T5W#166-Top 5 Hellsing Ultimate Abridged Episodes

In their latest update on their YouTube page, Team Four Star, the creators of Dragon Ball Z Abridged, announced that this fall, at Youmacon, they’ll be debuting their newest episode of Hellsing Ultimate Abridged, which will also serve as the series finale.  For the last few years, TFS has put out one Hellsing episode every Halloween and why not.  Hellsing is one of the ultimate horror action Anime out there, Ultimate more so than the original that I reviewed here on the Anime Corner a couple of years back.  And much like DBZA, Team Four Star has done a brilliant job giving a heavy dose of humor to a series that they clearly appreciate quite a bit.  So, in the spirit of Hellsing and Halloween, this weeks Top 5 is being dedicated to my Top 5 Hellsing Ultimate Abridged Episodes.  This wasn’t an easy one as TFS’ team of writers have somehow managed to outdo themselves episode after episode.  These were the stand outs.

#5-Episode 1

The one that started it all (no pun intended).  What’s funny (besides the episode as a whole) is that HSA’s debut episode feels both like a pilot and a one off special.  And if it was the latter, that would be just fine.  From the Archer inspired Alucard to the wacky Boondock Saints quoting Alexander Anderson, Episode 1 is a blast to watch from beginning to end and still quotable as hell.  But, naturally, something this amazing couldn’t just be one entry.  Whether it was always the plan to do it all from the get go or not, Hellsing Ultimate Abridged made a lasting impression as powerful as any full season of Dragon Ball Z Abridged.

#4-Episode 6

Cudos to HAS for having such a great cast that’s given as much love as the writers do for Dragon Ball Z Abridged.  Episodes 5-7 have the distinct challenge of being episodes with the least amount of Alucard.  As awesome and bad ass as the Carmen Sandiego King of the Night is, this isn’t a bad thing.  Episode 6 stands out for giving Seras and the Wild Geese a chance to shine.  The innuendo heavy banter between Seras and Mercenary commander Pip Bernedante is the highlight and always produces a ton of laughs.  It was actually a good primer for the next entry on this list.

#3-Episode 7

For all the violence and dark humor, HSA is still based on a very, very dark series.  Much like Dragon Ball Z Abriged, Team Four Star isn’t afraid to let the drama seep in because it is an important part of the source material.  Seras and the Wild Geese get utterly destroyed in this episode and a couple of characters bite the dust big time.  Add in Seras’ horrific backstory and you’ll see this is as dark as HSA has gone in its run.  No matter the bleakness, HSA still has its humor and epic bad ass moments and nothing was more satisfying than watching Seras attain full Vampire status and tear Zorin Blitz to pieces, while darkly declaring,  “You aint the Queen Vampire Bitch here, I AM.  And you know what we Brits always say…God…Save…The Queen”.

#2-Episode 2

The Valentine Brothers have always been some of the best and most fun villains in Hellsing in general.  What definitely helps elevate them in Episode 2 is the unshackled and uneditied voice of GanXinba (who voices Tien on Dragon Ball Z Abridged) as Jan Valentine.  Jeez is he having a blast getting to say whatever the hell he wants without restraint.  It’s both hilarious and true to the vulgar character from the source.  But you’ve also got great moments from Walter, Seras and definitely Alucard facing down Luke cause his 70’ Plasma TV with Adventure Time got blown up…God I love how that scene kicks off.  I could watch this episode on loop for hours.

#1-Episode 8

It took us years to get to this point and it was worth the entire wait.  The return of Alucard, Restraint Level 0, Alucard vs. Anderson and probably the most interesting/entertaining and hilarious conversation anyone has ever had with God and Satan at the same time, there wasn’t a single second of Episode 8 that wasn’t pure gold.  And how many people added Ready to Die by Andrew W.K. to their mix lists as Alucard entered the battlefield blasting it over the PA of a massive boat.  I hate to say it…but the bar has been rained thanks to this penultimate and I hope the Series Finale can match it.  Given Team Four Stars track record with this series though, im confident they wont just match Episode 8, they’ll surpass it.

Supernatural: The Anime Series Part 3 Episodes 9-12

Sam and Dean Winchester cant seem to catch a break.  Sam finds love with a terrified woman only to find she is the target of a powerful werewolf.  Dean feels like he’s found his luck in Vegas only to learn that his “lucky coin” could spell his doom.  All the while, the brothers continue to search for their father, John Winchester.  And what of the Winchester Patriarch?  Well he’s on a quest of his own: to find a gun that can kill any demon with one shot.  Will completing his mission lead John back to his sons or will they get lucky and find him first?

Supernatural is a dark show and im not just talking from an artistic perspective.  This week delved heavily into the real meat of the central story and it isn’t a time at the beach for The Winchesters or anyone they come into contact with.  From cursed lives from birth to abusive parents, once again we got to see that sometimes the monsters from the storybooks can just as easily be real humans.  Though the puppet master behind all of these events is just as scary too.

The second half of this weeks set deals with the aforementioned central story of the series in a couple of unique ways.  First, there was the story of Max, a child with an abusive father and a stepmother who did nothing to stop his pain.  With a homelife like that, it’s no wonder that once he found out he had telekinetic powers that Max would have some issues to work out in a violent way.  Actually, in a way, the theme of neglectful/fearful parents run across three characters this week.  Lily, the girl with the dark touch, was abandoned by her father out of fear.  Max’s dad abused him for the same reason (the alcoholism didn’t help matters either).  And Sam’s dad…well if it’s anything like the series he just doesn’t like the fact that Sam doesn’t want to hunt.  It was fascinating to explore all three parental perspectives and the effect they had on their kids and it could be argued that they had a worse impact than the powers Yellow Eyes has bestowed upon these unlucky kids.  Still, strides were made to make things better…and didn’t turn out that way for anyone.  Max and Lily’s dad sacrificed themselves to protect their families but it remains to be seen if either act was in vein.

Which brings us to Sam and his own developing psychic visions and telekinesis.  After seeing the rampage Max caused with his powers, he does have a bit of a right to be scared out of his mind as to what he could do with his own abilities.  However, something none of the other kids have that Sam does is Dean.  This week we got to see Dean be the voice of reason and the goofball we all know and love, all in an effort to make life a little easier for his little brother.  Sometimes that means making hard calls like breaking the news to Sam that a potential (and sexy, man this show knows how to draw beautiful women) love interest is a Werewolf that cant be saved.  Other times it’s a matter of repeatedly telling Sam that by using his gifts to try and save people, he’s making better strides no matter how small.  We got debates over who can and cant be saved from the darkness and entertaining sibling banter in equal doses, just another reason why the Winchester Boys are so beloved across multiple fandoms.

This week also did a couple of different things storywise.  We got a rare moment of levity with Dean being the victim of a Bad Luck Spirit inhabiting a cursed coin.  The design of the spirit was adorable and I never got tired of his chuckling…or the unfortunate spell of bad luck that fell over Dean.  Episodes from the live action series where the creators could take a break from the darkness and have some fun with this world have been some of the best and Dean’s Vegas disaster certainly ranks up there with them.  We also got an episode to focus soley on John Winchester, Sam and Dean’s dad.  We never got to see too much of his solo activities in the TV Series and, if im honest, I feel like John got a bit of an upgrade.  At the very least we got to see him in full on bad ass hunter mode, complete with his own version of parental counseling of Lily’s dad.  This is certainly a Winchester not to be messed with and I can only imagine how much action is going to unfold when he does (eventually) meet up with the boys.

I cant think of anything to complain about with this weeks episodes.  All of them continued the strong streak of giving Supernatural an Anime shot in the arms.  The visuals were haunting and nightmare inducing (especially Madison’s Werewolf design and anytime we got a look at Yellow Eyes’…well Yellow Eyes). The stories were all well handled as were the tales of all three Winchester Men.  Plus we got some movement made on the central story of Yellow Eyes and his little league of would be X Men that he’s been setting up for a while now.  With this much momentum building up, I’m thinking next week will finally be the week we see a big family reunion and a showdown with the demon that tore them apart.  I hope you’re ready.  See ya next week.

FLCL Alternative

At the cusp of graduating from high school, childhood friends Kanna, Pets, Hijiri and Mosan are content with life carrying on as is.  The fun and carefree like of Kanna is shattered with the arrival of a beautiful pink haired girl on a Vespa scooter: Haruko Haruhara.  Kanna might not want to accept it, but there’s more than change in the air.  Kanna might just possess the most powerful weapon in existence and she might just need that power to save the world.  No pressure right?  Between friendship and departures, love and dislike, giant robots and killer hormones, seventeen has never been this weird for anyone…but that’s life for ya when Haruko Haruhara comes to town.

Im not sure where I should begin with this one.  FLCL Progressive left me in such an uneven state I wasn’t even sure how I should approach FLCL Alternative.  To it’s credit, we were promised Alternative was going to be something very different from FLCL or FLCL Progressive and it lived up to that promise.  Was that a good thing though?  Cause by the end of Alternative I cant really tell if I enjoyed it, felt way too frustrated, or just wondered if my time had been wasted altogether.  There are some good points to FLCL Alternative but on the whole…I just don’t know.

Let’s begin with the cast of characters Haruko has chosen to torment this season.  Kanna, Pets, Hijiri and Mosan had a bond that was hard not to love, especially in the beginning.  While Kanna is supposed to be the Naota/Hidomi of this series, ample time was given to her other three friends to shine and have their own personal dilemmas challenged and explored.  It was kind of hard to pick a favorite amongst the four friends, though I would narrow it down between the gifted and full hearted Mosan or the beautiful and confident Hijiri.  Kanna, however, I felt became a rather irritating link in the chain as things went on…and that ended up being a bit of the point in the grand scheme of things.  From her not wanting things to change between her and her friends and her refusal to take a serious look at her future, Kanna definitely felt grating compared to the others and, for a time, I wondered why we should even care about her.  As for our resident Vespa riding maniac, Haruko, she seems to have eased up a bit since FLCL Progressive and having a bit more fun crashing into the lives of Kanna and her friends.  Gone are her darker aspirations from Progressive and im alright with that.  Part of me wishes we had more of a focus on her than Kanna but while Haruko is the poster child for the franchise, id say she’s always played a more supportive role to the child in question at the center of the story.  She’s still zany and insane, I kind of wish we just had more Haruko than Kanna sometimes.

Like I said though, Kanna’s refusal to grow up was the point and the message of FLCL Alternative is laid out plain and clear by Haruko in the first episode, “Seventeen has arrived.  Life cant wait forever.  It’s shattered just like your teenage dreams”.  This quartet of heroines happens to be the oldest protagonists in FLCL to date.  At a time when they should be looking to the future and deciding what they want to do next, Kanna remains stagnant and some of Alternatives most surprising moments come when that viewpoint is directly challenged and we learn her own selfishness is hurting people in ways she never imagined.  It’s very deep and sometimes heartbreaking, which is funny since Alternative tries to be way more lighthearted than the rather dark Progressive.  Still, moving on is the central theme of FLCL Alternative and while it might seem like its taking its sweet time hammering that message out, the show does so in smart ways.

While there is a good story to tell, I was kind of disappointed by the visuals of the season.  I don’t really think either FLCL Progressive or FLCL Alternative managed to land the same grab bag animation magic of the original FLCL.  Things did get wacky, especially in the final episode, but nothing ever really made me look at the screen in awe.  Even Progressive managed to start each episode out with a distinct, visual artstyle that left an impact (mostly horrified cause they were all Hidomi’s nightmares but hey points for not sticking to a norm like Alternative did).  I feel like the rapidly changing art has always been one of FLCL’s greatest superpowers and Alternative didn’t embrace that nearly enough.  Thankfully, The Pillows continue to excel in their role as soundtrack providers.  I really cant wait to get this soundtrack and Progressives and listen to them back to back with the original FLCL.  Honestly, while it did get a bit old watching a montage of Kanna and company just chilling out and walking around, adding a Pillows song to the mix made it worthwhile.  We even got to hear some updated versions of familiar FLCL tunes like “Little Busters” and “I Think I Can” while also getting a couple of surprise return tracks from FLCL Progressive. 

So, what are my ultimate thoughts on FLCL Alternative?  It’s…a strange chapter to end things on if this is to be the final season of FLCL.  My wish to see everything come full circle and connect across all three seasons was never granted.  I wanted to know more about Haruko’s relationship with Naota lookalike Kanda.  I wanted to know if anyone was an offspring of a previous character.  I wanted…well I wanted something FLCL isn’t exactly prone to doing…making clear sense.  That has never been it’s thing and it isn’t ashamed to admit that.  Still, FLCL Alternative was a very mixed bag for me.  There were some really good character studies and the music is always a win.  However, I think it strayed too far from what made FLCL great in favor of a different approach that didn’t always work for me…im pretty sure I said the same thing about FLCL Progressive but even then there was enough FLCL DNA there to make it feel like a true successor to the original series.  Alternative has a story to tell and it tells it in its own very strange way and ends in a very ambiguous manner that we may never get any real resolution (same could be said about Twin Peaks: The Return, for that matter).  I just wish there was the same fun animation flair that made the series so infamous to go along with Kanna’s journey through adolescence. 

It really is tough for me to grade this one…so im going to settle on giving FLCL Alternative a 7/10.  Who knows, maybe further rewatches of this (and Progressive) will help this sequel grow on me.  I know they say this is the final season but ill always hope we see Haruko Haruhara ride the shooting star again one more time down the line.

FIF#64-Genesis Climber Mospeda

2050 AD-Earth was attacked by a powerful alien force called the Inbit and was conquered while the survivors escaped to Mars.  2080 AD-Humanity attempted to reclaim their homeworld, sending a massive force from Mars…they failed.  Three years later another attempt is made, resulting in greater disaster.  But this time, hope has made it to the surface in the form of Stig Bernard, the last survivor of the 2^nd Mars Liberation Force.  While he is one man, he is armed with the latest weaponry from Mars.  And he is no longer alone.  Amassing a small team of freedom fighters, Stig takes the battle to the Inbit, for freedom, for revenge, for a new tomorrow for the human race.

Like I said last week, the 70’s and 80’s were overly stuffed with Giant Robot Anime, they were the decades of scifi after all.  Many titles kind of clashed together, especially the Super Combiner titles like Combattler V or Beast King Go-Lion (aka Voltron).  So it’s kind of surprising that Genesis Climber Mospeada was the title chosen to be the third season of Robotech (The New Generation) because, much like Southern Cross, what makes it so special?

Well, the praise I can give Mospeada (an incredibly long acronym for…something, ill be sure to add it at the end of this article), at least the mecha designs are a bit more interesting.  On the one hand, its not surprising after all to see why this was a Robotech story candidate: there are transformable fighter planes in space.  The fighters aren’t too badly designed, though I could do without them having their backs look so bulky.  Plus there’s the transforming bikes on the surface.  I definitely got a bit of a Bubblegum Crisis feel from watching Stig combine his pilot suit with the motorcycle to form a battle ready piece of genuine awesome.

Otherwise, Mospeada feels like a slightly better Southern Cross.  The characters are a little better (or at least more mature than Jeanne), but the animation isn’t anything to write home about and the quest to retake Earth from invaders is…well kind of old if im honest.  You can only do a premise like this so many times before it becomes stale and stagnant and the 80’s played this premise to death before the 90’s breathed some life back into it with Macross Plus and Martian Successor Nadesico.  As for the Aliens themselves, theyre own mecha designs aren’t spectacular individually but it was chilling to see them swarm and overwhelm the Mars Strike Force. 

I know this Anime has its fans but im not sure if ill continue on with Genesis Climber Mospeada.  After checking out the three series back to back, I can kind of see why more people love the Macross Saga and not so much the latter two Sagas.  The art is 80’s classic fare but forgettable, the premise has some promise but the first episode doesn’t get things going too quickly and the characters aren’t very stand out either.  The Mecha have cool designs and its always fun to see that Macross/Top Gun style action.  But like Southern Cross, Mospeada doesn’t have much to its legacy besides its Robotech connection…I kind of feel sad.

T5W#165-Top 5 Overwatch Halloween 2018 Skins

It’s that time again folks, that time when Overwatch brings some spooky flair to its regular proceedings.  Overwatch Halloween Terror is back and 2018 has brought some of its best treats yet in terms of new skins for characters.  Seeing as how we’re in the month of costumed fun, why not take a look today at the best new costumes of the season (and a few ill desperately hope I get before the end of the season, one is a garuntee already).  These are my Top 5 Overwatch Halloween 2018 Skins.

#5-Jack O’Lantern Wrecking Ball

Ok ill admit this here…I don’t like Wrecking Ball.  It’s Hamtaro in a Death Ball and it does nothing for me, it actually annoys the heck out of me really.  So why is he on this list?  Cause the skin is very creative.  Yes, it’s a Death Pumpkin but it somehow fits more than WB’s regular skins.  Im sure the Green Goblin is jealous a freaking psycho hamster beat him to this one. 

#4-Swamp Monster Doomfist

One of the first new skins revealed for the event, the thought that first came to mind when I saw this was, “Doomfist looks a lot like that guy from Young Justice who was M’Gann’s rebound after Conner dumped her.”  Thankfully Doomfist is more entertaining than “Neptune’s Beard” and im digging the super buff Abe Sapien (from Hellboy)/Creature from the Black Lagoon vibe they gave to him.  Almost surprising they didn’t go with a Thanos/Infinity War look for Halloween, you know Doomfist would be all over the idea of himself having the Infinity Gauntlet and using it to defeat Overwatch in battle.

#3-Enchanted Armor Pharah

The second I saw this skin revealed I cheered.  It’s not so much that Pharah has become a headless flying huntswoman but that the look bears a heavy resemblance to one Alphonse Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist.  It would make sense wouldn’t it that through some freak accident, Pharah’s soul became bonded to her armor.  Think of the shock one would have thinking she’d been taken down only to see no body in the suit…followed by said bodyless armor unleashing all those Hellfire missiles down upon her enemies.

#2-Banshee Moira

Moira is one of the two characters I “main” in Overwatch (im sure you know who the other is, if not you’ll see her in a second).  Given how she can give and take life away, a Banshee skins is a very nice choice for her.  Able to move and warp around like a phantom ninja (she’s totally Naruto Running), Moira’s always seemed very otherworldly.  I could even see a tragic “what if” Halloween tale of Moira being punished to be in this state for all the crimes she’s committed.

#1-Bride Sombra

Hell yes, both of my mains get new skins for this event.  The Bride of Frankenstein inspired skin for Sombra wasn’t revealed until the launch trailer for the Halloween Terror 2018 event.  And the second I saw it, it became the number one must have on my list.  Not only are new skins rare for Sombra, this one looks like one of her absolute best (I makes me forgive Blizzard for not opening her Demon Hunter skin to those not going to Blizzcon like I thought they would for the event).  Sure her hair isn’t a gigantic black cone but the look is still pretty nice, from the tattered and torn outfit to the greenish/blueish skin.  Sombra is my Overwatch Main and Waifu but even without that, I think she got the best Halloween skin of 2018 in Overwatch.