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.
The things I watch just to be able to review them. This is Mad Bull 34.
New York is a place overrun with crime and in charge of dealing with it are the 34th precinct lead by Mad Bull and his partner Daizaburo. Mad Bull's methods of dealing with crime mostly involve ultra violent over the top killing whether it be guns or explosives strapped to his ummm crotch as he makes it his mission to rid New York of organized crime and each episode is a different case but you can guarantee that you'll get sex, violence and out right left field bonkers scenes as this was pre dvd era and I didn't have much anime to choose from growing up. I'm glad in a way we left this era behind because it only reinforces the negative stereotypes anime gained from it's early days in the west, so different anime is today that Goblin Slayer is considered horrific to watch yet rape and murder fills out the entire run of Mad Bull 34 and got a home release without being challenged so has the world gone too soft or has anime changed for the better. I'd go with the former seeing as shock and awe is still a tactic some directors still use even if the regulations tighten up.
Final Verdict: Mad Bull 34 should serve as a reminder as to why we don't dominate the medium with ultra violence anymore, it's crude, uncomfortable and just insane and you'll call Goblin Slayer a kid's show by the end of it.
Moving on and I'm still a day behind we review Thumbelina.
In a lone cottage in the woods an elderly lady meets a tiny girl born from a flower. Life progresses as you might think for the tiny girl named Thumbelina as she struggles with her obvious size difference on the farm with many animals singing what the audience already figured out.
It all changes one night when a fairy prince named Cornelius meets Thumbelina and shows her the world. Happy that she's not the only tiny person in the world she immediately falls in love with Cornelius but numerous animals fall in love with Thumbelina and each try and snatch her away for their own nefarious needs often told in terrible songs.
Corny love story is corny and fashion sense is even worse. Don Bluth could have made a bit more effort in making more nightmarish villains but a few love sick animals will have to do. Cornelius was not much help in this, he gets frozen for a bit proving that he's not that good at his job which may turn into a running theme for these reviews.
These days it's easy to make fun of and to be honest Swan Princess is a better Disney knock off which is not really a compliment. It's any wonder the princess and prince characters have changed so much considering what we had growing up.
I was meant to post this yesterday but I was so tired I practically passed out on the bed. As a way of releasing the stress of what has been a very difficult year, the month of November I will be reviewing some terrible cartoons and anime, requests are open and I may have to miss a couple of days due to an imminent house move so I start the ball rolling with Goldie Gold and Action Jack.
Goldie Gold is the world's richest girl and addicted to action, protecting her is reporter action Jack who together uncover crimes and stop evil organisations with the power of bottomless money.
First problem of this series is obvious, how absurd Goldie's unending supply of riches is as she seems to get out of all problems through convenient gadgets and seems to have a mansion in every possible place in the world.
Second problem is that Action Jack is a terrible bodyguard as his attempts at saving the day are easily thwarted by the episode villain.
And finally both are generally terrible at their jobs as they seem to botch their way out of trouble either through convenient gadgets or dumb luck when they should've been killed at least 25 times that's two per episode.
The plot is ridiculous, the characters are incompetent and it's an obvious Richie Rich knock off.
I normally refrain from ranting about anything but I feel the recent controversy around this show needs clearing up.
High Guardian Spice is a show that streaming site Crunchyroll is producing as it makes strides in trying to compete on the level of Netflix but the trailer had people talking and here's why.
1. It's not even a trailer, it's much closer to a behind the scenes documentry.
2. From what we know of the basic premise it's a show that looks to be jumping on the recent sucess of My Hero Academia a.k.a the trend of having a school for anything including heroes, guardians or hunters.
3. It's designs are generic and wouldn't be out of place in precure or little witch academia.
4. It mentions a lot about the diversity of it's staff being all female despite the fact that's actually not diversity, please read a dictionary.
5. Previous attempts at marketing a product with it's diversity didn't end well.
6. Just by criticizing this series I'll be classed as ignorant to diversity despite the fact that I'm a supporter of free love for everyone.
7. I don't even know who this series is meant for.
8. Crunchyroll have enough problems since they lost their partnership with Funimation which may lose subscriptions along with some seriously popular shows.
9. The track record for any Western anime series is not great unless your series is Avatar or it was made in France.
10. The Anime and Manga community has never needed help promoting diversity because due to the fact that the Japanese cater for everyone and rarely censor creative freedom you get the broadest most diverse range in the world and no other medium comes close to what it offers; and if your still not convinced here's a list.
Son Goku the most recognised hero of anime has always been voiced by a female VA in Japan.
CLAMP a group of female manga artists have been producing manga for over 30 years long before all female creators became a trend.
Rumiko Takahashi is frequently regarded as the highest paid manga artist.
The longest running anime of all time is about a middle aged woman and her family.
You get the point, diversity is the last thing anime and manga need help with and with it's sub cultures of LGBT friendly shows and frequently ambiguous gendered characters and the general acceptance of all diversities any talk of thinking it's not will be ignored.
May have to bring riot gear for this review, time to review Rick and Morty.
Rick Sanchez is a brilliant scientist however he's a drunk, a deadbeat dad, a sociopath and pretty much has very little or no respect for the human race nor does he care what happens to them as he can change reality in his favour to get out of trouble.
Morty is his grandson and is dragged along for the ride as he joins Rick on his adventures through the multiverse whether he wants to or not.
This is a show on adult swim and despite the amount of people who have told me this is a super intelligent series with mature humour and I need the same level of intelligence to quote on quote "understand it" or be autistic, which I am and by not liking it I'm considered too dumb to enjoy real entertainment.
My verdict: It's okay.
It's definitely one of the best shows adult swim have made but it's not actually the ground-breaking best cartoon ever that everyone praises it to be.
I can enjoy the content it has on screen but with its edge towards ultra violence and the central joke being that its not a good idea to go on adventures with Doctor Who's drunken uncle because you'll probably destroy reality/time/human race just makes the show run on the same level as other adult swim shows with the same violence and mature content, and by that regard it means that I've seen it all before and this is no different and you can't mask it by saying it has a higher IQ.
Again this doesn't mean I hate it but it's nothing I haven't seen before on other adult shows; am I missing something that others see? Maybe but if I'm supposed to understand certain references or need to prove my intelligence to be allowed to even critique this series then that's not going to make me like it more.
