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.
This feature covers certain topics too small to make into a full post, the name "Endless Wardrobe" refers to my own wardrobe that housed my entire collection of anime dvds before I moved them under the bed and is now a place for videos I only keep because there is nothing to replace them with, so here begins the Endless Wardrobe.
Needless did it first
Anyone who watched the Needless anime the first time around complained about the apparent blatant ripoff of Gurren Lagann, however the Needless manga predates anything Gurren Lagann related and you'll find that Gurren Lagann ripped off Needless' unique designs. Saying that Gurren Lagann is still better.
Wrath of Tobias
Ash Ketchum has had his fair share of defeats in Pokemon Leagues over the years but by far the most controversial loss was against silver haired Gary-Stu character Tobias near the end of the Sinnoh League. He had largely no background, very little characterization and has a team of Legendary Pokemon. Even after Darkrai is finally defeated he pulls out a friggin Latios. It's unclear whether the rest of his team were legendary Pokemon or not but the point is it ruined what was a really good series but the gamers are as much to blame for this as well. Tobias represents what a lot of Pokemon Trainers get to in the games long after finishing, beating everyone with a group of legendaries and standing above all else looking down on the region with a troll like smile.
I'm guilty of this as well, especially in the first few games, I'm so confident in certain Pokemon that I get this happen when they lose.
Goku & God
Anyone still keeping up with the Dragonballz franchise is familiar with the new anime film that comes out next week in Japan in which Goku battles the god of destruction. Everyone should know the Dragonballz story by now but at this point I can't believe how much it still goes on nearly 20 years after the anime finished, not to mention how embarrassing the stories have got.
Within the last few years, Vegeta has a brother, Bardock is thrown back in time where he is actually the legendary super saiyan, a live action film happened.........And now to make sure trolls always win "Who'd win fantasy battles" argument, Goku now fights and will surely defeat a god. Toriyama please kill this franchise.
I've recovered enough to start reviewing again despite coughing up lungs as I'm typing, so I've got prepared the first of many reviews of the Sakura Wars Franchise, first up it's the 3rd OVA Ecole De Paris
Before we begin I must note that every OVA in this franchise is part of the canon of the video game series and each episode shows a particular part of the story not seen in the games and therefore each episode doesn't directly link to the last one.
We start off learning about how lead female Erica Fontaine joins the Paris Floral Assault Unit and her meeting with Glycine Bleumer. (Yes she's named after a chemical used in food additives, cosmetics and a finishing agent for metal)
We learn a lot about the clueless Erica in one episode including her trademark stage performance, her narcolepsy, her love of cake, the tendency to pray to angels spinning around her own head and getting arrested for accidentally running into Lobelia Carlini. (More on her later) Her ditzyness doesn't last long when a demon comes along and Erica & Glycine fight it, Erica proves to be remarkably capable in combat, more so than the original Floral Assault Unit on their first attempt.
We move on to Episode 2 and Ichiro Ohgami has magically arrived along with child character Coquelicot, but the episode focuses on how Lobelia Carlini joins the team. At the start we find out that she's a notorious criminal with demon like powers who every so often plays the Virgin Mary to depressed men. (It makes more sense in context)
Catching Lobelia however is a different matter, so the commander of the unit decides to trap Lobelia in a town and destroy it around her to make it hard to escape while using chess as a visual aid to display the tactics. Even that wasn't enough so the vice commander takes her down with a sniper rifle containing a paralyzing bullet. At this moment we come to my favorite quote.
"Actually my aim was off, I was trying to kill her, after all I do value my own life"
That was the vice commander's words when it was mistakenly believed that he missed on purpose. That is a lesson to all characters who mistakenly let villains live and wonder why they get their arses kicked afterwards.
The final episode features an epic battle against a rogue test armor possessed by the enemy, also Ohgami is trying to write a letter to his commander about how things are going, (Hanabi also magically joins the group) we get a bigger insight into the character's motives and personalities and it's nice to see a selfish character among the group who's only doing it to free herself from a lengthy prison sentence.
Erica & Ohgami battle the rogue armor while the others do their powers combined act to help them; I must mention the dub at this point, compared to the other dubs within the franchise this is probably the best one but doesn't lend itself well to the fight scene in the episode.
We end the OVA with an image of a giant revolver underneath the Arc De Triomphe, (let that sink in for a second) remember this and the name "Douglas Stewart" on the rogue armor for another time. (If mentioned in comments please use spoiler blanks)
This is nice OVA series but like the others it already expects you to have played the game beforehand and with no localization it becomes extremely hard to understand. Plus it's missing this scene.
No one is that perky in the morning but considering she sleeps for roughly 15 hours a day it's any wonder she's always perky.
Final Verdict: It's worth a watch but can lead to the expensive hobby of game importing, and while Japanese Dreamcasts & PS2s are surprisingly common the prices aren't.
Villain Songs are a core part of any good Animation production whether it be "Poor Unfortunate Souls" or the gripping "Hellfire" but some are just bizarre full stop so here are the Top 10 Most Bizarre Villain Songs.
Rules this time that it covers all forms of Animation including anime so lets begin.
10. "Money is Such a Beautiful Word" from Tom & Jerry: The Movie
This song tried to be too much like a Disney Villain song but fails to hit the mark, it doesn't help that you're singing with a lawyer with a creepy voice. Although a fat dog dancing with his Skateboard certainly comes under weird.
9. "Nothing Can Stop the Smooze" from My Little Pony: The Movie
Behold as we see the Pokemon Muk in his role before breaking into Pokemon. Made even more appealing by the ship powered by enormous bra sails.
8. "In the Dark of the Night" from Anastasia
Apparently the underworld is full of singing bugs which takes a lot off the effect of this awesome villain song.
7. "Team Rocket's Theme Song" from Pokemon
Sang every now and again as a change from the motto this awesome song features gratuitous rolling and strobe light effects. Although with Team Rocket being more dignified these days we no longer see any songs.
6. "Elmer Fudd: Wabbit Slayer" from Looney Tunes
This kind of cheats seeing as it was never seen in an actual cartoon but makes up for it by being awesome none the less. Have a see for yourself.
It's a fan made video but the song is still awesome.
5. "Yami no Baroque" from Mermaid Melody
Courtesy of the Black Beauty Sisters who are rather close for sisters, this song plays as the villain's main form of attack. What makes this funnier to watch is that their song is better than the Mermaid's songs.
4. "All Villain Songs" from Nerima Daikon Brothers
Every villain has a song in this anime, although my personal favorite comes from the fortune teller with the lyric "Cosmic Erection", this is the same series that contains an all singing, all dancing song for withdrawing money.
3. "I Can Change" from South Park: The Movie
Saddam Hussein can really bust moves in this film by break dancing, all the while trying to convince Satan he's not as bad as he really is.
2. "Evilmainya" from Freddie as FRO7
Singer Grace Jones singing as a cobra to dancing gestapo and KKK members. In fact TV Tropes described it better with "KKK Members on Roller Skates doing the Macarena", let that sink in for a second.
1. "The Music Meister" from Batman: Brave and the Bold
But nothing creates such a scene than the Music Meister, one of the most well received non-canon Batman villains since Harley Quinn back in the 90s cartoon. The whole episode is a musical with some brilliant singing from the Meister himself, in fact he almost succeeds on a global level by turning the world into a musical crime fest, before receiving the Batman trademark hook.
If there's any I missed do say so and I'll try and reply, see ya next time.
Another British export for you to digest, today's review is for 1992 animated feature Freddie as FRO7.
Very much a pet project for the writer and director who used bedtime stories he told his son about his favorite toy frog being a secret agent as the main plot for the film, which is sweet but very flawed as the film bombed on release, there's no DVD release, you can still get VHS and I have a copy of it. There is an American version called Freddie the Frog but it's not as good as the original British version. So what's the plot?
In a French micro nation believed to be Monaco but not in the way we know it, a young prince gets turned into a frog by his evil aunt who also killed his family. His aunt, Messina is a shape-shifter and sorceress which makes her top of the evil list in terms of villains. The Prince whose name is Frederic has powers of his own in the form of telekinesis and psychic manipulation, which comes in handy numerous times through out the film.
With no way to change back, Frederic spends the rest of his youth as a frog and grows up into a human-frog hybrid that would make the ninja turtles proud. The beginning of the film is entirely in flashback and after what seemed like a long time we come to present day where Freddie as he is named now works for the French Secret Service, god knows why, I'd just go with it; it's at this point we go into our main plot where Britain's landmarks are being stolen by a mysterious fog, with no one available to solve the mystery the Brigadier General hires Freddie to take the case, he is joined by a Scottish Weapons Expert, un-originally named Scotty and a Martial Artist who looks like April O'Neil's British cousin named Daffers. (short for Daphne apparantly)
While obtaining information we learn of the next target which is Big Ben, in between we get the villain song "Evilmania" which has a number of characters marching during the song which managed to somehow pass the censors.
Once our heroes are caught and taken to the villains lair we meet Messina again in snake form alongside a chubby bearded man named El Supremo with the big booming voice of Brian Blessed.
After a brief moment we hear the big evil plan; apparently El Supremo is using the energy stored in the monuments to put everyone in the country to sleep so he can invade the country unchallenged, he does this by removing the historical energy from the monuments which I assume is ectoplasm from historical people but it's never made clear what it actually is.
With Freddie and Scotty taking a dip in the ocean, Daffers is kind of brainwashed into being a follower, I say kind of because she maintains slight control of her mind.
Meanwhile Freddie & Scotty are saved by the Loch Ness Monster who is friends with Freddie from the flashback part. After a bizarre song, Nessie and the other Loch Ness creatures tie up the submarine fleet with seaweed to stop them while Freddie & Scotty join Daffers for the first of the big fight scenes, played to music by the band Asia. (That's awesome)
Freddie then stops the big gemstone that's absorbing the monument energy by throwing it away which is enough to break it, that's what you get for using cheap gemstone. We then move onto fight two with more music by Asia, this time joined by El Supremo. The heroes beat El Supremo which leads nicely into the final fight between Messina & Freddie which finishes slightly anti-climatic with Messina escaping in bird form, and so ends the adventure of Freddie the Frog.
This is a very cheesy film listed under the so bad it's good category. It serves as a good example of how not to apply your own artistic view, especially when all you got to go on is a bedtime story and a selection of 80s & early 90s power ballad cds. It deserves cult status but the license has never been renewed and a DVD release is unlikely considering the failings of it's release. A soundtrack still exists for an expensive price as it's super rare and VHS tapes still hang around in various discount stores and ebay.
Although to give you a treat and seeing as it's unlikely to be taken down I shall link you to the Youtube upload.
View the rest of the parts on Youtube, my blog isn't a movie theater you know.
So there you go, yet another offering from the British, at some point I'll find something we did that's actually good.
Here's something very few people will argue about, Looney Tunes is arguable the most ground breaking, most significant cartoons of the 20th century, being as well known as Mickey Mouse and Tom & Jerry of the same era made them the big three of...
