FIF#252-The Mighty Nein

The theft of a powerful relic called The Beacon sends sparks across two kingdoms.  A long simmering war is about to burst if the wrong is not rectified.  To stop the escalating conflict, a team of adventures, thieves, wizards and warriors is assembled to find the Beacon.  They’re hardly the stuff of legends: down on their luck scoundrels with sordid pasts and not so bright futures.  But the fate of several nations rests on their shoulders.  This is where the legend of the Mighty Nein begins.

 
With The Legend of Vox Machina starting to wind down (Season 4 starts early next year and Season 5 has been confirmed as the Final Season), it seems like the right time for Critical Role to launch an animated adaptation of the groups second campaign, The Mighty Nein.  Like Vox Machina, I had no idea what to expect going in outside of recognizing a couple of very often cosplayed characters and that this was done by the same group of table top gaming Voice Actors, who like Vox Machina take on the roles of their real game characters once again.  What I wasn’t expecting was, well a lot.  The Mighty Nein is a very different campaign and story from Vox Machina, in both positive and negative ways, as I took away from the first episode.
 

T5W#536-Top 5 Favorite Cristina Vee Roles

From the moment I first met her during my first Otakon back in 2010, doing the Hare Hare Yuki Dance from Haruhi Suzumiya, Cristina Valenzuela, aka Cristina Vee, has been one of my all time favorite Voice Actresses.  I’ve had the pleasure of getting to meet her a few times over the last fifteen years, including this past weekend at Stellar Con and I even got to show her a pic of us from Otakon 2011 and she asked me if I could send it to her.  Cristina is such a ball of energy and positivity and she brings all of that and more to all the roles she takes on and man does she have a resume from bubbly to dramatic to totally insane.  Seeing as how, as I said, I’ve gotten to meet her once more (trying to think of when I did last see her before this, my first Katsu back in 2015?  Anyway not important atm.), we’re pausing our Godzilla Month IV Top 5’s so I can share my Top 5 Favorite Cristina Vee Roles.

 

Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah

A mysterious ship flies to Tokyo, revealing a crew of Humans from the future who hope to save the past from the threat of Godzilla once and for all.  It seems too good to be true…and it is.  While it seems as if Godzilla is at last gone, a new menace has been birthed to take his place: the three headed Dragon, King Ghidorah.  Against this unstoppable foe, Humanity has only one chance: it must find a way to resurrect the King of the Monsters, it must find a way to bring back Godzilla. 

 
While Godzilla vs. Biollante is hailed as one of the best Godzilla films ever made, when it was released in 1989 it suffered low box office due to the release of another highly anticipated sequel: Back to the Future Part II.  Apparently Toho decided that if time travel worked for one hugely successful franchise, it could work for theirs.  Hence, Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah, a wacky Showa Era style romp with an excellent Hesei Era coat of paint.  Does the return of Godzilla’s arch nemesis for an epic rematch make it better than his last bout with a plant creature no one cared about? (Box office wise anyway).
 

FIF#251-Last Samurai Standing

950 years after the first Samurai appeared in Japan, their time has come to a brutal end with the dawn of the Meiji Era.  Former Samurai warrior, Shujiro Saga, agrees to join a secret tournament with 292 other participants for the chance of an enormous cash prize.  To get said prize, Shujiro and his fellow combatants must seize each others wooden tags…by any means necessary, and make it safely to Tokyo.  For Shujiro, this prize could save his wife, child and entire village from a deadly illness.  But he’ll have to slice his way through almost 300 desperate and dangerous warriors to see his wish come true.

 
The trailers for this new Netflix Series looked cool as heck from the get go.  I mean if you’re a fan of the fast paced action of the Rurouni Kenshin films and some possible slow burn political intrigue featured in FX’s Shogun, then Last Samurai Standing should be a slam dunk right?  Well after checking out the first episode, not sure I’d go that far but there’s definitely more than enough of the aforementioned high octane/bloody action and shadowy mystery that got me locked in.  Is this really the Hunger Games/Battle Royale with Samurai that the trailers promised?
 

T5W#535-Top 5 Monsterverse Fights

While we’re focusing on Godzilla’s home movies from Japan for Godzilla Month IV, today’s Top 5 Wednesday is looking at some of the big moments from Godzilla’s American adventures in the Monsterverse.  Last year, the little Kaiju Universe that could celebrated its 10^th Anniversary with Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire, the 5^th entry in a series that includes Godzilla (2014), Kong: Skull Island (2017), Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) and Godzilla vs. Kong (2021), plus the ongoing Monarch: Legacy of Monsters TV Series.  The Monsterverse has come a long way from the original plans for an American Godzilla Saga that crashed and burned with Godzilla ’98.  But from those ashes rose a franchise that’s delivering all the goods of Kaiju throwdowns and out of this world adventures. And you know what we always come to any of these flicks for, the fights.  So today we’re counting down the Top 5 Monsterverse Fights. 

 
Special Note: To qualify, these have to be clashes that we see play out on screen for extended periods of time.  Yes there’s cutting to human characters but most of the focus is on the Kaiju throwdowns.  That said, I know this might upset some people, but don’t expect to see anything from the 2014 Godzilla on this list.  Yes the atomic breath is a crowd pleaser but I also didn’t pay to see a movie where Aaron Taylor Johnson runs from all the cool stuff we really wanna see.  Anyway, that little tirade out of the way, onto the Top 5.