Author: David Hogan

Gunbuster Review

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The next batch of older anime reviews was originally just going to be me finally re-watching and reviewing the original Evangelion series / film but between me planning that and now Hideaki Anno’s prior work, Gunbuster, was released on Blu-Ray here in the UK so I thought, why not? When it popped up in a recent Super Robot Wars game that featured the series I thought how some of the character designs were familiar but I didn’t remember much of anything else, so I assume it was one of those anime that aired in the late 90s / early 00s on the Sci-Fi channel that I watched but never recorded / rewatched, so I was looking forward to this! Was I right to look forward to it? Well…

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Doctor Who: Echoes – Birdsong and Lost Hearts Review

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The latest Eighth Doctor audio boxset has arrived and its title of “Echoes” seems to be a reference to the fact that these two stories feel awfully similar to other Eight/Liv/Helen stories in the recent past. They’re both well written, don’t get me wrong, but I couldn’t shake a sense of… I don’t know, I don’t want to saw “boredom” because again, they’re good stories, but maybe “sameness” is the right word. Not just Doctor Who stories (obviously!) but other Helen and Liv stories specifically hitting some very familiar beats to the ones here. Well, let’s take a look anyway!

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Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories (GBA) / Re:Chain of Memories (PS4) Review

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Going into my first ever play through of the Kingdom Hearts series I was warned about Chain of Memories and its remake, how even some of the biggest die hard fans of the series seem to flat-out hate it, well the gameplay at least. I thought to myself “well, I want to complete all of them for this review series, so I guess I’ll just grin and bear it” but, man… hate to say it, but I’m going to have to join the many and say I really disliked the gameplay here. I was just going to play the Re:CoM edition but struggled so I heard the GBA original was easier, and it was… to a point, but the core gameplay is just badly designed. I’m sure some who played it when they were young and “forced” themselves to get good at it because it was finally new Kingdom Hearts game will get angry at my review, but for me, now in 2024? This is not a fun experience…

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Doctor Who: Boom Review

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“Boom” is a fine example of Steve Moffatt just telling a great self-contained story, like he most famously did during Russell T. Davies’ original run, though he did have the odd classic as show runner. The Doctor steps on a landmine and the entire 40-odd minute story takes place around him as he tries to get out of the predicament. Simple sounding story but actually a brilliant showcase of tension as a storytelling tool. Let’s take a look!

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X-Men ’97 Review

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What can I say about X-Men ’97? “Wow” comes to mind, frankly. When it was announced I assumed it would just be a fun nostalgia cash-in, and that was fine (hell it got me to re-watch the whole original show and review it here on the site!) but what I got instead was the cast of the original show pushed forward into not just a show with modern visuals and flare but also one with a far more serious tone that wasn’t afraid to shy away from the more extreme look at the themes from the show / comics and throw in the odd bit of bloody violence or other more “not very 90s cartoon-y” bits, yet also made sure to still have some fun with the dialogue and kept the cheesy stories and costumes from the source material. It’s both a nostalgic sequel to a beloved show and a very modern adaptation of some great X-Men comic storylines. To say it overachieved would be an understatement! Let’s take a look.

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Sand Land – Angel Hero Arc (Episodes 7 – 13) Review

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The second, anime-exclusive arc (though again this is my first time experiencing the series anyway…) sees an expansion from Sand Land to Forest Land and introduces an “evil angel” to go along with series lead Beelzebub’s “nice demon” schtick and it works well. They also go from evil ruler of Sand Land to nice ruler of Forest Land, though he has been overthrown by the military, leading to a good old fashioned underground resistance story. Overall it was a fun watch, though I’m happy to see there won’t be any more after this, the setting and the characters already feel pretty thinly stretched… Let’s take a look!

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Doctor Who: The Devil’s Chord Review

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After what was something of a major misstep of a first episode I’m happy to say I really enjoyed “The Devil’s Chord”. I mean, if you don’t like big over-the-top scenery-chewing villains like I do you may dislike this episode as well, but I had a smile of my face for most of it… MOST of it, can’t say the musical number at the end was good, not because it was out of place (it actually made sense) but because it had crap lyrics and wasn’t catchy at all, two things you kind of need for a musical piece! Well, anyway, let’s take a look!

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Doctor Who: Space Babies Review

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Well… that was a thing. A pretty crap thing, honestly. Thank goodness they opened with a double bill because at least I really enjoyed the second episode, but I’ll get to that later. As for “Space Babies” it was a classic case of “had some good ideas but the bad ones drowned them out”, plus it has a lot of Series 1 Russell T. Davies lowbrow toilet humour, which isn’t my kind of thing either. Oh well, let’s take a look quickly, then we can move on to the good one!

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Star Wars: Tales of the Empire Review

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“Tales of the Empire” is both a second season to “Tales of the Jedi” and sort of its own thing, plus ironically focuses on two characters who weren’t ever really members of the Empire, not for long anyway, but there you go. Better than “Tales of these two characters we wanted to talk about” I guess! It focuses on recent live action character Morgan Elsbeth’s backstory and old Clone Wars animated character Bariss Offee’s future after her arrest during the classic cartoon show. The first is something I wasn’t that interested in, the second was at least a dangling plot thread that was fun to get tied up… so let’s take a look!

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Shogun Review

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I know historical period pieces aren’t usually in my reviewing wheelhouse (though there have been a few series / films I’ve really loved in the genre) but I feel Shogun is close enough to several other things I cover that it’s not too big a departure. Mostly I wanted to talk about it because it was so damn good that even though every other critic is also gushing about it I still wanted to contribute to the praise this mini-series has gained. The series (and by that I mean the book it’s based on) is set in a slightly modified version of the late Sengoku period of Japan and puts a bigger emphasis on accidental visiting Brit John Blackthorne (or William Adams in real life) and makes a few other changes beyond just renaming everyone, but it does also tell a pretty good account of the actual time period (though nobody tore through waves of soldiers and threw them into the air with magic weapons! Are you telling me that BOTH Samurai Warriors and Sengoku Basara lied to me?!) Anyway, let’s take a look!

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