Dark_Cloud_Overhead

Alien Covenant (4/10) Sigh. Disappointing. This movie just felt way too predictable. I guess that's to be expected given it's essentially a prequel sequel, but still... I dunno, I think maybe I'm just burned out on alien movies, cuz I didn't find anything really shocking or scary about this one at all. Either that or perhaps I'm simply getting *gasp* too old for this stuff? : (

New on order: Assassination Classroom season 1 part 1 LE, Barakamon, A Certain Magical Index season 2 collection, Danganronpa LE

Eh, I doubt they bother checking the details on their press releases once they go out, so probably no way they'd notice a mistake like that unless someone messaged them about it to bring it to their attention, which probably nobody has done in this case because it's an essentially meaningless detail. The retail price only has any real actual meaning for when companies let multiple places carry their product and set their own prices for it. Aniplex only distributes to Right Stuf, and probably has strict control over the actual pricing, so the sale price is really all that matters. Could be of course, that I'm wrong, and it's a new sale tactic by them, but I really doubt it simply because I can't believe they'd ever think something like that would ever really work. I think the chances of these having chipboard boxes anyway is practically zero, given the $130 Durarara one didn't get one. Did I say bares bones? I meant wishbones. Defective Aniplex discs though? I haven't heard much of that before. What shows have you heard about having them? :-\

Guardians of the Frickin' Galaxy vol. 2 Love the music choices they made, and like the first movie there were some pretty hilarious lines, mostly from Rocket and Drax of course. The ultimate climax didn't feel quite as exciting to me as the one from the first movie, but in every other way it was just as, if not more, awesome than the original, so 9/10.

The MSRP is probably just incorrect. If it was any kind of a misprice, I can't imagine it wouldn't have been fixed by now (it's been 3 weeks since it went up for pre-order at this point), or that they would honor a pricing mistake of $120 per set even if that were the case. The recent Madoka Magica blu-ray set has the same price with an MSRP of $150, which is probably what the MSRP of these sets should be. Then again, Madoka Magica has only 13 episodes, and these are about double that, so... Actually, the Durarara blu-ray box set has like 25 episodes and is $130 with an MSRP of $160, so it's basically in line with that. Whatever the situation, if it's something you are really sure you want to own and you don't have a problem paying for it right away, pre-ordering it now wouldn't be a bad idea simply because it's unlikely, given this is Aniplex, that the price will ever be discounted much in the future, if at all. Keep in mind, this was released a while ago by them on DVD, and it's probably going to be basically bare bones type of sets with fairly cheap packaging and little bonus content.

New on order: Kizumonogatari part 1 Tekketsu Time to use them Stuf Bucks.

You can still see it all on SyFy's website I think, but looks like this one is the final episode, at least for now. Only six episodes. Guess they weren't too sure about how successful it would be. Were there fairies in Lodoss War? I certainly don't remember any. ::spin:: WTH! I can't believe who won. That just made no sense. First time I've been wrong about the winner and completely disagreed with the judges. LOL

Okay, I'm totally rooting for the guy doing a character for .hack, cuz he's the only one who bothered to mention to actual name of the show to the judges when explaining about his character. Looking good so far too, as he just won the first round.

Just noticed that in about 15 minutes on Syfy they're going to have an anime themed episode of this cosplay competition show called Cosplay Melee. Not really a cosplayer myself, but I'm curious to see what shows they'll pick characters from. I'll bet anything Fullmetal Alchemist is one of them. It started. Guess I should say what shows they'll pick characters for, as looks like they have to be original characters made to fit into an existing title. Interesting choices anyway: Record of Lodoss War, .hack//, Madoka Magica, and Monster Girl.

Your Name Very nice. Definitely the most enjoyable of all of Shinkai's works to date. Very evocative of 5 Cm Per Second, but this movie felt much more complete and well-resolved. I saw it dubbed, and was a bit surprised all of the songs were in English, but moreso that they actually sounded really good for dubbed song versions. Didn't realize they were by the original group and that the lead singer had spent time in the U.S. as a child till I read a news article on ANN about it right now. That explains it I guess.

Watchathon week on Comcast, so I marathoned Ash vs Evil Dead season 2. Too awesome. Hard to see how they could possibly top that season, but I look forward to seeing them try for season 3.

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.