Sense8 - TV Show [Netflix]

WTF!?

Those are the thoughts I constantly had while watching the first episode of Sense8 and let me tell you, it wasn’t the hopeful kind. It was more the frustrated why-the-hell-am-I-watching-this kind of frustration that almost had me switching over to another series to watch.

In all fairness I probably should have watched the trailer first before jumping head first into this show because then things would have probably made a hell of a lot more sense than it did going in blind. Instead of waddling through a dark room with no flashlight and pies being thrown at me constantly while I try to make my way through. I would have at least had a candle and fork to get me by. You know - the basics.

But anyway, how do I go about describing the confusion that is Sense8?

This show comes at you like a seemingly normal science fiction that has you thinking about telepaths on a whole other level as it drops you smack into the middle of eight random individual’s lives. Now how we come to be dropped into these unsuspecting people’s lives is rather strange as the story starts off pretty suddenly with the suicide of what would seem like a crazy drug addict in an abandoned building. This event proves to be the ‘birth’ of our eight individual’s special connection.

But neither of these poor souls knows what’s happening as this ‘awakening’ doesn’t seem to come with a handbook and they each find themselves seeing things and speaking languages they never knew before, as well as knowing skills they’d never learned. Needless to say most of them turn to the idea that they have become crazy.

While surprisingly others in the ‘cluster’ seem to take the change in their stride and ease into their situation quite smoothly.

Still the change doesn’t go unnoticed by the eight as they begin to notice the other people that seem to be sharing their thoughts and lives with them. However, there are others outside their little intimate cluster that also takes note of our unique individuals and their strange ability and it turns out our protagonists might be a little less safer in the world because of their strange connection.

The show, for me, was very confusing at first but I won’t lie and say I didn’t get hooked after things began to fall into place and sense was born from the senseless. The concept was different and intriguing and I think that was what hooked me. However, something tells me that this show probably won’t be everybody’s cup of tea, but that’s life I guess. I liked it. It was new and truthfully, the strangeness was refreshing. A series that took a sci-fi concept and used character development as a form of progress, now that’s something I can binge watch any day.

Ore Monogatori - Anime

After watching too many action based anime it’s always good to kick back and chill out with a good slow-paced anime filled with the lighter side of things like love troubles and school drama. Such anime can give you a nice reminder of how versatile and feelsy the medium can get, not to mention cheesy. But despite being in search of the cheese that lies in between the light-hearted romance genre it would seem I came across a rather unique anime that takes the norm, twists it on its head and goes with it in a rather sweet and comical way that works for it quiet perfectly.

Ore no Monogatari is at its core just your basic average school romance, but where it twists off is when it focuses on the love life of a student so unused to being romantically loved that when the chance comes he turns into a complete fish out of water, therefore unable to figure out what it is he supposed to do and the result is pretty entertaining to watch.

The style of the anime has you following everything through a monologue by the protagonist as he details the various events of his life from his point of view which draws you into his world as he sees his love life and how others relate to him. This opens up for a bunch of misunderstandings as our dense guy misses a few obvious signs and, while creating good comedic relief, he unknowingly enters into the beginnings of his first relationship.

The guy’s adorable discovery that life isn’t always how he expects it to be is quite entertaining to watch and makes for a sweet experience as you observe how he deals with his newly found spring and its resulting effects on his mental state.

I have to admit after watching so many action anime, it’s nice to have this light and fluffy one to break the pace, but even then I think this anime has a charm all its own. In fact I think I might have fallen for the odd ball protagonist myself while watching these hilarious episodes. There’s just something endearing about the oddball couple that has grown on me as I watch their love blossom. I’ve definitely become a fan of the series and I’ll be honest and say I’m for sure cheering little Rinko-chan on as she tries to progress things further with her manly hero.

*[that awkward moment when you spell the title of the anime wrong.... YOLO XD]*

Jurassic World - Movie

Some movies are just destined to be awesome and with that being said, Jurassic World was always going to be at least your basic action-type, sweet dessert that you couldn’t say no to.

After watching all the teasers and eventually the epic trailer, you can imagine that one would be pretty hyped before setting foot into a cinema to watch said movie, but as many movies have proved before, trailers can sometimes be overhyped and the movie a total let down. Luckily, this beautifully shot dino-infested road trip wasn’t.

From the brilliantly shot cinematography to the beautiful scenery displayed and the acceptable acting I’d venture to say everything was worth the solo movie experience and then some. Though I might have scared my neighbors in the cinema by conversing with myself, I have to say I got excited by quite a bit of the movie as it got to some cool action scenes and pretty epic comedy squeezed in while still finding time to pay homage to its predecessors. I also couldn’t contain myself as I picked up on possible plot material for sequels in future.

Though the main story revolved around the creation of a new species of dinosaur that was not only fiercer and bigger but far more intelligent than its creators had anticipated, I found the underlying message of never to underestimate living creatures, regardless of how they were bred, quite fascinating. 

The struggle for survival throughout the movie was nostalgic of the other movies before, but it revived the fear factor for things as it reminded us of the raw brutality that these brilliant creatures were capable of, something the people had foolishly forgotten as they thought they had ‘tamed’ them.

An interesting twist though does give hope that these carnivorous creatures aren’t as dull as we’d like to think and that makes me very curious as to how any future movies would like to manipulate this kind of development.

All in all the movie was a great watch as it had just the right amount of blood and dino-battle as one would expect plus there are some bad-ass moments that have our lead actors showing that maybe humans might have survived with the dinosaurs all those years ago for a reason.

Owari no Seraph - Anime

I’m very glad to see that not all anime has succumb to the endless desire to only be ecchi-related as of yet. Thankfully one of these anime happens to be of my favourite genres and let’s be honest, who doesn’t love vampires?

I have to be truthful though. I can’t really wrap my head around this one very well. Owari no Seraph comes across as just another revenge story where our protagonist has suffered a great loss by the hands of the evil vampires and now vows to destroy each and every one of them and works to gain the power to do so. Obviously we can assume that one of his slain family members might just make a comeback somewhere along the lines, because, story reasons… yet at the same time, and this is where things get wonky for me, I feel like there’s more to it that I’m missing somehow but we’ll get back to that in a minute.

Our protagonist, Hyakuya Yuichiro, lives in a post-apocalyptic world that was nearly wiped out by a man-made virus and left a small margin of humanity, most of which were under the age of thirteen. In this ravaged world, our hero desires only a few things and that is to protect those he loves and the desire to kill every vampire he can get his hands on.

Employed by the Moon Demon Company, who makes it their mission to protect what is left of humanity, Yuichiro goes out and hunts the vampires down. In his team, we see a variety of interesting characters with their own troubles that make for an interesting side story as they struggle to keep up with the harsh world they live in and the dark things they must undergo in order to hunt the creatures that have destroyed their lives.

An interesting twist comes from the fact that one of our hero’s beloved family members, whom he thought was killed by the vampires in their attempt to escape captivity when they were younger, turns out to have become that which he now hunts so mercilessly. A discovery he makes in a turf war that obviously rattles him.

But this is where the wonky bits come in, as I don’t think the story ends there. I think there is more to our story than just our hero’s unfortunate dilemma of whether or not he can kill his family member. And the hint lies in the revelation made by the demon our protagonist had previously made a contract with in order to gain the power to fight the vampires he despised so much. Without spoiling the story too much, I’d have to say our protagonist is far more special than just his strong desire that gives him his strength. This little curiosity is what has kept me engrossed in this series and I have to say it’s exciting to wonder on the possibilities, I just hope it doesn’t disappoint.

Kekkai Sensen - Anime

Retro…

Yes, I think I’ll go with that… retro. If I had to describe this anime in any way possible, I’d have to say it had a retro ‘feel’ to it. Watching an episode of this anime is like being woken up halfway through a half-eaten sandwich. I don’t know why, but that is the image that comes to me when I think of this anime for some reason.

Kekkai Sensen [Blood Blockade Battlefront] is probably a show with a plot, but to be honest, I wouldn’t be able to tell you much about it other than that it has to do with a guy who has some seriously cool blue eyes that just so happens to see everything. Eye’s that the other characters have continually referred to as ‘God’s eyes’.

Besides the guy with the amazing eyes there exists a group of people who utilize their blood in various forms of weaponry as they protect a futurist New York City that has been altered by the presence of another world interlaced with it.

This strange new world has brought with it stranger beings that have somehow integrated with the society there and an odd balance of life has been found with both the humans and non-humans. The setting is pretty fascinating in itself to be honest as each episode takes us on a journey with the protagonist who is originally out of town, as he explores the place and encounters the intriguing bits of weird that exist as norm in the city.

I’ll admit it’s a bit frustrating trying to figure out what the hell is happening half the time, but the rest of the time I’m quite captivated by the characters and the strangeness of the world they live in. As chaotic as the series may seem, to me at least, the characters are quite lovable and the build-up of the actual plot in the background is still gripping.

But I suppose it still can’t be denied that it’s a slow start with the overall storyline as all these other things seem to keep happening, but I’ve only watched a few episodes, who knows maybe there’s more to the chaos than meets the eye, either way I hope the main story gets some action eventually and blows all the impatience out the water and makes it worth the wait.

The Gamer - Manga

I was recently made aware of a Korean webtoon that, once I looked into, effectively consumed my life for three days as I endeavoured to completely read it. Thanks to minimal productivity and a slight reduction in my other viewing activities, I was able to finish the first season of the webtoon and am in need of some series catch up with all my dramas and anime that have somehow managed to become more backlogged than normal.

The webtoon, The Gamer, was a very interesting read. It had elements of Sword Art Online and Log Horizon, along with a mix from various other anime in terms of characters and certain magical aspects. To be honest there were some parts of the webtoon I feel were ‘borrowed’ from well-known manga in order to move the general story along.

The story follows a game addict who discovers one day that he has been given the strange ability known as ‘The Gamer’ that basically enables his life to follow the rules of a game. Because of this ability he is thrown into a world of magic and supernatural beings that he never thought existed before. In this world, known as the ‘Abyss’ he learns there are other people with abilities.

Our protagonist quickly discovers that those people with abilities are either born with them naturally, as he is, or they have acquired them through harsh training, like his best friend has done.

I have to say this webtoon caught me very much by surprise, at first for its story line but then for its in-depth explanation of the gaming world. And wow, does this story go deep into explaining the workings of games along with the various terminologies. After every few chapters or so I had to take a break as my mind became overloaded with all the information and other stuff… This story clearly made me realise how much I didn’t know about the gaming world.

Needless to say, it was still supposed to be a manga/manwha, so I expected more story driven points, a lot of which falls short in some places as the gaming aspect of the protagonist is focused on primarily and the rest of the world just sort of falls into place. So it’s a good story, but there are some plot holes as the story races to ignore some things while adapting to the protagonist’s world view.

So, overall it’s not a bad story to read plus it’s in full colour which is amazing and that helps to consume this webtoon in all its okayness, but I have to be honest and say I won’t hold my breath for an anime of this any time soon. I reckon it stays were the real gamers can find it, because they might actually enjoy it, or not I don’t know for sure.