Month: May 2016

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We Are Twisted Fucking Sister

I just watched this documentary on Netflix, and it’s fascinating. It basically tells the tale of the birth of the band, stopping just as “the big break” happened (”We’re Not Gonna Take It” et al.) I can’t say that I’m a huge fan of the band or anything (sure, I loved those hits back in the day), but I absolutely loved this story, and had no idea that it had taken them so long to get their record deal, etc. I think so many people think they were just a flash-in-the-pan band that had a couple of hits and entered the zeitgeist at just the right time, but they were actually one hell of a hard-working band, and it’s quite interesting to see how big they got in the tri-state area, and how they finally managed to hit it big. Can’t recommend this enough.

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10 Cloverfield Lane

I finally got around to watching this, and even though I was expecting something pretty good based on the positive reactions I’d heard from friends who had seen it, it even surpassed my expectations. I’m also really happy to see that Dan Trachtenberg (the director) did such a great job with this – I was a longtime fan of his Totally Rad Show web series, a show I never missed. It’s best to not say much, as spoilers will definitely ruin things, but I’ll just say that I really hope they decide to expand on this, and that Trachtenberg is again helming it – or even more than that, I’m just excited to see what future films he’ll direct (and I look forward to watching the episode of Black Mirror he’ll be helming).

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Mobile Suit Gundam

I wrote recently that I watched the new Gundam “Origin” series with my wife (the 2 episodes that are out), and that it was making me want to watch the original 70s series, something I’ve been wanting to do for ages. It’s one of my wife’s all-time favorite series, and she’s been suggesting I watch it for what feels like forever. I finally started doing that last night – with her – and 3 episodes in, it definitely shows signs of being something I can get into. Sure, the animation is horrible, but you can see that the story goes beyond the normal space anime tropes, and it’s interesting for me to see how the characters that I was introduced to in The Origin are doing now – and I’m now even more eager to see the 3rd episode of The Origin when it comes out, to see how Char and his sister get separated. It can be fun to watch these old series – I absolutely loved watching Future Boy Conan last year.

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Ghost in the Shell: The New Movie

On the same day that I watched all 10 episodes of Ghost in the Shell: Arise – Alternative Architecture, I then watched this movie that came out last year, that pretty much acts as the cap to the story told in the Arise series. That means that if you like the series, you absolutely need to watch the movie. I really hope they keep on doing more stuff based around the Arise reboot (because that’s what it is, a reboot, featuring a young Motoko who puts together the team we’ve come to know from the older stuff), because what we’ve seen so far is really quite good. Not only that, it now has me wanting to go back and re-watch the Stand Alone Complex series.

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Captain America: The Winter Soldier

With all the hype surrounding Civil War, I decided to revisit this, and found myself enjoying it much more than I remember liking it the first time around. Sure, Batroc with a Quebec accent still bugs me to no end, and I still think Scarlett Johansson is goddawful as the Black Widow, but the rest of it I could get into. Makes me look forward to seeing Civil War a bit more, even though I’m not really that excited about it (not even sure I’ll go see it at the theatre).

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Ghost in the Shell: Arise – Alternative Architecture

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I was absolutely obsessed with this series today, and ended up binging all 10 episodes today. As for what this is, it takes the four Ghost in the Shell: Arise OVAs (original video animation) and re-edits them into a TV series, then adding another 2 new episodes to conclude the storyline (although, it’s really Ghost in the Shell: The New Movie that ties all loose ends). I had originally watched the first 3 OVAs (they were on Netflix), but hadn’t seen the fourth one. They did something strange with the order of the TV series, starting with the 4th OVA, which had me a bit confused, so if you’re new to it I would highly recommend you watch the series in this order: 3-8, 1-2, 9-10. The whole series is fantastic, as is the music by Cornelius – especially the opening theme song he composed for the Alternative Architecture series, which I love so much. As I mentioned, the movie that was released last year properly concludes the story arc, so I’m hoping to watch that very soon.

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I Am a Hero

Since yesterday I read the first 5 volumes of this series, and I just can’t stop (I think there’s close to 20 volumes out at this point). I actually did read the first 3 volumes or so a few years ago, but that was all that was out at that point, and then I never got around to reading it again. I decided to start reading it from the start again, and I am completely sucked in. I just love so much about it, even the fact that the setup for the series basically takes an entire volume. I also like how they treat the way people react to this zombie apocalypse – feels more realistic than The Walking Dead, or at least I completely see how people in Japan would react that way. In fact, I think that’s part of the reason that it speaks to me more than Walking Dead, I’m much more familiar with this setting than the US portrayed in Walking Dead – the Tokyo part takes place in the general area where I lived for around 13 years (Ikebukuro), and then Shizuoka, Fuji-san, etc. The setting, the way people act, it just speaks more to me. And I really enjoyed how a few chapters are pretty much told through 2-chan threads, which worked well with the story.