Sword Art Online

I used to love anime when I was youngling, from pokemon to evangelion and everything in between. The shows were completely different from the usual cartoons I would watch. Was the main reason I became curious about japanese culture. As I grew older I found that anime was just the same stereotypical characters placed in another different setting. My interest in the medium dried up, except for Miyazaki films. My recent trip to japan and the advent of site that stream anime has seen my enjoyment of the medium return.One thing I learnt is that there is a massive amount of anime. Was a rather daunting task, trying to pick one to start watching.

The premise of Sword Art Online is instead of being stuck in the matrix your were instead trapped in World of Warcraft.  Our story follows Kirito, one of the 10,000 lucky people to log into Sword Art Online, a new, highly anticipated virtual reality MMORPG. Eventually  the players discover that they cannot log out when the creator of the game, Akihiko Kayaba issues them an ultimatum: if they die in the game, so will their bodies in the real world. The only way out is to pass all one-hundred floors—each a self-contained world in and of itself—and defeat the game's final boss.

The idea a might not have been very original but I thought there was a lot they might be able to do with the series. The first few episode are a bit flat, as the character and the world are only just started to be fleshed out. The series shined from around episodes 4-13 and I wish they would have kept with that pace. I was totally loving the show in those episode, watching Kirito go from noob to badass was great. 

 Seeing how others character adjusted to their new lives inside the game drew me in. The psychological implications of being in a virtual reality for so long that you start to wonder if the real world even exists. And if it does exist, should everyone still be trying to get back to it instead of giving up and starting to make new lives for themselves inside the game world. That was so smart and played out in the background of the shows main story. Allowed the creator time to play with different story ideas. Sometime  it's a mystery; sometimes it's a love story; sometimes criminal suspense; sometimes supernatural horror; and sometimes it's a straight-up fantasy adventure.

It was such a disappointment that halfway through the series they resolve the main arch of getting out of the game. Which would have been fine, if they decided to focus their attention on the players adjusting back into the real word. It was so frustrating to watch the show just repeat itselfs. I wanted to know how Kirito would handle being powered down to normal human after being a super saiyan ninja warrior. Do we get that explanation ? Nope. He just wakes up and moves on to finding his girlfriend. It was such a missed opportunity. The show just feels like it became a wish-fulfillment drug for male teenagers and adults who are addicted to online gaming and can't deal with real-life challenges.

Really annoys me that they went in the same direction. Would have been great for the show to talk to its audience about an issue that relevant to todays society. As gaming addiction is real, I myself have had a good friend lose themselves to it. More important to show these issue and how they affect people. If handled well it could have been a better story then the fantasy one. Highly suggest watching the first 14 episode, they’re highly enjoyable. After that just take sometime to think about the message the shows is talking about.

3 out of 5 virtual reality super saiyan ninja warriors.

Pacific Rim Review

I’ve been waiting for a movie like this since I was a 12 year old obsessed with Evangelion and old Godzilla movies. It didn’t help that I over-hyped myself into a frenzy before Pacific Rim even hit the cinema.

I watched every trailer and featurette. I read the prequel comic and listened to the movie soundtrack on repeat while riding to work imagining I was avoiding Kaiju.

And for the first time in a long time the movie delivered everything I was looking forward to. I even found the myself liking the 3D.

The whole premise of Pacific Rim is about Giant Robots called JAEGERS laying a beatdown on the ugly/beautiful creatures called KAIJU. These are hands downs some on the best action scenes put to film. I sat in that cinema glued to this beautiful ballet of gigantic destruction. At one stage I wanted to physically jump up and start cheering on the JAEGER pilots to beat the KAIJU like some kind of crazed sports fan. You could say I found myself rather invested in this movie.

I know every movie has its flaws. I had to put up with another chemistry-less couple and hear my native accent sound like some kind of munted-Crocodile Dundee. Between each fight we had to sit through the story element of the movie. The story of this movie, while being alright, was nothing new and fairly predictable (although that is not always a bad thing). Still, I found myself enjoy the fight between Charlie from Its Always Sunny In Philadelphia and that guy from Torchwood. Plus Ron Perlman as Hannibal Chau put in quite an amusing performance.

But at the end of the day, I was just happy to watch a movie that was actually fun and not some convoluted, boring mess which required million dollar set pieces to justify its existence. Pacific Rim used it’s set pieces to help make it’s story as opposed to using it’s set-pieces to try to inject some interest into a largely forgettable movie.

For me Pacific Rim is the kind of movie that I hope will inspire people to create something that they are interested in and excited about as opposed to making more Star Wars/Spiderman/Star Trek reboots/reimaginings/sequels.

Thanks for saving this year’s blockbuster movie releases from more disappointments,  Pacific Rim.