Jujutsu Kaisen 0

Yuta Okkotsu lives with an unbearable weight on his shoulders, followed by a curse, that of his dead best friend, Rika.  The power this curse grants Yuta brings him to the attention of Satoru Gojo, who welcomes the troubled teen to Jujutsu High School.  Here, Yuta begins training alongside a trio of highly skilled First Year students as he seeks to control Rika’s power and perhaps break the curse on her.  Unfortunately, one of Jujutsu High’s former students is about to return to settle an old score.  Though only beginning his own journey, Yuta must confront the pain of his past to pave a way for his future.

Jujutsu Kaisen has quickly risen to become one of the most popular Anime of the new decade.  For me though, I’ve tried several times to get into it but just haven’t been able to.  Sure it looks pretty and the action is admittedly good but I cant get into the main trio of Itadori, Fushigoro and Kugisaki and their mentor, Gojo.  So it’s kind of funny that a movie that focuses on another set of characters I did like, plus a character that’s yet to make his appearance in the main series (to my knowledge) ends up proving to be the kind of experience I wanted from Jujutsu Kaisen to begin with.  This prequel film, which has gone on to become one of the most successful Anime film in history, has a better lead character than Itadori, gives viewers more time with fan favorites and, best of all, offers a thrilling, scary and emotionally charged stand alone story that requires very little knowledge of Jujutsu Kaisen to enjoy.
 

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City

The sleepy town of Raccoon City is about to get a nasty surprise.  Returning home for the first time in years, Claire Redfield finds herself trapped as a viral outbreak ravages the small town, turning its denizens into hordes of the undead.  At the same time, a simple search and rescue mission finds Claire’s brother, Chris, and his S.T.A.R.S Alpha Team walking right into ground zero of where the nightmare began. With time running out before both are overrun, the Redfield siblings and a small group of survivors must band together to reunite and escape before its too late.

While it might be the most financially successful Video Game Movie franchise of all time, the Resident Evil films have never been anything but “meh” at best, terrible at worst.  Critics wrote them off as more dumb, visually overblown action fare and longtime fans of the franchise decried them for ignoring most of the original storyline from the games while pushing their favorite characters to the side in favor of the super powered but dull movie exclusive protagonist, Alice.  Well with Paul W.S. Anderson’s Resident Evil saga finally over, the time has come to relaunch Resident Evil and properly this time.  Welcome to Raccoon City attempts to give franchise fans the experience they’ve longed for with the characters they adore.  Is this reboot what the film series should have been from the beginning?
 

The Resident Evil Retrospective Part 4-Beyond the Evil

Movie Adaptations of popular Video Games are nothing new to the world, they just generally aren’t considered great.  The past few years have seen exceptions to the rule with Pokemon: Detective Pikachu, Mortal Kombat (2021) and the Sonic the Hedgehog movies becoming positively received blockbusters.  That wasn’t always the case. For each of those aforementioned success stories, there’s Super Mario Bros., Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, and every Uwe Boll movie ever made.  Given how popular the series had been upon release, it was inevitable that Resident Evil would get the big screen treatment.  Today, it holds a number of records in this regard including becoming the Video Game Movie with the most sequels and highest grossing Live Action Video Game franchise.  That’s amazing right?  Well…not really.

 

T5W#376-Top 5 Moments from the 2nd Resident Evil 4 Remake Story and Gameplay Trailers

We got a ton of big Video Game trailers and announcements last week from Silent Hill getting in on the big Remake craze to a bloody and epic new look at Final Fantasy XVI.  Arguably the biggest news that kind of pushed everything else to the side was Capcoms mind blowing presentation of not just a new trailer for Resident Evil 4 Remake but also gameplay footage too.  This has easily become my most anticipated game of 2023 (with Final Fantasy XVI up there too, damn that trailer looked nice if a bit intense).  Seeing as how I’ve been spending most of this month in the Resident Evil universe because of my RE Retrospective Special, I’m surprised I haven’t dedicated more time to RE themed Top 5s.  That changes today as for today’s Top 5 Wednesday I take a look at my Top 5 Moments from the 2^nd Resident Evil 4 Remake Story and Gameplay Trailers.  As the title implies, I’ll be looking at moments from both the new and more fleshed out story trailer and the accompanying gameplay presentation.  Let’s get to it.

 

Blood: The Last Vampire

The year is 1966.  On the eve of the Vietnam War, an American Military Base in Yokota receives a mysterious visitor: a beautiful Japanese girl looking to attend school nearby.  What they aren’t aware of is this girl is here to save them from a danger far worse than the forthcoming war.  Creatures of the night, known as Chiropterans, hide in plain sight among the humans.  As students and staff quietly fall victim to their hunger, only Saya has the skill and abilities to face them on even ground.  There’s a reason for that: Saya isn’t quite Human herself.  No…she is the last “original.”

Blood: The Last Vampire is a unique experience of an Anime.  As a short film, it delivers all that it promises and more in its short 45min runtime.  You’ve got scares, mystery, genuinely terrifying monsters, cute schoolgirls wielding Samurai swords, and an artstyle that is unlike anything seen in most Anime of its kind.  There is the other edge of that sharp blade, meaning because its so short, there is a lot to be desired.  But overall, considering I just had the painfully soulless (and often times cruel) experience of watching its successor, Blood-C, Blood: The Last Vampire is a masterpiece by comparison…which I know in many circles it already was. 
 

The Resident Evil Retrospective Part 3-Rebirth of Evil

While it sold well, Resident Evil 6 was a failure with critics and the fanbase.  The near universal consensus was that the games had strayed too far from their survival horror roots and had become all out action blockbusters on the scale of Gears of War or Call of Duty.  And when one of your protagonists is capable of punching enormous boulders while inside a dormant volcano…well let’s just say it was time for Capcom to seriously reconsider their approach for the next mainline entry.  Because it’s Resident Evil, a 7^th game was inevitable.  The only question was, how would Capcom go about righting the wrongs of the last few games and return the franchise to its glory days of Resident Evil 4?

 

T5W#375-Top 5 Otakon 2022 Cosplays

While I could obviously do this kind of Top 5 the week after a Convention Highlights list, I like saving cosplay themed Top 5 lists for October, you know, Halloween and all.  While I think 2023 will be a bigger year for me when it comes to Conventions (not missing another Katsucon), 2022 saw me return to my first full Otakon in 3 years (last one was 2019).  You can check out the highlights list from back in August right here: (http://gundamanimeblog.blogspot.com/2022/08/t5w364-top-5-otakon-2022-moments.html).  Today however, I’ve got the usual tough job of choosing my 5 favorite cosplays from one of my favorite places on Earth and trust me, it never gets easier, sorting through thousands of pics and cosplays, and I freaking love it.  Ok, enough stalling, here are my Top 5 Otakon 2022 Cosplays.

Blood-C Part 3 Episodes 9-12

Saya’s happy little life crumbles around her as her school and friends fall to a merciless attack by the Elder Barins.  Haunted by visions she doesn’t understand, Saya is now at her weakest and most vulnerable.  At last, those who have been pulling the strings in a terrifying experiment reveal themselves and divulge the truth.  Is Saya the kind and happy Shrine Maiden fighting to keep a promise to her mother?  Or is she something else entirely…something that has been asleep for far too long and now seeks revenge?  The whole truth can now be told.

I really hate it when I’m right sometimes.  Blood-C has done quite a job wasting time with being cryptic and frustrating that even if it delivered answers in the finale, nothing it could give me would be satisfactory.  Well the curtain was lifted from behind this tale of extremely bloody mayhem and…I have no idea if I want to see things “resolved” in Blood-C: The Last Dark, even if they are actually resolved.
 

The Resident Evil Retrospective Part 2-Evolution of Evil

The road to the next mainline Resident Evil game was a long and arduous one.  Several different versions reached various states of development before either being scrapped, picked apart piece by piece, or being remade into entirely new franchise…yeah some might forget that Devil May Cry started life as a build for a Resident Evil sequel.  Low and behold, three years after Resident Evil Zero dropped on the family friendly Nintendo Gamecube, the next chapter of the horror franchise would arrive and wouldn’t just herald a new direction for the series but the gaming landscape as a whole. 
 

T5W#374-Top 5 Bleach Movies

Bleach fans rejoice, the long wait is finally over.  10 years after its Anime ended rather unceremoniously, one of the original Big Three has returned to finish the original Manga story in Bleach: Thousand Year Blood War.  I’ll be honest, I kind of stopped watching the Anime after the first break in the Arrancar War and stopped reading a little farther into the Manga afterwards.  Ergo, I cant exactly shine a light on Bleach’s best TV Moments.  However, I have seen all of the Bleach theatrical adventures (including the Live Action Feature).  I suppose that’s more than adequate for a Top 5 this week in honor of the return of one of the OG Big Three.  So I’m counting them down, these are the Top 5 Bleach Movies.

Blood-C Part 2 Episodes 5-8

Saya has won many battles against the Elder Barins but not without cost.  Lives has been lost and now the Elder Barins speak to her directly, warning her to “honor the covenant.”  Plagued by messages she doesn’t understand, Saya’s plight only gets worse when the Elder Barins attack both her school and her friends.  Now even the daylight isn’t safe anymore.  Will Saya be able to save her friends and her home before the Elder Barins destroy them all?  Or is this just the beginning of a larger calamity about to befall the beautiful student?

Man, talk about be careful what you wish for.  Last weeks first set of Blood-C episodes felt a little underwhelming due to the fact that Saya’s “happy life” was at times annoying and other times you could tell something wasn’t right about it and wanted to find out what it was.  Well we didn’t find out much of the latter but damn, things kicked a little into high gear, intense gear actually.  It was raining blood and numerous limbs to an uncomfortable degree…so horror Anime stuff, no biggie right?
 

The Resident Evil Retrospective Part 1-Genesis of Evil

It is arguably the most popular and successful horror franchise in gaming.  With a number of critically acclaimed games, several CG Anime Spin Off films, and the most financially profitable Live Action Video Game franchise in history (sad to say), there is hardly a Gamer or Otaku alive who hasn’t heard of Resident Evil.  It’s been a topic on my blog every once in a while due to a hefty amount of Anime influences you can spot in its world building, characters designs and well crafted action sequences.  For this, fittingly the month of October, the Gundam Anime Corner is going to be taking another retrospective look at his legendary horror saga, starting from its PS1 roots and taking us to the current PS5 generation and even dedicating some time to those aforementioned movies.  Choose your weapon, get your miniskirt or barrette and get ready to punch some freaking boulders.  Welcome Dear Readers to the Resident Evil Retrospective.
 

T5W#373-Top 5 Moments from Mobile Suit Gundam SEED

It’s hard to believe that it’s been 20 years since Mobile Suit Gundam SEED first brought the Gundam franchise into the new millennium in a big way.  Love it or hate it (me it’s fine, it’s nowhere near as bad as Seed Destiny), SEED had a popularity so massive which hadn’t been seen since the days of Mobile Suit Gundam Wing (at least in Japan anyway).  This was all thanks to a mix of  impressive mecha designs, high flying action, pulse pounding music and iconic Jpop OPs and EDs, and, maybe most importantly, the character drama surrounding childhood leads Kira Yamato and Athrun Zala, who’s handsome character designs were beloved by a legion of female fans (not unlike the Gundam Boys of Wing).  So with Gundam SEED turning 20 today, a Wednesday of all days, I’m gonna use todays Top 5 Wednesday to look at my picks for favorite moments from this mega milestone in the Gundam Saga.  It’s my Top 5 Moments from Mobile Suit Gundam SEED.

 

Blood-C Part 1 Episodes 1-4

For Saya Kisaragi, life on the surface is perfect.  She’s a klutz but a well meaning young girl who loves her father, her school, her friends, even those who don’t care for her.  When the sun goes down and school ends, Sayas true mission begins.  Armed with an ancient sword an abilities beyond that of a normal human, Saya wages a one woman war against a legion of demons known as the Elder Bairns.  Yet as hard as she fights to protect the world she loves, Saya cant help but notice that her perfect life may not be so perfect…

BOO Dear Readers.  Welcome to the month of October, the month of scares, ghouls, monsters and other things that go bump in the night.  For the last few years now I’ve tried to leave the month open to a more darker, horror themed Anime.  This month we’re getting a slew of Vampire related titles starting today with the latest iteration of the Blood franchise: Blood-C.  Based on the hit short Anime film Blood: The Last Vampire (we’ll be looking at that later this month), Blood-C has an…interesting beginning that’s both annoying but also very peculiar.  Perfect looking girl with a perfect looking life who also slays demons in her nighttime hours?  This might be worth looking into.