Sometimes I'm faced with anime that doesn't really help convince the naysayers that what we as Otaku watch is quality entertainment.
Princess Lapis is extremely powerful but has a terrible habit of destroying things with her Magic Eraser ability, hoping to teach their daughter more responsibilities, the King and Queen banish Lapis to the other side of the world tasking her to make her way back to the Diamond Palace, joined by her sprite friend, her immortal bodyguard and royal tutor, Lapis makes it her mission to return home while crossing paths with many tyrannical rulers and wizards along with a persistent sorceress who collects young female warriors to fight for her.
Thanks to this anime, I'm now sick of pudding, this is a fantasy gag anime where everything is put into as much cliches as possible, our rogues gallery includes a gold digging ruler who over taxes her people for stupid reasons, a nerd obsessed with a certain plant food wants to destroy a forest filled with Pudding and a bunch of sickly brothers obsessed with fitness forces an entire town to workout to death, along with Topaz who wants Lapis to herself, it's a pretty lame anime for what looks like a grand setting, sadly no where near Slayers level of high fantasy.
Not heard the dub but I doubt it's worth listening to.
I wonder if this is what Star vs the Forces of Evil was inspired by, they have the same basic plot after all.
Final Verdict: A lame comedy that leaves you feeling drained giving you no appetite for Pudding.
This one's a doozy, Tekken the Motion Picture.
Right from the beginning we see child Kazuya comfort his friend Jun until father of the year Heihachi arrives to throw Kazuya off a cliff for being weak.
Kazuya survives selling his soul to the devil for revenge.
Jun now an Interpol agent working with Lei Wulong, infiltrate the Tekken tournament set up by Heihachi Mishima in order to investigate what the Mishima Zaibatsu are up to on a private island where the tournament is held.
Kazuya reunites with Jun but Kazuya is fixated on his revenge, surviving run ins with the Williams Sisters sent by Lee Chaolan, along with other fighters and beasts while Lei Wulong with Jack and a mysterious girl finds Dr Bosconovitch for answers as to what's going on.
All leading to a climax with Kazuya fighting Heihachi to the death while Jun helplessly looks on.
This movie has the same problem as most Fighting game anime, it nevers takes full advantage of the extended cast of characters instead only focussing on a small handful of plot relevant characters, would've been nice to see what Paul, King and Yoshimitsu could do but they are limited to cameo only, the story is a weird mash up of the first three Tekken games with the least content coming from Tekken 3, it's only when you really play later games where you see how much of a curveball the cast is in terms of personalities with Lee Chaolan suffering the most, not helped by a laughable dub that contains some god awful acting.
You are much better off playing the games, at least you can choose which character to focus on story wise.
Final Verdict: A poor attempt to translate the Tekken games into anime, failing to take advantage of it's extended cast in favour of a poorly mashed up plot.
Back to schedule with KO Century Beast.
Earth is split into two, the Northern hemisphere ruled by the beasts and the Southern hemisphere ruled by the humans, the cause of the split made by a falling out between Gaia and Uranus over the evolution of the planet, Nature vs Technology. Uranus attacks the Northern hemisphere with villain duo V-Darn and V-Sion with their manic devil pixie named Akumako.
Professor Password leaves his granddaughter Yuni in the hands of four beasts, the tiger Wan, the bird Bud, the mermaid Mei Mer and the turtle Tuttle. Yuni is the key to Gaia and the Totem Guardians of Earth, Sea and Sky.
It's up to Wan and co to lead the group to Gaia to stop Uranus' attack even if they're too stupid to succeed.
With all that lore, very clumsily put together, the fact that it's a comedy really makes it difficult to take seriously not made any easier by both the American and British dubs treating it like a gag comedy, the British dub in particular being hilariously terrible.
Other than Tuttle I never found any of the beasts had any real ability to do their job properly, the anime is built in a way that should make them way stronger than their forms and comedic personalities suggest, it's kind of a let down that they failed to take advantage of the setting they were given. I was half expecting the franchise to be bigger as well.
Final Verdict: KO Century Beast lacks the agency that the plot demands and leaves it's characters to clumsily stumble through the anime through sheer dumb luck.
This wasn't on my short list to review but with the tragic passing of Kazuki Takahashi today, I feel we should look at the work that made him a household name.
Ignoring a portion of Yu-Gi-Oh zero, the anime starts with the card game Duel Monsters, Yugi is the resident expert, able to transform into a more confident, taller and cooler persona when actually playing the game curtesy of his necklace, the Millennium Puzzle, this draws attention from many different villains including rich business mogul Seto Kaiba, Duel Monsters creator Pegasus, the thief Bakura and the rare hunters led by Marik Ishtar, Yugi quickly gets drawn into a card game thousands of years in the making as his confident persona reveals himself as the great Egyptian Pharoah Atemu.
Everything from god cards, millennium artifacts and the very souls of everyone involved, Yugi and friends embark on a card game adventure you'll never forget. It's time to duel!
Adventure is the right word for this behemoth of an anime, I don't think any other toy anime went this far into the lore that Yu-Gi-Oh did. The early episodes didn't quite gather the rule set for the card game until Battle City which was the anime at it's strongest, it was weakest when it had to think of filler arcs such as the Orichalcos and virtual world arcs.
Very much like Beyblade, it embraces the absurdity of it's cheese and creates an experience you won't forget.
4kids did dub this but it's actually their best dub especially Dan Green as Atemu and Eric Stuart as Kaiba, although Pegasus is wonderfully camp, Bakura incredibly sinister and Joey oddly Brooklyn; it's any wonder the franchise has become so meme worthy in recent years.
Final Verdict: What started as a violent manga about an ancient Egyptian gambler became one of the best loved card game franchises of all time and it wouldn't have been possible without the genius of Kazuki Takahashi the true King of Games.
Rest in Peace.
I have reviewed the OG Beyblade before but not it's other series, I'll save V-Force for a bad day and go straight to G-Revolution.
Tyson having twice become world champion is helping some kids learn Beyblade when he gets challenged by a scrappy kid named Daichi, the young Beyblader proving to be a match for Tyson. At the same time, the next World Championship is announced, Bladebreaker teammates Kai, Max and Ray decide to return to their homes with the intention of taking Tyson's title much to his surprise, left having to team up with Daichi, Tyson will face rivals old and new to reclaim his title, but a force known as BEGA awaits to disrupt the sport.
G-Revolution has no business being this awesome, it takes an already silly premise of battling spinning tops and turns it into a proper sports anime, it ups everything up to eleven with the battles, the characters and the ultimate edgelord Kai Hiwatari.
This is how you make your cheese world class, the type of cheese you only have with the finest wine.
Dub is still excellent and the commentators Brad Best and AJ Topper remind me of such duos as Wiz & Boomstick of Death Battle and Arin & Dan of Game Grumps.
Final Verdict: Ignore every other Beyblade season and just watch this one, you'll never see cheese like this ever again.
