Book Review: Neon Genesis Evangelion Volume 14

Review:  #802
Title:  Neon Genesis Evangelion Volume 14
Series:  Neon Genesis Evangelion - 14th and final volume
Author:  Yoshiyuki Sadamoto
Comments:  The ending to Neon Genesis Evangelion is a confusing journey.  So with the world pretty much destroyed and to be reborn to whatever Shinji wants, how this is resolved and what ultimately happens is a little bit vague.  It lacks explanation but there is enough for you to get the gist of what happened and it feels anticlimactic after all the things that had happened.  Throughout the series, after the multiple battles with the Angels, all the characters that were killed, how it all ended just felt so different.  Nevertheless, it is not a bad ending, and the art remains stellar.
Rating:  6/10

Toy Review: Transformers Generations Power of the Primes Predaking (Titan)

Review:  #477
Name:  Predaking
Brand:  Transformers
Allegiance:  Decepticon
Line:  Generations - Power of the Primes
Year of Release:  2018
Size Class:  Titan
Mold Status:  new

PACKAGING:

Predaking comes in a gigantic box with a fantastic piece of artwork.  It advertises five Voyagers although they're all a bit bigger than that.

Of course, the back prominently advertises the fact that Predaking is actually as big as the size of the box.

There is an A4 sized poster included, reusing the same packaging art.

The flipside of the poster shows the twelve Prime Masters (one of which is included with this set).

PREDACONS:

Predaking is comprised of five Predacons, being Divebomb, Headstrong, Rampage, Razorclaw and Torox.

The Predacons looks great as a set thanks to the consistent color scheme.  Noteworthy is the fact that all five are approximately the same size, even though the torso of Predaking has to have the bulk of nearly two members.

While each Predacon has one or two flaws, the designer did a great job at integrating most of the kibble into the robots themselves.

TRANSFORMATION:

While each Predacon's transformation is a bit simple and uninteresting, combined mode is where the figure shines.  Razorclaw forms part of the torso, with the wings/backpack of Divebomb detaching to form the lower portion and it is surprising in how it unfolds to form that extra bulk.  The thigh pieces on Torox and Headstrong contains part of the hips and they easily slot into the crotch.  The same can be said for the shoulders (which also forms a little bit of the torso, so each member makes an effort to add in extra bulk and not leave it all for Razorclaw to handle), the slotting mechanism is easy but solid at the same time.  The hands and feet are separate pieces, but the hands store within the feet when not in use.

PREDAKING:

And so, the main reason to get this set, Predaking.  He does not disappoint as he looks absolutely amazing with great proportions.

He does not carry much, if any, kibble.  Only a bit of Razorclaw's legs protrude from his back but even that is filling in a space (albeit awkwardly).

The headsculpt is awesome and can turn from side to side.

Comprised of five already big Voyagers, Predaking absolutely towers over them now.

A comparison against the previous Titan combiner Devastator and despite being one member less, they are the same height and bulk, which is a testament to the design since individual members are roughly the same size.

The only negative is that with the way Divebomb's backpack unfolds to form the lower torso, it is hollow and can feel like a weak point with the waist swivel there.  Note that Predaking is extremely heavy so hollow pieces aren't a problem as it'll only make Predaking even heavier and unstable.

Predaking has the articulation of a typical Transformer with joints for shoulders, elbows, wrists, head, waist, hips, knees and ankles.

Whether Predaking can use those joints is another story.  While the feet are large and the articulation unimpeded, Predaking is so heavy that anything too extreme will cause him to keel over.

While Predaking doesn't have his sword (unfortunately), he does have a gun which is a combined gun from Razorclaw and Rampage.

The gun is usually pegged onto his forearm and looks great there.  Furthermore, Divebomb's guns now peg in as adjustable shoulder cannons and looks deadly there.

The key thing with such a big Transformer, and a combiner now less, is how well it stays together and Predaking does a commendable job.  You can pick him up and move him around without it detaching or falling to pieces.

A stellar combined mode with basically no flaws, you can tell that a lot of effort was made in order to make this the best mode.

OVERALL:

Predaking is a really nice follow-up to the previous Titan combiner Devastator.  While the individual robots are not as complex or clever as Devastator's, and more compromises were made, Predaking was worth it.  The combined mode is simply amazing and looks so good.  This set is highly recommended, even at full price.

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Rhythm Thief and the Emperor's Treasure (3DS)

Rhythm Thief and the Emperor's Treasure is a rhythm puzzle game initially exclusively for the Nintendo 3DS but later ported to iOS.  It plays like a cross between Professor Layton and Rhythm Heaven.  The bulk of the gameplay are rhythm based minigames.  These are usually quite inventive and can either use the touchscreen or buttons, so you'll be swapping often between the two.  You'll be tapping on the touchscreen in time with the music to fight enemies or escape via running on the roof and vaulting over obstacles.  Then you'll be matching colors in time with prompts in order to hide or one of the most unique uses being sliding the stylus across the touchscreen in time with the violin strings, to simulate playing the violin.  You will always look forward to what the game has next in store.

Most of the minigames have prompts but sometimes it is easier to ignore the prompts and focus onscreen or the music instead.  For example, tilting the system for the dog to eat meat being thrown at him or determining when to tap and hold to receive food on a pan to cook and then plate it.  At the end of each rhythm game, it will give you a rank.  The way the ranks are calculated is very unfair.  You could go the whole minigame missing nothing and then at the end you miss one or two and you'll drop down to a C rank.  Conversely, you can do the first half badly and then in the second half do everything perfectly and you'll get an A rank.  Getting all A ranks is required in order to unlock one of the bonus chapters.

The rhythm games start to repeat soon after, and slowly increases the difficulty.  It's manageable until the seventh chapter where it throws much harder games that are annoying to get the timing down correctly.  It doesn't help when it introduces a completely different one relying on motion controls but lacks in explaining what you need to do.  That is one of the most frustrating parts of the game and massively drops the ball.  The rhythm games in the last three chapters are frustrating and annoying.  They change their tempos or styles midway through, the lack of proper explanations on the rhythms and the visual cues being more difficult.  You'll start to fail them repeatedly and the game expects you to keep trying and trying and trying.  This huge difficulty spike gets tedious and completely breaks the flow of the story.

The forced motion controls in some of the games completely break the rhythm and adds nothing to the game.  It feels overly gimmicky when this happens.  The other side of the gameplay is puzzles.  These are usually easy and music based such as memorizing patterns or matching musical notes.  The bulk of the single player involves a story mode where it follows Phantom R, a thief who only steals certain artworks.  This is because he is trying to find his father, whose only clue is a certain mark, one that also shows up on certain artworks.  After stealing a bracelet, he meets up with Marie, a violinist.  Together, they encounter a resurrected Napoleon, who is curiously always on their tail and wanting something from them.  This leads to a bigger more intriguing mystery.

The story is told via gorgeous animated cutscenes with really well done 3D and visual novel style cutscenes.  There is a generous amount of animated cutscenes such that it never feels like a once-off gimmick at the start never to be seen again.  As the story goes on, it gets more farfetched.  Phantom R will meet allies and villains but the villain's objective is never truly clear or believable enough.  After an out of the blue ending, it ends on sequel hook which is somewhat annoying.  It's a bland story overall since it never seems to pick up and mainly just revolves around Phantom R's involving with Marie, a girl that he met on the street (and the obvious love interest).

You advance the story via an overhead map where you move from spot to spot on the top screen, and the bottom screen will show the environmental artwork which you can interact with the touchscreen.  At each location, you can tap onscreen for coins to purchase story cutscenes and music for replaying at your leisure, finding unique sounds to solve riddles, and finding the hidden music notes.  There are a total of 10 chapters in the main story and each chapter takes around 30 minutes.  Therefore, the game is fairly short at only 6-7 hours or so.  However, the longevity comes from playing the minigames again in order to achieve higher scores and better ranks, as well as the collectibles, which unlocks the first and second bonus chapters, while getting an A rank on all minigames will get you the third bonus chapter.

A few pieces of the soundtrack were excellent (all the violin pieces were great) but a lot of the soundtrack was unremarkable too.  Overall, Rhythm Thief and the Emperor's Treasure work well as a combination of rhythm gameplay and a tighter (but still unrefined) story.  The difficulty spike is a hindrance and significant flaw towards the latter part of the game but the gorgeous cutscenes and charm of the design helps overcome that.

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Idiocracy (2006)

Idiocracy is an interesting film and presents a very plausible concept.  In 2005, one of the most average man alive is selected for suspended animation but through a quirk, instead of waking up one year later he wakes up 500 years later.  Unfortunately, the world has regressed (as the dumber members of the population have many children, compared with the smarter people who either have no children or one or two).  People are lazy, have low intellects, cannot read or write, speaks simple words and is fixated with sex.  Thus, with his name changed to "Not Sure", he becomes the smartest person in the world.  That isn't saying much as he cannot get anyone to understand him.  He cannot use logic or rational arguments as people are too degraded.  It is interesting to see how one would advance with this kind of barrier.  While there are crazy stunts and events that occur, as well as impossible deadlines, Idiocracy has some genuine laugh out loud moments and has a deeper more thoughtful plot than you'd expect.

Book Review: Dragonwatch

Review:  #801
Title:  Dragonwatch
Series:  Dragonwatch - 1st book
Author:  Brandon Mull
Comments:  A sequel series to Fablehaven, Dragonwatch can be read standalone and while the beginning was slow, it picks up pace from the middle onwards.  Kendra and Seth can seemingly relax after killing the Demon King and restoring peace, but soon find that a new trouble is brewing involving the dragons.  They become caretakers and have to stand up to the Dragon King.  Dragonwatch takes a while in order to build the world and the mechanics of this world.  This slow pace has the risk to lose readers before it gets to the main event.  Once the pair become caretakers and need to find a way to prevent the dragons from causing war, this is where the novel shines through story twists and plenty of action.  The plan devised during the climax was set up really well thanks to a nice bit of foreshadowing.  The ending was satisfying and while Seth had the potential to be annoying teenager with an overinflated ego, he just managed to not cross that line.
Rating:  6.5/10

Kill la Kill (2013-2014)

Kill la Kill is an original anime, clocking in at 24 episodes plus an OVA.  The anime sets the tone in its very first scene, with highly stylized, over-the-top, exaggerated fight scenes which is strangely really interesting and engrossing to watch.  It introduces us to an alternate Japan where the island of Honno City is controlled by the student council president of Honnouji Academy, Kiryuin Satsuki.  She is ruthless and powerful with her blade.  Select members of the school wear Goku Uniforms, which give their wearers enhanced powers.  We quickly learn that there is a class system within the school that reflects the students, and their families', living situation outside of school as well.

The anime follows Matoi Ryuko, who is a transfer student.  She turns up to school and pulls out her iconic Scissor Blade (which is only half of the oversized scissors, but actually looks pretty cool and wicked).  Ryuko is trying to find out who killed her father and this has led her to Satsuki, thus begins their rivalry.  The only thing that Ryuko has to go on is that the murderer has the other half of the Scissor Blade.

Despite looking cool, Ryuko is no match for the students wearing Goku Uniform.  This changes quickly when Ryuko finds the talking sailor uniform that was passed on to her from her father.  This uniform is special because by taking Ryuko's blood, it transforms into armor and gives Ryuko enhanced strength that goes way beyond the Goku Uniforms.  How the outfits work is explained soon after and are all interconnected.

Using both the fan service and comedy angles, Ryuko's outfit, named Senketsu, is extremely revealing (she's pretty much half naked).  Ryuko is embarrassed but must endure if she wants to use her power.  The male students sure are happy whenever Ryuko transforms though.  While the fan service is strong, especially during fights and opponents either get their clothes torn or they are placed in awkward poses, you can't help but feel if they dialed it down, it might help to not distract you from its plot.  This is because Kill la Kill doesn't have a shallow story at all, with each episode having something meaningful happening to advance the plot.

Ryuko's first and only friend is Mankanshoku Mako, a sort of ditzy and odd character.  However, she is pretty funny with her outlandish dialogue, actions and personality.  She loves to spout a load of rubbish, complete with miming effects and it is her air-headed trait that makes her so endearing.  The fight scenes are fast paced and exciting.  The music is suitably epic and it is at these moments that you realize that it possess something a lot of animes don't, and that is its unique atmosphere.  It seems to channel what made some older anime so nostalgic and good but freshens it up.

While the fight scenes are good, Ryuko lacks strategies and tactics.  When things don't go her way, she would fall back on just wailing against her opponents, even when that would not have been the best thing to do.  She will eventually get some sort of help or another stage of transformation to bail her out.  Ryuko gets cocky and arrogant pretty soon thanks to curbstomping all her opponents (who keep coming her way, naturally, since the whole school is her opponent).  Therefore it's a good thing when she finally becomes too overconfident and battles against an opponent who is more than her match.

With the slapstick comedy and random dialogue from characters, it feels like something you'll see in a game as well.  It manages to blend all these elements into a coherent package though.  It plays around with typical anime tropes like the recap episode... where the recap is only 2 minutes long.  It then continues its breakneck speed in its storytelling and letting loose the biggest revelation that the story was building up towards.  The art style is also unique and frequently shifts to different proportions to best suit whatever is happening on screen.  This helps with the exaggerated motions and serves to emphasize specific points in those scenes.

At around the halfway point, just when you thought you are able to see how the anime will structure itself over the next few episodes, it shakes things up and pulls out a massive revelation and twist.  This shift carries itself through to the end of the series where it's revelation after revelation, completely flipping the plot around compared to what it was building up towards.  By this point, you know the supporting characters so well that you care deeply for whatever happens to them.  The voice acting is superb and the over the top reactions are perfect.

The last few episodes of the series are absolutely amazing as everything culminates into it.  The best part is the teamwork of all the characters banding together to defeat the villain once and for all.  Even with some stock footage (which is played for laughs and doesn't feel like it is trying to cost cut), the awesome and epic music makes it all blood pumping.  With a few false endings and the twists that kept on coming that overturned the "conclusion", it doesn't let up until the final moment.

Despite the "last" episode being a good closure there is a 25th episode released as an OVA with the blu-ray release that wraps up the final plot thread.  It is set two weeks after the previous episode and features the graduation of the students at Honnouji Academy.  As is the style of the series, there's plenty of over the top action and a moral of the story in the middle of it.

Overall, Kill la Kill on the surface seems like a shallowly anime filled with fan service and nothing else.  However, after one or two episodes you come to realize that it has a brilliant plot and such a speedy pace that there is nothing that can be classed as filler in its 25 episode entirety.  The fight scenes, the music, the dialogue and the epic finale that kept flipping the tables on the side who was winning makes Kill la Kill one of the best anime to watch.

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Book Review: Eragon

Review:  #800
Title:  Eragon
Series:  The Inheritance Cycle - 1st book
Author:  Christopher Paolini
Comments:  Eragon is a divisive novel.  It is addictive and exciting if you’re in its target market of early teens, but if you have more experience with reading actual good novels, then you can clearly see all the flaws of Eragon.  The story is about a normal farm boy who discovers a dragon egg and becomes the first Dragon Rider in many years.  He goes on a great journey, first out of revenge, and then eventually out of duty as he learns more about his powers and his responsibilities.  One of the many complaints about Eragon is its derivative nature of its plot, mainly from Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings.  It is really evident here and while you want to give credit since it was written by the author when they were 15-19 years old (but frankly, feels more like the result of an indulged spoiled teenager), on the other hand, the editor should have done a much better job.  The end result is a novel that’s over bloated.  The author has a tendency to describe excessively pointless details; you get paragraphs and paragraphs of descriptions that serve no purpose and are repetitive.  The novel could have been shortened by half and nothing would have been lost.  The other thing is that the author is extremely melodramatic to the point that it is cheesy and cringeworthy.  There are many places where you would not believe how the dialogue is written because it is just so corny and does not suit the context of the situation at all.  You can see that the author tried to go for an epic theme but he fails spectacularly and becomes more like a joke.  It seems that the author feels the need to explain very single plot point in meticulous detail in case the reader didn’t pick it up… when it was so predictable and clichéd in the first place.  Eragon himself is not a likable protagonist, being arrogant, prideful, naïve and unfortunately, stupid.  Yes, characters should have flaws but Eragon is frankly an uninteresting and hard to get behind when there is no merit to so many of this actions that caused the situation to become worse.  Then throw in bits of predetermined destiny (a major cause of eye rolling) and a forced romance, one that paints Eragon as a creepy stalker no less, and it can be a struggle to the finish.
Rating:  6/10