Movie Review: Dragon Ball Super Broly: Broly now...canon

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 It's my first review of 2019 and I have a story to tell you. It's about a lone Saiyan who goes by the name of Broly.

 Now that we have a basis time to see how Canon Broly is far better than Non-Canon Broly. Our story starts off with the discovery of Broly's power levels as an infant, but instead of killing him King Vegeta decided instead to send him off to a planet filed with savage beasts to hopefully die to the planet's inhabitants. However Broly's father Paragus ignores King Vegeta's concerns about how dangerous Broly could be if left unchecked and decided to fly to that planet that Broly landed on and raise him to take revenge on King Vegeta for his hasty exile. Though Paragus left just in time as this is when Freezer decided to carry out the job Beerus gave him and destroy Planet Vegeta, but not before a Low class Warrior named Bardock and his wife sent their infant son Kakarot to a small planet called Earth so that he might hopefully have a chance at a better life, rather then be labeled a Low-class Warrior from birth.

 We then move on to the present day where after Goku and Vegeta helped save the 7th universe (though remember that Android 17 really saved the day) Goku still wants a fight since if those were the best fighters from the Universes that were up for erasure then there are far more powerful warriors in the Multiverse just waiting for him. One of which is Broly and when he and Paragus were rescued from the planet they were stuck on by two goons from the newly revived Freeza force they have their new assignments, go to Earth with Freeza and help him get the Dragonballs so he can get his wish. Of course Paragus is all too eager since he learned that while Planet and King Vegeta are dead Prince Vegeta is safe and sound with a loving family on Earth while he was stuck on a rock with rabid beasts nearly killing him if he ever slipped up, as well as the local wildlife. He doesn't even care that the Saiyans are all but extinct all he cares about is getting his Revengence on King Vegeta by proxy of killing his son. So with his inthralled and downright savage son Broly under his thumb with a shock collar he'll do just that.

 I won't go into details about what happens but I will say that, yes, the fight between Goku, Vegeta and Broly is the highlight of the show. While at the same time we get some great character comedy that seems to be synonymous with Dragon Ball Super, mostly with Bulma, Freeza and of course Lord Beerus and Whis, I won't say how but let's just say it should seem familiar to anyone whose read or seen the original Dragonball. But I will say that in Toriyama's hands he managed to fix almost everything that was wrong with Broly. He gave him sympathetic, his motivations aren't contrived and dumb and best of all the Legendary Super Saiyan isn't a literal giant f***ing baby! Also the ending is a nice way to mess with expectations and is a nice way to set up the ongoing Dragonball story like how Battle of Gods did.

 I honestly wish I could keep gushing about this movie but sadly most of it is either comedy or the Fight that takes up the second half of the movie. Like I said it's a really damn good fight scene and we all know the number one rule about revising stuff with comedy, never explain the joke.

 Like I said the comedy, fight and revised events surrounding Broly, the destruction of Planet Vegeta is all good stuff, though with the previously mentioned revised scene of Bardock sending Kakarot to earth it seems that Toriyama decided to go along with what the west did and just flat out turn Goku into Superman. Kind of annoying but hey it's presented well enough that I sips under my radar. So what else is there to say, other then go see Broly, especially while it's in theaters, this was my first time seeing Dragonball on the big screen and it really gives everything much more gravitas and with a guy as big as Broly it takes a really big thing and makes it gargantuan.

Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.

Dragon Ball, Dragonball Z, Dragonball GT and Dragonball Super is owned by Funnimation, Toei animation, Fuji TV and Akira Toriyama.
Dragon ball Z abridged is owned by Team Four Star. 
Batman: The Animated Series is owned by Dc Comics, Warner Brothers and Paul Dini.

Animation Review: Venture Bros: Season 1-6 recap for Season 7

When you're done read, comment, spread the links, re-tweet and follow me on Twitter @OnDavidsBrain!, support me on Patreon and watch my Twitch Channel Every Saturday at 12:00 ET

 It's here, it's here, it's finally here! Season 7 of one of my few favorite shows on Tv. Now despite the humor and great characters this show is very serialized and has tons of backstory, not as massive and cryptic as FNAF but it would really help if you saw every episode from the beginning. But I'm aware that not everyone has the time for that (but seriously make it this show is totally worth it) and thankfully Adult Swim realized that as well so they had Henchman 21 (aka the most badass nerd character on par with Travis Touchdown) make these videos to give reaps of seasons 1-5 leaving me to give the details of last season. So here's seasons 1-4 in less then 8 minutes.

 Now for season 5.

 Now here's where I come in. So after the Gargantua 2 fiasco Doc's inherited Ventech Industries from J.J and like the classic little fuck up that he is, fires all of the board members and starts spending company money on him, Hank and Dean so of course the stocks drop like a stone elephant. J.J's #2 The Captain tries desperately to get Doc under control and eventually he and Doc reach a compromise after Dean steps up to the plate and after the Captain kicks his addiction to tranquilizer darts again. How it works now is the Captain handles the public face of the company while Rusty indulges in super science tinkering, so he's Iron Man. But what about the Captain, how'd he fall off the wagon?

 Well the Monarch shoots him with one while he and Gary flee scoping the Ventech building. Though at that point, Venture's off the list for the Monarch for three reasons. First, because of Doc's new CEO status he's bumped up the priority list for O.S.I security (side note that means Brock's back guarding the Ventures) now you might be thinking "like that's ever stopped the Monarch before" but that was when he had his flying Cocoon, an army of elite henchmen, Gary, Dr Mrs The Monarch and his Monarch-mobile; but the cocoon was destroyed by Hatred with most if not all of his henchmen on board which means he, the Mrs and Gary had to move into the Monarch's old rundown Mansion in Newark New Jersey. Which leads us to 2, after that, Monarchs E.M.A (equally matched aggression) level went from 9 or a 10 to a 4, Rusty's now classified as a 10, do the math. Speaking of 10, 3 Venture's arching rights were given to the most influential member of the New York chapter of the Guild; Wide Wale as a peace offering to convince him to join the regrowing Council of 13 (more like Council of 5, later 7 which is just Dr Mrs the Monarch, Phantom Limb, Radical Left, Red Mantle/Dragoon and Dr Z, Dr Phineas Pahge later rejoins and Vendata is still MIA since the Don Hell fiasco) which he in turn divvied up to a bunch of other Level 10 villains underneath him.

 Needless to say this along with renovating the house has put a major strain on The Monarch and his wife's marriage. Also it gets simultaneously better and worse, while the Monarch and Gary try to convince some of the level 10's to pass on arching Venture they stumble across the lair of the Monarch's Dad, a member of Team Venture; The Blue Morpho who's basically a blue Green Hornet (aka the original intention for Blue Beatle by his creator.) So Monarch figured that if he and Gary become the new Blue Morpho and Kano they could go around and kill all the Level 10's without anyone knowing it's him. But as you could imagine, dead villains means the Guild is out for Blood, especially given the history of the Blue Morpho as the junkyard dog of Team Venture and being dead for years they obviously smell something rotten. Coincidentally Dr Mrs the Monarch is heading the investigation not knowing that the man she's trying to kill to potentially save her husband; is her husband.

 Now killing these villains is nothing to a nut-bar like the Monarch but Gary on the other hand is not taking this well, on top of his existing mental health issues after the death of 24. Not helping is that the Monarch often has Gary as Kano go around killing some of the arches while he's with his wife to maintain his cover. So on top of his previous hallucinations Gary's going to need some serious therapy. Though this only stopped because they messed with the absolute wrong villain. That being Red Death, the most professional villain still in the game, he's basically like if Mr Rogers became a horseman of the apocalypse and had plastic surgery to look like the Red Skull, simultaneously the sweetest guy you'd ever meet, a loving husband and father while also being a living, breathing nightmare for those who're on his hit list.

 When the two tried to take him out, it backfired but instead of killing them Red Death just had a talk with the two and convinced them to give up on their crusade, after cleaning up one of Gary's messes. As for Hank and Dean they're adapting to big city life as Hank and Dean do. Dean's struggling with college life since he's, well, Dean and has nothing but outdated facts in his head thanks to his learning bed thing. As for Hank, he's started getting odd jobs and he's got a girlfriend, Sirena Ong, Wide Wale's daughter, yeah he's basically the first guy Sirena's meet who wasn't a playboy D-bag and isn't intimidated by her dad's overprotectiveness or his Guido henchmen. Billy and Pete aren't out of the fun either since their company was sold to Ventech after it was sold to their arch Augustus St Cloud over a prop from a Duran-Duran video.

 Hatred's still hanging around too even though he was officially taken off the job with Brock resigned, so he's now their front desk security guard, basically as useful as boobs on a bull. Speaking of Brock aside from being back with the Venture's he's got his own issues. His first night in the city Brock tangled with the local Super heroes. One of which is an Amazon named Warriana and after some shenanigans with God Gas the two started to develop a relationship. She's possibly the first woman Brock's met that can actually challenge him and not jerk him around.

 We haven't heard from Dr Orpheus and the Order of the Triad since season 5 but they'll be coming back this season so there's that to look forward too and hopefully we'll see The Alchemist and Shore Leave make their thing official. So that's about it as far as major story recap is concerned the rest is hijinks, insanity, speed-suits and Christopher Lambert. The characters are still hilarious and interesting, the writing is still top notch and Doc seems to finally have it together, he might suck as a scientist still sponging off of J.J but he's pretty much financially secure as long as he lets the Captain do his thing and stop experimenting with Mind control gas. If you haven't seen the Venture Bros yet, fix that A.S.A.P it's honestly one of the best shows Adult Swim has right now aside from Rick and Morty. So tune in, laugh and GO TEAM VENTURE!!!

Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.

Venture Brothers is owned by Adult Swim, Williams Street, AstroBase GO!, World Leaders Entertainment, Noodlesoup Productions and Titmouse inc.

Animation Review: Samurai Jack: Jack is Back!

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 Long ago in a distant land, I Aku the shapeshifting master of darkness unleashed an unspeakable evil. But a foolish Samurai warrior welding a magic sword stepped forth to oppose me. Before the final blow was struck I tore open a portal in time and flung him into the future where my evil is law! Now the fool seeks to return to the past and undo the future that is Aku!

 After all these years he has returned. Samurai Jack returns for a 5th season today on Adult Swim with all but one of the key players returning to either continue the adventures of our favorite time slipped Samurai or at least give him a proper conclusion to his fight to save the world from Aku. Now for those who've never seen Samurai Jack the intro that I summarized is the basic story but I'll elaborate.

 In the beginning there was darkness. But then light came into the universe driving the darkness away. It was nearly exterminated by 3 deities, Odin, Vishnu and Ra. Though the three defeated the darkness a small sliver survived and wandered the cosmos until it crashed into a small underdeveloped Earth. The darkness was slowly encompassing the earth for generations until a Samurai Emperor and his army braved the darkness, eventually the Emperor reached the center of the darkness and fired a special poison tipped arrow into the darkness.

 However instead of destroying the darkness it instead gave the darkness physical form and consciousness, giving birth to the master of masters, the deliverer of darkness, the shogun of sorrow; Aku. Once Aku was born he crucified the Emperor and forced him to watch as Aku gleefully destroyed the Emperor's kingdom. Though beaten but not broken he was guided to the 3 gods who agreed to forge him a weapon that could hurt and eventually destroy Aku. The sword, forged from the Emperor's own light, soul and love of humanity was an anathema to Aku. Armed with this divine sword the Emperor managed to seal Aku into a petrified state. However the Emperor and his wife knew this wasn't the end and so made preparations in case Aku returned.

 Eventually the plan was implemented as with the return of Aku the Emperor had his wife send their young son away to train in various skills and combat techniques around the world until he returned to his homeland years later armed with his father's sword to free his land from Aku. Despite the Samurai's efforts Aku managed to outwit him by sending him into the future to where not only did Aku conquer the earth but also opened channels to various planets and alien races to trade, thus slowly expanding his reach to most of the galaxy with Aku's ultimate goal of conquering the universe. So the Samurai who adopted the name Jack swore to find a way to return to his own time and destroy Aku before he enslaved the earth. So in between trying to discover a way to return; Jack also deals with helping people he comes across, fighting bounty hunters or dealing with Aku's schemes to kill him, and that's the premise. Sure there is some serialization with one or two re occurring characters or following plot points from previous episodes but Samurai Jack's episodes are mostly standalone tales not unlike shows like Cowboy Bebop.

 One of the things that made Jack stand out and stick with people is that there's not all that much dialogue in every episode. In fact I think there may have been one or two episodes that had zero dialogue, which for a kids show is very rare. The reason why is twofold, one Genndy Tartakovsky the creator of Samurai Jack remembers that animation is a visual medium and thus trusts that what the audience sees is enough to convey the story being presented, and when there is dialogue it gets straight to the point and conveys what isn't shown but not in a way where it's holding the audiences hand, mostly character motivation, developmental conversations or just small amounts of levity to the proceedings, nothing more or less and nothing that overstays it's welcome. Leading to my second point, this show does not talk down to its audience! 

 I mean my god do you know how rare that is these days and even back then? A mostly visual action show that conveys its ideas and themes not through dialogue but visually that does not shirk from the overall message even through the "for kids" filter. I mean we see that the monsters Jack fights are robots but we know that they're only robots for sake of censorship and narrative coherency. I mean Aku does have thousands of insect robots under his command so clearly robotics technology has flourished in this setting so if Aku can have robots why not everyone? And if robots are in, cybernetic enhancements aren't out of the question either so all the robots that Jack fights do make sense and even back then I knew why that was.

 But what is good writing without good characters that the writing centers around? First is our main hero Jack, he's a determined focused and honorable warrior that while the new surroundings stun and confuse him he does adapt extremely quickly. No doubt due in part to moving around the world learning from different teachers for most of his life so adapting to new surroundings and social customs is second nature to him. In combat he's strong but thankfully not invincible and also recognizes when strength alone is not enough to win the day. My personal favorite examples are the episodes "Jack and the Three Blind Archers" and "Jack Vs Mad Jack" where Jack managed to get around the 3 archers by relying on their sonar hearing to outmaneuver them and take the three out in a simultaneous attack and where Jack defeated his rage ruled doppelgänger through brief meditation and self actualization respectively. 

 Moving on to the big bad himself who easily makes the top 10 of my favorite villains list, Aku. He's everything I love in a villain, cruel, powerful, intelligent, intimidating, cunning and sadistic but still has a sense of humor about him and has a very simple but memorable and very, very evil design. Like Lord Zedd most of his humor comes from his Genre Savviness and his anger at the failure of his minions, though Aku does tend to succeed more often then naught. So long as he can keep Jack from returning home he succeeds. Also like Robotnik from Sonic SAT AM Aku already rules the world and is working to conquer the universe so Jack frees a species under his subjugation, it's only drinking a cup of water when he has to drain the ocean, in short Aku should be used as an example of how to make a competent, memorable and badass villain. 

 But that was then now to look ahead and speculate. We already know that season 5 takes place 50 years from when we last saw Jack and yet he hasn't aged a day, grew a beard and is seeing visions of his beardless self that talks to him. We also see that Aku's been stepping up his game by more brutal subjugation of those who don't submit to his rule; even taking a page from M Bison/ Vega's book and created an all Female hit squad to kill Jack. And unlike the lord of Shadaloo these ladies didn't need to be brainwashed, so less like the dolls and more Aku's female furies.

 On top of all of this the 5 decades trying and failing to return home is clearly starting to get to Jack as his literal inner monologue tells him. The animation and art style is still consistent with the show back then which is a major plus. (And yes Genndy admitted in an interview that Samurai Jack drew heavy inspiration from Frank Miller's Ronin, hell the Episode "Jack in the Spartans" was clearly inspired by 300, so yeah without Frank Miller we may never have Samurai Jack, you get this ONE Franky boy but only this one.) Back on track, from an uninformed perspective this seems like a good deal, but there is some concern from me and some other fans. First Cartoon Network doesn't have the best track record of reviving shows under their banner, examples include Powerpuff Girls, Teen Titans Go and Season 2 of The Big O. Second, we all know that Aku was played by the lord of all that is and ever shall be, the almighty and eternally glorious Mako. 

Praise be to lord Mako!

 So who are they going to get to replace him? I mean Mako gave Aku an unforgettable and fitting voice, almost as much of a match between actor and character as Hugh Jackman and Wolverine; Mark Hamel and the Joker; Kevin Conroy and Batman; Johnny Depp and Jack Sparrow, Clancy Brown and Lex Luthor and even Patrick Stewart and Charles Xavier you just can't imagine another actor in that role without feeling that something was off. Lastly they've been advertising this as a limited series, meaning that this is just a testing phase to see if the show is still viable. So the question is; will the show draw enough viewers to keep around and will the show be worth keeping around after so long? 

 Hopefully we'll see a positive outcome from all of this. And if we don't get a season 6 at least give us a satisfactory and logical conclusion that sees Jack succeed, destroy Aku and set Earth back to its normal history. All we can do is tune in, watch and judge for ourselves so check your TV guides, DVRs or what have you and watch the premiere of Season 5 of Samurai Jack and show Cartoon Network that this deserves to come back. That is unless it sucks in which case hang your heads in shame. But please do well I want Genndy to be remembered for more then just animating one of 3 actually watchable Adam Sandler movies, that's a fate far worse then anything Aku can conceive.

Samurai Jack is owned by Cartoon Network, Genndy Tartakovsky, and Warner Bros Television Distribution.
Nostalgia Critic is owned by Doug Walker and Channel Awesome.
Jontron is owned by Jon Jaffri and Normal Boots.