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entamewitchlulu · 5 years

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Homura’s Flash Reviews [February 2019]

This will be my first review post for 2019!! I’m watching winter anime currently which I won’t be reviewing til the season is over, but for those who are interested, here’s what I’m watching for winter!

The Price of Smiles

Ace Attorney

Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka

The Promised Neverland

Mysteria Friends

I’m also gonna be adding a few other things to these Flash Reviews and also review the movies I’ve seen during the month, just cause I rly like having opinions lol. So without further ado, here are the anime, shows, and movies that I saw this February and January!

Castlevania

Not technically an anime in anything other than style, Castlevania is the animated adaptation of the third Castlevania game, following the adventures of Trevor Belmont, the last of his vampire hunting legacy, Sypha, a nomadic magician, and Alucard Tepes, the son of Dracula and his human wife who was killed by the church, and their struggles to take down Dracula before he wipes out all of humanity.

I don’t know much about Castlevania the games, as they really aren’t my genre, but this adaptation was incredible!! Proof that video game adaptations can and should strive for greater heights! The dialogue was funny and witty, the characters were interesting and even the villains were endearing, and there was this incredibly crafted atmosphere of both sadness and hope. Not to mention, the animation was top notch. Plus, I have to give it credit for finally letting characters say “fuck” realistically.

overall: 9/10

Futari wa Pretty Cure

The very first, original start of the popular magical girl franchise, Pretty Cure chronicles the tale of Nagisa and Honoka, two very different girls who are brought together when they are chosen to become Pretty Cure, the legendary warriors who will defend light from the darkness! Together with their mascot friends Mepple and Mipple, and juggling their real lives along with their supernatural battles, Cure Black and Cure White will do whatever it takes to protect the world from evil!

I’ve intended to watch Pretty Cure for literally years now, and no one could agree with where I should start, so I decided to just do what I usually do and watch from the beginning. I’ve only seen the first season of Pretty Cure and not the Max Heart sequel yet. Overall, it was about what I expected! I’m a bit of a sucker for the traditional 2000s magical girl genre, with its repetitive formulas, catchphrases, poses, and the usual five episode plots that every single one of them has. The designs were super cute and I love how Black and White look so distinct and yet are still clearly a team. Pollun especially is super adorable!!

Definitely I can see why Pretty Cure became such of a behemoth in the magical girl genre today; it has staying power. This season was definitely full of a lot of generic magical girl filler, and I will be honest that I started to lose steam for it towards the end, plus the villains were not at all endearing or interesting (like, Poisonny and Regine are both very pretty, and Kiriya was okay, but other than that, no one stands out), but it was still a great and adorable experience that I’m glad I experienced. I’m not sure when I’ll get to the next series, but I’m sure it won’t be long!

overall: 7/10

Incredibles 2

I took my sweet time going to see this sequel, but here we are. In the anticipated sequel to the original Incredibles, the family faces new challenges as Elastigirl is scouted by a CEO to help make superheroes legal again, while Mr. Incredible has to learn the challenges of taking care of the family by himself.

I guess overall it was a good movie and well made for its intended audience. The animation was pretty good and I usually like their cartoony anatomy designs which are more concerned with a comic-book-esque aesthetic rather than proper anatomy and perfect realism. Definitely the quality has soared since the first Incredibles. For me personally though...as much as it was entertaining, in hindsight I don’t think it was really made for me. There were a lot of plot threads that didn’t seem to get resolved or even addressed. Bob never fully confronts his jealousy for Helen’s new job, and is never quite confronted about the fact that he hid Jack Jack’s powers from Helen either. The new superheroes were...honestly not my favorite designs in the world outside of Void, and I felt like their only purpose was to become fight fodder for the final battle, which could have been done with almost any other means. For as long as the movie was, it felt like a lot of the threads were simply not deeply solved, and only shallowly addressed. As this is a movie for kids, though, I can look past that; this wasn’t the story for a hugely deep look at things. It did affect my personal enjoyment, though, but it was still a greatly fun movie to watch.

overall: 7/10

Dragon Ball Super: Broly

Finally coming for the canon after a couple of decades, DBS Broly brings the legendary super Saiyan Broly into the main cast. When the young Broly is sent away from Planet Vegeta for being too overwhelmingly powerful, he and his father are stranded on a barren planet for forty years, until they are found by some of Frieza’s soldiers and brought into the Frieza Force. Frieza immediately pits the super powerful Broly up against our heroes Goku and Vegeta, who must pull out every trick in the book in order to stop him from destroying the planet in his growing rage.

I never ever thought I would say this about anything relating to Broly, but GODDAMN that might have been the best Dragon Ball media in years. Let’s get this part straight: I’ve disliked Broly since he first appeared in the DB movies. He was boring, had a ridiculous backstory, and was just there to be a Gary Stu to really push Goku and Vegeta to their limits. But this movie??? This movie singlehandedly shot Broly to my top ten characters in Dragon Ball. He is endearing, gentle, a recovering abuse victim with a rage he cannot control, and his strength is more dangerous to himself than to those around him. In TFS’ review of the movie, they made a great point: the real stakes of his movie aren’t whether Broly is going to destroy the planet; they’re whether Broly himself is going to be okay. I’m focusing a lot on Broly, but Goku and Vegeta are in top form in his movie as well. It’s great getting to see Vegeta have a massive fight where he isn’t immediately jobbed for Goku’s sake, and Goku himself is at the top of his game as the fun-loving, battle-crazed but still sympathetic hero that he should always be written as. Not to mention our new additions to the main cast in Cheelai and Lemo, two of Frieza’s soldiers who found and ended up befriending Broly, who are equally endearing and fun especially in their dynamics with Broly himself.

All in all, this was a fucking excellent movie, and the first DB media that I can imagine wanting to rewatch!

overall: 10/10

Fireworks

When Nazuna is about to move away, she asks Norimichi to come with her to the fireworks, though she plans instead to run away. When this doesn’t work according to plan, Norimichi finds that a strangle marble belonging to Nazuna has the power to turn back the clock, giving them a second chance to be together. However, with each reset, they move further and further away from reality -- can they return to a world where they’re able to spend at least one day with each other?

This is pretty much, in a nutshell, everything I love about anime movies. It’s beautiful, fluid, full of amazing music, and the emotions hit so close to home. While the story itself doesn’t explain much, it really doesn’t have to -- the surrealism of the surrounding world sells it more than any exposition would, proving you don’t need to slow down your story to explain something as long as you can make people feel something for it. Despite having so little to know about both Norimichi and Nazuna, I was still more than sold by their romance. And once again, the surrealism of the animation and the story are something that only anime can pull off. You just can’t do stories like this live action.

The only thing that really dragged this story down were some of the CGI bits, which I found unnecessary and weird against the otherwise gorgeous backgrounds, but I guess this is where animation is going lately so I might have to get used to it.

overall: 8/10

#castlevania #futari wa pretty cure #incredibles 2 #dragon ball super broly #fireworks #homura reviews #homura's flash reviews

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