Boku no Hero Academia - Anime

Good long running anime are becoming hard to come by, but luckily enough there still exists those few that have enough potential to stand with heavy weights such as One Piece and Naruto. Of course they are but fresh little baby anime still in their prepubescent stage, not quite fully grown, so it’s understandable when you come across a few hiccups here and there.

The anime I speak of is Boku no Hero Academia, an awesome adventure shounen manga that has recently been made into an anime. One could argue maybe even too recently as the manga holds not as much plot revealed as any anime would need to be considered as ‘long-running’. In fact this might even be why the season itself is shorter than what veterans would expect from an anime with such potential. Still one can’t deny that it’s good, though its general plot may seem as if it draws on previous work. But shouldn’t that be okay, after all inspiration is born from something already there (arguably) so it would be inevitable that the story would seem familiar as it follows a formula that is already known to get in the views.

In any case, the hero-based story follows young Izuku Midoriya, a normal middle school student with dreams of one day becoming a great hero like his idol, the symbol of peace, All Might. However, in a world where superpowers are the norm and are gifted to many people as they reach puberty, we see that our unfortunate lead is not one with the supposed genetic marker that would allow such gifts to be bestowed on him. Crushed by this reality at a young age we see a resilient little boy power through such a depressing situation and become someone who is almost always documenting every hero he encounters or has an interest in, which in his case tends to be all of them, an obsession that will serve him well in future.

It is while he is documenting such a hero that he falls into a very unlucky predicament that allows him to actually meet his idol in person. But things don’t go as planned and secrets are quickly revealed as young Midoriya discovers his hero might not be as invincible as he portrays himself to be. Still those revelations don’t phase our lead, it also becomes an historical meeting as our ‘quirk-less’ young boy is given the opportunity to become what he has always dreamed about, along with the encouragement and support of his ultimate role model who bestows on him something impossible.

Having received the ultimate gift we see as Midoriya now has a chance to attend a place that is meant to guarantee his rise to heroics, the legendary UA, where heroes are taught from young on how exactly to be heroes. Gathering with other young potential candidates who show great promise, Midoriya begins his high school life living up to his dreams as he learns that having a ‘quirk’ is harder than it looks, especially when it’s borrowed.

Like all coming of age stories and adventure manga that promise a fulfilling and eventful journey, Boku no Hero Academia, shows great promise in what it can and will offer its audience if we stick with it long enough. No doubt fans of Naruto will find this interesting, though maybe a bit ‘re-hashed’ if you think too much on how it all plays out, but meh…. Still worth a shot I think.

Ushinawareta Mirai wo Motomete - Anime

Ushinawareta Mirai wo Motomete starts out seemingly like an normal school drama, with nothing special going on and seems to put you randomly in the middle of the lives of the members of the Astronomy club as they go about their daily school lives as they prepare for their cultural festival. Everything seems quite normal as the students go about living their lives while an eerie timer seems to tick in the background, but you barely notice it as you try to figure out what the punchline is for the story as you sense something coming.

Of course the punchline comes rather rapidly in the first episode as things seem to start over once a certain incident occurs and you see the timer reset. But unlike the first time things become a little different as a new character enters the scene that wasn’t in the first set of events. But overall things remain the same.

The story is a bit confusing, for me at least, and takes a bit of time to figure out but the mystery behind it is somewhat captivating and worth waiting for as you watch on and try to discover why the timer exists. Following the mysterious transfer student, Yui, you get to see the many factors that come from messing with one’s future and the consequences with changing one’s ‘fate’.

It’s a bittersweet anime that grips you for a while as it has you trying to figure things out then eventually has you questioning how things should turn out for poor Yui in the end. An interesting watch when you have the time to spare, however I don’t know about seeking it out especially for a good binge watching. Still, more or less watchable.

Limitless - TV Show [CBS]

The mind is a brilliant thing and messing with it has been mankind’s greatest dream since possibly the dawn of science. In a recent TV show we see just how deep someone has messed with the mind as they create a drug that actually unlocks what could arguably be the brain’s full potential.

Based on a movie, like another series I won’t mention, Limitless proves to be a successful attempt at bringing the cinema to the silver screen as it carries on the story it initially created but with new characters you can’t help but like and follow as they create a story you will enjoy keeping track of.

The plot follows Brian Finch, a man who has seen better days in his life as he holds on to a dying career while watching the world move on, seemingly without him, until one day he comes across an old friend who gifts him with one dose of NZT as a helping hand to change his perspective on his life. Obviously our down and out lead doesn’t take the drug seriously and takes it with little to no expectation, until he learns what the rest of us who have watched the movie know very well to expect.

Things move fast and soon Brian Finch lands himself in the middle of a very sticky situation that has quite an interesting revelation at the end where viewers get to see how big an impact the movie really did make on the TV series as it brings in the lead actor in the movie for a one on one with the series lead.

Of course it is only a brief return, but it’s effective as it gets the message across while leading our new hero into his role as a consultant for the FBI, or rather their asset. The other characters also hold their own as they come across mildly interesting, but it must be said that it remains Brian Finch’s personality that draws you in and keeps you hooked as well as the way in which the show is structured.

The cinematography is pretty amazing and the use of lighting is spot on. My favourite though is the dialogue between the characters that keeps one entertained. The whole detective theme works as well as when you factor in ways to best exploit the different abilities NZT is supposed to gift the user, so there’s that too.

Over all, I loved the show and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a good action/light science fiction type of show.

Minority Report - TV Show [FOX]

People are predictable. If they find things that are awesome they must exploit it. This is just the way of things. But should all things be exploited? That is the question that plagues me as I watched a few episodes of a recent series that was based off a pretty cool movie from back in the day.

Don’t get me wrong the series, Minority Report, is pretty cool. The effects and futuristic take on the world is pretty epic and the tech makes me drool, just a teeny tiny bit. But I can’t help but feel like there’s just something missing from the show. And no, it’s not Tom Cruise. Although that would be pretty cool though, wouldn’t it?

Anyway, the show is set farther in the future than its predecessor as it follows the actions of one of the three siblings that powered the ‘hive mind’ that initially created the ‘pre-crime program’. The young boy who was once used as a tool in a machine to find crime has now grown up and become a man who now uses his limited ability to try and do what they once did as he struggles with the idea of doing nothing at all.

Needless to say he runs into a detective who has gotten used to working in a world where ‘pre-crime’ and its workings has become nothing but a myth used as stories to tell to children in museums. Obviously, things get complicated as our precognitive hero tries to explain things to the detective and things get messy as we learn just how limited his abilities are without the help of his siblings, thus leading to various twists and turns that carry the story on.

To be honest I have to say I’m slightly disappointed by this show. It didn’t grip me as much as I hoped it would and my attention wavers as I try to focus on it. All in all, let’s just say it’s not the first show I go to pick when looking for something to watch. Albeit, if I’m out of things to watch and I can’t sleep and have some time to kill, maybe I’ll consider it then…

Got to love the tech tho! >.<

Killjoys - TV Show [Syfy]

Cowboys in space… somewhere I heard or read it being called that and truthfully I might almost agree with it, except I don’t know much about cowboys other than that they ride bulls and wear brimmed hats and carry pistols. Yes, my knowledge about ends there. Still would I call Killjoys something close to space cowboys, maybe…?

The TV show has gotten me into the idea that a lawless space town might be interesting to live in though. The show follows a group of bounty hunters who fly through space looking for convicted felons to bring back to what they call the R.A.C and they do it with style.

But that’s not all they do as they also complete other missions like delivery and other miscellaneous tasks that have them forced into some sticky situations. But lucky for our group they aren’t an ordinary bunch as you find a trained assassin, an ex-soldier and his techie brother on board and together they are capable of almost doing any job that comes their way.

The show is pretty cool when it comes to the overall feel of it. It has some kickass action scenes and epic technology displayed for your viewing pleasure as it takes you on a ride through its rough universe that has clearly seen some better centuries.

The acting could be better, but it’s not horrendous and the female lead is gorgeous so I doubt many would complain, especially when the people behind the show seem to find almost any reason to get her to take her clothes off.

The character development is choppy as well as the storyline but the kinks can almost be forgiven when looking at the cinematography and the growth of the characters as each of the actors get more comfortable in their roles.

Overall, I can say I like the show, but I can see a potential chance of it being cancelled after maybe a season or two. I would hope not, but who knows, right? Maybe I’m wrong, I hope I am but I guess we’ll see.

Plastic Memories - Anime

Memories are a funny thing, a very funny thing indeed and with the most recent anime I just finished watching I’ve discovered they can be somewhat of a bittersweet thing too. Not that I didn’t know it, but I suppose it’s good to be reminded of such things every now and then. However, you have to admit it’s pretty interesting how something so intangible can be so integral in shaping how we function as well as how we choose to process the consequences that arise from simply just ‘functioning’ in our day to day lives.

Plastic Memories was a very curious anime to watch as the main story revolved around the creation and termination of memories. Already as you go into the anime there existed something melodramatic about it in the undertone to the whole thing that screamed at you to keep that box of tissues at hand.

The story is set in a future where androids exist alongside humans with relatively the same rights as them all except for the fact that they are owned by people for certain reasons and, most importantly, have limited lifespans. The story goes on to follow a new recruit who would be working in a branch of a company that deals with the collection of these androids once their lifespans are up and they need to be ‘terminated’ or as one of the characters so emphatically states that they deal in the ‘ripping apart of memories’.

The reason for such harsh words would be due to that fact that these androids, known as ‘Giftia’, are each gifted with unique souls and personalities and in effect are their own individuals that live their lives, however limited, making memories with their companions and various other significant people and thus the termination process can be quite a reluctant one, as the new recruit soon discovers.

Sadly, there are consequences for the androids that go beyond their allotted time and the results can be damaging for both the human and decaying Giftia.

The story is very moving as it follows the recruit and his new partner, who herself is a Giftia as per company regulations. Watching their relationship grow and deepen was entertaining, especially as I found the Giftia’s personality and clumsy nature adorable. I also found the struggle she underwent very intriguing as she fought against the idea of making memories. The change in her character was evident as she opened up due to our protagonist’s insistent prodding and it made for interesting arguments on what the true value of memories could be.

The character development was definitely well done as you watched the protagonist face multiple challenges of ‘ripping apart memories’ and how that affected him. Then you had his partner affected by his presence and moods and instead of just functioning like an android and avoiding things for fear of making memories that would be taken from her, you had her turn into a brighter individual okay with smiling just a bit and stepping out of the gloom of what is going to happen and just experiencing what can happen now.

Overall it was a bittersweet anime that I enjoyed watching. Albeit, I didn’t shed as much tears as I expected, though that was most likely due to the fact that the punch was given early and they let it linger for a bit before letting you go. But that wasn’t a bad play, in my opinion.

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.

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.