When they finally announced a SGFiguarts Sky High from Tiger & Bunny, I was poised and ready for that pre-order; I had been waiting none too patiently. It finally arrived last week.
This is my first Figuarts purchase and I’m very happy with what I see. This looks dead-on like Sky High, I’m a real stickler for that authenticity. The paint job is flawless without a bad seam to be found. Somewhat like a Revoltech you have many hand options and other little details such as jet pack blasts as well as number of points of articulation. The possibility is good, though I did have some trouble getting his shoulder armor to stay on, after I settled on a pose I was really able to keep it. This is also thanks to a sturdy stand.
Even though this figure is on the smaller side for me, the craftsmanship makes me really happy with my choice.
I watched Another with my roommate partially because he likes horror stuff and partially because someone recommended the series as a good mystery. In a way, the series is both a horror anime and a mystery so I can discuss how those parts work individually and together.
As a horror series the plot works much like a Final Destination movie with a classmate dying every episode in some gruesome manner with an absolute bloodbath in he final two episodes. Not everyone dies like a Final Destination movie but the body count is high, the deaths near the end are gruesome, and some serious sacrifices are made. In that regard, the series pretty much gives you what you want.
The mystery is decent. I have a feeling that some people are going to find the identity of the ghostly classmate as brilliant and others are going to pass it off as a bit of a cheat. I think parts of the reveal have clues pointing to them and other parts are pretty much a surprise. The show does not cheat by say making the extra student someone you never saw but it is a bit of a major misdirection. I was glad they brought up and then quickly disapproved most of the super common twists you would have expected about the extra student early on.
My only real complaint is that one person essentially has a ghost detector and does not mention it to anyone until the last possible second. That was a plot convenient bit of withholding information.
Overall all it was an enjoyable little show. It is very much more a horror show than a mystery. The show revels in its deaths and mostly just plays in the detective aspect. Watch it for a horror show with a mystery element and not the other way around.
I watched the first of three documentary/commentary mash-ups of the original Star Wars trilogy, Star Wars Begins is obviously about A New Hope.
What is great about the format is that it plays like the actual first film so you are getting to watch that wonderful familiar story but interspersed are interesting tidbits, audio interviews snippets, alternate takes/audio, etc. taken from all over the place and from different stages of production and times in fandom. I learned quite a lot from the first film, for example for many drafts of the script even after they hired Sir Alec Guiness, Obi Wan was not going to be struck down by Darth.
It was a great watch so I’ll be starting on subsequent Star Wars films and I believe the guy is also working on Indiana Jones ones.
I finished the first half of Lagrange: The Flower of Rin-ne. I enjoyed it as a fluffy little show. I can’t say it was a great show but I also can’t hate it as much as other people seem to.
It delivered what it promised. Pretty girls getting in robots and fighting with some comedy and intrigue mixed in.
I am disappointed that it never delivered any more than that.Some of the intrigue with the human’s aliens allies being distinctly self-serving, the enemy being misguided but ruthless none the less, and some of the back story could have been expanded upon to give the series a wider appeal.
Instead they spend more time examining how cute Madoka, Lan, and Muginami are. They are cute. But I was fairly convinced of that fact early on. You did not have to spend so much time proving that. Also Array in the maid outfit was a joke that was worked the episode it was introduced. It sort of just becomes odd after that point.
I will probably watch the next season unless my schedule becomes really crazy. I just hope they focus a bit more on the solid bits of the plot now that they are past the half way mark. But I am not going to assume that will be the case.
I read the second issue of Justice League Dark this is one of the New 52 that has a supernatural/horror bent to it. These types of stories can easily go too far horror and then lose my interest which unfortunately I felt with Swamp Thing.
The second issue of JLD holds my attention though, it is toeing the line nicely. It also is pushing a character driven story so far which excites me. Our group has yet to form into the JLD but they are getting closer and closer to each other, I can feel the tension of it.
Last Exile: Fam, the Silver Wing is more tonally consistent than the original Last Exile but not anywhere near as innovative.
I think time has helped people forget the fact that the ending of Last Exile is slightly insane and somewhat out of nowhere.
What they do remember is the how different in execution the show was in general compared to anything that came before it.
Fam, the Silver Wing on the other hand takes this world and tells a much more conventionally standard anime story and uses the popular universe to couch that story. The problem not the Last Exile universe is not as shockingly unique anymore.
The show ends well if it does borrow a bit from the “Zero Requiem well” like anime does currently. The main problem is as much as other characters grow Fam is always Fam. So if you hate her then she is not going to do anything to win you over later on.
Much like Lagrange I enjoyed Fam, the Silver Wing but I felt like it could have been more. They had all the tools there to be better but they sadly did not use them. Also what is up with Claus permanently with absolutely no context to how that happened? I guess that has something to do with the Last Exile: Travelers From the Hourglass manga but it is a pretty big shock to drop in the show with no explanation.
The Ongoing Investigations are little peeks into what we are watching and reading outside of our main posts on the blog. We each pick three things that we were interested in a week and talk a bit about them. There is often not much rhyme or reason to what we pick. They are just the most interesting things we saw since the last Ongoing Investigation.
Filed under: Anime, Comics, Live Action, Merchandise, Ongoing Investigations, Toys/Figures Tagged: Another, Justice League Dark, Lagrange: The Flower of Rin-ne, Last Exile: Fam the Silver Wing, Star Wars, Tiger & Bunny
