Been a while since I actually reviewed an anime for Anime UK News! In this case it was the early 00s classic “Gungrave”, which somehow ended up being far more interesting than it had any right to be… You can see the review by clicking HERE.
The third season of “Visions” is an odd one. The first season had the whole fresh ideas and “weird, Star Wars made by anime studios!” thing going for it, and Season 2 had fresh ideas from animations studios around the world. This season is more shorts by anime studios, some of which are sequels to ones from the first season, so it all feels less special this time round. Some are good, some are middling, some are bad, as per usual with any collection of short stories, but overall I felt this was the weakest Season of the three. Let’s take a look, anyway (and with no Spoiler Section because that would just take too long to recap the ends of all nine shorts…)
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Time to look at the second half of the Egghead arc, which has a hell of a flashback story mixed in with plenty of over-the-top action and some leaps forward in terms of the overarching plot that has been teased for the last few DECADES. Very pretty to look at too, though there were plenty of recap episodes and breaks to allow this, something that will hopefully vanish now One Piece is switching to a seasonal model at long last. Anyway, let’s take a look!
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So here we are at the end of My Hero Academia’s Final Arc. Due to a lot of the side plots being covered in the previous chunk of episodes this review isn’t going to be super long, especially the pre-spoiler bit, but hey-ho! Let’s take a look at the finale of one of the bigger hits for Shonen Jump in some time.
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We’re technically jumping quite a bit ahead here, as the entire Budokai Tenkaichi (or “Sparking!”) games were released in between Budokai 3 and this game, plus the first 7th Generation game and true spiritual successor to the Budokai series in “Burst Limit” as well. This game was essentially a “make good” to people who hadn’t been able to jump to the next generation and were still on the PS2 and as such it feels very much like Budokai 3 with extra bits, and therefore it made just too much sense to have it follow on the Budokai trilogy in this set of four reviews rather than reviewing it all the way down the list. So is “Infinite World” really just Budokai 3 with extra bits or is it worth tracking down? Let’s take a look!
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Time to close out this first of four chunks of DBZ with the first TV Special, “A Final, Solitary Battle: The Father of Z-Warrior Son Goku, Who Challenged Freeza”, or more simply for the English speak market: “Bardock – Father of Goku”. Really this should be with the Frieza arc stuff in the next batch of DBZ but that would make this chunk have three films/specials compared to… well, a lot more for each of the others, so for the sake of spreading them out a bit let’s consider this a “preview” for whenever I get round to the next bit, plus it’s obviously set well before it and the Saiyan arc anyway, so… Yeah. The two Z TV specials have one thing in common and that’s that they’re far more mature and brutal compared to the manga/TV series they’re based on, with this taking a look at the Saiyans and how they fell in a story that in reality has no heroes in it at all…
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Budokai 3 is the “peak” of the Budokai series of games, although some handheld versions and a sort-of reboot happened after they all had little issues that dragged them down to below this game. I was definitely excited about it at the time and I was looking forward to replaying it for this countdown and I can say it held up exactly like I knew it would, sadly didn’t exceed my expectations but thankfully didn’t drop in my estimation either. Want to know more? Let’s take a look!
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The third DBZ film, “A Super Decisive Battle for Earth” or “The Tree of Might”, holds a special place in my heart as, for whatever reason, I’ve always loved Turles / Tullece as a villain. I think it was the voice work for the original pre-FUNimation dub of the film that sold it, and then when I got into the Japanese dub hearing Masako Nozawa do an evil version of her Goku voice didn’t hurt my opinion either. Much later on I found out that all of the “Tullece Crusher Corps.” had a paragraph of backstory written for them as well, weirdly fleshing them out too. But fun villain cast aside, is there much else to like about Movie 3? Let’s find out!
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Budokai 2 is where the Dragon Ball Z games finally clicked for me. The cel-shaded art style was great, the roster was bigger and more varied and there was a lot more to do. Hell back then I even really enjoyed the QTEs that happen frequently during matches, something I’ll admit to disliking now, beyond the odd beam clash or high-speed punching, anyway. The thing I most remember about Budokai 2 though is the story mode, which instead of anything resembling a traditional set up is a strange board game thing, plus this game has a bunch of “what if?” fusions which are a really fun feature that sadly never returned, even in the direct sequel. So, let’s take a look!
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The second DBZ movie, titled “The World’s Strongest Guy” in Japan and just “The World’s Strongest” in English speaking markets (one of the least edited titles of the bunch!) sees Goku and co. take on Dr. Wheelo, a scientist who has put his large brain in an equally large mech and wishes to transplant it into the world’s strongest body… for some reason. I mean, if he’s a scientist rather than a fighter I don’t really get the appeal, but whatever! It gives us Goku, Piccolo, Gohan and Krillin at their Saiyan Arc levels of power and throws in some love for Master Roshi while it’s at it, so it can’t be all bad. Let’s take a look!
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Hogan Reviews 