Samurai Champloo

I'm a complete dumbass for not reviewing this earlier.

Samurai Champloo is such an interesting show with an interesting fanbase on top of that. The show is grounded yet stylized, it's classic but also modern, it's this weird mish-mash of completely different genres and yet inexplicably works. The story takes place in the Edo period of Japan around the early to mid 1800s, where we meet a young girl named Fuu who works at a teahouse when she meets two skilled swordsmen Mugen and Jin and quickly enlists their help to find a mysterious samurai from Fuu's past. That's the basic story but what's fascinating about this show is, certain episodes have a story we've seen before. There's a criminal who steals but only to help his sick mother, there's a woman who is enslaved to work at a brothel and has a heart of gold, there's a sports game with high stakes, very stereotypical stories that we have seen time and time again yet they still hold your interest entirely. I can pinpoint this to two core aspects, the style and the characters. The style is very realistic, there's nothing too weird and out there (for the most part) but the show does take liberties with movements and designs because well, it's animation. The fact that they mix the samurai genre with modern hip-hop culture and music should tell you everything about the mood of the show, personified expertly in the opening titles, but also found in a medley of different characters including Mugen. So when you see these stories being told it's still visually interesting with how they tell it. And the characters is what makes the show, we only have 3 main characters and only technically one side character who even then sporadically appears. We have Fuu who is young, energetic, feisty, and is extremely kind and considerate. Mugen who is very tough, very abbrasive, a wise ass, your typical rough and tough kind of dude. Then we have Jin who is easily my favorite of the bunch, very much fits the profile of a samurai, doesn't say much, has intelligence, doesn't go looking for a fight but has no problem ending one, kind of stoic but has his own charm and humor. The three have such a good dynamic, with Mugen and Jin clashing swords often with Fuu trying to be the mediary, they make a great team. It's because of the characters that you stick around even when you've seen this type of story play out, you wonder how they will fit into these positions and how they will react. What is Mugen going to do in a baseball game? What is Jin going to see in a woman who works in a brothel? How will Fuu help a thief to heal his mother? That's the part they focus on and it pays off in aces. The action is spectacular too, you get plenty of hack and slash scenes which combined with the animation is infinitely awesome and even holds great tension near the end of the series. There's so much I want to say about the show to the point I know I'm going to forget something so let's do a little lightning round here. The music is spectacular, even if you don't watch the show look up the two soundtracks on YouTube. The animation style is rich, gorgeous, and stark with strong lines and supremely fluid motion. The clashing of personalities and fighting styles between Mugen and Jin are worthy of a show all by itself. The ending is emotional and honestly made me stress out a bit. It's 26 episodes long and I wish it was so much longer. If I'm going to go full on nerd which, hi how are you welcome to the show, I'm going to, I desperately want to get my hands on Ghost Of Tsushima so I can just play out my samurai fantasies to the max limit as a tribute to this show. This is such an amazing show, it has attracted fans from all different walks of life even ones who aren't that big a fan of hip-hop or rap or whatever the hell kids call it nowadays. I will say it is for older teens I mean it was showcased on Adult Swim for a reason back in 2004. I was 9 and probably...shouldn't have been watching Adult Swim but I was part of the cool kid's club and dang it I'm proud of that. 4 stars, 8.5/10, give it a shot and groove to the tunes.

Now comes the part where I plug my obligatory Facebook page and Twitter page, just search the site name and you'll find me to get updated on new reviews and to see the absurd backlog of reviews I've written. See you guys Friday for a throwback 90s anime.

Star Wars Rebels: Season 4

Rebel scum....

Okay, fine! The last season was good, I'm not so sure it's the best, I still say the 3rd season was the best but for the end of a series it was fine. I got to say though I was so concerned about an episode titled "Worlds Between Worlds" not only did it remind me of that stupid friggin' line from Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, but it introduces a premise that could severely destroy Star Wars but they showed restraint and they did the right thing. I do have complaints. Mainly down to one factor, they didn't go all out. Now what do I mean by all out? Simple, you go dark. You push the threat to the next level, you show people die, you touch on darker aspects of war. And while they kinda do that, they wimp out. I fully expected the entire Ghost crew to bite the dust, pull a Rogue One, everyone dies, the end. But they don't and it bugs the hell out of me. You never see these people again, so why not make their deaths powerful and memorable? That's what pissed me off the most, they couldn't kill people. I know this is for kids, but Clone Wars was for kids and people got straight up executed in that show! So why not show some heroes die or stormtroopers be cut to shreds by a lightsaber? What are they gonna do, pull the plug on your final season?? Go all out, push the characters to the limit, elevate the threat and the danger of not only Thrawn but The Emperor himself! Do something! I don't hate this show, I really don't but on the verge of the end you gotta go off the deep end. Beyond that factor, the season was good. It did not end the way I thought in any fashion, but it was a decent end to a good show. The story is good though, with Ezra and the Ghost crew taking missions for the Rebel Alliance and trying to liberate Ezra's planet of Lothal. Throw in good character moments, decent action, and a pretty um....liberty taking ending that will make some people happy but me, I'm just not feeling it. I'm happy Rex made it though! But Thrawn...it killed me. I am wondering why they brought in Rukh if they never intended of using him that way, but it was cool seeing him. Oh yeah, heavy underuse of Thrawn. Like, how dare you? He did have the most badass moment in Star Wars, more so than Vader in a long hallway in my opinion. Yes. I said that. I have such respect for this show and use of Expanded Universe content, which I am always thrilled to see so I can't be too upset. It's a very good show that kids will look back on 10 or 15 years from now and remember fondly, and how on Earth can I hate that? That is beyond awesome and cool to me! So the saying still holds truth in Star Wars, "For those who remember, for those who will never forget, and for a whole new generation who will experience it for the very first time.". I greatly enjoyed Star Wars Rebels and it is sad to see it end, but there will be more greatness in the future. Everything is proceeding as I have forseen....

Star Wars Rebels: Season 3

What the hell? This shouldn't have taken so long. They literally did a Christmas break, which I can fully understand, it lasted for nearly a month, fine. But then they had the gall to take almost a whole nother month off, and just to add insult to injury it was between a two part story. This series should have already been ended in either late February or early March. Not almost fraking April!!

Ugh, anyway following the kickass season 2 finale how does this hold up? Quite well actually, but really the sheer focal point of viewing this season besides the usual Star Wars fan ideology is because of Grand Admiral Thrawn. This is major to the hardcore Star Wars fan. Thrawn has been in Star Wars since 1991, but recently since Episode 7 was deemed Legends, it never happened it was just a tale. But now he's back, it was due to the season 3 trailer that I went out and bought The Thrawn Trilogy (Close to finishing the last book.) , and pre-ordered the new book Thrawn written by the man who created him Timothy Zahn. So going into season 3, I was expecting great things, what I got was a decent continuation of the story, with the same characters that had minor character development, and Grand Admiral Thrawn being just as I had imagined him. It was a good season, had only a few filler episodes maybe 3 or 4 out of 22 episodes, so not bad and even then they have an interesting factor in them, like seeing what looks like Dark Troopers but are really a cross between a super battle droid and a stormtrooper, and a similar ship to Dash Rendar's. Plenty of nice nods to the Expanded Universe are within this series. What kind of sucks though is, like season 1 the finale which is actually a two part ending, feels like just another episode. It wasn't this amazing, groundbreaking episode that would have reprocussions in the next season. It's just eh, we lost a bit but whatever. Nobody dies, nothing is truly resolved, and we're pretty much where we started at the beginning of the season. La dee da. Alright, good points! Thrawn obviously, Tom Baker as The Bendu was awesome because it's Tom Baker, that voice is just mesmerizing, and....that's it. Everything else is just okay. Except for Kanan's mask, I hate it. It does nothing, the design is wretched, it has no artistic or practical appeal to me. Other than that though, the season is just okay. Just watch it either for Tom Baker or Thrawn.

Oh, but we are not done yet. Our buisness in a galaxy far, far away has not yet been completed.

Star Wars Rebels: Season 2

Now it's kicking off.

A vast improvement over the first, season two of Rebels picks up on all the elements that they did fairly well in the first season. Our crew of freedom fighters have now fully joined the Rebellion and have begun to slowly form the basis of their operations, with the Empire always hot on their trail. The action has been upped significantly, the character development continues in some cases brilliantly, we get a few familiar faces this season that never ceases to make me happy, and the finale alone is what brought Rebels on the map for me. If you made it through the first season and thought it was good, by the end of this season you will consider it to be great. Pretty much the season finale to season two combined with the trailer for season three is what got me to watch the show, and once I got the backstory and re-watched the final scenes of the finale, it got ten thousand times better than it already was. I'm excited to watch season three, it's only I think maybe three or four episodes until the end of that so I timed my watchings perfectly. Hell, maybe even in a week or two I can fully review season three! One thing I have noticed though is the big bad of the seasons are surprisingly not in it often, the main oppressive force is the Empire as a whole. The first season had the Inquisitor which was a basic but still interesting villain that appeared throughout the first season but at the end of season one it is very clear who is taking the forefront of the villain role, and yet...he's in it for two episodes, the first and last episode of the season. That kinda sucks but I'm amazed they got the original voice actor for the role which is just the cherry on top of this sundae, but you can forgive it solely because of the duel at the end. I just hope they don't follow suite for season three, I want to see the Grand Admiral in action often, because if you know anything about the Expanded Universe of Star Wars then you can understand my concern for this character. But needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed this season of Rebels much more than the last. I'm excited to start watching season three and if all goes well, you can expect that review before the end of this month.

Star Wars Rebels: Season 1

I didn't have high hopes, but by God it's not half bad.

So Star Wars Rebels takes place a few years before Rogue One (I love how I can say that now.) following a group of smugglers who slowly transform from mercenaries/smugglers to freedom fighters battling against the Empire and creating the spark of rebellion. So the story starts off with this kid Ezra he just lives his life on his home planet until he runs across this crew sabotaging Imperial supply routes and this crew is very unique in the Star Wars universe, we have a Twi'lek pilot named Hera who pilots their ship the Ghost, Kanan who seems to be the leader of the group and has a bit of a past to him, a Mandalorian explosives expert who is a young girl named Sabine, a Lasat called Zeb who is like if Wolverine was an alien in Star Wars, and their astromech droid named Chopper who is a bit of a wise ass. Ezra soon joins the team as they go through a mish-mash of different missions almost all around being a nuisance to the Galactic Empire. It has interesting and unique character development which appears every now and then, granting significant growth as characters and not just being like, oh yeah Hera's just a pilot and that's about it. No, they build on them slowly but satisfyingly. Now the story follows in direct correlation with the previous animated series Clone Wars, now it's not pertinent to watch Clone Wars but it does help in the long run with this series. Now one thing I cannot avoid talking about is the art design. It is like a love letter to Ralph McQuarrie who did all the conceptual art to the original Star Wars movie, the series could not adapt it more if it tried. And I have seen many of the conceptual artwork of the original movie, and I greatly appreciate the look of it all. Now I have to admit, I did not start watching Rebels until this week, I thought it was just a dumb kid cash in on Star Wars on the Disney Channel, but when I saw the trailer to season 3 and heard much fan talk about it I decided to take a look. It's a kid show without a doubt, whereas Clone Wars was aimed more towards early pre-teen to teenagers (I was a teenager by the time Clone Wars really took off) and yet I never watched that show until a few years after it ended, because I watched the original Clone Wars mini series that came out between Episode 2 and before Episode 3 even hit theaters and I thought it was an unnecesary remake. My God, was I wrong. So wrong. I apologize to Lucasfilm and Cartoon Network. So yeah, I wasn't expecting greatness but I got a decent show and it got really good a few episodes before the end of the season. If you like Star Wars or have kids that enjoy Star Wars this is a decent show to put on.

As of today I am almost finished season 2 and will have the review up next week. I won't do just one review a week when it comes to television shows, so no worries about lack of content but I will probably have to cut it back to two reviews a week. Yeah, material is running thin but not entirely gone. Merely a setback but it does not dampen my spirits, I shall persevere and continue bringing you more recommendations and opinions. See you next week.

Cowboy Bebop

Oh yeah, our first anime review!

My number 1 favorite anime show ever! Cowboy Bebop is a amazing science fiction anime show centering around a rag-tag group of bounty hunters as they hunt people down, get into arguments, and all around shenanigans ensue. Literally from the first second of the opening credits, you are down with this show. Like if this show doesn't sound like your cup of tea, at least watch the opening. It is the epitome of coolness. Slick editing, great music, fantastic use of color, it's just an absolute gem. The characters are perfect, and the best part is they really don't fit into a certain "type". They are all original characters, with wit and snark, gloriously funny but also have their own personal history that can easily make you get attached to them. I think a big advantage this show has on other science fiction shows is that it's not too crazy and super advanced in the science fiction genre. Yes, there are spaceships and holograms but it is still grounded in reality. It takes place in the very not too distant future, but it is in our solar system. Our main character was born on Mars for God's sake! The weaponry is not blasters and laser swords, it's machine guns and pistols and normal guns you see today. So it doesn't go beyond anybody, everyone can watch it, understand it, and enjoy it. Hooked me, loved me, made me buy the whole series. Twice. That's got to be some kind of awesome, ladies and gentlemen. I urge you to give it a chance.

Well...next review. My 100th review. What am I going to review? Why not the greatest movie ever made? Shoot, let's throw in a list too. How about...my 20 favorite movies? That sounds good. So I will see you space cowboys later...