Book Review: Magnus Chase and the Ship of the Dead

Review:  #786
Title:  Magnus Chase and the Ship of the Dead
Series:  Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard - 3rd and final book
Author:  Rick Riordan
Comments:  The Ship of the Dead is the third and final book in the series, which crosses over with the Percy Jackson series (he even appears early on along with Annabeth).  Magnus teams up with his friends and goes on a quest to defeat Loki, all this as the deadline looms.  Yes, this is a typical Rick Riordan novel and this is the biggest flaw, it does not do anything new.  The plot structure has been done 10+ times already, with extremely similar themes and no plot twists anymore.  The humor is better but still heavily reliant on contemporary pop culture and feels forced a lot of the times in a misguided effort to be “relevant”.  There is too much fluff, padding out the novel, it could have benefited from tighter and more ruthless editing as the author spends literally pages describing things that does not add anything to the story.  Nevertheless, this is a solid finale with interesting encounters with different Norse gods.  The climax was underwhelming and Loki seemed to have been defeated much too easily, a far cry from previous series.  While some of the characters never seem to grow on you, the journey was enjoyable.
Rating:  6.5/10

Love Actually (2003)

Love Actually is a Christmas themed ensemble romantic comedy, and ended up becoming a classic for Christmas viewing.  Following so many characters, each has their own mini story about their search for love, trials of love and other love-related matters.  It presents a nice variety although this also means that none of them get too many details, just enough for you to understand the characters' situations and root for them.  Despite getting a bit out of hand with the developments toward the end, you can't help but smile at the happy endings (and some bittersweet endings) and how things are resolved for each of the pairings. Throughout the film, you also see snippets on how each of the characters are connected, they don't directly influence each other's stories but it's a common thread that ties them all into one cohesive film.  It is surprising as how much the film captures you with its characters and scenarios.

The Asterisk War - Season 2 (2016)

The second season of The Asterisk War, which is based upon the light novels, is again at 12 episodes long.  It is set in the future where humans have gained powers and are called Ganestella.  They use weapons called luxes, which are objects that can expand to form their wielders' weapons.  Their powers have a wide variety as Ganaestella can manipulate the elements and create illusions.  It follows Ayato and Julis from the Seidoukan Academy and while the first season focused on world building and the lead up to the Phoenix Festa, the second season continues through the Festa to its finale.

The first episode starts off right after the finale of the first season.  Ayato and Julis are participating in the quarter finals of the Phoenix Festa.  It starts off strongly and is much better paced than any of the episodes in the first season.  We're treated to a pretty fun and exciting battle.  Unfortunately, the pacing slows down again in the second episode and we get our second fight in the middle of the third episode.  The battle was disappointing in the fact that everyone now knows Ayato's weakness of only having roughly five minutes of power before he is shackled again.  Their opponents play on that and it seems while Ayato and Julis had a plan, they fall for the trap anyway.  It's even worse that for all their practice and boasting of teamwork, they didn't display much preplanning or teamwork in this battle.

While it aims for a triumphant comeback in Ayato and Julis' quarter final battle, with them both at the brink of losing and at a disadvantage since Ayato's powers were shackled again, when Ayato searches his inner self and breaks his seal once more, and the victory that comes after it, it feels kind of hollow.  They tried to make their opponents hateful and incite the viewer by wanting justice, but again, the fights feel all style and no substance and there isn't the kind of satisfaction you want when they win.  The easiest way to sum it up is that their clashes do not feel satisfying at all.

The first season was predictable and it doesn't change much here.  The plot events are annoyingly cliched, such as the blackmail to prevent Ayato from using his powers.  It is also easy to see how the matches are going to end up, there are no surprises at all.  During the Festa, you get to see how some of Ayato and Julis' opponents have unfair advantages, mainly the two AI opponents.  It feels cheap and like it is breaking the rules since they have advanced weaponry and faster reflexes.

There is a tendency for art shift during some battles, making their faces quite ugly on purpose.  It contrasts massively against the quality animation.  Furthermore, there are certain scenes where it uses obvious CGI which also clashes.  The subplot of Ayato's missing sister takes on a slightly bigger focus in the second half of the season.  We get more concrete hints of what happened to her and who are involved.  Even if we don't know the reason why or the details, there is a lot of progress made.

While it improves significantly compared to the first season, the pacing is still out of whack.  You get battles where 90% of the time, it is the characters dutifully explaining their abilities and stating the obvious about their tactics and strategies.  When the action actually starts, it's over in seconds.  The best part is that the episodes where it builds up to the fight, only for the episode to end almost immediately.  Then the next episode has the battle finished within the first quarter.  As expected, Phoenix Festa ends in this season but surprisingly, the next arc immediately begins with the characters teaming up in preparation for the five-member Gryps Festa.  The last few episodes explore Julis' past and her motivations

Unfortunately, the anime has an unsatisfying ending as it ends right in the middle of an arc.  It's like the studio had too much content for one season but not enough for two, they should have just condensed the events of the Phoenix Festa into one season and be done with it instead of dragging it out so much.  Overall, the second season of The Asterisk War is once again fairly bland.  It has a lot of potential but it doesn't deliver as it ends up feeling like it lacks substance and heart.  Granted, it improves significantly compared to the first season which was focused on introducing the characters and world building, while the second season is free to dive straight into it.

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Book Review: Camp Half-Blood Confidential

Review:  #785
Title:  Camp Half-Blood Confidential
Series:  Percy Jackson & the Olympians - companion book
Author:  Rick Riordan
Comments:  Companion books are always a hit and miss affair, and since the Percy Jackson series (along with its sequel series Heroes of Olympus) already had a few companion books before, this one rehashes a few things.  It’s theme is that it is an introductory handbook for new Demigods arriving at Camp Half-Blood and goes through a few of the amenities (which tries to be funny but ends up feeling forced and lazy), some extremely short stories (again, hit and miss) and other bits and pieces such as illustrations and interviews.  You can feel the author burning out even more as the jokes feel tired and worn.  Unfortunately, a lot of the content feels like needless padding and does not add much to the world.
Rating:  5/10

Toy Review: Robot Damashii Bracer Phoenix (Pacific Rim Uprising - Side Jaeger)

Review:  #467
Name:  Bracer Phoenix
Brand:  Robot Damashii (Pacific Rim Uprising - Side Jaeger)
Year of Release:  2018
Variations:  none

FIGURE:

Bracer Phoenix is a Jaeger (aka giant robot) from the film, Pacific Rim Uprising.

Bracer Phoenix is supposed to be the tank, so to speak.  It is built to withstand attacks and has heavy plated armor.

The head is on a balljoint but as it sits within the body, the range of motion is quite limited.  You can tilt it slightly from side to side but that's about it.

With Bandai taking on the role of designing and producing the figures, the quality is pretty good but lacks the sense of immense size that it should have.

With the default hands, Bracer Phoenix has the knuckle duster in its left hand.

In comparison with the NECA figures of the first movie, Bracer Phoenix is much smaller but looks a lot more agile.

However, Bracer Phoenix is also the shortest Jaeger out of the ones introduced in Uprising.

In terms of accessories, there is a pair of open-palmed hands and two ones, one that attaches to the front and the other to the back.

In order to attach the gun to his torso, you need to remove a piece and then peg it on.

Similarly, there is a piece to remove on its back to attach the rear gun.  If you wish, you can have both guns on at the same time even though the film depicted it as only one set that moved around the body.

To swap hands, you pop them out of the balljoint.  The balljoints are smaller than the ones used for the limbs, and thus are much easier to pop out.  Too easy in fact, that it feels like the wrists are too loose.

Articulation is a tad bit disappointing, While the arm movement is great with double joints elbows and balljointed shoulders, the same can't be said for the legs.

The legs feel really restricted.  With its digitigrade-like leg design, the knees do not actually bend to 90 degrees.

The shoulder pads are on separate balljoints so they can be moved out of the way (but do leave an unsightly gap if you move them too much).

It's a figure that does look great but too bad about the extremely limited leg articulation.

OVERALL:

Bracer Phoenix looks good, albeit a bit too matte and lacking some paint applications (most of the figure is unpainted).  The limited motion in the legs hurt the figure a lot, making it the weakest among the Pacific Rim Uprising series of figures.

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Book Review: The World God Only Knows Vol. 25

Review:  #784
Title:  The World God Only Knows Vol. 25
Series:  The World God Only Knows - 25th volume
Author:  Tamiki Wakaki
Comments:  Volume 25 finally signals the end of the arc involving Kaori and the plan for Vintage to open up the gaps in all the girls’ hearts at the school.  It was a messy and muddled plot, feeling overlong as if you weren’t getting anywhere.  However, once that has been resolved and the next phase of the past arc begins, you will forgive everything as a few significant revelations occur.  The history of Hell, the truth about Dokuro, and the intricate plan were fantastic and surprises you.  It all feels like it fits perfectly.  It jumps between the past and the future but the author has done it masterfully, keeping up the tight pacing once again.  It wraps together (although more like a retcon) a purpose for Keima and the various girls that he had to save from runaway spirits.  We also finally get an answer of some long standing mysteries that was hinted at during the very beginning of the series.  After a few average volumes, Volume 25 finally delivers a satisfying punch.
Rating:  7/10

Bad Moms (2016)

Bad Moms is a comedy starring Mila Kunis, who plays the role of Amy Mitchell, a mother of two, with a lazy husband and just generally sick of her life.  There are strong sexual references and frequent swearing and a lot of humor is based around that.  With that said, the humor works half the time, and the other half feels predictable and overused already by other films.  It is a typical story in which Amy goes to breaking point with her entitled children, stress from work and no support from her husband.  This isn't helped by the "elite" group and thus Amy goes wild one day, skipping work and drinking.  Eventually, it goes to a point where it is Amy versus the elite in order to be elected as the PTA president in order to build a better environment for the school.  Trying to shoehorn this feelgood plotline isn't bad per se but just felt predictable.  You know in the end everything will work out fine and Amy will win, with enemies becoming friends.  Overall, Bad Moms is average, tending to stick with well worn tracks and not trying anything new.