It’s been a while but we do still get review discs from time to time, and this time I got to review “Ninja Scroll: The Series” … Stand Alone Complex this was not, but it was fine for what it was, so long as you don’t compare it to the film that came before it…
My review can be read by clicking HERE.
At the end of my review for Part One I said “I guess and we’ll see if any of this actually pays off in a meaningful way or not…” and now I’ve listened to Part Two, guess what? Not! Yes, somehow Part Two is just as much of a muddled mess as the first half despite what I thought would be getting the Doctor-lite set up episodes out the way leading to a bigger role for the man whose last adventure it actually was turned out to not be the case, instead we just got another six episodes of loads of companions and old foes, a lot which nobody remembers all, running around with little direction until a final episode that tries to tie it all together but fails, instead giving us a pretty nasty and crappy way to send off the Seventh Doctor, possibly even worse that his undignified end from the TV movie… Yikes. Let’s take a look, shall we?
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Persona 3: Reload came out around the same time as Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth back in February and I knew I’d only have the time for one so I chose the latter, but come mid-June I knew I had a good stretch of time with no new major releases I was interested in and so finally got round to purchasing it, and you know what? It’s actually quite hard which of the two RPG remakes I liked more. P3 has always appealed to me but I never actually played it, I saw a friend play through about a third of it and watched (and reviewed!) the four movie adaptations, plus played the Persona 4: Arena games that featured the P3 cast, so I was very familiar with it and really enjoyed the characters and setting but this was actually my first time playing the whole story myself. So let’s take a look!
Well, how to I start this review off? The Celestial Toymaker was one of my least favourite Who stories period, one I was dreading on day reviewing and having to sit through three episodes of painfully boring slideshows and a bit of a naff final episode. Then along came the news it was being animated! Great, that at least takes care of the photo slideshow not doing the glacial pace any favours, but then the animation turns out to be in a 3D CG style that looked pretty terrible in the trailer and in watching it is only a bit better than I feared. Did it make it easier to watch? Yeah, but it’s sort of like replacing something I hated with something I really don’t like, so… it’s not a major win… Well, with all that rambling over with, let’s actually take a look, shall we?
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Phase III of the High Republic continues, at last. “Temptation of the Force” was a good read and leaves things in an interesting place heading into the era’s grand finale, shame that the next and final book isn’t out until spring next year! Arrgh! Oh well, this book sets some things up nicely and moves Avar Kriss and Elzar Mann forward in a really interesting way, so let’s take a look!
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The second half of the latest Fourth Doctor set is comprised of two very different stories, not just in narrative tone but in quality. “The Caged Assassin” I found to be extremely annoying and quickly forgettable, while the boxset-titular “Metamorphosis” is a perfectly fine Master story that much like the Celestial Toymaker story that kicked off the set won’t surprise you but will still keep you entertained. Let’s take a closer look!
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As a big fan of the High Republic books and comics (as other parts of this site will tell you!) I was really excited for Acolyte, not just seeing High Republic stuff in live action but its placement in between the HR era and Episode I and focusing on what the Sith were doing at the time. It was an interesting story to tell in an interesting time period, so did they pull it off? Well, sort of. I wasn’t as blown away with it as I was hoping, but I did really enjoy myself each week, which is fair enough for a TV show, really. Let’s take a look!
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The latest series of Fourth Doctor Adventures continues with a doubly timely appearance of the Celestial Toymaker, after the character appeared in the TV series last year and the character’s debut story having just been completed with animation (the next Who review I’ll be getting to after this boxset, for the record!) both of which weren’t known to the writers when this was written/recorded a few years ago. The Toymaker appeared in one of my all-time favourite audios in “The Magic Mousetrap” so I had my fingers crossed we’d get another good one. Did we? Well…
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Time to cover more Spring 2024 anime with the latest Demon Slayer season, though if you thought my review of the previous one was a bit harsh, just you wait! Yes, sadly the Hashira Training Arc was just a small handful of chapters in the manga to prepare for the finale but Ufotable decided to take those couple of chapters the stretch them out for nearly 10 hours before announcing a trilogy of films to cap the series off. So in order to make the most money they couldn’t actually start the final arc at all, so it’s no wonder this “season” was so poorly padded! Oh well, let’s take a look…
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After an unfortunate (but necessary to… well, earn money and live) work-related delay I thought I’d better finish off my review of the “Star-Crossed” boxset before getting back on some sort of track. I ended the previous review mentioning how this was the proper highlight of the box and a true standout story so I guess it’s finally time to tell you why!
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Hogan Reviews 