Hi I'm Dranzerstorm
You may remember me as a regular contestant on the caption battle contest.
Welcome to Retro Retrospective, my world dedicated to the old guard of the Otaku world; expect some reviews of the old & obscure, and in-depth geeky knowledge with the occasional top ten and I now have a logo.
Little info about me
Well I'm British and I'm in to all things animated and nostalgia.
I've grown up with every cartoon going and have watched hundreds of anime.
Oh and to answer a question I was asked once, no I don't wear glasses in real life, I would wear Loke's sunglasses though.
No I haven't been neglecting this world, although it is difficult to write reviews when you're watching five anime at once and had plenty of ideas for stories while trying to work on a computer that's been on borrowed time for the last year or so. Well it's time to stop neglecting and restart with a review on Grenadier.
Grenadier is about a wandering frontier gunman who tries to create peace in every situation they are in despite being faced with opponents that keep getting stronger with each episode, no I'm not describing Trigun but you can forgiven for thinking it is. Grenadier can be best described as a reverse gender Trigun; it helps that main character Rushuna is also blonde, stands pretty tall for a female character compared to the rest of the cast, is goofy in nature yet can shoot better than any character in the series except their own sibling who can match them.
Okay I'm not doing a very good job at separating this show from Trigun so lets see the story. Rushuna has been wandering around for a while being herself until her master puts a bounty on her head and sends a group called the Juttensen after her.
Joined by a samurai named Yajiro & a talented Balloonist named Mikan, the trio set off to the capital in order to find out what the hell is going on.
Now this is where the obvious comparisons end.
For a start it's clear that Rushuna is not so restrictive in using her gun than Vash was at the start of Trigun despite following similar philosophizes, in fact Rushuna wins more points in style than Vash and even Bayonetta in places as she reloads bullets with her breasts and pulls off seemingly impossible gun shots including shooting with just the cylinder frame, this is where Grenadier really shines, the spectacle, in a way this is what some people didn't like Trigun for; it was felt that Vash spent so long not firing his gun that people including myself couldn't sit through the series long enough before we got some proper combat and while it does eventually payoff, it still felt a long time compared to other 90s action anime at the time, in a way Grenadier was created to showcase what Trigun was missing but in the long term especially in the anime, Grenadier loses focus on the story and doesn't deliver itself quite as well as Trigun did.
But what really goes against Grenadier is the fact that Rushuna has gigantic breasts, seriously those things are DDDD, which according to sources is the same size as Soul Calibur's Ivy. The breasts kind of de-credit the story and make it seem like a huge fanservice show, not helped further by Rushuna's interest in taking baths every episode. Any kind of seriousness left in the show is lost in the anime because of Rushuna's cleavage.
Final Verdict: Trigun is a more superior anime by far but Grenadier still creates an impressive spectacle, I will say that the manga does make up for the anime's shortcomings and improves the story.
The excitement over Pokemon X&Y has been gaining momentum, so it’s my turn to weigh in on my opinions on the five bad & five best things so far on X&Y, as this is based on a game & anime series that hasn’t come out yet, my hopes will be that my opinions on the bad will quickly disappear when the game & anime is released.
I’ll start with the bad.
5. Gym Leader, Elite Four & Champion Designs.
So far I’ve not been impressed by the Gym Leader designs, I’m hoping Clemont & Viola prove me wrong in the anime, but rock climber guy isn’t exactly very inspiring & skater girl is packed full of gimmicks, and I’m hoping this doesn’t become a habit with later gyms or the Elite Four & Champion.
4. The Anime fails to use the relationship between Ash & Serena.
The biggest most shocking reveal of X&Y is the fact that Serena is Ash’s childhood friend.
This is a big risk for a series where all other traveling companions haven’t even heard of Ash until he showed up, so how will they play it with Serena who knows Ash already? Well this leads nicely to number 3.
3. Ash doesn’t grow as a character again.
My biggest criticism about Black & White was that Ash forgot how to be a Pokemon Trainer; in other beginnings in Hoenn & Sinnoh he at least remembered how to act from his previous journey but lost all bearings when he reached Unova. If he ends up this way again then the fanbase will demand that Ash hang up his Pokeballs for good and give up the title of franchise lead to someone else, maybe even Trainer Red who will easily replace him should Pokemon Origins be a rousing success.
2. The Fairy Type might break the game.
New types are hard to balance, it took a couple of tries before Dark & Steel were correct and it may be the same with Fairy type. To rephrase this properly, if I have to have a Fairy type or a Pokemon that has to counter a Fairy type, particularly if the Champion is a Fairy specialist then I’m going to end up with a team of Pokemon I don’t want; I gave up professional Pokemon training years ago and I want to enjoy this game with a team of Pokemon that I want and not a team of Pokemon I need. This also comes into another problem.
1. Mega Evolution might break the game.
The need for a Mega Evolution Pokemon on the team is going to be high, again I don’t want one if I need it to complete the game, this is especially prominent when I end up with a Kanto starter & Torchic so soon after selecting my own Pokemon which does have a Mega Evolution each.
Bonus: I'm getting so sick of the fake images of fake evolutions, honestly can't people do something more productive with their time?
Now the good things
5. The Kalos Pokedex will be huge.
Considering how many Pokemon have appeared in trailers and previews this could potentially have the biggest Pokedex of all the regions.
4. Character Customization
I finally get to redesign both my male & female trainers to their own personas rather than play as just a generic character with their own name. Since I play both games, both my trainers will look good.
3. Less New Pokemon and they don’t suck.
There have been less new Pokemon this Generation unless Nintendo have really been Sandbagging all this time. Saying that, the designs are pretty good so far especially the T-Rex one that will definitely be on the Male Trainer’s team.
2. Traveling in the Pokemon World is actually fun.
Ride-on Pokemon, Roller Skating, Bicycle & Default Running. That may not seem much too some people, it’s a big deal for someone like me who dislikes walking at snail’s pace in these games, and if the trailers are anything to go by then you’ve got rope swinging as well. For the first time the journey feels like a proper adventure.
1. Serena.
Serena is the female trainer who will become Ash’s traveling companion along with Clemont and his little sister, she is also the default female trainer for the games. It may not seem as a big surprise to many people but what did cause a stir among the fanbase was the reveal that Serena is “ASH’S CHILDHOOD FRIEND!”
That caught me off guard. I already had my predictions over the next female companion that Ash travels with; not only was I not expecting Serena (I expected Roller Girl) but I wasn’t expecting the even bigger revelation of Serena being Ash’s childhood friend.
Not to mention the shock of every Pokeshipper in the world; I think it went something like this below.
So what does this mean for Ash? That’s what I want to know. The hope is that the stuff I mentioned about Ash & Serena in the bad list doesn’t come true and for the first time in the show’s history, Ash might finally grow up. (Mentally not physically) Either way, Serena is the key to the success of Generation VI, and the anime is often a better representation of the franchise than the game itself. How they deal with this is how we’ll remember her as well as Ash and this generation of the franchise.
Bonus: Clemont & his Sister
The same goes for the male traveling companion and his tagalong sibling, mind you Clemont doesn’t need much to beat Cilan nor does he need much to beat Tracy or Max, he just needs to beat or equal Brock who we miss terribly.
Last time on Cartoon Vault, the Kung-Fu Dino Posse was the subject thanks to a list of shameless Ninja Turtles knockoffs but there is one show I missed on that list, but there is a good reason which I’ll explain in this Cartoon Vault entry the Chop Socky Chooks
Dr Wasabi is an evil genius fish who has taken over the city and rebuilt it in his image, but three chickens disagree with Wasabi’s rule. Our heroes are Chick P, KO Joe & Chuckie Chan, a team of chickens who know Kung-Fu who oppose Wasabi’s rule and put a stop to every scheme he cooks up to try and grab the attention & control of the populous.
The Chooks are entirely CGI, which seems to work surprisingly well with the British Aardman animation team on board but some of the designs are really creepy such as in one episode with evil ninja babies (don’t ask) who are just plain scary.
The series does a surprisingly good job in both story and characters; Wasabi is clearly incompetent but is shown to still be dangerous, Bubba his Mafia Suited Gorilla bodyguard is clearly stupid but can still dish out decent pain, even the Ninja chimps manage to get in proper hits sometimes showing that they are not entirely useless. Equally the heroes are not always guaranteed a victory and usually have to work twice as hard to succeed and have even been known to struggle against lesser villains. Staying with the lead three characters, the reason why I don’t regard this as a shameless Ninja Turtles knockoff is because it negates the main ingredient needed to be one of those shows, which is near identical designs. Each Chook is very different going as far down to their civilian identities.
Chick P passes as a proper Kung Fu girl reminiscent of modern martial arts films where being a lead female is not so rare and breaks predetermined gender roles by being a maintenance engineer in her civilian identity, she’s even the unofficial leader if the opening theme is any indication.
KO Joe (which is an awesome name) is portrayed as a retro 70s martial artist complete with Afro and even he breaks predetermined roles by being a comic book store owner in his civilian identity.
Only Chuckie Chan keeps his predetermined role by not only being a wise old man with supernatural powers but also being a Martial Arts teacher in civilian attire.
These are great characters and are fun to watch and are even well voiced by Great British talent, if it weren’t for such creepy designs and a few utter bizarre stories, this show could easily be one of the best CGI cartoons ever made, and I never say that lightly.
I’ve been wanting to review this for a while and I think now is the right time for it, especially seeing as it was brought up recently in a top ten list. So now to review the anarchy series that is Needless.
Needless starts off with a Nuclear war that takes out part of Tokyo, leaving just a barren land simply known as the Black Spot which is ruled by a powerful multinational corporation led by its insane director Adam Arclight. A number of rebels want him dead and that’s where the story begins. We cut to a kid named Cruz who manages to escape thanks to his sister playing the noble sacrifice, who then finds a Kamina-esque priest named Adam Blade & his meta-morphing sidekick Eve, who’s entire running joke is coming up with stupid names for people because she can’t be bothered to remember anyone’s name except Adam Blade’s.
Adam & Eve are Needless, beings who have specific superpowers; Eve can meta-morph into anyone and change parts of her body while Adam Blade we find out can learn any Needless power by analyzing his opponent. Cruz can’t do anything and quickly becomes annoying.
We are joined by a scientist named Gido who also can’t do anything and spends most of the series stating the bloody obvious.
Two other characters who join team Blade are Teruyama who names all his attacks after the Hiroshima bomb while the other character Disc is an android built with every technical upgrade possible and knows the Black Spot inside out.
One thing that you will understand very quickly is how much of a mess this series is, poorly structured story, randomly placed gags, shameless fanservice to uncomfortable levels, stupidly long drawn out battles and random shifts in art where you wonder if the artists were ill that week when they made the episode.
That’s a lot of bad things right off the bat, but it’s excused when you consider that Needless is meant to be like that and anything less than a mess would seem out of place.
If there are major flaws in Needless, there are just as many to name.
For one, Cruz is established as the main character fairly quick and in a series where you essentially have a cast of X-Men, Cruz is the most pathetic character ever made which gets worst when he essentially takes up 90% of the screen time and is made so essential to the plot that the stronger better made characters are made worst because of it. They even felt the need to take out Adam Blade & Eve for a few episodes despite the fact they are the main characters, equally villains such as Saten & Arclight don’t even get that much screen time despite the fact that they drive the plot.
Equally Mr Obvious, Gido gets far too many spoken lines as well, and don’t get me started on how tenacious the girl’s squad is. They were supposed to be a mid-boss battle but fought Adam Blade & co more times than the actual main villains. Finally a few late entry characters get pushed to the back as quickly as they were introduced.
But the worst element of this series is the god awful dub.
I brought this up briefly in my top 10 worst dub voice acting list and the main fact of it is that there was no excuse in getting this wrong on a series with Excel Saga level madness.
At times there were scenes where certain scripts were written poorly, such as when Arclight announced that he was god without even trying to make an effort in his voice and this is the guy who previously played Genjo Sanzo; other times Cruz is over acting to the point of screeching backed up by a few scenes of wasted redundant dialogue, this affects a number of other side characters as well or in the case of Solva, not acting enough.
Only a couple of voices standout; Adam Blade which should be a given, Disc despite sprouting the obvious all the time she’s at least easy on the ears & Kuchinashi who is a mute and only speaks two words. I know for a fact that there are far worst dubs & far worst acting but the thing that made this number one on that list was the fact that all the actors chosen for Needless are veterans within the industry and the ADR Director has equal talent in dubs.
Maybe I should have taken the warnings the DVD gave me. In the UK release of Needless, the disc is defaulted to subtitles and you have to select the dub manually while the episode is running otherwise you get no sound. Comes to something when the DVD is telling me the dub sucks.
Final Verdict: If you want a testosterone heavy show with mindless structure and a lack of care for the rules of the world then watch Gurren Lagann. (Even though Needless predates Gurren Lagann) The only way you can watch this series is to stop thinking and enjoy the madness on screen; the mistake I made was watching this series and questioning why certain things happen.
Madness cannot be appreciated when you question why it’s there.
And now the other side of the double feature the ten best voice acting in dubs.
Honorable Mentions
Fruits Basket: I’ve never heard a bad thing said about the Fruits Basket dub, but I don’t think it’s enough for a top ten entry.
Full Metal Panic: Just as good as Fruits Basket and sounds like the actors were enjoying themselves during recording.
Sengoku Basara: Only for Jonny Yong Bosch’s performance as Sanada Yukimura, it’s probably the most fun he’s had voice acting anyone.
10. King of Bandits Jing
It's on my list of most underrated Anime of all time and is backed up by a really good dub, and this is ADVs older voice actors from when they started. It goes to show that if you choose the right actors in the first place you won't get a bad dub.
9. Gundam Seed
Pure emotion is a good trait to have in voice acting and veterans Matt Hill & Sam Vincent really do a good job in the emotion heavy Gundam Seed series; the defining moment was watching them tear each other apart midway through season 1. The fact that they are best friends in real life made it more believable.
8. Ranma 1/2
For an anime that was dubbed in the 90s it really stood the test of time, if the license comes back under a different group it shouldn't need re-dubbing.
7. Shinesman
The Shinesman voice cast has very limited credits under them but the scripting was a work of genius and what we got was one of the funniest OVAs since Dragon Half. The offbeat comments like "I'm gonna die in a Godzilla suit" still make me laugh.
6. Medabots
The most fun you can have with a dub ever, the way it was dubbed it felt like it was still authentically Japanese, that's rare for an English dub.
5. Tiger & Bunny
Dubs seem to do better if the anime setting is non Japanese and slightly American, that's what makes Tiger & Bunny such a successful dub. The American hero stereotypes are better done in the English Language and feel more authentic than in Japanese.
4. Tenchi Muyo
Another classically dubbed anime this time with Tenchi Muyo. What makes this dub so special is that a good majority of their choices were veterans of American cartoon voice acting; Ellen Gerstell, Matt K.Miller, Debi Derryberry and Jennifer Darling have years of experience between them and they have even done live action film. There are very few anime who have the same treatment that's not a Studio Ghibli.
3. Nerima Daikon Brothers
I remember reading that many of the voice actors in Funimation, were theater actors, and if there is one series that really showcases that talent it's Nerima Daikon Brothers; it's not easy to sing in a dub but they really pull it off and we even see a new range from voice actors that we never expected them to have.
2. Fairy Tail
The most professional voice acting I've ever witnessed, Funimation really looked after this one, I mentioned raw emotion earlier and it's taken to new heights in Fairy Tail. Rage, tears, comedy, everything is on show, the best dub Funimation have ever done.
1. Pokemon
No seriously, I'm not suffering from head trauma, I'm not being paid by 4Kids or Pokemon Group to say this, neither am I drunk; the Pokemon dub is the best dub I've ever seen. When I watch the Japanese version I don't recognize it at all, I'm part of the crowd where I believe Ash Ketchum will always be Ash Ketchum and not Satoshi. It didn't even bother me when they switched actors later in the Ruby & Sapphire series and who can forget the iconic original theme of Pokemon. How many people still sing that song at conventions.
For everything that 4Kids put us through, remember the only thing they did right.
