No I'm not deliberately skipping series of Digimon I just really need to get this one out the way as we review Digimon Xros Wars.
Mikey Kudo finds an injured Digimon called Shoutmon, (really appropriate, he never shuts up) and feeling the need to help him ends up being dragged into the Digital World along with his friends in order to save it from the evils of the Bagra Army but other humans lead their own groups to try and stop the Bagra Army for their own gains.
Now I'm going to start by addressing the elephant in the room first, why does Mikey have friends with him that do nothing? The setup is similar to how groups of samurai act during what seems like a warring states scenario and it actually works well but neither Jeremy nor Angie actually do anything as Mikey seems to do everything from fusing his Digimon to activating power ups, while it's not unusual for a main character to steal most of the limelight it is unusual for ally humans especially in a franchise like Digimon not to have their own fusing Digimon, to make matters worst come season 3 they do a complete line up change and relegate every female protagonist to bit part players in a move I now call the Gormiti Scenario which involves ridding the show of anything remotely female to focus on what is essentially a bro fest thinking that an average male viewer doesn't want to watch female characters, it's never been done right and wastes the characters that were on offer in the first two seasons a trick also done with newer seasons of Beyblade and Yu-Gi-Oh; it's a shame that it had to come to that because the stuff it does right, the setup, the variety of the zones and the Digimon themselves are really good and it's one of the few dubs in the so called Children's anime tier to actually be good, it's just a pity that some decisions by the creators worked against them.
Final Verdict: It's worth a try but stupid decisions by the creators leave you questioning why certain characters are there and should you make it to the third season you wonder why those characters are suddenly cut.
Now lets review a cartoon that has a lot of criticism for going way off formula. Lets look at Shaggy & Scooby Doo: Get a Clue.
But first some history, when it comes to Scooby Doo, arguably the best selling characters are Scooby and Shaggy, that's why they could get away with their own series along with Scrappy Doo, which went off formula from the ghost chasing to genuine mystery solving, something that also existed with the TV movies, but this incarnation Get a Clue took things in such a different direction that it's completely lost as Get a Clue has less to do with mystery solving and more to do with taking down an evil genius mad man. The plot goes that Shaggy's rich uncle Albert goes missing and leaves everything to Shaggy in his will but the evil Dr Phineus Phibes is after Albert's research so it's up to Shaggy and Scooby to stop him, using all forms of technology open to them. This is one of the last cartoons made by Joseph Barbera before his death at the impressive age of 95 years, Joseph of course being one half of Hanna Barbera.
My history with Scooby Doo is a bit mixed as I appreciate the originals and even some of the Scrappy Doo series, I'm not such a fan of the modern Scooby Doo shows or it's TV Films, as for this one it kind of falls in between which is strange considering that it doesn't have anything to do with solving mysteries, in fact you could say it's a poor mans spy and super hero show. But in a strange way I welcome the direction this series was taking.
There's a point in history where a character in any cartoon becomes tired and Scooby Doo and his friends at this point were becoming this and Get a Clue was the breath of fresh air it needed, even if it took away what Scooby Doo was famous for, it's no different to the many spinoffs during Hanna Barbera's run during the 70s and 80s which looking back was utterly, utterly terrible.
So in conclusion I'd say this made people stand up and notice and while fans would clearly miss the traditional Scooby Doo, it doesn't hurt to test the waters of another genre.
Okay I'm finished with yesterdays rant so lets review something nice and fluffy as we dive into one of Sega's lesser known franchises Lil Pri.
The world of Fairyland is in trouble as all the happiness is being drained from it's lands so the Queen sends three magical pets to awaken the three legendary idols based on popular fairy tale princesses in order to restore happiness into the world. To do this, three young girls, Ringo, Leila and Natsuki are transformed into the teenage idols of Snow White, Cinderella and Kaguya respectively who sing their pop songs and restore happiness to both Fairyland and Earth.
This sounds like one of those shows for girls that you'd easily get annoyed about but it's actually surprisingly good, mainly because it pays homage to the 80s Magical Idol shows but also starts a trend of extreme color palettes and impossible idol dresses that are now common place in today's shojo line up with the likes of PriPara, Pretty Cure and Aikatsu, and it's biggest selling point, the songs are surprisingly catchy, the comedy is quite amusing, the characters are likeable apart from Vivi the Cat whose appearance felt forced, and while it remains basic in it's plot and somewhat predictable, it's touching moments can make even the hardest anime fan cry.
It's definitely not to everyone's tastes, Japan's take on Anime for young girls is somewhere in the region of Hatsune Miku meets Disney Princess which definitely sounds like the worst combination in the world but in reality it really isn't as bad as the pretty sparkles make out.
No English dub but I did hear a Korean dub which is surprisingly good, research for you, you never know what your going to get.
Final Verdict: Definitely not to the average anime fan's tastes but if you do manage to look past the sparkles you do get to watch a good anime.
I think it's time to put to rest an old enemy. Time to finally review Comic Party
Kazuki Sendo is invited by his friend Taishi Kuhonbutsu to Comic Party, a major event celebrating Dojinshi, impressed by what he sees and being a decent artist himself, Kazuki starts taking up Dojinshi as a hobby with Taishi along with other varied female Otaku, however his childhood friend Mizuki hates Otaku and doesn't want to see her friend get drawn into their world.
One thing I've come to understand while viewing anime on Otaku culture is how much Japan seems to be embarrassed by it; shows like Welcome to the NHK, Watamote and Video Girl Ai do little to make the Otaku individual feel better about themselves which is sad because an Otaku needs as much support as possible for them not to feel outcast by society. Densha Otoko, Otaku no Video, Cosplay Complex (Within Reason), Aoi House and Genshiken are probably the shows that do the best at supporting the average Otaku whereas this series would've joined them had they not made a character like Mizuki which is pretty much the anime sticking a middle finger up at me for liking anime. In short it's like the anime is bullying me and it actually prevents me from liking the regular content which isn't that bad if a little bit in your face. It's a shame it has to be this way especially when the show itself minus Mizuki is actually pretty good but it's because Mizuki is not only a main character but a plot device as well, you cannot ignore her and for that the show is ruined.
If you don't like your taste in anime to be insulted by this show then I suggest not watching the dub as it lessens the pain rather than having someone in your language tell it to your face.
Final Verdict: Personally I hate this show, for everyone else I suggest you test your tolerance with Mizuki to decide whether or not this show is good, if you can tolerate her then you'll enjoy it, if you can't then this will be a series difficult not to get angry at.
Moving on with the Road to Summer Special is Sonic's failed game reboot Sonic Boom.
The backlash for this thing has finally died down now, so to clarify a few things about how I feel about the games, yes Knuckles looks horrible, yes the games are glitchy and poorly designed and yes I did do the top ten things worst than Sonic Boom several months back, my feelings have always been the same, I've seen and played a lot worst than Sonic Boom so lets see if the cartoon does any better.
Well credit where credit is due, the Sonic Boom cartoon is actually really funny. Using the same characters and restoring some of the slapstick humor used in some of the earliest Sonic cartoons, Sonic Boom cartoon makes up for the rest of this spinoff franchise being bad.
It's an easy thing to say it's not the true Sonic everyone loves but really what medium is? AoStH was so heavy on slapstick that it seemed baffling at times, SatAM while good played a very dark setting to what was otherwise quite a colorful set of characters, Underground had this weird thing going where you pretty much have SatAM's dark setting with cheesy catchy pop music, the Sonic OVA featured the battle with Metal Sonic along with an out of place Catgirl and finally Sonic X featured humans we really didn't need to see in the franchise, so when you look at Sonic Boom that uses copious amounts of slapstick as it's main selling point you kind of come full circle. In the end I just prefer to watch a cartoon that's fun which everyone seems to forget nowadays, Tom & Jerry and Looney Tunes are timeless because they still make me laugh, they never went complicated they only functioned on the slapstick and the punchline and Sonic Boom is very much the same as that. If that's still a problem for Sonic fans then I ask you what do you want then?
