Happy New Year everybody, now lets start the year by talking about snails. This is the Film Turbo.
Theo is a garden snail who dreams of speed and hopes to be like his idol, 5 Time Indy 500 Champion Guy Gagne, but his obsession has made him an outcast and his brother Chet has to pick up the tab for his misfortunes. But after a near fatal accident with a prize tomato, Theo runs away to be alone but another incident throws him through the nitrous of a dragster giving him the powers of super speed. After another bout of misfortune involving a kid on a trike, Theo and Chet get thrown out of their garden and end up in the run down strip mall of Starlight Plaza where they are captured by Taco worker Tito who brings Theo into the world of Snail Racing; amazed by his speed and encouraged by a gang of racing snails, Tito enters Theo into the Indy 500 to live out his dream.
Now this looks like an idea that would never work but it really isn't that bad. It's very cheesy but like films such as the Brave Little Toaster it takes an idea that has nothing working for it and somehow makes it work.
It does help that the characters are likable, the jokes hit their mark quite well and there's no bad cliches, it's just a film about a really fast snail.
Really Turbo is one of those films that hits the mark as a cult classic film, it's not overly groundbreaking but it doesn't need to be, it tells its story and that's all you need. If you want something more complicated then don't bother with this film, if you're only looking for fun then give this film a shot, you won't regret it.
I'm going to get a lot of flak for this review as I know how popular this show is but I have a hard time defending this show as it just leaves me feeling frustrated. It's Love Live School Idol Project.
Otonokizaka Academy is about to close due to a lack of applicants much to the dismay of student Honoka Kosaka, but she gets an idea after seeing School Idols perform for another school and decides to give it a try with her friends in the hope of drawing in new students to keep the school running.
However her path is littered with obstacles including the student council, a disgruntled Idol fan and the most common trope, overdoing it until you collapse, but Honoka's enthusiasm is enough to create the idol group Muse with it's members in all high school years and with the power of love and friendship and colorful pop songs will keep the school open.
Where have I heard this story before? Oh yeah Girls Und Panzer did it first and better.
Where have I heard Honoka's character before? She's an expy of at least three other anime vocalists and pretty much every female lead in every other shojo series including the majority of Pretty Cure, Pretty Rhythm and too many other shows to name, her character has been done to death.
Now is Honoka's predictable character going to be excused by what she does in the show? Never. What she does is easy to predict, the people who criticize her will always shut up and she will inevitably succeed even in the face of the worst luck.
Are the other characters any better? Not really, I've seen all these other characters before as well with the exception of Nico Yazawa who may not be the best character but she's at the very least original in design for a show like this.
Okay what about the music and the animation and choreography in the music videos? The music is catchy but the actual performances are not that good, the CGI doesn't blend as well as say Super Sonico and the choreography is messy.
There's no dub to judge so what's the diagnosis.
Love Live is okay by anime standards but my god is it horribly overrated.
First off there are much better Idol shows; AKB0048, Aikatsu and even the catalog of Vocaloid's most poptastic music videos offer better viewing.
Second there are better music anime in general; K-On and Super Sonico are amazing, even BECK Mongolian Chop Squad and Black Heaven are worthy watches and I also remind people of the classic Macross franchise as well as one of the oldest music friendly anime franchises of the original Bubblegum Crisis.
And finally despite the fact that I don't like many things that are popular, at the very least the likes of the Shonen Jump stuff, Sword Art Online and Attack on Titan are popular for a reason, I don't see the same with Love Live no matter how many times I watch it, it's not worthy of all the praise it gets. What am I missing? What is the appeal? Is all people want in an anime a bunch of school girls in idol dresses looking pretty and singing and dancing to current day J-Pop music? Or is it because, like Hamtaro it's another ultra safe anime?
I honestly don't know, whatever point I'm missing, I cannot enjoy this show for what it is.
Final Verdict: Love Live does nothing new. It relies entirely on tried and tested story lines, tropes, characters and even existing idol shows. I cannot see why this show is so popular, to me it's okay but horribly overrated.
I really want to do at least one positive review before the year is over as the one after this one isn't going to be a good review, you'll see why then I come to it. But for now lets review the manga only series Waltz no Ojikan.
Tango Minami is a Ballroom dance instructor and school student, however he stopped liking Ballroom and tries to maintain a cool image by doing break dancing much to his mother's dismay. Hime Makimura is a shy awkward girl, who curses her namesake as she feels that she hasn't got the qualities of a princess like her late mother said, however a chance meeting with Tango and a moment of curiosity outside the dance school draws her into the world of Ballroom Dancing, along with help from fellow dancers Yusei and Sumire, not only will Hime become the princess she was always told she could become but Tango will return to competitive Ballroom where he belongs.
There's an obvious reference to the whole Cinderella story and Hime even comments on doing that play, with this memorable quote: "When my class put on a play in Kindergarten, they chose the thin, cute girl with big eyes to play Cinderella, I was Mouse #4" but this is a much better take on Cinderella as a whole. Okay it doesn't feature any of the traditional elements but it doesn't need to, the whole premise is Hime going through a transformation from a girl who felt that she wasn't worth anything to a girl who feels she has a chance to become something great, it's a believable transition from hopelessness to hope and it's all done through her interactions with Tango rather than someone giving her it on a plate much like the Fairy Godmothers normally do. There's a wonderful scene where after tons of dance training she shreds so much weight that when she does enter her first dance competition she looks really beautiful and that's not through just reward that's effort creating a reward and she accomplishes it because she wants to, that's a much better lesson than what Cinderella already teaches us and the ending is such a good payoff as a result that you tend to forget the awkward love triangle from mid book 2 to book 3.
It's a relatively short story, being only three books long, not quite enough for a full series in anime form but none of Natsumi Ando's work has, but I feel it should, it's a great story and deserves some love.
Final Verdict: A perfect way to showcase the Cinderella story in a believable way that's actually achieved through hard work and perseverance, the pay off is worth reading through a few awkward love triangle moments to get to.
I suppose I should do a Christmas review and something I missed the last two years is Itsudatte My Santa.
Santa has an unfortunate fate, no not the actual Santa Claus this is a young man in Japan who is called Santa because he was born on Christmas Eve, this led to some unfortunate teasing and worst, his parents were never around at Christmas or his Birthday so he's never really enjoyed the event until Mai a trainee Santa Claus, arrives to cheer him up, but her magic only lets her conjure up things that start with the Japanese sound "San", during a rather turbulent Christmas Eve the two fall in love and Santa activates Mai's true form which is a rather busty blonde girl. During the night of delivering presents, Santa discovers the true meaning of his birthright. The second episode is a Beach Episode and that's pretty much it.
Well, it's Ken Akamatsu, I'd be worried if there wasn't at least one moment of ecchiness but it does seem rather left field for a short OVA about Christmas, but I can get behind the silliness that's on offer especially when Mai has a Reindeer named Pedro and some of the situations they do get into are hilarious but it is a typical Ken Akamatsu story and the sad thing is, he never really had the time to develop the story more on the Anime side, in it's current form it doesn't really offer enough to really showcase the romance side of things and overall it just feels bland.
Even the animation just gives the feeling of it appearing in a Love Hina episode rather than a different story altogether.
Dub is passable but no where near the standard of the sub.
Final Verdict: It's fine, it's not groundbreaking, it's hardly going to reach the same levels as other Christmas specials and I dare say that Ken Akamatsu has written better Christmas Specials in his bigger works, but it's cheap entertainment and it does it's job.
Time to punish another anime series, this time it's Ladies vs Butlers
Akiharu Hino applies for a place in a prestigious school that teaches well bred young ladies and servants how to act, however he gets an unexpected meet up with his former childhood friend Tomomi Saikyo, a girl who used to torment him when he was younger, his first day doesn't get any better when Selnia Iori Flameheart, nicknamed Drill ends up stalking him for the sake of being a nuisance, from there the rest is a series of poor attempts at fan service as the show pulls no punches about showing lots of nudity to the point where some scenes feel a little uncomfortable.
Then again the school is run by what I can describe as Konata Izumi if she grew up and took a career in teaching, I'm of course referring to School Dean Kaede who could be responsible for the entire school stripping every five seconds.
Again it pulls no punches and suffers badly for it.
But there are some moments that have saved it from a complete write off; Kaoru Daichi's story of actually being female is the type of story Mayo Chiki needed to have in the first place.
Equally moments with Pina are enjoyable as it reminds me how lonely liking anime can be.
Even Selnia who is normally a character I don't like can warrant a few decent scenes.
However the worst character has to be Tomomi; it's suggested that she doesn't want to lose as her motivation for being a bitch but that's not enough, she really is just an outright bitch, much of the series is wasted when the focus is only on her and Selnia having a war of words with Akiharu caught in the middle, it really didn't do much else for an anime that was already bad.
Dub is okay, nothing special.
Final Verdict: The fan service is forced, the dialogue is boring, some uncomfortable moments, and bar a couple of good episodes the whole show is just a mess of mediocrity
