Assassin's Creed Shadows: Attack on Titan Collab 'Beyond the Walls' (2025) - Video Game Mission Review

From the very first instalment, I have been a huge fan of the Assassin's Creed series of video games. I have played through all the mainlines, and a chunk of side games, and each time a new one comes out I eagerly lap it up. For those not in the know, each game takes place in a different historical time period, they have been everywhere, from Greece, to Italy, to England, France and more. This year was Assassin's Creed Shadows, which takes place in feudal Japan in the 16th Century. I have currently sunk around 76 hours, but it hasn't been one of my favourites, with an unfocussed main storyline that frequently has me forgetting what I'm meant to be doing.
All that preamble is to say, unexpectedly, there was a collaboration with anime Attack on Titan. This might seem like an odd fit, but it isn't the first time a strange collab has occurred, just look at the Stranger Things/Far Cry 6 crossover from 2022. The crossover was sadly limited time, and realising that I only had a day left to try it before it was removed from the game, last night (at time of typing), I quickly headed on to check the crossover mission out.

The mission is called 'Beyond the Walls', and the game draws attention to it by highlighting it on the map the first time you go on post addition. It begins with you finding the corpse of an Attack on Titan Survey Corps member, on the body are orders that reveal the Survey Corps were on a mission to capture a defector named Gautwin, and that they had located him at a nearby castle. Heading to the castle, you rescue another Corps member, and together you head into the basement where she reveals the defector has the power to change into a 'Titan'. Naoe and Yasuke assume this power is being exaggerated when told it literally changes a person into a giant monster. Separated from Yasuke and the Survey Corps member, Naoe heads on her own deeper into the cave system.

The first part of the mission proper sees Naoe heading through a series of dark caverns. These were not much different from cave levels in the rest of the game, unexciting, but I do love the more tightly focussed levels in Assassin's Creed games. Aside from overheard conversations from guards, the game doesn't properly crossover until Naoe arrives at the giant crystal pillar cave. This area is similar to the one in the show, a cavernous room full of hundreds of crystal pillars rising up from the void. The section here is mainly parkour based, enemies positioned in ways that meant you always got the (sometimes literal) jump on them. I enjoyed this, and it always felt obvious where the bonus chests were located. The actual rewards were a bit dull. The trailer for the crossover was all about the armour sets for the characters, but it turns out all the cool stuff has to be paid for. Instead, you get a bunch of different flags, and a Titan statue for use back in your home base.

The second half of the mission has you play as Yasuke, and is much shorter. The first part has him fighting a boss and his minions, while the second half has him fleeing from a Titan. That sounds cooler than it actually is, as you only hear the monster, I couldn't actually see it chasing me unfortunately. With that done its all over, with one last choice to decide how the mission ends.

I'm glad I wasn't expecting too much as this was merely adequate. It was a fun and silly crossover, and I did enjoy how it was integrated into the more realistic main game, but the actual mission was a bit underwhelming. I loved Naoe's section, the crystal caves were a lot of fun to get through. Yasuke's was more of a let down, it would have been cool to actually get to fight a Titan, rather than only have it appear on screen during a single cutscene. The rewards were fine, I'm not going to complain about free stuff, and you do get a unique weapon for both characters as a mission reward, but it felt a bit misleading that the armour sets were so front and centre in the trailer when these are only available to buy from the shop. For how attractive the rest of the game is, this mission was a bit bland looking.
The mission was free, and a cool little bonus. While it sucks it is only there for a limited time, I'm glad I got to try it, even if it was a little underwhelming.

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Attack on Titan - The Final Chapters: Special 2 (2023) - Horror Anime Episode Review

Towards the end of last year, after a few bait and switches, the actual final episode of hit anime Attack on Titan aired. As the convoluted title suggests, Attack on Titan - The Final Chapters: Special 2, this ending had been stretched out somewhat. It has taken three or four months to get my best friend (who I have watched the entire show with) to agree to sit through the feature length episode, with this last one clocking in at an hour and a half. Probably not a surprise to anyone, but as a warning, there will be almighty spoilers for anyone not up to date with what has been going on.

Special 1 ended with the combined forces of Paradis island and outside forces on their way to battle Eren, who had initiated 'the rumbling' (essentially releasing a cataclysmic rampage of thousands of giant titans to destroy the entire world). In his gigantic titan form, Eren was leading the charge, determined to wipe out everyone outside of Paradis island. The initial plan is to stop Eren, rather than kill him, as among the defenders are some of his former best friends, including Mikasa and Armin. It turns out it isn't just Eren and Zeke they have to contend with however, as the source of the titan power, Ymir, has lent her power in the form of summoning the hundreds of key titans of those who have come before. These unfavourable odds soon make it seem like victory might be impossible.

As I had hoped, most of the last episode is an epic battle, and with most the fighting taking place on Eren's titan form back, this literally finally lived up to the title 'Attack on Titan'! As expected, the animation was top notch, with no end of epic moments. It was so cool to see the army of ghost-like titans for both friendly titans and humans to battle. There were less notable deaths than expected, but still got a couple. There is a lot of action here, but thankfully there is also a lot dedicated to the finale of the story, both with some intelligently placed explanations for things which had been going on that hadn't been obvious to the viewer, and a neat way of kind of showing what happens to the world going forward into the future, obviously for spoiler reasons I can't say anymore than that.

My issue going in had been that Eren was my second favourite character, but later episodes had seen him turn into almost a cartoon like antagonist hell bent on world destruction. I hoped there would be something to hold onto to at least make his actions more relatable, and I'm darn glad there was, with some neat flashback scenes being shown to the viewer for the first time that explain his thought patterns and why he did what he did. By this point my friend hated Eren, but much like Light in the fantastic Death Note anime, I could understand his actions at least in some small way, even if parts of those actions may have been quite misguided and narrow sighted. Of course, when you are shown scenes of mass death as a result of his actions, it can be hard to identify too much with his reasoning!

Having been watching Attack on Titan for ten years, much of the story I was a bit lost with. It is complicated at the best of times, so catching it every few years with a new season, and with those seasons being fragmented, has meant my understanding of the overall story isn't the best. After some time has passed I look forward to watching the whole ninety something episodes again. The only thing stopping this final from getting a ten out of ten is the inclusion of Gabbi, a character who I detest and who ruins every scene the character ever appears in!

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The Tunnel to Summer, the Exit of Goodbyes (2022) - Fantasy Anime Review

As this is my own blog I am sometimes happy to stray outside of the lines of what is tonally resonant with my mainly horror focussed content. I find the notion of time travel an endlessly captivating subject, so when I got the opportunity to check out a Japanese anime, the Tomohisa Taguchi directed and co-written The Tunnel to Summer, the Exit of Goodbyes (original title Natsu e no tunnel, Sayonara no deguchi) for a review I had to go for it. This was based on the novel of the same name, telling quite the bittersweet story of living for the past.

Kaoru Tono (voiced by Oji Suzuka) is a high school student who lives out in the Japanese countryside with his alcoholic father. His home life is unhappy, something that is linked back to the accidental death of Kaoru's younger sister some years previously, which led to his parents splitting up, and his father bearing an unfair grudge against the boy ever since. One day he encounters a strange girl at the local train station, Anzu Hanashiro (voiced by Marie Litoyo), she is new to the area and happens to be in Kaoru's class. One night, after an argument with his drunk father, Kaoru flees his home and accidentally stumbles across a strange tunnel. Heading into it he discovers his childhood pet bird returned to life, and upon leaving a few minutes later he is shocked to discover an entire week has passed in the outside world. There is a local legend about a place named the Urashima Tunnel, somewhere which is said to grant you your heart's desire at the cost of time off your life, and Kaoru comes to realise he has found this tunnel. He becomes obsessed with the idea of being able to bring his dead sister back to life by visiting the tunnel, but on his second visit he finds Anzu has followed him. With her own private reasons for wanting to visit the tunnel, the two form an alliance, to help each other achieve their wishes.

At its core this is a love story, not really something I typically watch. I do love anime though, so this was a delight to watch regardless. In Japanese with English subtitles, it was easy to follow, and despite a reliance on text messages by the two leads, I never felt like I wasn't getting information at the same time as the characters in the film. The time travel part was what most interested me, and bizarrely this most closely matches the idea used in the classic children's film The Flight of the Navigator (a personal favourite of mine). It seemed more nefarious than it actually was, as while people in the tunnel experience time at a far faster rate, they themselves don't age quicker. Much of the middle section of the movie was concerned with the two teens exploring the limits of the tunnel's time abilities, playing out as a montage of their experiments.

The bittersweet part of this anime comes from Kaoru and Anzu's growing attachment to each other, with Kaoru obsessed with being able to see his sister again, and Anzu's reason for visiting the tunnel more to spend time with the boy than anything, there was going to come a time when I felt the boy would travel deep into the tunnel. With the characters semi-joking that likely a thousand years would pass in any deep exploration, there come a feeling they would become separated by time.

The animation went for a realistic anime look, which worked well with the morose and serious story. I didn't really like the music choices, but it made sense for an anime to have somewhat soppy sounding love songs sung by a female singer. The focus is on the two protagonists, with other characters barely featuring, only really during a handful of school classroom scenes, and Kaoru's home. With the two both having absent parents, it skipped that aspect of regret, with the insular look more at how the time travel would affect them as a close pair.

Is there any horror? Of course not, there is a hint of the supernatural, and of course some interesting time travel, wrapped up in a bittersweet love story that I did find myself getting a little drawn into. The Annecy Award winning The Tunnel to Summer, the Exit of Goodbyes opens in over 120 cinemas nationwide in the UK on Friday 14th July.

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Attack on Titan - The Final Chapters: Special 1 (2023) - Horror Anime Episode Review

The convoluted and lengthy final season of horror anime show Attack on Titan is almost at an end, again. The fourth season began in 2020 and had already been split into two parts, so me and my best friend were quite surprised when at the end of Attack on Titan: Season 4 Part 2 it was revealed there was yet more to come. Rather than stretch things out even further it turns out the final two episodes are both bumper ones, with Attack on Titan - The Final Chapters: Special 1 being an hour in length, rather than the usual twenty or so minutes. Obviously there will be spoilers for previous episodes to follow, so read on with caution in your hearts.

The story is too much to sum up, basically, Eren (voiced by Yuki Kaji) has unleashed 'the rumbling' onto the world, which equates to him unleashing a seemingly unstoppable army of titans (giant humanoid monsters) whose sole goal is to crush and destroy all they come across outside of Paradis Island. There was little hope for the enemy city to survive, being so close to the sea from where the monsters appear, so Eren's secondary goal is to then march to the location of the enemy's mountaintop military base, in order to fully defeat them. The goals have a very high civilian casualty rate, and so his former colleagues, including among them his childhood best friends Mikasa (Yui Ishikawa) and Armin (Marina Inoue) have teamed up with some of the original invaders of Paradis Island in order to try and find a way to stop his terrible plan of genocide to the world outside of his home.

Due to the scattershot approach to the release of the series (it all started ten years back with the first season), it has been increasingly hard to follow the story, especially in later seasons where politics and internal machinations have really made some plot points hard to follow. Thankfully then, this first part of the very end of the show tells a somewhat simpler story. In addition to the main and urgent storyline going on, there is also a few flashback moments that try and justify Eren's approach to dealing with the threat of the outside world to his people. This displays the fact that he isn't a heartless monster, but instead is very aware of all the innocents that will be killed in his murderous path as leader of the rumbling. The key theme appears to be about stopping the cycle of hate, with most characters putting aside their differences in order to try and save what remains of the world as a whole. Each character recognises they have committed terrible acts that have resulted in the deaths of innocents, and so maybe for some, they see stopping Eren as a way to somewhat atone for their atrocious acts. On a side note, I find it funny that the bonus character skin for the new season of Fortnite is Eren, due to him currently being a genocidal maniac in the anime!

The animation is fantastic here, with some really wonderful moments, such as a sequence in which a long standing character all the way from the first season dies (a moment that saw my best friend tear up). There are also lots of moments of gratuitous violence, with the titans crushing all they come across. Most violent moment of the episode shows a child's head getting crushed in slow motion by a titan's foot, very graphic indeed! For the first proper hour long show (I don't include the lengthy recap specials), this was perfectly paced, going around to all the key characters. It all leads up to an exciting showdown, I fully expect a lot of the final final episode will be a protracted fight sequence in which all the special titans come to the field of battle.

Initially I had expected to review the final part in one review, but learning that not only that it consisted of just two episodes, and that the second one isn't due to air until this Autumn, I felt I had to review this now, rather than wait till later in the year and forget what had happened. If you've got this far then of course this is essential watching. For me nothing eclipses the horror feel of Attack on Titan: Season 2, nor does this excel itself above some of the simply stunning episodes of Attack on Titan: Season 4 Part 1, but regardless, this was a fantastic special that sets things up very nicely for the final run.

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Attack on Titan: Season 4 Part 2 (2022) - Anime TV Series Review

Attack on Titan is an anime I have been heavily invested in since 2013 when its first season aired. While nothing for me has compared to the wonderful horror filled second season, I was very happy to see part 1 of the fourth and final season featuring some of the best episodes to date. With a big cliffhanger occuring at the end of part 1, I was excited to see how the show would wrap up over the final twelve episodes. Only, it turns out there was a secret part 3, something that wasn't announced until the final episode of part 2 had aired. While it is cool there is yet more to come, me and my friend felt a bit deflated expecting a finish to the story and instead being told to wait until 2023.

Due to the stop and start way I watched part 2, I had some confusion with what was happening. I initially watched the first three episodes, before a huge span of time passed until I got around to seeing the following six episodes, and then it was another few months gap between I finally got my friend pinned down to watch the final four episodes. There are unavoidable spoilers to follow with my garbled synopsis. Part 2 begins with Judgment in which begins the invasion of Paradis by the Marleyan military. This leads to a trio of high action, very exciting episodes, with Sneak Attack and Two Brothers following. With Eren on perhaps an unwise course of action, it is up to his friends and colleagues to make some unlikely partnerships in order to find a way to stop all the senseless killing between the two sides.

I think part of the reason I didn't enjoy this quite so much was due to sheer confusion at what on Earth was going on. I get that is a me problem, so I will try not to let it affect my thoughts on this too much. What is certainly true is that characters I have loved begin to do some questionable things with little explanation. Eren in particular has become a conundrum, not helped in that the second half of this latest batch of twelve episodes he barely even features, making his motivations unknowable. While the infuriatingly annoying Gabi unfortunately features in this a lot, we also get a lot of the every amazing Mikasa doing what she does best; killing with style. She has some of the more stand out moments here, one that really stood in the mind was a fast paced battle against some soldiers that was so quick that she ends up decapitating one soldier, and then impaling her sword through both the headless corpse, and the hapless comrade behind him. Armin also shines as the typical brains of course.

Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress: Season 1 (2016) - Zombie Horror Anime Review

It's been a while since I watched any anime, mainly because I'm always forgetting my Crunchyroll password! Well, I reset it yet again and decided to check out the zombie anime Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress. The show shares many similarities with Attack on Titan, both with the apocalyptic vision of the world as well as a mistrusted main protagonist. I watched the original Japanese version rather than the one with English dubbing.

The show takes place in a post apocalyptic steampunk version of feudal Japan. While it is not told in the show the synopsis says that at the onset of the industrial revolution a zombie outbreak suddenly occurred. These zombies, in the show called 'Kabane' soon overrun the entirety of Japan. The human survivors exist within towns and cities that are ringed by huge insurmountable iron walls, and they travel between these settlements on large armoured trains. One day the Kabane manage to invade the settlement of Aragane Station, in the process a young inventor named Ikoma is bitten and infected. He somehow manages to stop the spread of the infection by a device he straps to his body. The survivors flee the doomed station aboard the Kotetsujyo. It is here that Ikoma discovers he is now a Kabernari - half human/half zombie and that another person, the young Mumei also is one. Mistrusted by the other passengers and the crew of the train they all travel onwards to the capital city. As is always the case it soon becomes clear that there is more to fear than the Kabane...

The anime is made up of twelve episodes, the majority of them take place on or around the train (the titular iron fortress I guess). It is neatly split into half, the first six episodes have humans versus the zombie creatures. It culminates in the excellent two parter of Inescapable Darkness and Gathering Light. The second half of the season picks up on the familiar trope of other humans being the most dangerous thing in a zombie infested world. A villain emerges whose motive is that weak people deserve to die, and it is only the strong who have a right to live. I won't spoil who this villain is, but it wasn't that much of a surprise as the reveal happens within half an episode of this character first appearing.

Attack on Titan: Season 4 Part 1 (2020-21) - Anime TV Series Review

From the get-go it was clear that season 4 of hit anime Attack on Titan was going to be its final one, after all it is so set in stone that it makes up part of the season's title. What wasn't so clear is just how many episodes it was going to have. Each season of the show has had different episode amounts, but as these episodes came out it became clear the story wouldn't be able to finish within the stated sixteen. It was a relief then to discover a part 2 of this final season is due to come out this winter. Obviously this review will just be based on part 1, and obviously there will be unavoidable spoilers for people who haven't seen the previous seasons.

It is four years since the events of the third season in which the people of Paradis island learnt that their world is a whole lot bigger than they could have ever guessed. Away from their medieval style of living, and their Titan problem (huge humanoid man eating monsters) a whole other world exists, one that is far more modern in its technology. In a city far away, a bunch of Eldian recruits (including among them Falco and Gabi) for the Titan program, wage war against the enemies of Marley. Meanwhile the 'devils of Paradis' (as they are known) have been steadily working towards a plan that will safeguard themselves from the rest of the world. The only problem being Eren whose insatiable thirst for revenge could scupper these plans. Of course, not everything is as it seems...

This is a good season but it isn't without its issues. The biggest problem I had, at least initially is that the focus didn't seem to be on the characters I had grown to love, instead there was a whole bunch of new characters. It's an interesting idea to show things from the perspective of the enemy, but I found it hard to care at all about these new characters, some of which even annoyed the hell out of me. Primary new protagonist, Gabi is the most irritating of them all. I think she was meant to be the enemy version of Eren. Both are hot headed, and both rush into things without really thinking them through. Balanced with her is Falco, someone who seems much more cautious and thoughtful, he reminded me a lot of Armin. The first four episodes (The Other Side of the Ocean, Midnight Train, The Door of Hope, and From One Hand to Another) follow these new characters and I began to lose hope. 

Attack on Titan: Season 3 (2018-2019) - Anime TV Series Review

I've had this review of the third season of Attack on Titan written for a long time, just never seemed the right time to stick it up, but here it is today. The second season of Attack on Titan was just twelve episodes in length, but as I said then it really was quality over quantity with some of the finest story moments I have experienced in that sort of media. With this new season they did a The Walking Dead and split the season in half, the first twelve episodes released in 2018, with the final ten coming out this year. I really should have made notes or something, but alas I didn't, and so my memories of that first half are a bit sketchy. I will try and keep spoilers from previous seasons to a minimum.

A brief summary is that Attack on Titan takes place in a world where the surviving humans live inside huge stone walls that were put there to protect them against monstrous beings known as 'Titans'. In season 2 it was revealed that there was a plot by unknown enemy forces from outside the walls to kill all the humans within. Season 3 starts off insular, the scouts (soldiers trained to battle titans) realise that for reasons unknown the ruling government do not have the best interests of the people in mind, which leads to them rising up to overthrow the government. The second half of the season sees the scouts head out to retake 'Wall Maria' (the first of the three walls that was destroyed at the very start of the first season), as well as to finally find out the secret of what is in Eren's father's basement, which has been a huge plot point forever (Eren being the main character).

The entirety of season 2 took place over just the course of a couple of days. With this new season it seems to be a few months at least. This is very much a show split neatly into two halves. The first twelve episodes are almost titan free, yet this part shows that even without giant monsters the world is a violent place, specifically with an armed group led by Levi's former mentor (Levi being the leader of the scouts). It all gets quite political yet despite this manages to introduce the largest titan yet to grace the show, one so big that it can't support its own weight and so crawls along on its belly.

Zombie Land Saga (2018) - Comedy Anime TV Series Review

I don't watch nearly enough anime, so recently I have been making an effort to get through the backlog of stuff on my list. While the premise behind Zombie Land Saga didn't really sound like my thing, the fact it had the undead in it meant my hand was forced. With season 1 being just twelve 23 minute episodes I zoomed through this in a week, a good sign as the last anime I watched - Clockwork Planet was also twelve episodes, yet took me the better part of six months to drag my way through.

Sakura Minamoto (Kaede Hondo) is a normal Japanese girl who has aspirations of becoming a pop idol. On her way to hand in a application form to audition to be one she is hit by a truck. She awakens in a strange mansion and is shocked to see it is full of zombies, she flees but eventually comes to the realisation that she too is now one of the undead. A mysterious man - Kotaro Tatsumi has somehow brought her, and six former pop idols from history back to life as zombies. His goal is simple, to create the ultimate pop idol group in order to bring attention to the prefecture of Saga, doing so he hopes will save it from decline.

So from the summery it can be inferred that this is a comedy. While it is comical it never turns into the sort of farce that animes such as Excel Saga were. Instead it keeps things relatively normal outside of the crazy situations the group get into. This also surprised in that it has a lot of heart to it at times with characters growing as people over the course of the season. Some of the characters get episodes dedicated to them, that shows how events from their pre-death lives has impacted on who they are now, and the consequences of their passing. Saki Nikaido for instance used to be the leader of a biker gang, and comes across a girl that she realises is her former best friend's daughter. She has aspirations of keeping that same gang alive. The youngest member - twelve year old Lily Hoshikawa in a different episode discovers her father and the impact her death had on his life. I did quite like that some of the characters suffer PTSD from their deaths, in particular for Ai Mizuno who died after being struck by lightning during a gig.

Elfen Lied (2004-5) - Horror Anime TV Show Review

My best friend has been on at me for years to give Japanese anime Elfen Lied a watch, so as a kind of self serving Christmas present to her I binge watched it over the course of a week. I've been sat on this post for a while as it was a 'break glass in case of emergency' kind of thing and after an exhausting day in my day job the time is ripe. This is a horror that is based on the manga of the same name and ran for 13 episodes, it could be said to be quite bleak and depressing covering some nasty topics and featuring a lot of extreme violence.

Lucy; a deadly human mutant (known as a Diclonius) escapes the secure facility she had been kept prisoner in for several years, butchering many of the staff and guards along the way due to several invisible long limbs (known as 'vectors') she possesses. However just as she is escaping she is shot in the head with the resulting trauma creating a split personality. A teenage boy Kouta and his cousin Yuka discover her washed up on a beach at a nearby town and take her home, Lucy's split personality manifests as a mentally disabled girl barely capable of speech, who they name Nyu. Desperate to stop Lucy the facility sends out various groups including a task force, a ruthless mercenary, and other Diclonius in order to try and kill her, all of which is unknown to her new personalities innocent new friends.

Elfen Lied gets off to a fantastic start, the initial escape from the facility is amazing with blood shed and mayhem setting up the tone of the show. Blood is in high abundance, as is extreme violence against everyone. Innocents don't escape here with graphic murders of both men, women, and even children by the Dicloniuns, even I was shocked to see a child get ripped in half with her spine visible out her body! These scenes are so cool and fun to watch (within the scope of the show of course) it makes for some really exciting scenes of horror in a kind of Carrie type way. It also helps neuter the antagonists as they are mostly awful human beings who do truly awful things (such as one who is tasked with killing newborn babies who exhibit signs of the mutation within them) yet looking objectively trying to stop a mass murderer whose DNA calls for her to kill all humans is not an evil act per se.

Death Note (2017) - Horror Film Review

Death Note is hands down my favourite anime of all time, I absolutely love the idea behind it, and think Light is perfect as the flawed hero; a tragic character in the style of Shakespeare's best. I was really excited when I heard it was getting made into another film (after the Japanese Death Note and Death Note: The Last Name in 2006), this time a re-imagining that moved the setting to America and is directed by Adam Wingard (You're Next, Blair Witch). However early reviews came out and it has been pretty much universally slated, as a fan boy would I look past the flaws of this latest effort, or would my love for the subject matter shine through and blind me to any alleged sins? I have never read the manga so any comparisons I make will be based on the anime as a forewarning.

Light Turner (Nat Wolff) is an intelligent loner who ends up coming into ownership of a very strange book named Death Note, a book that belongs to Death God Ryuk (Willem Dafoe). He soon learns that whoever has their name written in this book will die and with this knowledge sets out to make the world a better place by culling criminals, having long since lost faith in justice after the man who killed his mum in a hit and run got off the charge many years back. However his plans start to go awry when his actions lead to a world class detective known only as L (Lakeith Stanfield) deciding to hunt down and apprehend him. Aided by his girlfriend Mia (Margaret Qualley) Light must find a way to stop L, before he is unmasked.

I put it down to this movie being an hour and forty minutes long but events move very fast here, that is understandable to fit everything in, yet I do wonder how much sense it would make to someone who hasn't seen a previous version of the story. There are changes to the plot all over the board, the setting being in Seattle rather than Japan is the least of these changes. The Light of old was a charismatic sociopath, someone who was willing to do almost anything to keep control of the Death Note , I loved him for this, yet this Light is a lot different. The general story is slightly the same but it seems the character of Light is now split into two different people; him and girlfriend Mia. She stays alongside him and acts in a way that reminded me of Iago from Othello, always suggesting drastic actions, and when it comes down to the elements that make Light evil in the original it is instead Mia who carries out these acts. This Light seems barely in control, manipulated throughout and forced to take the blame for other characters actions.

Berserk: Season 2 (2017) - Fantasy Anime Review

I have absolutely no idea why I decided not to review season 1 of Berserk that dropped last year. The show is a mix of medieval fantasy mixed in with horror elements and so isn't like it wouldn't fit on my blog. Anyway season 2 has now finished and so a review of that is in order. I had a bit of a weird time with Berserk, I watched season 1 (which starts off in the middle of a huge story) with no knowledge of what had happened previously. Then back in February I brought the Berserk video game (Berserk and the Band of the Hawk) which filled me in on the story up to that point and made what seemed like trivial moments really important. Going in to season 2 I would say having previous Berserk knowledge is essential as this has a lot more to do with main antagonist Griffith (the Antichrist is how a work colleague would describe him). Spoilers for previous events in the timeline are bound to follow.

Having rescued Casca from the Order of the Holy See, Guts finds himself brought to the edge protecting her from the demons which assault the pair each night. This weakness is starting to manifest as a creature of evil that tries to possess Guts. Due to this he decides to accept help and soon teams up with Farnese, Serpico, and Isidro. Looking for a save place from danger the fairy Puck suggests travelling to his hometown. Along the journey to reach this safe haven the group get caught up in the affairs of a witch and her young student Schierke, and have more than one encounter with the agents of Griffith who seek to remove any threats to their leader...

Attack on Titan: Season 2 (2017) - Anime TV Series Review

While I did think the first season of Attack on Titan was good I also admittedly took a long time to get through it. Thinking back it was a show that I liked, but not one I really loved, it was more the whole set up that interested me rather than what at times was a slightly dull show full of characters I mostly either despised, or straight up didn't know who they were. Four years later and season two has finally dropped, though it is a real shame at first glance that this second round is comprised of only twelve episodes compared to the first seasons twenty five episodes. However that turns out to be the antithesis of my blog for it really is quality over quantity this time around. Spoilers for season one are bound to follow.

Attack on Titan is a world in which humanity was nearly wiped out in the past by huge people eating Titans. The survivors built a huge wall behind which they live out their meagre existences. Season one took place over the span of five years - from the invasion of the dreaded monsters right up to the capture of a spy who secretly had the power to turn into a Titan. It is all the more surprising then that the whole of season two takes place over just a couple of days, with the capture of the enemy spy leading to a ripple effect of more insidious surprises within the ranks of the survey corps (the branch of the military whose mission is to retake the lost land back from the Titans), as well as a new outbreak thanks to the machinations of a mysterious intelligent beast Titan.

Blame! (2017) - Anime Film Review

I had originally planned to watch horror comedy President's Day for review today, but I didn't feel in the right mood to do that. Instead here is a review of Blame! a new Netflix exclusive anime movie based on the 1998 cyber punk manga by Tsutomu Nihei. I love anime, it was one of my favourite things to watch, but I don't really watch many films of it, mostly just focus on the awesome series such as Attack on Titan and Berserk.

Blame! takes place in a post apocalyptic Earth, one which has had every square inch covered by an impossibly large city. Hundreds of years in the past a city creating A.I known as Safeguard was created, the people living in the city were able to interact with it via something known as a 'net terminal gene'. One day something with Safeguard's programming went wrong, it started seeing humans as intruders in the city and ruthlessly sent out murderous robots to kill anyone they found, at the same time the city started endlessly, and randomly expanding, a process that continues up to the present day. Blame! follows a small community living in a protected area of the city, due to Safeguard they are slowly dying off as food becomes more and more scarce and risky to locate. One day a mysterious stranger named Killy arrives, he ends up teaming up with the villagers as well as a friendly A.I named Cibo to locate a device that will let the humans once more take back control of the city and end the threat of Safeguard.

Attack on Titan: Part 1 (2015) - Fantasy Film Review

I did a review of the Anime series of Attack on Titan last year and so after watching the first live action film last night I thought I may as well do one for that too. Since coming out I have heard mostly negative reports about the quality of the movie but I wanted to see for myself, especially as while I like the anime I am not in as much love with it as many fans seem to be.

In the world of the film humans live behind three gigantic circular walls that were built hundreds of years in the past as a means to defend humanity against the might of the Titans. The Titans are huge humanoid monsters who exist only to eat people, have not been seen for a hundred years, and so are almost a myth. Eren (Haruma Miura) and his friends Mikasa and Armin sneak out to the outer wall but while they are there a being known as the colossal Titan appears and destroys a part of the wall. In this gap flood an army of Titans who start killing all they see. In the chaos Eren looses Mikasa and it seems she has died. Two years later and all humans have retreated behind the second wall, Eren and Armin are now part of the military and are part of a task force tasked with travelling though the Titan infested lands in order to find a way to block up the gap in the outer structure...

Attack on Titan (2013) - Anime TV Series Review

Last year the Attack on Titan anime exploded becoming seemingly a global phenomenon over night. I was late to the party, but with my best friend raving about it, as well as most the podcasts I listen to shouting about it I just had to give it a go. There will be spoilers ahead, I can't avoid them but will try and keep them to a minimum.

The show takes place in a world where in the past humanity was nearly driven to extinction with the arrival of 'Titans'; giant humanoid creatures who seem to exist solely to eat people. Now what is left of the human race live behind three gigantic circular walls that stop the Titans from being able to get in. Eren Yeager lives just within the first wall with his parents and intensely loyal friend Mikasa, one day a sixty foot Titan named the 'Colossus Titan' appears and breaches the wall, allowing Titan hordes to enter and ravage the town. In the chaos Eren's mother is killed, but him and his sister manage to escape with Eren vowing to destroy all the monsters.

Over twenty five episodes (twenty six including the recap one. I really don't know why anime shows seem to adore doing these completely pointless recap episodes) a hell of a lot happens. The first half charts Eren's life as he trains to be in the military, the second half (complete with new intro and outro credits) has Eren and friends now part of the 'Recon Corps'. A lot of the episodes are action based and one battle, or mission can last multiple shows, and at around twenty four minutes each that leads to some epic fights.

Now the Titans may be fearsome opponents but there look is one of grotesque appearance than intelligent. They are sexless, have a wrong look about them and can only be destroyed via the back of their neck being slashed open. The human army are armed with something called 3D manoeuvre gear which is kind of like a jet pack complete with wires that lets the user zoom around in the air like a fly. Even with these devices the military is a high risk occupation with everyone terrified of the giant beings.

Truth be told I am in the depths of a cold/flu thing and am not liking how this has led me to neglect my blog, one post a week is not what I want! So I am hammering this review out knowing full well I just am no good at reviewing certain things. I really enjoyed Attack on Titan but some things did irk on me. Midway though the show things become quite stale for a few episodes with not much at all happening. The plot is great and there are lots of cool twists and turns but it ends with there being more questions than answers, I would have preferred that at least some of the mystery was explained, any of it at all in fact.

If you even have just a passing interest in anime then you must check out Attack on Titan, a hell of a show and one that feels so fresh and looks and sounds so good.

Death Note/Death Note: The Last Name (2006) - Horror Film Reviews

Having recently watched the Death Note anime I thought it was high time I watched the film adaptation again. The story was split into two separate films and even with a running time of around four and a half hours a lot has had to be missed out.

As mentioned in my poor review of the anime (here) Death Note is about a bright young student who discovers a note book with the power to kill people just by writing their name in it. The student; Light Yagami decides to use it to make the world a better place but in doing so leads the worlds greatest detective; a shadowy figure known only as 'L' to hunt him down. The events in the film are quite different to the show, it seems it is far more based on the manga (which I have only partly read).

Playing Light is Tatsuya Fujiwara (of Battle Royale and Battle Royale II: Requiem fame), he fits the role well, but much like other portrayals of Light he comes across as evil, leading me again to question why no one apart from L really believes he is Kira. Ken'ichi Matsuyama plays L and actually looks very similar to the character. I don't really like the forced kookiness of L so again was not keen on him, but is well acted. It is a shame that the members of the police squad tasked to capture Kira are pushed to the sidelines a lot here with the exception of Light's father, and rookie detective Matsuda who like the anime and manga is virtually a pure comedy character.

While it can feel a bit rushed this is still a decent adaptation which looks like it had a high budget. The Gods of Death look kinda awful being computer generated but is a small price to pay, and far from the worst CGI I have seen (think that was the giant snake in Python). I learned from this film that it is really quite hard to make a heart attack victim look any good. A lot of people die of heart attacks in this film with a variety of over acting, and lack of spectacle. Of course it was easier in the anime to make these deaths look good (such as the one where a guy falls off a building and through a skylight) as is far cheaper to make.

The film is different enough that it really is worth watching, I really enjoyed it, the length allows it to build up characters and though quite lacking on action entertains throughout never getting boring. Key events from the anime appear but awesome new scenes such as the first film's finale in an art gallery (probably taken from the manga) bring some great surprises. Being Japanese there are subtitles which for the most part are good, especially given the amount of text that also needed translating. Some lines are poorly translated though and made me want to marker pen my TV to correct them!

If you are too lazy to watch the fantastic anime, too poor to afford the billion manga's or just want to see what the fuss is all about these are the perfect films to watch.

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Death Note (2006-2007) - Horror Anime Review

I have long loved the Death Note anime, having first watched it back when it was originally aired in Japan. I remember tuning in weekly to watch the next exciting episode of this novel show. Now the DVD boxset has dropped in price I have finally been able to watch it once more, plus with the distance of years I can now put up with the English dubbed version which sounded terrible before as I was used to the Japanese (with subtitles of course, I am not that amazing!)

Death Note spookily enough revolves heavily around a Death Note (not 100% sure but the clue may have been in the title). A Death Note is a book of death that Gods of Death each posses (called Shinigami's). If a humans name is written in the Death Note then that person will die exactly forty seconds later unless specified otherwise. A bored Shinigami called Ryuk decides to drop his Death Note into the human realm to see what happens. The person who discovers the book is a highly intelligent yet bored high school student; Light Yagami. After discovering the power of the book he is at first horrified, but then comes to realise that with the tool he now owns he can wipe out all evil from the world, make it into the perfect place where crime does not exist.

The story of Death Note is really about how power corrupts. Starting off with the very best intentions Light slowly heads down a dark path, his goal to wipe out evil from the world starts to affect more and more innocent people. Light realises his plan involves him murdering thousands of people, and he accepts that fact for he sees a world without crime as the perfect ideal. The Yang to Lights Ying comes in the form of the worlds best detective; L, Lights opposite in every way except intellect. L is determined to get Kira (as people come to call the Death Note killer) and have him executed. Light meanwhile is out to find out L's real identity and kill him. To use the Death Note you must know the person you want to kills name as well as what they look like, this leads to lots of clever twists and turns as Light and L constantly battle against each other.

At thirty seven episodes a lot happens, so much in fact that the show feels split into three different parts. Part 1 involves the battle between Light and L, this is to be honest the most exciting of the episodes as the rules of the Death Note are firmly established as is the intense rivalry between the two. The middle episodes turn far more light hearted with Light's love interest Misa in particular being animated in a comedy way with lots of exaggerations that feel kinda out of place in such a usually serious but exciting show. It wraps up with a far more serious end with suspicion intensified as the net appears to be closing in on Light.

Death Note is such an exciting and cerebral show, with many people split on who actually is on the path of true justice; L who sees Kira as nothing more than an evil serial killer, and Kira who sees L as someone trying to protect criminals from meeting their deserved fates.

The soundtrack is very good, and it all is really well drawn and directed. It really takes it's time with some episodes, one of my favourite episodes is a twenty minute discussion between Light and a woman who has evidence to reveal Kira's identity. Light is desperate to trick the woman to give him her real name and a tense time is had as he manipulates her for this information.

This is not a good review! But is practice for when I review the Death Note films (arrived in the post today). This is really such a clever, unique and thrilling show, sure the English voice dubs are nowhere near as good as the original Japanese voice actors but with distance that doesn't matter. My main complaints are firstly that it always seems super obvious that Light is the bad guy, it really seems silly at times how the people around him don't see what he really is. Secondly at thirty seven episodes it does drag a bit, the last part in particular seems to be there just for length, and again as mentioned some of the voice acting is not fantastic. Still damn worth a watch.

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