Sometimes when you look at that cheap cartoon DVD on the bargain shelf you don't want to buy it knowing that it's nowhere near the same standard as the original but a handful of these productions may surprise you like this film, Katya and the Nutcracker.
While you can get a DVD in my country and possibly Europe & Australia the chances of finding this cartoon movie is incredibly low. You have a better chance of finding an out of print anime.
The story is your typical Nutcracker story. Katya gets a Nutcracker in the shape of a soldier from uncle Drosselmeyer for Christmas. After a fight with her brother the Nutcracker gets broken but over night the Rat King (Who wears a Nazi gas mask for some reason) tries to takeover the Toy World bringing the toys alive and shrinking Katya to toy size. After a battle between the toys and the rats, the Nutcracker Prince takes Katya to a fancy party to watch the Sugar Plum Fairy perform a dance similar to Fantasia followed by an Ice Dance between Katya & the Prince.
There is no dialogue in the entire film using nothing more than the musical score to the Nutcracker and it actually pulls off a decent production, almost to Disney standard if not for the animation art style being a bit hit and miss.
The Atmosphere the movie creates is both magical and immersive. You especially get drawn into the Biplane scene where Katya & the Nutcracker travel to the palace through the blizzard.
If I could find a Youtube video I will certainly post it.
If you wish to take anything away from this review is the knowledge that the lowest level cartoons can often surprise you even if there is next to no information about it all over the world wide web.
And I am fully aware that it says Katya and the Mouseking in the picture so don't bother pointing that out.
I don't know what's worst, the fact that I had to be reminded of these god awful works or having to re-watch some of them for research.
Anyway this is my Top Ten Worst CGI Cartoons. This will include a lot of films.
Dishonorable Mentions
Final Fantasy Spirits Within: Boring but not compared to the ten on the list.
Barbie Movies: Only missed the list because they are at least well made but still pretty terrible.
Fleabag Monkeyface: Oddly enough these ten are worst than this show.
This film reduced the Nostalgia Critic to insanity
10. Ice Age: Continental Drift
After three good movies Continental Drift was awful, because someone decided that Peaches should speak and make her a snarky teenager while adding some pirate storyline that had no business being in the film, everything just feels forced in. What's worst, I paid money to watch it.
9. CGI Thomas the Tank Engine
The idea of don't fix what isn't broke was clearly lost on the makers of Thomas the Tank Engine when it came to the CGI Era. What they did was remove any relevant terms regarding the Railways and dumb it down to three year old level. Actually no that's insulting, make that two year old level.
8. Space Chimps
A bad idea to begin with which suffers from lousy jokes and is horribly outdated in an era where Wall-E was released. Even worst they made a sequel which must never be spoken of.
7. Bratz
For what it's worth the only thing Bratz have really done wrong is try to promote an outdated stereotype of teenage girls. It doesn't help that the characters look like hookers.
6. Matt Hatter Chronicles
How can you make a show about fighting B-Movie monsters and villains so boring. This has some of the worst fight scenes in CGI cartoon history. A CGI Cartoon about Slugs is better than this. (Yeah one exists look it up)
5. Nuttiest Nutcracker
It has talking nuts...................ummmm yeah this is just plain terrible, you've taken a well respected production of the Nutcracker and insulted it by placing in talking food. It wouldn't surprise me if the same studio did FoodFight.
4. Foodfight
Speaking of which, what do you do with 65 Million Dollars? Answer is blow it on buying licenses for advertisement mascots waste ten years on production and ultimately release a film that's hideous, racist, stupid, fetish fuel and pointless with some horrible writing, poorly written jokes and a huge waste of money. And for all the money they spent on advertisement mascots they don't even do anything remotely useful. At this point being British is an advantage because I don't feel as betrayed by the misuse of advertisement mascots as Americans do and plus I think the next three are worst than Foodfight.
3. Monster High
Released at the height of the Twilight phenomenon, Monster High is the biggest insult ever to the monster genre. Like Bratz it promotes an outdated stereotype of teenage girls but this time they are all Fashionista Monster girls. (I really hate the word Fashionista I feel disgusted saying it)
2. Gormiti Nature Unleashed
Gormiti was actually a good cartoon, it had a certain charm to it. This CGI series is utter crap. Do you remember that arrogant hot headed hero type that made up 90% of laughably bad boys cartoons? Well times that by four and remove every female character from the show and hope it sells toys. Only problem is they forgot to actually animate properly as the show glitches constantly during battle scenes. If you're going to make an action cartoon then actually animate the battle scenes!
1. Anything by Video Brinquedo
Video Brinquedo is a Brazilian Animation company that has no ideas of it's own and pretty much rips-off every CGI movie that sold well, both Pixar & Dreamworks. It's just the sheer shamefulness of their products that makes you wonder why they haven't been sued for every penny and shutdown. To give Foodfight one bit of credit is at the very least when they ripped off something they didn't make it so damn obvious.
Now after all that I can use a few Rums to forget what I just saw.
Every so often a costume comes a long in anime that you have to say to yourself, "that can't possibly exist in real life" and yet cosplayers still have a go at pulling off these costumes, some with better results than others. So here are the top ten impossible costumes.
Honorable Mentions
Lina Inverse: Difficult to make sense of but not impossible.
Anything Skin Tight: Not impossible but horribly impractical.
Most of the Strike Witches: I doubt anyone is brave enough.
10. Juraian Kimonos from Tenchi Muyo
While not impossible and ain't half as impractical as their bizarre spaceships, it certainly looks like it takes some effort to put on.
9. Bloodberry's Costume from Saber Marionette J
Has actually been proven in real life to be impractical mainly for the rope loops on the back of the kimono. Then again this is the same show that has characters with cheeks that make them look like they swallowed a coat hanger.
8. Dragon Kid's Hair Decorations from Tiger & Bunny
How do you fight with those disc things on your head? Seriously Dragon Kid is quite a mobile character when she gets going so how on earth do you support those disc things?
7. Knight Sabers from Bubblegum Crisis
I could say the same for other battle suits but these ones are especially notable for their high heel design for the feet, as they are part of the suit itself they cannot be taken off so easily so you definitely don't want to walk in them for long missions.
6. Yuuko's Kimonos from XXXHolic
Clamp does impossible clothes quite a lot but Yuuko's takes some effort to pull off. Many a cosplayer find it easier to make up a design for Yuuko to wear rather than copy her directly.
5. Haydee's Dresses from Gankutsuou
The Art style plays more of a role in this than the actual costume, although her opera dress is especially extravagant.
4. Neya's Cyber Dress from Infinite Ryvius
Provides the image for this top ten list. It looks like it was made from colored tin foil.
3. Lacus Clyne's Entire Wardrobe from Gundam Seed
Whether it's a kimono that can't fit a spacesuit or a dress that seems to defy physics, Lacus Clyne always looks fabulous.
2. Erza's Armors from Fairy Tail
The Heaven's Wheel Armor alone is on a different level to other battle armors. But looking at her extensive catalog of clothing it's fair to say that Erza doesn't always have eyes for style or practicality.
1. Any Stage Dress from Aikatsu
Seems to be a trend for Idol shows these days but Aikatsu takes it a bit further, either through it's impossible color schemes or over the top decorations and wings, you can guarantee that the Aikatsu stage will always light up.
Bonus: A close real life example would be Heian Period Kimonos. Hard to put on and so many layers to wear.
Sorry for the lack of updates as I've been on the convention trail but before I left for the convention I finished an anime series I was desperate to review but ultimately ran out of time. Now that I'm back and eager to recover quickly here is my review of Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon.
In the distant future the world is devastated so the human race moved to the heavens but something went wrong and they are forced to return to the world which was still very much ravaged; however Japan is still functioning so the human race gets squeezed into their country using pocket dimensions to separate each nation. The nations in control are called the Divine States while the pocket dimension nations are called the Harmonic Divine States.
At this point the worlds decide to reenact history from 10,000BC in order to rediscover their lost technology and return to the heavens all run by the Testament Union, but in 1413AD War broke out and the Harmonic Divine States invaded the Divine States and split up the States to each group in a similar way to how Sengoku Era Japan worked.
In 1648AD the residents of Japan now live on the battleship Musashi but rumors of an apocalypse coming soon creates waves of concern within the Testament Union who precede over the viewing of history. Taking advantage of this situation, Tori Aoi, head of Musashi Ariadust Academy's Supreme Federation and President of the student council, leads his classmates to war against the Harmonic Divine States in order to reclaim their homeland and recover the lost emotions of his android girlfriend Horizon; which being an anime is in the form of weapons and strictly speaking each nation is controlled by student councils and anything and everything you can expect is there including ecchi.
That is a long ass explanation for this series, it's any wonder this light novel series is longer than most western manuscripts.
So is it any good?
Well it's difficult to keep up with and set universe laws seem to break pretty easily; the assortment of characters are all unique with little to no focus on Tori Aoi who often walks around naked for no reason, Horizon herself barely has any focus at all either despite being the title character, as other characters often steal the spotlight. I do give this series a lot of creativity points for unique character designs and equally unique battles, but getting through the story was a tough enough barrier and I pretty much wore myself out just explaining the plot.
The dub is okay but Season 2 suffers with audio issues with too much clashing between music and dialogue and with such a complex plot it can be a little daunting to read subtitles and it really needs the dub to be clear and precise.
Final Verdict: It needs a bit of love and care to get past a heavy barrier of plot and dialogue but within lies a host of unique characters and action that leaves you feeling more satisfied by the time you finish season 2. The light novel goes on for much longer and there's little to no info about future seasons.
Superheroes are a core part of geek culture and the likes of America are packed with hundreds to choose from; whether it be DC Comics or Marvel, everyone has a favorite. Go international and every country has their own superhero to speak of; come to the UK you get Bananaman.
Bananaman is a British comic made in 1980 about a Superman esque superhero gaining powers from eating Bananas hence the name Bananaman. Three years later, the BBC made a cartoon.
The story is about Eric Wimp who lives at 29 Acacia Road, Nuttytown as were reminded of in not only the cartoon opening but at the start of each comic strip.
After eating a banana Eric becomes Bananaman who saves the world from various evil villains such as General Blight and Appleman among others.
It becomes pretty obvious that it's a piss take of Marvel & DC Comics as every character is a homage to the many villains in those comics.
Bananaman uses good old fashioned British wit, the kind that made the likes of Dangermouse such a household name; in fact British viewers will note that all the voices in the cartoon were done by the old comedy team The Goodies. If you don't know who they are ask your dad.
The series is a bit dated but the humor manages to survive the 30+ year cycle, you'd think with the rapid evolution of technology along with the British comic industry barely surviving these days you'd think Bananaman would be forgotten but you'd be wrong; next year a live action film will be released, although sadly cartoon to live action transitions leave a lot to be desired and I doubt that a name like Bananaman can really compete in today's market, but stranger things have happened such as Johnny Test still being on TV.
