T5W#420-Top 5 Sailor Moon S Moments

Dear Readers and Sailor Moon fans, our year long look at the original Sailor Moon Anime is about to continue again.  This Friday, we kick off the 4^th Chapter of Usagi Tsukino’s 90s adventures with Sailor Moon SuperS.  And while I haven’t exactly heard good things about this upcoming season, it does have a steep challenge ahead considering where we left things back in May, aka at arguably the high point of the series so far.  Sailor Moon S set a whole new standard for the franchise with some of the strongest storytelling and character work for our five main heroines and especially Chibiusa.  It wasn’t perfect and my displeasure with the character arcs, or lack thereof, of Sailor Uranus and Neptune is well documented.  And while that might come up here and there, we’re not here to talk about what didn’t work about Season Three, but what worked best.  So once again, before we begin SuperS, let’s look back at my picks for the Top 5 Sailor Moon S Moments and celebrate the season that showed Usagi and the others prove beyond the shadow of a doubt they are more than worthy of their status as Legends.

 

Resident Evil: Death Island

Once a popular tourist attraction, The Island of Alcatraz becomes the latest sight of a biological nightmare.  This time, it isn’t bites that turn innocents into the infected, it’s something far more dangerous.  Answering the call to action are a team of longtime fighters in the fight against bioterrorism and the undead: Jill Valentine, Leon S. Kennedy, Chris & Claire Redfield and Rebecca Chambers.  Once more these five will take on the terror they’ve fought against since before Raccoon City.  But will even their combined experience and cunning be enough to prevent a world ending apocalypse?

While they’re certainly far more faithful adaptations than their Live Action counterparts, the Resident Evil Anime movie series isn’t a flawless representation of Capcom’s megahit survival horror franchise either.  Out of the three movies (or four if you think Infinite Darkness was meant to be a movie and was needlessly chopped up into a 4 episode Netflix series) before Death Island, only one of them was actually good, Resident Evil: Damnation.  Everything else was either underwhelming, too familiar or way too stylized.  Death Island presents the most promise, not because of its premise but because it brings together a quintet of franchise legends.  However, just because we get to see Leon and Jill on screen together (for the first time?) fighting side by side with Chris, Claire and Rebecca, doesn’t mean the movie is gonna be good.  In fact, this might be the most disappointing of the RE Anime movies thus far.
 

FIF#188-Beast Wars II: Super Life-Form Transformers

Centuries after the Great War, the battle between good and evil rages on for the Transformers.  The descendants of the Autobots, the Cybertrons, receive a distress signal that leads Lio Convoy and a small squad to the Planet Gaia.  Waiting for them are Destrons, descendants of the Decepticons, who quickly ambush and trap the Transformers on the surface.  In order to survive, the Cybertrons must take on new Animal forms strong enough to strike back at the Destrons and discover the truth about why they have come to Gaia and what mysteries lie at the heart of this mysterious planet.

 
While FIF was on hiatus this summer, a new Transformers movie, Rise of the Beasts, arrived in theaters and marked the Live Action debut of characters from the beloved 90’s spinoff/continuation of the original Transformers TV Series: Beast Wars Transformers.  While it wasn’t my entry into the Transformers franchise, Beast Wars was still the Transformers series for my generation with state of the art (at the time) CG Animation and writing that made it clear this wasn’t just a show for kids but one aiming to appease old and new fans of the Transformers franchise.  You might, or might not, recall a couple of years back, I did a three part First Impression Friday special where I looked at the first episodes from three Anime Transformers series produced following the conclusion of the original 80’s Transformers series in 1987.  Well Beast Wars got a similar treatment in 1998 with Beast Wars II: Super Life-Form Transformers.  Considering how crazy the 80s Transformers Anime got and how they became further and further disconnected from the source material, is the first episode of this Beast Wars sequel any different?
 

T5W#419-Top 5 Power Rangers Series I Havent Seen Yet

I’ll be honest.  For all my adoration of the Power Rangers franchise, I wouldn’t call myself a die hard fan.  Most of my experience comes from the first few seasons from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers through the beginning of Lost Galaxy.  From then on things get a bit more, spotty to say the least. I know who many characters are and I know basic premises of many of the subsequent series.  Unlike say Mobile Suit Gundam, however, I haven’t gone out of my way to check out every single Power Rangers show and there are some I haven’t even watched at all (a snippet or two at best).  Continuing with my Power Rangers 30^th Anniversary shoutouts, todays Top 5 Wednesday will be delving into the Top 5 Power Rangers Series I Havent Seen Yet.  Are any of these worth checking out in full?

 

Overwatch: Genesis

It was the dawn of a new era for the world.  When an Omnic was given sentience, everything changed.  What began as an age of astounding achievement quickly descended into a nightmare no one could have foreseen.  As the Omnic Crisis reaches catastrophic proportions, new heroes will rise to meet them and push back against the darkness.  But this is more than just the story of how Overwatch came to be.  It’s the story of one lone robots journey that would change the world even more than that legendary team of heroes and birth a new Genesis for Humans and Omnics alike.

There’s an entire list of Video Games that are begging to be given the Anime treatment: Metal Gear Solid, Ace Combat (though I guess Macross kind of has that covered), any of the Final Fantasy games that aren’t VII or XV.  Overwatch is near the top of that list for me because there’s a ton of Anime influence flowing through the veins of the popular First Person Shooter.  From the eclectic cast to the dialogues to the usage of special attacks to its very pretty leading ladies, Overwatch has been ripe for an Anime adaptation for a long time (or a Pixar movie given how the shorts look about that level of quality).  Genesis is the long awaited answer to that demand.  And much like the current state of Overwatch as a whole, it’s a mixed bag.  On the one hand, it’s a very good looking and effective demo for a potential Overwatch Anime, be it a TV series or series of Movies or OVAs.  On the other, while the world of Overwatch is diverse and amazing, the origins of this world are extremely familiar and well…a little unoriginal if I’m honest.
 

FIF#187-Rurouni Kenshin (2023)

During the Bakumatsu that lead to a new age for Japan, a swordsman, renowned and feared, brought death and chaos to the Shogunate.  This man, the Hitokiri Battosai, vanished when the war came to a close.  Ten years later, he wanders the country as a Rurouni: a swordsman without a destination.  When he stumbles across a beautiful dojo master in need of assistance, Kenshin Himura, once Himura Battosai, begins to find a place where he might finally belong.  But despite his efforts, the past just keeps catching up with him and it wants Kenshin to embrace his Manslayer persona once more.

 
I’m actually surprised Rurouni Kenshin was finally getting a second Anime TV adaptation.  The 90’s series is a beloved gateway Anime and, personally, the Manga is probably my all time favorite.  While there was definite hesitation greenlighting a new Kenshin project in light of the original authors…legal troubles, there’s also the success of the Live Action Kenshin films to consider.  I don’t know if anyone was still interested in a Rurouni Kenshin reboot but here we are and in the same year it’s fellow 90s gateway brother Trigun gets similar treatment no less.  Unlike Trigun: Stampede, this Kenshin retelling is getting the traditional hand drawn treatment of the new decade.  Does the first episode show potential for reigniting interest in the Wandering Samurai?
 

T5W#418-Top 5 Ways Gundam Build Divers Re:Rise Could Have Been Better

If my 2/10 score wasn’t indication enough, I didn’t like Gundam Build Divers Re:Rise very much. It was Gundams attempt to jump into a genre it really didn’t need to, that being the still wildly popular Isekai genre. On top of that, dull and uninteresting premise and a continuously frustrating story did nothing to improve things and the only time I actually enjoyed the show was when the original Build Divers cast returned for the finale. Re:Rise is littered with missed opportunities that could have been taken advantage of and on todays Top 5 Wednesday im gonna talk about what could have made this not just a solid Build Divers entry but a love letter to the Gundam franchise as a whole. These are my Top 5 Ways Build Divers Re:Rise could have been better

 

Tekken: Blood Vengeance

Ling Xiaoyu and Alisa Bosconovitch are two high school students unaware they’ve been tasked with the same assignment by two competing corporations.  Their mission: shadow Shin Kamiya, a fellow student with the abilities of an immortal.  Within Shin’s blood lies the key to unlocking a devastating power, on a certain family has been fighting over for generations.  As three generations of ferocious fighters reunite for another epic duel, Xiaoyu and Alisa must do whatever it takes to protect Shin from the curse of the Mishima bloodline. 

Sometimes when it comes to adapting Video Games into feature length films, it’s best to leave things to the studios that created them in the first place.  Now that’s not to say that’s a recipe for perfection.  Square Enix might’ve given us Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children but we also got The Spirits Within and Kingslglaive: Final Fantasy XV.  Still, someone had to get a Tekken movie right eventually and Namco Bandai stepped in personally to handle the production of the all CG film, Tekken: Blood Vengeance.  Like any of Square’s Final Fantasy film projects, Blood Vengeance might not work on every level but it is by far and away the best Tekken movie in existence thus far.  Hey a wins a win, even if that bar is set pretty low by now.
 

FIF#186-My Adventures with Superman

Clark Kent arrives in Metropolis, looking to start his career as a reporter alongside his best friend Jimmy Olsen.  But Clark finds more than just the big city waiting for him.  There’s the ambitious but beautiful fellow intern Lois Lane.  And there’s a destiny that Clark never knew was his.  When super powered villains begin terrorizing the city, Clark must use his special abilities to stop them and keep his friends out of danger.  For unknown to Lois and Jimmy, Clark isn’t human.  He’s something else entirely and now the world is about to meet him…as the Man of Steel, Superman.

 
It hasn’t been an easy couple of years for DC when it comes to TV and Movies.  With the inevitable reboot of the DC Movies coming in 2025, many projects are either being cancelled, flopping at the box office or just aren’t getting any real attention from audiences.  Thankfully, it looks like they’re willing to take a chance on projects unrelated to James Gunn’s retooling of DC’s Cinematic Universe or whatever it’s going to be called.  Enter My Adventures with Superman, a new animated series airing on Adult Swim.  Not only does this show tap into a medium DC hasn’t done nearly enough with, it also gives us the brightest Superman in ages (to be fair though, Tyler Hoechlin is incredible on Superman & Lois on the CW but that show can be very, very serious…still highly recommend it though). 
 

T5W#417-Top 5 Best Moments from My Hero Academia Season 6

Well I guess it was inevitable but hey I’m not complaining.  A 4^th My Hero Academia movie is on the way…and that’s all that can kind of be said about that at the moment.  Besides the announcement, all that’s been shown is an image of Deku during his rogue solo hero stage.  Could this mean the new movie might take place during Season 6?  Tough to say but it’d be hard to fit any kind of extra feature length tale into a season as jam packed as My Hero Academia’s most recent outing.  After two years of build up, War erupted between Heroes and Villains and it changed the world of Deku and his classmates forever.  And man did it work.  It’s not that My Hero Academia hasn’t been good but I feel like the high point is still Season 3 for me and Season 6 felt like the best one since.  Well with the new movie due out eventually, let me take you back a few months to the season that changed everything and talk about the Top 5 Best Moments from My Hero Academia Season 6.

Tekken

In the future, Corporations rule a desolate world.  Only by becoming champion of the King of the Iron Fist Tournament can one rise above and achieve wealth and status.  When his mother is killed by a death squad from the Tekken Corporation, Jin Kazama swears revenge against the Corporations master, Heihachi Mishima.  The only way to get close is to enter Iron Fist itself.  With his only allies being a washed up former boxer and a beautiful mixed martial artist, Jin enters a world more dangerous than the one he’s lived in his whole life, not just against the deadliest fighters in the world…but against his own family as well.

Before we reached the new heyday of good Live Action Video Game movies that began with 2019’s Pokemon: Detective Pikachu, we had that period from the 90’s to early 2010’s where they were either so bad they’re funny or just plain bad.  Examples of the latter can be any Uwe Boll movie in existence.  Examples of the former pertain to todays review.  1994’s Street Fighter is a helluva fun mess thanks to its campiness and the amazingly committed final performance of Raul Julia.  1995’s Mortal Kombat lacks the franchises bloody violence but has good style, action, iconic performances and a still kick ass theme song.  Tekken, the live action adaptation from 2009, at least gets the action part right.  Everything else about it is pretty terrible and borderline boring and generic.  From the poor casting choices to the non existent story to taking itself way too seriously, you have to really work hard to mess up something like Tekken…or just not try at all, that works too.
 

FIF#185-Himitsu Sentai Gorenger

From the shadows, an evil terrorist organization known as the Black Cross Army has emerged to threaten the stability of the world.  The only thing standing in their way is the Elite Peacekeeping Unit, EAGLE, but even they find themselves outmatched.  In its darkest hour, EAGLE selects five special agents, each the survivor of a Black Cross Army attack on their units.  Together, they are given next generation powers, suits and weaponry that can easily put them on fighting terms with the Black Cross.  They are the first super heroes of their kind.  They are Himitsu Sentai Gorenger.

 
Welcome back to the second half of Season 8 of First Impression Friday and do I have a special one for you today.  Continuing with our occasional shoutouts to the Power Rangers franchise on it’s 30^th birthday, we’re taking a look at the very, VERY beginning of the legend with a little known Super Sentai series that predates Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger (aka the show that was the basis for Mighty Morphin Power Rangers) by a good couple of decades.  We saw a little bit of Gorenger action during out look at  Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger back in January but I really wanted to see if I could see the first episode with my own eyes.  Luckily, the internet is a wonderous place and I was able to find a copy…that is entirely in Japanese without subtitles.  Thankfully there’s Wikipedia to pick up some basic plot points but really, I was just checking this out for the production value and man has Super Sentai (and Power Rangers by association) come a long way.
 

The Super Mario Bros. Movie

The magical Mushroom Kingdom finds itself facing the wrath of Bowser, King of the Koopas, who’s determined to annihilate the Kingdom and claim the beautiful Princess Peach for his bride.  Only one thing stands in his way, well two things: a pair of Italian Brothers from Earth who have been dragged separately to the Mushroom Kingdom via a warp pipe.  Now it’s up to Mario and Luigi to reunite and bring the fight to Bowser.  These two have always wanted to be heroes, well that’s what the universe really needs right now.

While Video Game Movies have seen quite the resurgent renaissance since 2019’s Pokemon: Detective Pikachu (aka when they started getting good), there’s no ignoring the beginning of the crappy reputation of Movies based on Video Games thanks to 1993s Super Mario Bros.  It was a movie at odds with itself, with no clear idea of what it wanted or should have been.  It was dark, edgy, tonally all over the place and had little to do with the source material.  It was so bad that Nintendo didn’t even bother letting Hollywood have a crack at their other properties until Detective Pikachu.  Well the Mario Bros have been given a second chance at long last and my God, this is how it should have been done in the first place.  No live action schenanigans.  No would be Blade Runner settings.  No dark and depressing atmosphere.  No The Super Mario Bros Movie is exactly as advertised: a 90min straight forward adventure romp that might be light on story and character development.  However, if all you want is to feel like you’ve popped your copy of Super Mario Bros into your Nintendo Entertainment System and just sent the little Plumber running and jumping over Koopas and Goombas, you’ve come to the right place.
 

T5W#416-Top 5 Otakon 2023 Moments

This past weekend, I learned how to relax again as I returned to one of my two favorite yearly conventions and the one that started it all for me, Otakon.  And despite cancellations from roommates, the heat of DC trying to kill us all and even a monsoon resulting from said heat (for like 30 minutes), it was so good to be back in the Walter E Washington Convention Center for another year of photoshoots, Dealers Room/Artist Alley pillaging and late night 18+ schenanigans.  And while next year Otakon will be celebrating it’s 30th anniversary, this year was a major milestone for me as it marked 10 years since I started meeting incredible people who I’ve come to call family more than friends for Otakon, Katsucon and Beyond.  So for those of you who didn’t attend and are wondering, this is the Top 5 Wednesday you’ve been patiently waiting for, my Top 5 Otakon 2023 Moments.