1/3 No Junjo Na Kanjo

Mass Effect: Paragon Lost

Mass Effect: Paragon Lost is an anime produced by BioWare, FUNimation, T.O Entertainment and Production I.G based on the popular video game trilogy, Mass Effect.

Mass Effect was a very interesting science fiction video game. It's strengths were its immersive storytelling, excellent dialogue system and memorable characters. Of course, it went to shit at the third installment which, as I have already accepted, is the ultimate fate of any beloved video game series. Nothing good lasts forever but that's another topic.

It's a trend nowadays for popular video games to get its own anime spin-offs. Anime still has the "cool" factor so why not make one to appeal to the fanbase? Halo, for example had its own anime after it proved popular. Same with Devil May Cry. In fact, if you go back further, I guess Street Fighter would count. Some games come with their own anime tie-in beforehand even if it turns out they're not even that good and kind of suck!

The anime stars James Vega, everyone's favorite meathead from the third game. I'm just gonna admit right now that I didn't like James Vega in the game and in fact, found him obnoxious. But again, that's another topic. I must admit, my view of the character has improved greatly after watching this but no spoilers.

The story begins in a human colony called Fehl Prime which is under attack by the Blood Pack mercenaries. James Vega and his squad of Alliance Marines are deployed to give aid to the colonists.

The Good

The music in the anime is very good. It's sounds just like the music in-game which is no surprise since it was composed by the same people. It really captures the feel of the Mass Effect series and fits in with the action as well.

The voice acting is pretty good too. Freddy Prinze Jr. reprises role as James Vega. Some important characters from the game who make cameos are even voiced by their respective actors. The side characters are well done, I guess, but the voice acting is not the problem...

The story sticks to a theme which is the importance of the decisions we make. I appreciate this as choices and decisions were very important in the game as well. At least some people who made this knew what they were doing.

If you're a fan of the game then there's plenty of things here to keep you happy aside from the cameos. The events about halfway through in should bring out familiar feelings so fanservice is a check.

The ending is pretty good. Let's just say there aren't any cop-out bullshit ending in this show. If this is some kind of stealth commentary on the ME3 endings, I'm not sure.

The Bad

The voice acting is OK, the dialogue however, is atrocious. Seriously, it's very bad. At one point, an Alliance pilot yells, "Get off our lawn you dirty space turtles!" while doing a strafing run on a bunch of Krogan. I mean, really? It gets worse. 

The characters are all cheap, exaggerated stock anime personality types and are not likable. I know that an hour and a half isn't enough to make deep and compelling characters but could they have at least not made them stupid? The bad dialogue doesn't help endear them to us. Many times they drop crude jokes and say awkward things. 

The animation gets pretty bad at certain points. Characters look off-model  with James' height and size alternating compared to other characters at times. Things seem to flow weirdly and seems "wonky". While I can't put my finger on it, I can tell when something's wrong

Too many stupid things happen. If you've played the games, especially the second one, a lot of things here don't make a lick of sense and may actually contradict the lore. While I won't spoil it, let's just say it cheapens the big twist in the second game. Even if you haven't played the game a lot of the characters act stupid especially the biotic "soldier". People are reckless, people seem to act without thinking things through, etc.

There's a depressing lack of Turians in this anime.

Final Thoughts

ME:PL isn't really that good. Despite being set in a universe that's rich and expansive, it seem like some generic action storyline. I honestly do not understand why they chose to show us this crap with James Vega. Of all the possible stories, why do one with this guy of all people? Why not a story about Garrus while he was  known as "Archangel" in Omega? Even if you don't know who Garrus is, that would have been an interesting story in its own right. Why not a story about Liara, a character who's been there since the start? Why not Wrex or Mordin or Tali or any of the other more popular and interesting characters in the series. Why this galoot?  I would rather watch a two hour show of Zaeed doing nothing but reminiscing old war stories and talking to his gun like a senile old man than this.

There's stuff to keep fans interested but it's not presented very well aside from the cameos and voice work. For those "nitpicky" about the source material and lore, there is a lot to nitpick. The art quality is bad at times.

I wouldn't recommend it unless you're that big of a fan that you feel compelled to "might as well" watch it.

Black Bugger

I decided to download a new anime called Black Butler or Kuroshitsuji in Japanese. I must say, I think there's been some kind of mistake.I was under the impression that this would be a "for boys" show, you know, with awesome shit happening. It seemed pretty cool; a kid with a pimpin' mansion and a demon butler who kicks ass. Unfortunately, this show is a little, well, kind of...

Gay.

I've been tricked!

Vampire Knight

I decided to relax a little and spend some free time to write that review on Vampire Knight so I decided to watch it. I wish I hadn't because watching this stupid anime almost made me forget every single thing I've learned. I swear, it scrambled my brain so bad, I woke up in the kitchen the next morning. I don't know why.

So let's get to it.

Vampire Knight is an anime about vampires. Yup. This is a shoujo anime and for those of you who are fortunate not to know what that means, its an anime catered to girls. Young women to be exact. Shoujo anime tends to be stupid so I thought I would get some perverse giggles and shits but all I got was a damned headache.

The story takes place in Cross Academy but its no ordinary school. There's a Day Class and a Night Class. The Day Class seem to consist of nothing but fangirls. The Night Class however are all incredibly attractive vampires complete with sparkles and shit. The Day Class (ALL of them) have the hots for the night class. There are just two prefects apparently that protect the Day Class from the Night Class and they're our main characters of the story.

If I may digress for a moment, I'd like to point out how stupid this is. I mean, its established and constantly mentioned that vampires are a threat to the ordinary muggles so then, why even have a Day Class? What's the point of having both humans and vampires hanging around the same academy? Why not just have an academy exclusively for vampires and have the humans study elsewhere? My friend told me that he read the manga and that it explains later on that the humans are trained to fight vampires. Its never mentioned in the show and I don't give a shit about the manga. Although I forgive him for reading the manga, that explanation only makes it worse. If the humans are being trained to fight vampires then don't you think they would be taught what a vampire is and how to spot them? Wouldn't they probably instantly suspect the "Night Class" then and maybe fight them? Does the school want conflict or something? Well, as I'll explain later, conflict drives this anime...pointless and ultimately boring conflict but hey, a theme is a theme.

Yuki is the main character and self-insert sue for the female audience. In a flashback, she's attacked by a vampire, one of the mean, beast-looking ones and not the sexy sparkle ones. She's saved by a young vampire named Kaname who is also a major character in the story being a "pure blood" vampire and leader of the Night Class. Oh yeah, and there's some shmuck named Zero who angsts a lot. Here's a picture of him smiling.

Zero is not only appropriately named but he comes from a clan of vampire hunters who were killed by vampires. I guess they weren't very good at vampire hunting. As expected, he hates vampires and thus hates his job which involves being near vampires, which he hates. He hates vampires. He hates Kaname because Kaname is a vampire who is also an important figure in the Night Class which is composed of vampires and he hates them. While he's not hating, Zero is angsting because Zero is a vampire himself. He angsts about being a vampire because being a vampire sucks(lol) for him because he is a vampire hunter. Irony, get it? GET IT? Angst. Angst. Angst. At one point he contemplates shooting himself with his anti-vampire gun because NOBODY UNDERSTANDS. Also, he's hungry for Yuki's blood and only hers apparently.

Maybe I should get to the story. Well, there isn't any. I know eventually there's some big deal about Zero's evil twin and the vampire countess that bit him coming out of nowhere or something. That doesn't really matter. The main plot is sidetracked by this huge love triangle between Yuki, Zero and Kaname. Its this conflict and drama that take up much of the time. You see, Zero eventually bites Yuki because of DA HUNGR and Yuki willingly consents to it because she...cares for him? I guess she does. Biting is referred to almost like sex by the way, so yeah. Kaname is upset at what Zero did so I guess Kaname feels strongly towards Yuki? Maybe. I mean, Kaname talks shit to Zero but he doesn't do anything. He claims he wont kill Zero because it might upset Yuki so he allows Zero to bite her on a regular basis? I guess he's OK with that. What pansies, both of them. Yuki has feelings for both guys but don't hold your breath on her making some kind of declaration. Also, there's tension between Kaname and Zero too but you need to have a twisted mind to see it.

This is Vampire Knight in a nutshell. It's a sappy anime made for girls featuring vampires and a love triangle that goes on and on and on. The love triangle seems pointless. Nothing really happens when you think about it. There's no actual sex or anything. The episodes just keep going on milking the drama for all its worth. The sexual tension gets really high and I can see how women would find this appealing. It's just like Twilight. Nobody ever talks about the fucking PLOT in Twilight (If there even is one) but instead talk about Team Eddie Gordo or Team Jake "the Snake" Roberts. The thrill is in the drama and tension. I can't say the build up made sense in Vampire Knight though. It seems near the end the anime grudgingly decides to pursue the "serious" story about Zero confronting the countess and his twin. Honestly I can't even remember how it went. All I know is that when Zero confronts his twin, the anime throws in some incestuous subtexts in there just because and as an apology for the fangirls.

So in conclusion, this anime is all about the love triangle. The story is full of sexual tension that may be well made but ultimately doesn't go THAT far. Unfortunately, nobody rapes anyone. It is made perfectly for the female "Twilight" audience. Why did I even watch this?

My head is caving in.

Speed Grapher

Speed grapher is an anime that my friend showed me. I thought I would write about it since I personally enjoy it for its unintentional hilarity, a review if you will.

Let's start with the premise. The main character is a freelance photographer named Saiga who gets a huge boner photographing death and human suffering.

Seriously. It's that kind of show.

Anyway, we soon realize its a crap sack world where corruption and decadence replace moral values. Our hero investigates mysterious murders and so on and then stumbles into something big. He stumbles into a secret underground fetish club complete with leather bondage slaves, pimps and whores where the richest celebrities and tycoons of Japan get their jollies, secretly of course. He stumbles some more into a ritual where an angelic "goddess" grants people superpowers only that these superpowers are based on fetishes. Fetishes give you superpowers. Saiga, in a moment of pure concentrated idiocy takes a fucking picture, exposing himself and ensuring his death until the goddess kisses him and unlocks his fetish powers. He can make things explode by taking their picture. Seriously. He escapes with the goddess and now the evil rich fetish club people are hunting him down.

The anime then follows the adventures of Saiga and Kagura, the goddess. Kagura as it turns out has a dual personality, one as Kagura and the other the goddess. Also, she was brainwashed, systematically psychologically tortured by her mother and has cancer. Shit. The big bad, Suitengu, a mysterious rich asshole, also has a super angsty back story (child soldier levels) and tries to be all magnificent bastard and stuff. The anime focuses on the charming relationship between Saiga and Kagura. The show also delves into philosophical questions such as "What is happiness? Does money equal happiness?" and so on. Saiga is also involved with a busty lusty female officer named Ginza who totally wants to bone him and eventually does so even if Saiga was out-fucking-cold. Can a man get a boner when he is unconscious? I must research this philosophical question.

That's all well and good except that this show is just too ridiculous to take seriously. All attempts to be all deep and stuff fall flat due to poor execution and the fact that the show is just demanding to much of my sympathy and belief. All the backstories and situations are too extreme that they are completely unbelievable and just cannot be related to anything. For example, one villain sent to track Saiga has a superpower where his nose is super sensitive to scents like a bloodhound. Its fine but the villain walks around with a freaking nose-patch on his face and nobody notices how ridiculous and stupid it looks. Nobody. You just have to see it.

That character alone is the perfect metaphor to describe this show, a face asking you to take it seriously despite having a leather cozy on its nose. Fetish superpowers? Gratuitous violence? Nudity and sex? it's all here folks and ramped up to eleven. It just feels like its trying too hard to be edgy. That sums it up perfectly, tries too hard. The animation quality also suffers later on. One villain who has a skin fetish with tattoos that come to life looks badly drawn. Also the music gets recycled a lot.

This show is bad. It is so bad that its good! I like it because its just so over the top that it just grows on you. Its hilarious and completely unintentional. The show keeps a straight face, plays everything straight even if its just so ridiculous and that just makes it even funnier. This anime can only be viewed in this manner or when high like the makers probably were.

Also, it has a kick ass opening song by Duran Duran! Girls on film...hmm...hmm..hmm

Possible Spoilers.