It feels like its been an age since I last got to review something for Anime UK News (stupid reduction in review discs…) but here’s a biggie: the finale of the Evangelion Rebuild film series, ahead of its UK cinema screenings. You can read my thoughts HERE.
Must get round to the original series one of these days, but not so soon after watching this…
Okay, now it’s actually time to talk about the end of Attack on Titan, the final finale! Frankly I don’t know what I was expecting but I should’ve guessed that it wouldn’t be particularly uplifting given all that’s happened leading up to it, but even given that the final montage… wow. Plus did Eren actually stay a villain? Has a protagonist really become an antagonist? All this and more in this final movie-length final special…
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When I started this run-down of the Gundam series I was looking forward to two things in particular: watching all the UC series in order for the first time (and Victory for the first time in general) and finally getting round to re-watching Gundam 00, and it’s time to finally check the second one off the list. I have very fond memories of this show, though I’m interested if its because this was the first Gundam show I watched weekly as it aired and discussed each episode online with other fans or whether the show really is as good as I remember. Judging by the first thirteen episodes though I have a feeling it really is that good, especially the character and mech / mobile suit designs and world building. So, let’s take a look!
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The anime adaptation of Bleach’s final manga arc (I guess that’s still technically accurate…) continued with 13 more episodes of the Thousand Year Blood War arc, not only adapting the manga faithfully but adding brand new scenes created by Tite Kubo himself to plug some plot holes and make sure to add more shine to the Royal Guard for good measure. The only issue is that this is where the arc in the manga took a dramatic down turn that it never corrected out of, instead just offering up some fun fights here and there, and while the new material helps it a bit, a lot of the narrative mistakes are still present here. Want to know more? Read on!
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The original Dragon Ball series comes to a close with these five filler episodes, and while most of the time its perfectly normal to shudder at the phrase “Filler Arc” this one is actually quite entertaining. I mean I still don’t think it really adds anything beyond seeing Goku and Chi Chi’s wedding at the end (Spoilers? Though it’s sort of in the title of the arc… and my thumbnail…) but if you’re going to artificially add more episodes then this was at least fun and told a mini-story rather than random singular episodes or a really obnoxiously long arc. So let’s take a look and finally close the book on the original DB series!
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It’s time to wrap up the final story arc of the original Dragon Ball series… well, it would be if this was the manga (though that was technically just called “Dragon Ball” the whole way through) but ignoring the post story filler arc, this is the big finale as Goku and Piccolo do battle in one final epic Dragon Ball battle before the beam-fests and teleporty fights that follow in Z. How does it hold up? Why, let’s take a look, shall we?
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It’s time to squeeze in a quick modern anime review as the new season of Jujutsu Kaisen is nicely split into two arcs and as this one is only five episodes it’s already ended (in fact it ended a couple of weeks ago, actually…) then it made sense to do it now rather than wait for the official end of the season. That being said it’s despite its short length it’s certainly no less important for it, so let’s take a look!
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After what seems like forever it’s time to wrap up the original Dragon Ball series with the final arc (and that mini filler arc the anime team added afterwards…) What always strikes me about this arc is how it’s the exact opposite of the 22nd TB arc in that there is very nearly no filler whatsoever making it back-to-back fights with little breaks. The one-day tournament is back to actually being a one-day tournament! So let’s take a look at the preliminaries and the opening round, shall we?
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I know what you’re thinking, “Didn’t you just say how much you hated Ultimate Battle 22 and you waited until the PS2 games came out?” Why yes, and that’s still true, but what I did do was at some point in between Budokai 1 and 2 I found Final Bout in a second-hand games shop for a couple of pounds and thought “why not?”, assuming it was a poorer man’s Tekken or Street Fighter EX, not knowing of course that it was literally UB22 but with 3D graphics instead. *sigh*. Still, by covering this now it means whenever I get to the first chunk of Z films I can review the Budokai trilogy one after another, so that’s nice, plus there’s something fitting about review a GT-heavy game while reviewing the Dragon Ball film that was released while GT was airing and featured GT elements… It sort of matches! Let’s take a look!
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The fourth Dragon Ball film is a real oddity as it was actually created after all 13 Dragon Ball Z films and was released as Dragon Ball GT was airing, meaning there is a noticeable uptick in animation quality; some of the designs were redone, especially Goku as he is literally the Kid Goku from DBGT complete with yellow trousers and pink armbands (at least later in the film), and there are moments of definite Z/GT style “powering up”. Despite all this though it re-adapts the first story arc (again!) but adds in the Red Ribbon Army instead of Pilaf (I’d say “again!” but the RRA here is mostly the characters not used in the previous film) so it definitely fits into the same mould as the three previous DB films, just with higher production values and a longer runtime. Does it work? Let’s take a look!
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Hogan Reviews 