The still-weird-its-a-thing Castlevania animated show returns for a second season of “Nocturne”, creating a new story with some of the Castlevania game characters from the 1700s as well as entirely new ones. This time there was less focus on character backstory and more focus on really great action, which given it was essentially the second half of a story makes a lot of sense! Let’s take a look…
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I should have been thrilled when I heard a new Universal Century set Gundam series was being made but it soon became obvious it was a CG show, which rarely hits with me, and then as more and more trailers came out it seemed less and less like Gundam and more like generic “hoo-rar” American army stuff with UC era mobile suits in it, the often super realistic CG only serving to make things even less appealing as it crossed over to the uncanny valley. At six episodes it didn’t over-stay its welcome at least, but I’m glad the recently revealed new Gundam show “G-Quuuuux” or however you write that insane title shows this extremely Westernised take on Gundam isn’t a new direction… Let’s take a look!
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I was really hopeful when this series was announced as I was always interested in the three books the series is based on but they’re all massive, and given I only read for like 10-15 minutes before going to bed tackling a series like that would tie me up for most of the year. So while this series has changed a few things (including setting a lot of it in London rather than all of it in China and therefore the nationality of a lot of the characters) by the sounds of it this is a good adaptation. Well, at the very least, I can confirm it was really fun to watch with a great high-concept sci-fi story at its core. I had some issues with a lot of the central characters, but not enough to stop me from enjoying myself. Let’s take a look…
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MONSTERS was one of Eiichiro Oda’s One Shot manga chapters he penned before creating that little known series called “One Piece” and due to his much… MUCH more famous work it has been adapted into a 20-ish minute special episode on Netflix (with the subtitle “103 Mercies Dragon Damnation”, one of Zoro’s moves from One Piece for that extra bit of connectivity) How does it fair? It’s fine, for a short story. Let’s take a look!
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The eagerly anticipated follow up to Netflix’s unexpectedly good Castlevania cartoon (or “adult animation” for those who are for some reason embarrassed by that term, though written by Americans and animated in Texas means it’s not an anime!) Castlevania: Nocturne sees lightly adapted bits of game lore sprinkled in amongst an original story set in revolutionary France. Now lacking the sometimes comically bad dialogue found in the original series but still occasionally trying to emulate the “banter” Nocturne does a lot of things right, especially the animation quality, but it’s not perfect. Let’s take a look!
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After failing with Death Note and creating the utter disaster that was the Cowboy Bebop live action series when I heard that Netflix was tackling One Piece I laughed at the idea given the One Piece world is weirder and wilder than either projects they previously got so wrong. So imagine my surprise when I started hearing that it was actually good, so positive was the reception that against all my instincts I gave it a go, and you know what? It is good! Not amazing, it has flaws not just related to having to condense so much story into so few episodes, but the fact I enjoyed a live action version of One Piece at all is some sort of minor miracle. So let’s take a deeper look at the show, a good few weeks after its relevant because I’m me and I do that sort of thing…
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After being less than impressed over Season 1 of this CG addition to the Stand Alone Complex series I wasn’t in a hurry to get round to Season 2, released nearly two years later. Still, looking back at the old review one of the things I did say was that the plot did pick up towards the end and I was interested in seeing where it was going, so did it end up going anywhere interesting? Let’s find out!
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This has been on my “Watch Later” list on Netflix for a while now and I’ve finally got round to watching it, being careful to avoid any over-the-top nastiness to do with the pushing of female characters along the way. I was a bit too young for He-Man growing up, Teenage Mutant Ninja (or Hero…) Turtles, Real Ghostbusters and G.I. Joe (or Action Force…) were more my generation’s thing, but my brother, who is four years older than me, was into it and had plenty of toys that I played with, so through that and just pop culture in general I was somewhat familiar with the basic premise of the show, but not being a fan may well have helped shield me from a lot of the criticism the show has faced. Let’s take a look either way!
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The Witcher’s second season is told in a more straight forward manor (not that I was one of the people who had an issue with the fractured storytelling of the first season) and has a much more central focus, giving us not just a central story arc to follow in this season but some hints as to what’s to come in the future. Plus a high budget and great action, so let’s take a look!
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It took a while to convince me to watch this series as I have had zero interest in the game the show is based on, but the clips I saw were extremely impressive so once I saw a few people say no knowledge of the game was necessary to watch it I gave it a shot, and those people were right! It’s a truly stunning series visually and the story has lots of twists, believable characters and really mature storytelling, the good kind of mature storytelling, not the over-the-top swearing and nudity kind (I’m looking at you, Live Action Cowboy Bebop!) Let’s take a look!
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Hogan Reviews 