  This was one of the worse ending in terms of just stopping; not even the frequent short endings of his other work, Accel World, was as bad as this.  As a side effect from the quick pacing of the plot, most of the characters introduced are more of a “hi and bye” type, which is a shame as it would have been great to have them be fleshed out more and provide a supporting role to Kirito and Eugeo.  In the end, Alicization Turning is still an engaging read that makes you want to read the next volume as soon as possible.
Rating:  7/10

Toy Review: Transformers Movie the Best MB-18 War Hammer Bumblebee (Deluxe)

Review:  #459
Name:  War Hammer Bumblebee
Brand:  Transformers
Allegiance:  Autobot
Line:  Movie the Best
Year of Release:  2018
Size Class:  Deluxe
Mold Status:  repaint of the new mold The Last Knight Bumblebee

PACKAGING:

As part of the Movie the Best line, Bumblebee comes in alternate mode in a windowed box.

The box has a few movie scenes and of course a flattering stock image of the figure.

VEHICLE MODE:

Bumblebee transforms into a 2017 Concept Camaro and he looks fantastic in this mode, with plenty of paint applications (all the black is paint).

The designer bothered to paint the tail lights as well as some other details black, which is great.

Above is a comparison against Generations Titans Return Hot Rod.  Bumblebee is narrower but is taller too.

The war hammer accessory can split in half and peg onto the spoiler (it's a tight fit so there's danger of paint scraping).  The blaster on the other hand, cannot be stored in this mode.

This is a fantastic vehicle that looks stunning.

TRANSFORMATION:

Bumblebee has a interesting transformation that's different to previous Deluxes while not being too hard.  As expected, most of the car shell folds up into this torso (so he is a massive shellformer), while the rear of the vehicle splits to become his legs, with the back ending up as his calves.

ROBOT MODE:

Bumblebee's robot mode looks great and best thing is that the chest is not fake kibble.

This figure tries to be as accurate to the design as possible, including the four-piece door wings.  The car kibble is minimized by having it partially folded into his torso.

The headsculpt is Bumblebee as per normal, nothing special here and he doesn't have a flip down mask.

A quick comparison against Age of Extinction Bumblebee which shows how much better proportioned this version is.

Size-wise, Bumblebee is shorter than your average Deluxe.

Articulation is bog standard.  He has joints for shoulders, elbows, hips, knees and ankles.  His waist does not turn due to transformation requirements.

The ankles are quite loose due to transformation and it can be annoying as Bumblebee can and will keel over backwards if you do not balance him just right.

Bumblebee comes with two weapons, a blaster and the war hammer he used against Optimus in the movie.

The hammer can be held in either hand and looks pretty menacing.

Bumblebee has just about enough articulation to hold it with both hands.

When not in use, the hammer can store on his back.

The abundance of unpainted grey plastic lets down the robot a bit.  Most of the budget for paint was used for vehicle mode.

His blaster can only be used if you detach his hand and then attach this one.  This feels like a lazy way to incorporate this weapon, especially when it means you will always have a spare arm somewhere.

When not in use, the blaster can peg onto his blaster, in the exact same spot as his hammer so you cannot store both at the same time.

The elbow is a swivel joint so pulling it on and off to attach the weapon will weaken it over time and eventually break it since it requires a significant amount of force.

This is a great robot mode and one of the most well proportioned Bumblebee toys out there.

OVERALL:

War Hammer Bumblebee is a fantastic mold and one of the best Deluxe Bumblebees we've gotten.  Whether the hammer accessory is worth the extra premium or not is another story (as the paint isn't significantly better than Premier Edition of the mold).  Nevertheless, this mode is recommended.

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