Review: Batman vs Robin

What's it about?

Fresh off Son of Batman, Damian Wayne is still getting used to being the new Robin and being accepted by his father.  In this film, he's a bit more matured, showing that he's taking quite a few of Batman's lessons to heart, however the rift between them is still very clear and comes to a head as a group called the Court of Owls decides to come back to Gotham and pick up where it once left off, molding the city to it's ideal.  They give Damian a choice: to listen to his father, or cross the line he will not cross.

Thoughts?

I'm going to start this off by saying that last week, before we watched this movie, we watched Batman v Superman.  I won't spend too much time on it, but I will say that if you're in the mood for a versus comic story that is well done with character arcs that actually care about the characters and writers who actually took the time to make a coherent script, skip that movie and watch this one.  Batman vs Robin has everything I wanted Batman v Superman to be and didn't get. 

Damian Wayne is, by far, my favorite Robin.  I'm not afraid to call him a little shit, because that is the best way to describe his attitude toward the world and his newly discovered father.  What makes him so interesting is the growth he so obviously shows between these movies.  He wants to prove himself to his father, he wants Batman to trust him, but he honestly doesn't understand why he can't kill people even when they've done absolutely horrible things.

This movie is also a perfect example of how to use the overplayed flashback of Bruce Wayne's parents dying in just the right way so that it builds the plot.  In Batman v Superman the flashback felt shoehorned in, just because Hollywood was sure that they needed it there to prove it was a Batman movie.  Here the flashback is relevant to the story and is actually expanded upon, to build Bruce's character.  We don't just see his parents die, we see little Bruce coming to grips with it, trying to understand who was behind it and why.  And in that we understand a little better how Damian is feeling about everything, even though their childhoods are so different.

There's also the animation in this movie, specifically in the final fight scene.  Ask me any time for examples of amazing animation (because I watch far too much anime to count) and this is still a stellar example of what the medium can do.  Fight scenes are hard to animate and don't always look right, even with the most skilled of companies.  The one that Warner Brother's Animated used for this movie carries out the fight scene as if it were nothing.  I said it above, but I mean it. This movie is what I wanted from Batman v Superman and the fight is no exception.  You felt the punches here, and the cuts and bruises were painful.  It was a master piece of showing that you can keep a fight confined to a minimal area and still communicate how earth shattering it would be if they lost.  I was invested in this fight and I got what I wanted in this climax. 

Final thoughts?

In the end this movie is one of my favorites, right up there with Under the Red Hood.  And once again I'll dream of the day when we get live action DC movies from the same writing team as these.  Because by and far, there are more good animated movies then there are bad.  Yes, some stumble horribly - looking at you, Killing Joke - but the majority are really good and worth recommending to friends and family.  And I'm still going to keep buying them blind when they come out.  I can't wait to watch more.

Where'd I get it?

Best Buy Black Friday sale with many other DC movies we were missing.

Review: Black Butler: Book of Circus (Anime)

What's it about?

Enter back into the world of Ciel Phantomhive and his demonic butler. It is Ciel's job, as the Queen's Guard Dog, to police the underworld so they don't become too much of a hassle for the crown and normal citizens. When many children start disappearing and those disappearance coincide with a mysterious circus, what else would you expect?  Ciel and Sebastian join the circus to find the children and the story behind the mysterious performers. 

Thoughts?

Book of Circus is a soft reboot of the Black Butler series.  If you're unfamiliar, the first season was enjoyable, but strayed quite a bit from the original story in the manga.  Instead of taking the Dragon Ball Z Kai route, this series went a bit more toward Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood and restarted the story with their most popular arc, using strategically placed flashbacks to remind us of the important pieces. You aren't required to see the first season to understand this series, and you CERTAINLY aren't required to see the second season - in fact, just join the rest of us and pretend that part never happened. 

This season brings back the characters you already know and introduces a whole host of new ones who will grow on you.  Joker, Beast, Doll and Snake especially are very well written in the short season.  You meet each member of the circus and you feel for them, so that makes the inevitable ending that you know is coming that much more painful, as Ciel and Sebastian have a tendency to clean up whatever mess is in front of them and the bodies tend to follow.  

I'll be honest it's hard not to spoil the story while talking about it, so I'll keep it vague.  Instead I would highly recommend this anime for those who tend to like mysteries and very smart main characters.  Ciel is deeply flawed and not the best hero by any means, but you understand where his actions come from and the world he inhabits is always interesting to see.  I loved the first season and I still follow the manga through scanlation sites.  This anime is a perfect adaptation of the story, with a couple extra scenes added in for that extra punch to the gut, even if you know what's coming.  

Final thoughts?

Seriously, it's a good series. Why haven't you watched it yet?  See it.  Share it with your friends.  Then check out Book of Murder and the rest of the series.  But not season 2, just pretend that doesn't exist like the rest of us. 

Where's I get it?

We finally bought a copy on Blu-ray from Best Buy during their Black Friday sales.  Oh and as a note, the dub on this is also AMAZING and one of the best dubs out there.  Shout out to the entire cast, they do an amazing job!

Review: Fudanshi Kōkō Seikatsu (Anime, Season 1)

So this weekend, upon playing around on our PS3, we found we still have Crunchyroll, oops!  This means we can watch things - like Yuri on Ice!! - and we're so far behind in anime.  So we decided to try one out that my partner had mentioned, but I hadn't seen.

What's it about?

Ryo Sakaguchi is a rare person.  He's a young, straight, man who is actually a fan of Boy's Love manga.  This, of course, leads to many hilarious situations across 12 short style episodes.

Thoughts?

The premise is cute, mostly because as a female Yaoi and Boy's Love fan I can't quite imagine how it might be for a guy in Japanese society.  This creates a very meta feeling series that is quite self aware of all the cliches and tropes present in the genre and uses them to create very amusing commentary.

For example, the main character loves pairing guys together and will take pictures, collect the manga and doujinshi and such, but when ever he runs into it real life, he always comments about the problematic areas of such a relationship in real life.  Like most fans of the genre he's very aware of the difference between real life and the fantasy, and he's ok with them being different.  I find that part of him really easy to identify with even though it's one of the hardest things to explain to someone who isn't part of the fandom(or any fandom for that matter).

One thing I do really love about the series, is the serious lack of shame around the idea.  In most series like this, you would expect the main character to be given a lot of grief for what he likes and even possibly have the central plot based on that until there's some sort of lame conclusion about accepting one's self.  In this case, the creator has decided to ignore that cliche in favor of reflecting how the character feels about himself.  Sure, he's embarrassed about his hobby, but that's where most of the shame comes from.  His best friend thinks it's a bit weird, but only makes very small comments here and there as a best friend would.  By doing this, the series doesn't shame the audience for what they like, and it's a nice alternative to what I normally expect in this sort of series.

The downside is that this short series requires one to have a pretty wide view of the genre, as each episode is it's own little inside joke.  If you aren't as familiar with Yaoi and Boy's Love and the culture of it's fans, I have a feeling that quite a bit of this series would be lost on you or uninteresting beyond the simple setup idea.

The other downside is that this only seems to work as short sketch episodes.  I can not, for the life of me, imagine watching this series with full sized episodes and an overarching plot without seeing it annoy me with troupes or become one itself and lose my interest.  The premise is cute, but created for a large scale plot it is not, which is fine, really.

In conclusion?

If you're familiar with Boy's Love and Yaoi and like the genre yourself, you'll probably get a couple laughs out of this series.  But don't expect anything major, just go in for quick, amusing distraction.

Where'd I get it?

Crunchyroll has all 12 episodes.  No word currently if more are planned. 

On The Subject of NaNoWriMo 2016

Once upon a time, a few years ago, I won NaNoWriMo.  With a plan completely in hand, an outline ready and determination, I wrote the first draft of Seeking the Storyteller in a month, even though it was well over the 50,000 word goal.

But I haven't beat NaNo since.

This isn't a blog entry about me failing, or attempting to relive some goal I completed years ago under completely different circumstances.  Instead it's addressing something I've experienced every year after that - dealing with the fact that I couldn't catch up to myself.

Every year in November thousands of people - probably a heck of a lot more then that - pledge to join National Novel Writing Month and write 50,000 words in a single month.  We post our blurbs and summaries and get to typing, with varying degrees of success.  And I've participated each year, with different expectations.

This year I didn't expect that I'd finish.  As hopeful as I'd like to be, I was under no illusion that the political climate looming would affect my progress, not to mention all the holiday orders I have to fulfill from my other job.  Then there's the vacation and yeah, a less then adequate time of year for starting and finishing a novel.  So instead I gave myself a different goal:

I would finish writing a short story I started last year, titled Summons.  I would edit that story so it was ready for my wifey to read and I would sort through the growing pile of horror stories I've written to see if there's a novel in there somewhere.  Those goals - while they didn't add up to the normal 50,000 words, were very doable and I accomplished them!

So the point of this little entry?  Easy!  It's ok if you don't complete NaNo, not everyone does.  And if you know that the month might hold too many other things to do, set a different goal for yourself and work just as hard to get to it.  You can still win the month, even if the little word counter on the site seems to say otherwise.  And there's always next year, where hopefully things will line up a bit better.

In the meantime, Summons has become "The Great Wizard of Shoes and Sock" and has been sent off.  And my horror anthology "Little Creepers" is that much closer to being ready to be edited.  So there will still be more from me in the future.

And later this week I should start editing magnifiqueNOIR, cuz the first draft is sooooooooooo close to being done!!

This Holiday Season - Don't Be Afraid to Skip Out

With the holidays coming up, there's a lot of commercials, posts and talk about family.  This is unavoidable as it seems to be part of the season as a whole, but sadly not everyone has a chance to take part in that part of the holiday.  So the point of this post?  That's ok.

Speaking as a queer, non-christian woman in an interracial relationship, there's a lot of variety in my life that my family doesn't seem to understand.  This has become abundantly clear in the recent political climate and while it's not a matter of all out hate (it could be a lot worse and it has been in the past), there are just some things that I'm tired of explaining to them or can't even begin to explain in a way they'll understand.  So we've opted to skip my large family Thanksgiving and may or may not be following suit with Christmas - we'll see.

But the heart of the matter, and what I really want to talk about, is the hurt that comes with that.  It's really hard for me to not go to family gatherings, because it's just something I was raised doing. There's this dull shame in the pit of my stomach when I consider the idea and agree to it, because the voice in the back of my head says "But I'm supposed to" regardless of my own personal disagreements with my family.  I also know my partner has a large family who is either out of state, out of reach or just plain not a part of her life.  Situations like this lead to both of us feeling lonely, homesick and just all around left out when those required commercials and posts come up about family cheer and gatherings.

The point of this post, and me writing this, is to say that shame is wrong.  With this post I am telling myself that it's ok to skip out and if you find yourself in a similar situation this applies to you too.

There is nothing wrong with choosing to take care of yourself during the holidays and avoid situations that can become less then pleasant.  Family is family and they either will or won't agree with you and your life, but if you need to take yourself out of the situation to take care of yourself, that's perfectly ok.  There's a whole host of reasons why people might need or choose to do this and in the end only they can decide for themselves and when they do, it's ok.  Don't shame them for it.  And especially, don't shame yourself.

On our part, we're still celebrating and cooking for ourselves.  She's making dinner while I'm at work on Thanksgiving and we're getting together with a friend on Sunday who is also choosing to avoid their family gathering. I've heard other friends refer to it as 'Friendsgiving' which is just as legitimate. In the end, this holiday season is about celebrating the year and what you have.  And if you find, like us, that 2016 has been a bit much to deal with, then yes you should take a day or two off.

It doesn't mean that you love your family any less.  It doesn't make you any less of a person.  It means you're realistic and realize that above anything else you have to take care of yourself, because family and friends come and go, but you will always be stuck with yourself.  If you are trapped, then life can be miserable, even when surrounded by supposed holiday cheer. So it's ok.

No guilt.  No shame.  Take care of yourself these last couple months.  And here's to hoping that next year will be better. Or, at the very least, a little more tolerable.

Cosplay Closet - Yu Yu Hakusho

I was searching around on the internet to update some of my information on other pages to find that CosplayLab.com had actually closed down (quite a few years ago, oops).  Unfortunately this means that I've lost my list on the exact years when I made certain cosplay, so I'm starting this to record some of that information and call back to some of the very old cosplay that I've made over the years.

So lets start with one of my old favorite shows: Yu Yu Hakusho!

Yu Yu Hakusho is an anime I've loved since I was back in college and while Gundam Wing was one of the first major fandoms I participated in, this one was a close second.  I even wrote a fanfic or two and my wifey loves it as well.  So I've cosplayed quite a few characters from the show.


Kuronue - From the first movie, Kuronue was the first character I leaned toward, just because of his design and interesting story.  I was quite upset that he wasn't included in the main series, but that didn't stop me from cosplaying him.

This costume was actually made with help from my mother.  She made the vest and white waist drape while I bought the wings (Hot Topic) and pants.  Then I made the hat from a spray painted straw hat from a local thrift store.  My father also made the scythe weapon which I still have to this day and it still looks awesome.

Pitfalls of this costume?  I couldn't figure out how to make the arm ribbons work, so I ended up using electrical tape on my arms.  While this worked, it meant that I had to pull them off each day and was left with red marks from the tape.  Not something I'd recommend.

Yomi - As an anime fan I've always been drawn to villains, especially when they have interesting stories.  Like Kuronue, Yomi's backstory with Kurama also interested me and I have a love for the military jackets that show up in quite a few different series.  Yomi quickly became one of my 'dream' costumes, that I honestly didn't think I could pull off, but then decided to just go for it and do. I made the jacket, wig and Shura plush.  I also made the ears from three pairs of cheap prosthetic ears, glued together.  Boots were borrowed from a friend, but they made the costume.

The wig is actually the part I'm the most proud of.  It started out as a normal cheap black Godiva style wig cut to the right length.  Then I made the horns out of paperclay, which dries to resemble bone, but is still soft enough that I could poke holes into it and sew them into a denim frame attached on the underside of the wig.  I totally made this up as I was going, because wig tutorials weren't a huge thing on the internet yet and it mostly worked.  My only regret is that I didn't take care of it, so now the wig is far too tangled to reuse, but I still have the jacket.

Mukuro - And finally, one more from the villains, though she's not really a villain, really.  Mukuro's backstory was awesome and I loved the fact that there was a female character that kicked ass and that I felt comfortable cosplaying and was within my skill level of creation.  (Hiei in the picture is my friend Strange Land Costuming.)

I bought the pants - some super comfortable pajama ones in the right color - and made the mask and top vest piece.  Sadly I don't have better pictures then this, but I remember it was a very comfortable costume to wear and still have most of the pieces, though they don't fit anymore.

All three of these costumes are quite old, but were the most fun.  Isn't it strange seeing me back before I made dresses and ballgowns?  To be honest, this was before I became more comfortable with my body and back then I didn't think I could pull off a female outfit and still look pretty.  Obviously I don't feel that way anymore, but I still had fun cosplaying even back then.









So here's a final throw back with the Wifey as Youko Kurama in a costume made for her by Strange Land Costuming.  Also, the other Kurama is our friend Rosanna.  The below picture was taken back in 2004 if that gives you any idea how old this is. ^__^

Review: Tokyo Ghoul Vol 1

What's it about?

What would our world be like if humans weren't at the top of the food chain?  Instead, in this alternate reality, there are creatures called Ghouls who look like humans, but feed on human flesh and have creepily deadly abilities they keep hidden from everyone else.  This is Kaneki's world, and it's not too different, until he wakes up from surgery with ghoul parts and a craving for human flesh.  Now he has to not only learn about the world of ghouls, but also learn how to survive what's left of his normal life.

Thoughts?

Like most popular manga series out there, Tokyo Ghoul has an anime and that was my first exposure to the series.  Normally I would finish the anime first before even touching the manga (as I tend to like manga better and don't want to ruin the anime watching experience).  However this year has been a flurry of conventions and I haven't had the time to finish the anime and the manga was cheap at a con... so we couldn't resist. 

So which is better? I'm a bit torn, actually. 

The artist of the manga is quite good, better then a lot of manga I've seen recently.  If nothing else he certainly knows his medium and what it's capable of.  With reading the first volume I noticed a pattern of foreshadowing in many of the panels that I don't remember from the anime.  For example, all of the ghouls have a special ability that manifests as extra limbs when needed.  Touka's looks like a wing flying out her back and when you're first introduced to her and don't know what she is yet, there's a plant that perfectly mimics this effect behind her, hinting at what's to come.  Things like this are all over the manga and not integral to the story, but if you catch them it makes it that much more interesting and made want to read it a couple times to catch all the details. 

I also love how in the series Kaneki is an avid book worm and this is used to foreshadow the events his life flows through.  It's hinted at in the anime, but in the manga there's a mention in each of the chapters and it reminds me of the Shadow Girls from Revolutionary Girl Utena, though not as obvious.  It's an effective tool in the manga and a piece I love, but not something vital so I can see why it was mostly left out of the anime aside from a couple of mentions. 

As for what the anime got right, I would have to say Kaneki's reaction to his transformation and new life as a ghoul is portrayed much better in the anime.  Whether by design, or just as a result of having a much quicker story, the resulting shock and denial is much better polished in the anime.  In the manga it takes a couple chapters and the shock ends up being watered down and not as harsh.  I'm a much bigger fan of how the anime tackles this plot point, because it's more brutal and seems to more accurately portray how a person might react to such a huge change.  To put it simple, the store bought hamburger struck more of a cord then the scene in the manga.  

I think overall, I'm actually quite happy.  I like how different the two mediums are, least so far, and I think it's enough that it'll keep me from getting tired of one or the other.  At this point I'm looking forward to finishing both and comparing at the end.  I'm especially looking forward to see how they handle my favorite character - as I've heard there's quite a difference in that spot. 

Where'd I get it?

Amazon Purchase Link