Feels really weird to put two batches of episodes in the title, but such is the way when you want to specifically cut out filler stories and don’t want to just review five or six episodes at a time… These episodes wrap up the opening salvo of the Arrancar Arc and point us towards our next destination of Hueco Mundo, plus has some rare emotional character development! Let’s take a look…
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It’s time to have a look at the anime version of Bleach’s Arrancar arc, a story arc that took many years to complete in the original manga so ended up shredded into chunks in the anime. This will actually be my first time watching just the Arrancar episodes in a row, intentionally skipping over as many filler episodes and arcs as I can, rather than watching just a chunk here and there like I have in the past. Will it hold up as a long-viewing experience, or is it all just too jumbled to work? Let’s find out! … Over the next couple of months…
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After a poor OVA and a decent OVA we get … a decent film! Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture is actually the third in this series of adaptations, referring back to the two OVAs frequently to make sure you’re aware of this fact. While the budget is much higher and the stakes much bigger (via an entirely original storyline) at the end of the day the film is still no patch on the Street Fighter II Animated Movie, which really is where my fascination with this film came from… Want to know more details, or maybe see more of those sweet-sweet screen-capped-from-Crunchyroll pictures? Read on!
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The second Fatal Fury OVA is a vast improvement over the first, featuring a lot more actual fighting alongside the now-retro visuals and fun soundtrack. It tells a very by-the-numbers hero redemption arc, so don’t go into it expecting some sort of deep and twisty plot, I’ll say that much… and I’ll also say more, if you read on!
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So before I tackle another long series in episode chunks I thought I’d take a look at the trio of two OVAs and a film based on Fatal Fury now they’ve been uploaded to Crunchyroll. I’ve always wanted to watch them but could never find them on physical media, so this was a real pleasant surprise, but was it a pleasant watch though? Does it live up to the lofty heights set by Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie that was actually the first anime I ever watched? Let’s find out!
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Turn-A Gundam has been called many things, from a masterpiece to boring, from “if Studio Ghibli did a Gundam show” to “That show with the moustache Gundam in it”. In my opinion it’s a little bit of all those things (well, it’s entirely the show with the moustache Gundam in it, to be fair) While no masterpiece it is well written and has some great character moments, while not boring it does have some very slow moments. So, let’s take an overall look at the series, and see where in my opinion the show ends up…
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Turn-A Gundam arrives at its busy conclusion, with several background characters coming to the forefront and a new antagonist arriving with his own Turn-X Gundam to counter the Turn-A. Does this more frantic pace lead to a satisfying end? Let’s find out!
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You’d think due to where the story was going at the end of Episode 25 that this chunk would be set in space, but instead it’s surprisingly almost entirely set on Earth still. Not necessarily a bad thing of course, but I did feel at times that the story was treading water, especially in the case of the storyline involving Queen Dianna and her doppelganger. Anyway, let’s take a look!
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Ending my look at the Winter anime stuff, Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai continues to move forward without many people talking about it, which makes sense! It’s very … plain. There are some good fight scenes but in general it’s your basic good vs. evil JRPG-style story, which again makes sense given it was based on one of the most popular JRPGs of all time. Honestly if I hadn’t already covered what I thought was the first half (but turns out this adaptation is just barrelling forward with no end in sight) I’d probably have dropped it, but since I started let’s strap in and follow this through to the end! … Whenever that will be!
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Jujutsu Kaisen’s second half (of what is clearly now just its “first season”) is heavy on action, as all tournament arcs are, but manages to pull away from the genre traps and do something a bit less predictable. Then we get a little mini-arc at the end which was good fun. Basically Jujutsu Kaisen has earned its popularity in my eyes… Let’s take a look!
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Hogan Reviews 