Dark_Cloud_Overhead

Ghost in the Shell 9/10

Well, I just saw the film, and I thought it was really good. Not to spoil anything, but there were some cool homages to the first movie (more than I thought there would be), and they did a pretty good job of incorporating the other Section 9 members, especially given the time constraints of a two hour film that they had to work with. They even worked in a couple of pieces of the original music that I recognized during each of the credit sequences. Story was simple, but still pretty well-thought out and put together.

You might want to check again. Reviews for it are out now. Looks like they decided not to let critics screen it here till today though. Overall, they seem fairly positive on average. Not exactly glowing, but they're not panning it. I'll choose to keep an open mind till I get to see it myself. I'm not expecting more than a good, and hopefully at least semi-thoughtful, action flick that won't try and insult my intelligence. We'll see.

From what I've read, sounds like folks are expecting it will make somewhere between 30 and 40 million over the weekend, which should put it at number one. Boss Baby's reviews seem pretty weak, and I think Beauty and Beast even in its third week will split a good portion of the kids audience with it, so I don't think either of them will likely beat it, and nothing else really looks like it has much of a chance. Oh, and I personally don't get the whole whitewashing controversy. I mean why should ethnicity even matter in a future when you have an artificial cyborg body that you can choose to look however you want it to? Anyway, the Major (and most anime characters really) looks fairly caucasian to me. I never really saw her as distinctly Japanese-looking. The thing that peeves me a little though is that they seem to be selling this as simply a new "sci-fi movie" and are giving no or very little mention to its Japanese roots. I get why they would maybe choose to do that, at least in the run-up to its debut here (after all anime and manga still have a bit of a stigma amongst the general American public), but I hope the movie itself at least chooses to pay some credit to the original creators somehow besides like a single line in the end credits. I mean I saw Johansson on the Tonight Show last night, and they really said absolutely nothing about the movie other than that it's a new sci-fi film that's coming out this weekend.

I actually ended up watching this, even though I've seen the whole series already, but it'll probably be the last time I do so. I still think this probably will do fairly well on Toonami, for its first run through at least, and it's a good pickup for them if only because that's all most shows get on it anymore is one or two runs. My only bit of advice for those watching it for the first time is don't get your hopes up. It starts off promising enough, but the second half leaves a lot to be desired.

Yep, I held off ordering this past weekend when Sentai did a similar sale on their store, cuz I figured Right Stuf might pull one off pretty soon as well ,and I don't need to pay sales tax with them. Looks like my patience paid off. 8)

New on order: Amagami SS+ blu-ray, Book of Bantorra complete blu-ray, Girls und Panzer OVA blu-ray, and Kokoro connect TV blu-ray When it rains it pours indeed it would seem.

Alice Through the Looking Glass - 10/10 I didn't care all that much for the previous movie, so I was very pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed this one so much. Even more so because I don't usually care at all for way the time travel trope is handled in most movies or tv shows, but the way they boiled it down to make a very simple lesson out of it for Alice to learn in the end I thought was wonderful. I just recently lost someone very dear to me, too, so I've been really feeling kind of the same way she did at the outset of the movie lately, and so that message really hit home for me and brought a smile to my face. Catch Me If You Can - 8/10 Love Christopher Walken. Didn't realize he was in this, or else I would have probably watched this a long time ago. Good solid movie, though kind of on the long side. Wish it had been a little bit more concise, as towards the end it really felt like it was dragging on a bit.

Guess you never saw the episode where they all kill themselves and become ghosts just so they can torment the HIVE group. Actually, there's several episodes where one or more of the characters ends up dying. The Oregon Trail one of which is probably my favorite.

New on order: Sailor Moon Crystal set 2 LE First order in like forever it feels like.

I didn't have much interest in One Piece originally. I had seen some of the heavily edited 4 Kids version on TV before, so that was my only experience with it until more recently. I knew it was hacked, but I didn't think it could make that much of a difference honestly in whether or not I would enjoy it. Usually I just know from even seeing a little bit of a show whether or not it's going to interest me. When I heard Toonami was picking up the uncut version, but doing so a few hundred episodes in, I remembered seeing that my library had the FUNimation DVDs for all of those early episodes and decided to give it another shot. So I started watching it from the beginning to catch up with the Toonami broadcast. It took me a while, but I did it, and just couldn't believe how much I came to love the show along the way. Skypiea was my favorite arc, and when I got through with that, I was hopelessly hooked. Now to think, I went through all of that to catch up with the Toonami broadcast and they're dropping it. I can't believe it. I don't typically stay up through the night to watch it since it's on so late-- instead I just watch it On Demand usually the next day. But I did last night. I had to. So sad to see it go, but I'll continue following the DVD releases from now on. Glad they ended its run where they did anyway. I love Brook. O0 It's nice to see him become a full fledged member of the crew finally. I know he'll make it back to Laboon someday. :'( Bon voyage straw hats. Hopefully, you'll all return to the Toonami block someday, too.

It's better, but still sucks. I'm just really glad I've got On Demand now, as the block isn't just worth staying up for me anymore with a couple shows in there I don't want to see between the ones I do.

Losing One Piece from the block sucks. It's bad enough they stuck my favorite show on the block so late at night, but now they axe it entirely?! And to replace it with Tokyo Ghoul of all things, a show I was actually hoping they'd get like a year or two ago. Of course, that was before I saw the craptastic ending it had. Pfft. That's AS for you. I'd be saddened by this news normally, but having my cherished kitty die this past week, that's not possible right now as I'm already about as sad as I think I could ever possibly get. Way to try and pile on though AS. You guys sure know how to kick a person when they're down, I'll give you that.

Aria the Natural 21 Been a while, huh? Nope, I didn't forget about this place, and I'm not dead, though I feel kind of half-dead inside right now to tell you honestly cuz my last and most precious kitty passed away this past week. :'( Heh, I know this is gonna sound kinda silly now, but I started watching this Aria episode back in mid-November right after he started getting sick, and stopped in the middle of it when I got to the part where Alice mentions the Galaxy Express cat train heading to the land of the dead, cuz it kind of scared me honestly. I thought if I kept watching it I would end up jinxing him, so I decided to turn it off and basically swore off finishing it, or starting any other anime so long as he was still sick, so I could have more time to spend with him. Unfortunately he never really got significantly better. He fought a lot longer and harder than I ever thought he could, but his body finally gave out on him. :'( He was truly amazing though. The best cat ever. Anyway, I probably won't be watching as much anime as I used to, but I'll try and fit a little bit in every now and then still.

Been a while. Good reason for that though. Sales this year were about as lame as I've ever seen. First year I can remember where I didn't spend a single penny on Right Stuf's Christmas sale. Still, I dropped about a C note just now at Amazon for a flash sale they're running today on a few things. New on order: Cowboy Bebop collection Amazon Exclusive Edition, Evangelion 3.33 blu-ray, Ghost in the Shell The New Movie blu-ray/DVD, RWBY vol 3 blu-ray/DVD

Aria the Natural 18 - 20 My kitty got sick and so holiday was kind of a bummer, and I didn't really have much of a chance to watch anything after all. Fortunately he's back from the hospital and doing better now.

Sigh, I register for the new board, then it moves and I have to register again. LOL I was like, what's going on here! Took me a little while to figure things out. Sheesh. This is it though, right? We're done warping around now I hope? ~crosses fingers~ Anyway, what anime have I been watching lately? Well... none. Too much fall TV keeping my anime viewing time to a minimum unfortunately. Outside of Toonami, seeing Trolls the other day is about as close to anime as I've gotten lately. Should have some time carved out soon, so I can hopefully pick back up where I left off with Aria and finish that pretty quickly.