Gabriel DropOut (2017)

Gabriel DropOut is a 12 episode anime based upon the manga series, there were also two OVAs released. Gabriel is an angel who had graduated from angel school in heaven. Along with other graduates, she is sent down to Earth to attend human high school in order to better understand humans. She was the top of her class and is expected to eventually return to heaven and become a true angel. However, she discovered the vice of gaming and is now addicted to MMO’s, turning into a slob and typical shut-in in the process.

The cast is joined by another angel, Raphiel, who is more sadistic than she has any right to be. While on the opposite side there are two demons, Vignette and Satanichia. Vignette’s personality and actions would have you confuse her as an angel at first. She is Gabriel’s good friend, looking after her and motivating her. While Satanichia is unfortunately the typical loner who has no friends that you take pity on.

To be honest, Gabriel and Raphiel are both too mean-spirited to like, which his the point given the contrast to their angel identities. It’s just that they keep playing pranks or being mean (i.e. bully) Satanichia so much that you can’t help but feel pity for the latter. It’s always played for laughs and it’s usually funny, but the characters will go too far at times. Then again, Satanichia doesn’t help herself when she has such an inflated ego.

Each episode is split into several sections, although each section is not completely distinct or standalone as they do flow on from each other. The anime is pretty much just daily school lives, with a twist of angelic or demonic powers. Given everyone’s inexperience with the human world, this is taken advantaged of by others in many instances. Usually this leads to the humor but the anime feels flat overall as there’s not too much excitement. The characters are overly cute, and there’s the fan service, but that’s pretty much it. Sometimes the events don’t even flow together that well, making for some clumsy pacing when it continues to barge on.

The characters act more like elementary or middle schoolers rather than high schoolers, as most of their antics are immature things. There isn’t enough to spice up the anime so episodes can be boring and dragged out. when the characters return to heaven or hell, it’s a little bit more interesting due to the change in setting. We learn about their families and the customs in heaven and hell. Although it still feels very much the same so it doesn’t stand out much at all.

It doesn’t help that the anime falls back on many familiar beats. A character may get drunk on a drink that normally doesn’t make you drunk., or Gabriel deludes herself with the games that she plays, or superiors not understanding Gabriel’s rubbish and lets it slide. Running gags that are repeated far too often, the beach episode, and the Christmas / New Year episodes, it’s all too predictable. That said, some of the things can be clever, such as the excuse for the rays of light censoring the characters as a natural angelic ability. The ending held some promise as there appeared to be a big change to the way things would be, but then it reverts back to normal, so it was a false alarm.

Overall, Gabriel DropOut is one of those anime that had an interesting premise but doesn’t capitalise on it much. While there is plenty of mentions of angels and demons, as well as their powers, at its core, it’s still very much a generic high school slice-of-life comedy. It doesn’t have enough interesting quirks of its own to make it stand out, so the episodes can be boring and flat.

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Girls und Panzer: Dream Tank Match (PS4)

Girls und Panzer: Dream Tank match is a game that’s based on the anime.  The Asia version had English subtitles.  The main draw is the tank gameplay, as the story mode is an afterthought.  It’s best to have watched the 12 episode anime as well as the first movie as the story mode has a framing device where all the characters, from all the schools, meet up together to reflect on their past battles.  In particular, it covers only the events of the movie.  So while it’s pretty cool to participate in some of the more iconic scenes in the movie, at the same time, there isn’t much content.  The story mode can be finished within two to three hours, it would have been a better fit if it covered the events of the 12 episode anime as well, although there was a previous game that had done this already.

The flow of the story isn’t great either.  It’s told in a visual novel style but it is boring since it’s mostly comprised of exposition from the characters.  They literally state what happened and the tactics that they used, which adds nothing new.  The actual tank gameplay in the story missions is short.  They are over within minutes, something even under a minute, so you end up mostly reading rather than playing.  Making matters worse are the pop-up dialogue that wrestle control away from you during the story missions.

The controls are simple with the analogue stick being used to move the tank.  Push the stick forward to move the tank forward, back to move backwards, and left and right to change the direction.  So it’s kind of like tank controls but not.  It can take a short while to get used to, particularly since you use the right stick at the same time to control the turret and aim.  A neat aspect is that while you can quickly move the reticle and camera around, your turret moves much more slowly so you need to wait for the turret to catch up to where you’re aiming before firing, otherwise you will miss what you were trying to aim at.

The right trigger is used to fire and the left trigger is to use any special abilities the tank may have, such as its second turret.  Both you and the enemy tanks have a health bar and damage inflicted is affected by which section you hit.  You do scratch damage if you don’t hit them in an area with less armor.  You can aim at their treads to break it, rendering them immobile so you can then circle around to hit their weak points for massive damage.  Unfortunately, it’s not all fun and games since the controls still ends up clunky until a few hours in.

There are a lot of nuances with the game that the short tutorial does not teach you or mention at all.  There are speciality abilities based on the character you picked as the commander.  You can activate a scope for higher precision aiming.  There are items you can equip to give you another edge.  You can perform a 180-degrees spin, and you can reduce damage by tilting the armor at an angle.  Different tanks handle differently and have different firepower.  The smaller ones are nimbler but lack power in their shots, and also easy to get one-shotted by heavy tanks.  While the heavy tanks are slow and hard to turn, but pack serious firepower.

The maps that you fight on vary in size and quality.  Some are tiny and cramped, while others are huge and impressive.  The smaller ones mean it’ll quickly devolve into an all-out brawl, while the bigger ones mean you’ll spend minutes trying to find the opponent as your tank slowly lumbers across the plains.  While cool to see familiar areas, some have narrow corridors that is difficult to manoeuvre the tank in, which reflects reality, but does not make a fun game.  Turning the tight corners, even normal corners, are such a pain.  There is a drift function but you need to be going at top speed in order to activity it and it’s mapped to the same button as braking.  There is also one map which is big, has a lot of corridors, and has multiple levels.  It’s extremely painful navigating the place trying to find the opponent.

There are five match types in total: heading to a destination marker, defeating all opponents, one vs one, surviving for the time limit, and defeating the flag tank (aka the leader).  Time limits range from five minutes to fifteen minutes, so these matches are designed to be short.  That’s the biggest negative, the matches are so short and easy in the single player content that there’s little strategy involved beyond roaming around to find the enemy and firing at them.

The other major single player content is the Domination Mode, which is described as an original story mode.  It’s basically a five-match tournament where you can play as one of the nine available schools.  Each round has your opponent, match type, and arena randomly selected.  The story is naturally inconsequential and has the characters chatting about their next opponent, their progression in the tournament, and what they are winning.  This mode takes around five hours to finish and it’s mostly easy except for one school.  That school forces you to use one light tank, meaning some of the matches are extremely unfair and frustrating as it’ll be one versus five heavy tanks.

Then there are the Extra missions, of which there are sixteen of them.  Each mission has three difficulties:  Normal, Hard and Extreme.  These missions are nothing new but allows further replication of some anime battles, or crazier scenarios such as one tank against five of the more powerful tanks.  Finally, the Custom mode allows you to set up your own custom match against the CPU.  You can choose pretty much all the parameters, from the location to match type to which tanks to use.

There’s also a leveling system where experience points are gained from the actions that you do during the battle.  Perform good actions such as successfully quick loading, or hitting a weak point, or breaking the tread of an opponent, will give you more points.  Leveling up, along with completing the Story, Domination and Extra missions, will unlock tanks, characters and customizations.  Once you’ve unlocked enough of them, you can customize the tanks to your heart’s content.  The graphics are also decent for what you’d suppose is a game with a lower budget, especially an anime-based game.  Plus, it has all the voice actors from the anime.

Overall, Girls und Panzer: Dream Tank Match is, for a game based on an anime, quite decent and one of the best in that niche genre.  The tank gameplay is simple to learn and contains a bit more complexity than at first glance.  It’s still not overly complicated but it is fun enough blasting your opponents.  Being able to recreate scenes from the movie, as well as going through recognizable scenery from the anime is awesome.  It’s worth the cost of importing if you’re a fan of the anime, but probably not if you’re not a fan.

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Toy Review: Transformers HasLab Star Saber

Review:  #745

Name:  Star Saber

Brand:  Transformers

Allegiance:  Autobot

Line:  HasLab

Year of Release:  2022

Size Class:  N/A

Mold Status:  new

BRAIN OF COURAGE:

As part of the HasLab crowdfunded Victory Saber set comes Star Saber, our first G1 inspired figure after the MP-24 Masterpiece version.  First up is the Brain of Courage, which is a tiny figure but still well painted so that you can make up several details.

From the back you can see Saber's face.  Otherwise, this tiny figure has arms that can swing forward and that's about it.

As expected, Brain of Courage is absolutely tiny, above is a comparison with Micromaster Holi (also part of the set) and Legion Crosshairs.  The small size can make Brain of Courage a bit tougher to keep standing up at times.

JET MODE (SABER):

Moving onto Saber, which transforms into a red jet.

It's not a bad jet mode, although there is a fair amount of undercarriage kibble, with the wings being a bit short and the jet overall being blocky.

Saber is approximately the size of a Deluxe, above is a comparison against TLK Bumblebee.

Brain of Courage can sit in the cockpit, which is pretty cool, but apart from that, there are no additional play value here.

It's a nice looking jet, with some chromed details at the back.

TRANSFORMATION (SABER):

It's fairly simple to get Saber into robot mode.  The back extends to form the legs, while the arms fold up from underneath.  The nose of the jet detaches as it is the robot sword's hilt, while the head is revealed.  You open up the chest to reveal a gap where you plug in Brain of Courage, given it contains the face.  This is actually quite a cool gimmick in practice.

ROBOT MODE (SABER):

Robot mode is very nice here at well, with a good looking combination of blue, red and white, suitably heroic for an Autobot.

He wears half of the jet on his back, but it is not very cumbersome as it is situated close to the body.  Likewise, his legs are chunky as they're the back of the jet.

Despite Brain of Courage forming the face, it's hard to tell as it is integrated nicely with the helmet portion.

Saber is approximately Deluxe size, a tad bit shorter but more solid and less hollow in comparison so it evens out.

Poseability is fine and this is one area where it beats the Masterpiece version, and that is his hips are not restricted.  He has joints for his head, shoulders, elbows, waist, hips, knees and ankles.

For weaponry, he can use the grey gun, although it's a tad bit oversized for him.  The jet nose that forms part of his shoulder shield is also detachable if you do not want it plugged there.

A decent robot mode, especially considering that he isn't even the star of the set.

JET MODE (STAR SABER):

And now the star of the jet, Star Saber himself.  It's really easy to get this mode as you just need to plug Saber, with the wings pointing straight up, into the rest of the ship and it'll securely peg into place.

Star Saber has a great looking jet mode, named the V-Star, especially with the giant V-Lock Cannon pegged on top.

The back is a bit gappy and you might be disappointed for this (especially when it also happened on the Masterpiece version), but there is a reason for this, and it's because that is where Victory Leo attaches to and fills in that gap.

In terms of Size, Star Saber is approximately Leader sized, but has the mass and more parts that is on
par with a Commander figure instead.

He also comes with six effects parts, although they're molded in transparent green instead.  They can peg onto the thrusters, or you can have them pegged with the weapons as if they're firing.

You can remove the shield at the back if you wish, but it just makes the ship even more gappy so it's not recommended.

When paired with Victory Leo, they do look good together.

This is a decent jet mode as well, with an impressive size and look.

TRANSFORMATION (BASE MODE):

Star Saber has a base mode, which you can make halfway transforming him into robot mode.  You'll need to remove Saber, via a clever unlocking mechanism that releases him when a button at the back is pressed.  Then split the back and fold out to the sides (these are the robot legs).  The front (the robot arms) fold back, and you stick the shield at the front.

BASE MODE (STAR SABER):

This is pretty much an excuse mode, but it was present in the original toy so it's here as well.  It's little more than a partially transformed robot that is sitting down with its legs split.

The shield at the front and the guns makes it look a little bit better, but the shield doesn't stay on very securely since they're just held but smaller tabs at a angle.

Size-wise, it's fairly decent as you'd expect, given it is approximately a Leader sized figure.

There are various places to use the fire effects, so that it can look good as a defending base.

For something extra that doesn't compromise the figure, it's passable, and if you don't like it, it is easy to just completely ignore it.

TRANSFORMATION (STAR SABER ROBOT MODE):

First, you will need to remove Saber via the unlocking mechanism.  Once out, you pretty much fold him up into a cube, which is done by extending the robot legs and then folding it up to tab into the torso.

With the V-Star, the back half of the sides extend to the form the legs, while the front half of the sides extend to form the arms.  There are a few more rotations and hinges but that's pretty much it.  It is a simple transformation.  Once you've gotten it in robot mode, you just need to plug Saber in and then attach the robot head on top.

ROBOT MODE (STAR SABER):

Star Saber's robot mode is almost the star of the set and he looks amazing here.  Being a crowdfunded figure, there aren't as many budgetary restrictions so he has the full suite of paint apps and articulation.

He's big, chunky and blocky.  Although given the transformation, he can feel a bit light in places as his limbs are hollow.  The designer did well to make sure there are panels to cover all the hollow parts so you don't notice it unless you're handling him.

The head sculpt is fine, but it is a separate piece that pegs onto the body.  His antennae rotates due to transformation but there isn't something to help it lock into place, so you'll easily dislodge it which can be annoying.

In terms of size, he is quite big, towering over a Leader, and of course a Voyager as well.

A quick shot with Victory Leo, and also Holi and Fire from the same set.

As you would expect, Star Saber has impressive articulation.  He has joints for his head, shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, hips, knees and ankles.  They are all either hinges, swivels or ratchets.

Furthermore, his shoulders can flex inwards for that extra movement, while his hands can open and close.

Star Saber comes with a bunch of accessories, the first is a grey gun, the same one used by Saber, but much better scaled for Star Saber instead.

Then there's the gigantic V-Lock Cannon and this is one impressive weapon.  It's probably the coolest one in the set.  Although the predominantly grey color scheme makes it look a bit drab and like an unfinished prototype.

The effects parts can be used at the tip of the weapons, to make it look like they're firing.

Next up is the sword and shield.  The sword is formed from Saber's nosecone along with the blade piece pegged on.  The blade can be pegged in two different configurations, basically either Star Saber holding it so that the blade faces forward, or the edge faces forward, depending on your preference.

The blade itself can store on the side of his legs, as there is a slot for it.

While the shield can be held in either hand, there is a separate detachable handle piece that pegs onto the back.  This is where it has all the pieces required for Star Saber to hold it.

The color scheme is fantastic here, and there doesn't seem to be any expenses held back as he has the chromed chest, and a great blend of the four primary colors.

The shield can also peg onto the forearm, more akin to how a shield is used.

The sword can store within the shield, and still allow it to be pegged onto the forearm, which is a nice storage option.

Saber as the torso piece is pegged very securely thanks to the mechanism, as well as several other slots.  This means when playing with Star Saber, it feels like a solid one-piece that isn't in danger of falling to pieces.

The only negative is that given that the hip ratchets are tighter than those panels, you end up detaching the panels on the side of the legs rather than actually moving the hips.  Other than that, this is a brilliant robot mode.

OVERALL:

Star Saber is a fantastic figure.  Even ignoring Victory Leo, Star Saber himself has so much play value.  The synergy between the Brain of Courage, Saber and then Star Saber, as each one forms a core component of the larger robot, never gets old.  The sheer amount of accessories that Star Saber gets also helps provide tons of play value in robot mode.  And most importantly, Star Saber feels premium enough to justify his high price tag.

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