Personal Post: Worst to best Another Riders: Part 1 #23-17

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

Your favorite heroes made into hellish freaks by some of the least interesting villains in the franchise, woooo.

 The time of monsters and madness is here once again everyone and this time I’m about to do something truly terrifying, complement a Shinichiro Shirakura production! Of course given the time of year and year in question I’ll be talking about Kamen Rider Zi-O. Though I’ll only complement the one part of this production that he wasn’t involved with, thus being the only salvageable part, the Another Riders. It’s seemingly universally agreed upon that the designs of the main monsters of Zi-O were the only thing that everyone can agree was competently executed for the most part. With an anniversary and capstone of the Heiden era of Kamen Rider the previous 20 had to get represented in someway. 

 Now while the idea of taking the heroes' designs and making them into monsters isn't not original as seen in the monsters of Boukenger it is still a good one. (Before you @ me I know that the Boukenger monsters were based off of the previous Sentai teams mechs and not the teams themselves.) So from the bottom of the barrel to the top of the heap here is my personal countdown of the best Another Riders. Now this list will only include the base forms so Another Ulitnate Kuuga and Another Zi-O II are not going to be on the list, also Another Ryuki and Ryuga are sharing the same spot due to them basically being a re-skin of the suit. Plus Ryuga was originally the Dark Rider counterpart of Ryuki so there, also no, Another Zero One isn’t on the list since it was only announced recently and hasn’t debuted in the Zi-O Zero One crossover movie.

Let’s get the laziest one out of the way for #23 Another Agito.

 From the moment we learned what the Another Riders were we were all thinking of how they were going to handle this one the most. For those who don’t know, there’s already a Kamen Rider Another Agito in Agito. So out of laziness Shirakura just had the Another Agito suit for this Another Rider but just added Agito and 2019 to the suit and changed the helmet. Though his power is an interesting inversion of the main concept of Agito. Just like how the Overlord of Light spread the Seeds of Agito to people who had the potential to evolve into an Agito; Another Agito behaves more like a vampire by turning its victims into more Another Agitos.

 But aside from that the design of this Another Rider is the worst of the bunch and has the least character as well. We never even see the person that made the contract to become Another Agito in the first place. Though if I had to guess it was most likely the biggest asshole character from Agito given how his main targets were members of the G3 team. 

HOOOOOOOJOOOOOOO!!!

 So unsurprisingly the laziest Another Rider gets placed dead last on the list.

Though speaking of lazy designs we have #22 Another Ryuki/Ryuga.

 Yes, like I said they both get the same spot on the list due to them just basically being a color swap of the same suit. Now the suit itself isn’t why this is so low on the list as it is really well designed. But it’s for one very simple thing, Ryuki should not exist anymore due to the events of its series. Now when Another Ryuga showed up and it being the original Ryuga; Dark Shinji most people believed that the events of Ryuki’s movie Episode Final was the cannon ending of that series. Which made sense considering Ryuga and Dark Shinji were the movie exclusive villain Rider of that movie. 

 But then Rider time Kamen Rider Ryuki popped up and threw that idea under the bus. Since apparently the events of the show was the cannon ending even though those events caused Ryuki to never exist. For that matter where did Another Ryuki even come from? We know that none of the main three Time Jackers made him and it’s heavily implied that Shiro Kanzaki, the main villain of Ryuki (who was erased from existence I might add) was the one who created Another Ryuki. But how did Shiro even create the AnotherRideWatch in the first place?! 

 So yes while the suit isn’t bad the story behind these Another Riders just make my brain and balls hurt and I can’t let that slide. Also its Rider deck was stacked with too many copies Mirror Force to be tournament legal!

Speaking of Riders that came out of literally nowhere #21 goes to Another Kikai.

 The last of the three Future Riders and quite frankly the worst explained. Hell the Kamen Rider he’s based off of; Kamen Rider Kikai might not even exist anymore since both Kikai and this Another Rider were apparently figments of Sougo’s imagination about the future that somehow came to life. The Time Jackers never even knew Another Kikai existed until everyone else encountered it, yes just like Another Ryuki Another Kikai was apparently made by fairy farts and Chaos contrivances! There wasn’t even a AnotherRide watch of it before Schwartz made it and forced Heure into becoming Another Kikai. Though the suit itself works as an inversion of Kikai. 

 Since the Rider is a robot with a mechanical design his Another Rider is a tree monster. Basically he’s Bender from Futurama when he downgraded himself into a wooden robot. Speaking of as he once said this Another Rider can bite my splintery, wooden ass!

Moving on to #20 we have the very first Another Rider; Another Build.

 Now as the defining example of how the Another Riders worked I can forgive how forgettable the random basketball player that became Another Build was since he was just an example of how the Time Jackers worked. He also perfectly demonstrated what these false riders are, twisted perversions of past heroes in both design and powers while superseding their history. His design also demonstrated this with the mutated flesh like design of him, with the driver looking like some kind of ulcer. But I’m knocking down major points because of the other precedents that he established and how misused he was. Like I said in the Heisei Generations forever reviews I think Another Build should have swapped debuts with Another W, but I’m not going over that again so here’s the link to true part of that review that explains my stance. 

https://ondavidsbrain.blogspot.com/2019/07/tokusatsu-review-kamen-rider-heisei.html

 Not to mention the absolute disaster Another Build’s utilization caused to the timeline regarding Build’s place in it. So in short what should have been the debut of an interesting monster faction was mishandled due to Shirakura’s carelessness, as usual.

Speaking of carelessness we have #19 Another Faiz.

 Putting aside the fact that this Another Rider was literally overlapped by Another Fourze; Another Faiz demonstrated another discarded concept. With this instance we learn that the Another Rider powers can expire after a certain amount of time has past. So for the contractor to retain his power his had to have Another Rider’s powers overlap and supplement it. But apparently the Time Jackers can just make Another Riders from Kuuga to Decade no problem by just making them in the present day. So why did they even bother creating Another Faiz in 2003 in the first place if they knew that was an option?! 

 Oh yeah because Shirakura stopped giving a crap. Also the design of Another Faiz isn’t all that attention grabbing but then again Faiz himself wasn’t all that much of a “extra thrills” type of Rider design, very streamlined, technological with the Tron esq Lazer patterns on the suits. So it’s not surprising that Another Faiz can only go for the “fleshy mockery” design of him. All in all this was a Faizing waste of a suit. Now that I’m done with the ones I have the most grievances about we can move on to the actual good ones, though some will still draw my ire so heads up.

Starting with the second paranormal parody Rider we have #18, Another Ghost.

 One point in this Another Rider’s favor is the design, looking less like a slick, specter and more like a sentient Halloween costume, in a good way. The wraith like face, the torn leather jacket and him pulling a Shang Tsung and stealing souls made this beast pretty damn terrifying. That’s on top of the original contractor being a hairs breath from death with the powers of Another Ghost keeping him alive while enslaved to the Time Jackers making more than a bit of a problem for Zi-O. At least until they remembered the fact that they’re time travelers and fixed the past to destroy Another Ghost while saving the contract holder. But no matter your views of Ghost or his Another Rider Dan Ackroyd said it best about busting this ghost.

Taking the stage is #17 Another Gaim

 Setting aside the fact that Another Gaim can summon Inves and open cracks to Helheim even though he was created in the way that removes Gaim's history I do like this Another Rider. The contract holder was a decent pick with him being a Team Baron member that was kicked out using his new powers to trap Kaito and anyone else he didn't like in Helheim. He was also the second of a new type of Another Rider candidate, one who actually wants to conquer and rule as the new King of Time, though in his own way, by dancing, sure ok.  Once again the design helps sell this guy. The armor looks like it's rotting with tree branches sticking out, the bone like designs on the boots and gauntlets make you think that the armor is being worn by a rotting corpse while the armor itself looks like it was covered in dried gore.

 Ignoring the logistics of how both Kouta and Fruit Jesus Kouta both existed when Another Gaim should have erased Fruit Jesus because he's a God LOL this is at least a mid tier Another Rider in my books. With that we'll cut off here for now. I mean lets face it we still have 16 more Another Riders to cover and most of this article was me throwing shade at the show (not undeserved mind you but still.) Come on back next time as we discuss #16 and onwards. And be sure to have a Happy Halloween.


Kamen Rider is owned by Ishinomori Productions, Toei Productions, and Bandai.
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. 
Casper (1995) is owned by Amblin Entertainment, the Harvey Entertainment Company and Universal Studios.
Final Fantasy 7 Machinabridged is owned by Team Four Star.

Personal Post: Top 10 monsters in fiction I can’t take seriously Part 1

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

 Yep ghosts and ghouls it’s that time of the year again for monster malarkey. Last year I talked about some of my favorite monsters, from their designs to the personalities and backstories I just loved most of them. Now this year is where I go the polar opposite, and let me tell you this is going to be the hardest list. Mostly due to me not really encountering a whole lot of monsters that really bore me or I honestly just point and laugh at. Like last year, one monster per franchise, have to have actually seen them and state why I find them so hard to take seriously.

#10 Chucky from Childs Play

 I believe that everyone is familiar with the possessed toy idea. It’s a good one when done right but in the case of Charles Lee Ray it tends to vary depending on what movie he’s in. Charles is a serial killer who just so happens to be a practitioner of Voodoo (not real voodoo but just roll with it.) One night he gets shot by a cop and his only chance of survival is to transfer his soul into a nearby doll. But he wants a real body so throughout the series he plans to transfer his soul into a new human body so he can resume his spree.

 The first movie was just fine but as it went on things just got more and more ridiculous to the point where you can’t take him seriously at all. I mean when you show up on WWE, you know any real credibility is flushed down the crapper. I believe that everyone that hasn’t checked out of this franchise with Bride of Chucky, they would have with Seed of Chucky. Some horror franchises have the potential to last a long time. But for Chucky the killer doll I believe that once was more then enough, so yes I did just fuck with the chuck and what’s he gonna do about it?

Yeah that's what I thought.

#9 Necron from FF9

 For those who don’t know I’m not the biggest fan of Final Fantasy. I’ve played a few of them and they’re just not for me. But the one I can definitely claim to be my favorite is undoubtedly Final Fantasy 9. With the technical innovation of the PS1 era engine combined with a classic, uncomplicated story, fantastical setting, likable characters and solid (but too easy and some what BS; looking at you Trance system) combat system it’s an underrated classic of the series. However the final boss, for me is the crack in the otherwise finely crafted gem of a game. 

 So far the major villain is Kuja, the fabulous homunculus who has been trying to destroy both the worlds of Terra and Gaia in an act of spiteful and mad vengeance against the wishes of his creator Garland. Zidane and his party manage to reach him and defeat him but it’s not the end. Suddenly this flying blue monster comes right out of nowhere and is all like “hey I’m the final boss now, deal with it!” We have absolutely no idea where this guy came from, what his motivations are, nothing is established about him or what he’s even here for. It’s like he just came in from a completely different game just to mess up this one. 

 Say what you will about Yu Yevon from FF 10 in terms of being a final boss and believe me there's a lot to say how much of a horrible final boss it is. But at least Yu Yevon was established and has actual relevance to the story of FF 10. Necron on the other hand literally comes out of nowhere. It’s not enough to ruin FF9 for be but Necron was basically the final boss version of a big lipped alligator moment.

#8 Dream Eaters from Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance

 Yet another enemy type for Kingdom Hearts that aren’t Heartless because the design, Nomura and plot said so. Say what you will about the Nobodies and the Unversed but at least they had plot relevance to their games. The Nobodies are the leftover Body and Soul left behind when strong person’s heart becomes a Heartless and the Unversed are the manifestation of Vanitas’ negative emotions (for the most part, looking at you Symphony Master, Cursed Coach and Spirit of the Magic Mirror.) But the Dream Eaters only serve as party members and enemies for Sora and Riku to respectively party with and fight during their mark of mastery exam in the dream worlds. Apparently they’re just the manifestations of Darkness in the sleeping worlds since they’re cut off from all outside channels, apparently not even the Heartless can get into them, ignoring that we encounter Ansem, Xemnas and Xigbar during our time there but whatever.

 I mean yeah the Spirit Dream Eaters are necessary to party with and unlock new abilities. But aside from that and being cute little battle brothers they’re just a gimmick to take advantage of the 3DS and PS4’s touch screen controls and that’s about it. Plot wise the Nightmares don’t even do anything different that couldn’t have been filled by a Heartless. Let’s see, the Heartless were gathering hearts to create Kingdom Hearts for Xehanort’s incarnations, the Nobodies serve Organization XIII to gain hearts of their own and the Unversed were used by Vanitas to lure Ven, Terra and Aqua away, make Terra and Ven stronger for their eventual parts in Xehanort’s plan and are extensions of Vanitas himself. The Dream Eaters have nothing in terms of plot relevancy, just glorified Pokémon knockoffs and that’s it, sorry little dudes you're cute and all, but that's about it see you in Kingdom Hearts 3.

#7 The Mummy (2017)

 These days cinematic universes are the big gimmick that Hollywood wants to cash in on. Aside from the MCU that took several years of planing, preparation and let’s face it prayer before they got Iron Man out the door, everyone else who tried this formula rushed it out the door or assigned the absolute wrong person to set the tone for their universes and the results were complete disasters. The Mummy was the result of the former instead of the latter. Universal tried to revive the original cinematic universe with the classic movie monsters. Their first and last attempt was a second reboot of the Mummy and you know it's a bad movie when I can take the series with The Rock as a CGI scorpion monster more seriously.

 Now say what you will about the Brendan Fraser series but it seemed to be more focused on being an action movie and doing its own thing instead of trying to reinvent the wheel. 2017 Mummy was them trying to reinvent the wheel and they wound up with a triangle. Nothing about this Mummy makes sense, from her origin, her powers, her weaknesses, motivation nothing adds up, if you try to apply the mythological inspiration or either of the previous movie incarnations, nothing adds up either. It honestly feels like they lost the original plot and instead decided to make an even worse version of Enchantress from Suicide Squad. Universals shareholders were promised their own MCU and the result was Tom Cruse with ambiguous superpowers and a zombie best buddy, enough said.

#6 Harvest #3 from DC Comics

 What a horrible waste of a good character design. I wasn’t reading Teen Titans during their New 52 iteration but thanks to Linkara’s massive review of the Crossover event “The Culling” we were all introduced to the dumbass known only as Harvest. While he did have a good look his actions and backstory are what landed this idiot on the list. Apparently he was a Colonel from the future who fought in a war against Metahumans. So he decided to go back in time to eliminate Metahumans, he decided to do this by kidnapping superpowered Teenagers, have them fight to the death and recruit the winners to his team.

 Now this is stupid for many reasons, the most pertinent of which is that why would anyone agree to work with this idiot? See when Blackbeard from One Piece did this with the Level 6 Impel Down prisoners, he wanted the strongest of the worst criminals in the world to join his crew and help him takedown Whitebeard. They were all criminals with life sentences doomed to be erased from history due to their crimes and were just as sick and depraved as he is so it makes sense why the prisoners would want to join him, not so for Teenagers who were kidnapped, forced to live in hellish conditions where they had to fight to the death for the recruiting process of the dumbass who put them there in the first place! Also when the heroes eventually fought him he kept rambling on about how he was actually a good guy for doing all of this. Which was elaborated after the Culling, too little too late, but don’t worry apparently even when his entire operation was falling apart around him is was all according to cake. 

 Even with all of the events that he couldn’t have possibly accounted for, had future knowledge or was even there for it was all part of his master plan. See when Master Xehanort did this schtick he only did it relatively sparingly and you could see how he could have planed everything out in his favor, but when Harvest does it he doesn’t come off as this grand Machiavellian schemer, he just seems like a dumbass over his head playing spin doctor! Also saving the future by kidnapping and torturing teenagers, now does that sound like a hero to you? If not then I just have one question.

 Thankfully Harvest and his nonsense seems to have been jettisoned along with everything else from the New 52 when DC Rebirth happened, good. Yeah this is starting to drag on a bit again and we have four weeks this month on top of Halloween day so I've decided to split this into two parts again. Sorry but I feel that I shouldn't drag this article out longer then it needs to. Plus I have some choices that I feel need some reconsidering and more thought. Besides I know that some of the choices that I will be making are going to have people after my blood for various reasons so I need to make some preparation for the nuclear fallout some of my top choices will bring me.

Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.

Childs Play is owned by United Artists, MGM/UA Communications Co
Final Fantasy 9 is owned by Square, Hironobu Sakaguchi and Hiroyuki Ito.
Nostalgia Critic is owned by Doug Walker and Channel Awesome.

Kingdom Hearts is owned by Square Enix, Disney Interactive Studios, Tetsuya Nomura, and Shinji Hashimoto.
The Mummy (2017) is owned by Universal Pictures, Perfect World Pictures, K/O Paper Products and Sean Daniel Company
Harvest is owned by Scott Lobdell and Brett Booth

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.

Yugioh is owned by Konami, Kazuki Takahashi, Toei Animation, Shonen Jump and Viz Media. (#FucKonami)

Yugioh Abridged is owned by Little Kuriboh (Martin Piers Billany)

Personal Post: Halloween List: Top 10 Favorite monsters in fiction Part 2

When you're done read, comment, spread the links, re-tweet and follow me on Twitter @OnDavidsBrain! and support me on Patreon.

Sorry but no marriage stealing demons here.

 Welcome back to those who have seen the first part of this list. Now for those who’s missed Part 1 here’s where we are so far.

#10 Kars
#9 Fnaf Animatronics
#8 Freddy Kreuger
#7 Walter Sullivan and his victims
#6 The Heartless

Moving on.

#5 The Shadows from Persona.

You know that little voice in your head that tells you just be an absolute asshole? These guys are were that voice comes from.

 While the shadows technically were introduced in Persona 2 and did serve as the primary antagonists in Persona 3 with the distinct bodies and breeds; Persona 4 was where these two incarnations were mixed together. For those who don’t know Shadows draw inspiration from the term defined by Carl Jung where they are the manifestations of a person’s negative aspects of their self. The shadows in Persona follow this principle to a more literal degree. See also “Rest and Ricklaxation” only not as slimy but just as psychotic in most cases.

 In the Persona series Shadows are physical manifestations of humanity’s repressed negative self. Their MO varies depending on which game you encounter them, In Persona 3 they devour the minds of people who are dragged into the Dark Hour leaving them as soulless husks who beg for Nyx to bring about The Fall and the end of humanity. In Persona 4 when a person enters the Midnight Channel they’re confronted by their personal Shadow who will do everything in their power to get their real selves to reject them thus causing them to assume their true form and kill their original selves to justify their own existence as unique beings.

 More recently in Persona 5 the Shadow Selves of people whose hearts desires are consumed and twisted with negative emotions such as greed, lust, despair etc have their dark desires manifested in Mementos. The most severe cases break out of Mementos in the form of a Palace centered around their personal sanctuary where their Shadows rule over and seek to fulfill their original self’s dark desires. This attracts other weaker Shadows which are enslaved and controlled by the Palace Ruler to be their personal guards to protect their treasures. The palace treasure is the symbolic form of the source of their dark desires which are guarded against any and all intruders.

 When rejected by their real selves; or in the case of Palace rulers when their treasure is at risk of being stolen from a real world confrontation of their dark actions, these Shadows transform into bizarre monstrous forms to kill their opponents. But if their real selves can accept or confront what the Shadows have to say after being pacified in battle they become Personas. But if a Palace ruler Shadow is killed then their real self will have a mental shutdown and die. The Shadows offer a truly sick and terrifying nemesis because while you may try to act the best as you can you can never escape your darker aspects, you can run from your problems but you can never hide from yourself, and your Shadow is everything you wish you weren’t but know you may want to be.

#4 The Witches from Madoka Magica

Oktavia Von Seckendorff, such a poor, unfortunate soul.

 Most people are familiar with the stereotypical depiction of Witches, black hats, brews potions, flies on broomsticks, get killed by someone accidentally spilling water on them. But the Witches in Madoka Magica are nothing like that. In this world certain girls from the approximate ages of 6 to 16 have the potential to form a contract with the alien cat creature Kyubey to have a single wish granted. The catch of course being that once their wish is granted they become Magical Girls and are charged with defeating creatures referred to as Witches. Sounds simple right, but here's the catch though, Kyubey is the sleazy used car salesman of Magical Girl mascot characters.

 I mean sure he will grant your wish and make you into a Magical Girl but he also kind of forgot to mention that if your Soul Gem, the source of your magic turns black either form overuse or if you fall into despair the hunter will quite literally become the prey. Yes aside from looking like the living nightmares of Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton Witches are actually Magical Girls who have succumbed to complete despair and are now mindless monsters who will devour people, cause them to commit suicide and various other horrible unexplained tragedies. On top of the normal Witches that hide away in their inter dimensional Labyrinths and the familiars that sometimes escape their masters to try and grow into Witches themselves there's also the most powerful Witch of them all, Walpurgisnacht the Christmas tree topper from hell who's so powerful its mere presence is enough to cause hurricanes!

 Its not even that the most weak looking witch can kill even the most experienced Magical Girl in just one shot that make them compelling it's that most of them were formerly young girls who just wanted the universe to cut them a break for once. But they all forget that you can't expect the universe to roll over and play dead without giving it a treat. Everything from their familiars to their Labyrinths are drenched in symbolism about their human selves, their wishes and their state of mind before they became these monsters. Now the Madoka Wiki does delve into the symbolism of the original series Witches but with all of the spin offs Mangas and new Video Games (that most likely won't be coming stateside) there's more to come. so in case an alien bunny cat wants to strike a deal with you just make sure you bring a lawyer to check the terms or else.

#3 The automatons from Karakuri Circus

These are the Generals of the Midnight Circus, known as Les Quatre Pionniers. The Geezer with the bird is Pantalone, the Ball Roller. The fatso with Kung-Lao's hat is Dottore the juggler. The woman with the cheap romance novel is Columbine the Trapeze Artist and last is Arlechino, the Guitarist.

  Ohh going hipster on this one since as far as I can tell not a whole lot of people know about these wind up toys from hell so I’ll summarize as best as I can. Though with this entry I'm at the mercy of fan translations as the Manga; Karakuri Circus has to my knowledge never been officially translated so if I get some info wrong you know why. The world of Karakuri Circus is plagued by a group of sentient puppets brought to life by Francine who is the creation of the deranged Alchemist Bai-Jin with a single goal, make her laugh. To that end these monstrosities have spent 200 or so years traveling across the globe in a caravan known as the Midnight Circus and spread a horrible disease called Zonapha’s Syndrome. This disease causes the victim to become biologically immortal but in perpetual pain and the only way to alleviate the pain is for the victim to make people laugh. 

 While the automatons have sentience and can fake emotions they are not real human beings thus they also seek the Philosophers Stone which can create the true Aqua Vitae, a substance which can make them fully human, thus able to comprehend the heart and thus make Francine laugh. But there are ways to put these psychotic Pinocchios down for good. Either destroy them with a specialized Puppet controlled by a near immortal being called Shirogane, overload their bootleg Aqua Vitae blood with Ki infused Qui Gong, if they run out of human blood to mix with their bootleg Aqua Vitae or if they reject their raison d’être, but no matter what they must be fought one on one without a conventional weapon otherwise their full powers can be utilized and could easily slaughter their opponents. Everything about the Midnight Circus is absurd, from their designs to their goals and even their weaknesses. Honestly these seem like what would happen if the Joker ever became a villain in a Tokusatsu show, an army of killer puppet clowns who personify the phrase “you can’t spell slaughter without laughter”, well they'd definitely be more interesting then Jared Leto. 

 Also the only people who can defeat them are master puppeteers who use gigantic puppets as their weapons? What do you know, something else ripped off by Musashi Kishimoto and let me see Karakuri Circus began publication around 1997 and Kankuro was introduced in Naruto around 2000, yep sounds right to me. As for the Automatons themselves while a majority look like clowns with insanely exaggerated features there are ones that look completely human which infiltrate human cities to steal blood and spread Zonapha’s Syndrome. So we have a bunch of deranged, sadistic carnie vampire puppets that want to become immortal so they can make one person laugh to bring back a person who has been long since dead. If that doesn’t sound like interesting monster material I don’t know what does. Forget SweetTooth, forget Pennywise (either version) these beasts are the real Insane Clown Posse and they don't give a shit about how magnets work.

 #2 The Horrors from Garo

While this one is a common Horror they're still nothing short of hell-spawn.

 While I did compare the Horrors to the Witches in my first Madoka Magica article these eldritch terrors also share some things in common with the Heartless. All three are creatures born from the darkness of humanity and will never be purged from their worlds unless darkness no longer exists, so good luck with that. As for the Horrors themselves they're beasts from the Makai World who devour the souls of evil humans and possess them so that they can consume more humans to sate their hunger. However if the human target has a desire that interests the Horror or if the two share a common goal the Horror can enter a symbiotic relationship to fulfill that desire. But the host is still technically dead and in perpetual torment due to being possessed by an entity that pure, dang, nasty evil.

 The only ones who can defend the human world from the Horrors is the Makai Order, made of the Makai Priests and their greatest warriors, the Makai Knights. Horrors are monsters in the purest sense of the word, they see humans as prey, literally feast on pure evil and look like Nightmares made flesh. But the truly terrifying part of these beings is the stone cold fact that so long as humanity has darkness in their hearts (and lets face it it's required to be a balanced person) Horrors will never go away. Hell even the Makai Knights don't actually kill them, when they're defeated their essence is just returned to the Makai World to be eventually reincarnated all over again, so yes this threat will never end. But remember this, where there is light, shadows lurk and fear reigns, but by the blade of knights, mankind was given hope. Now I'm just wondering if there was a Madoka Magica and Garo crossover, project for later then if I get around to it and I catch up on Garo.


Now before I get to my #1 favorite monster here's the honorable mentions.

Headcrab Zombies from Half life, while they're terrifying and the level "We Don't Go to Ravenholm" makes me crap my pants every time I play Half-Life 2 they're just Zombies with the Facehuggers' satanic cousins on their face so not much to them aside from terror. 

The Minions from Overlord, no not the servants of the blinged out Skeletor with the hot imp with the massive rack I mean the little goblin things that serve the Overlord of Evil and his advisor Gnarl. My personal favorites are the bashing browns. Unfortunately while Codemaster's Overlord franchise is dead right now thanks to the hot mess that was "Fellowship of Evil" maybe we'll see these excitable embassies of evil again soon. Just don't introduce a new Yellow Minion tribe or else I'll swear off Bananas forever.

Rachnera from Monster Mutsume, what else can I say, I like girls with a bit of snark, a dark edge and some actual depth to their character. Besides giant spiders are awesome.

The Joker Persona from Persona 2 Eternal Punishment. Less a Persona and more of a parasite this Pseudo Persona is granted to anyone who is infected with the Joker Virus which gets stronger the more the virus spreads. While it does look cooler in its more monstrous stages it just didn't make the cut.

The Bogeyman from Silent Hill Downpour. While I may be sick of Pyramid Head that doesn't mean its initial concept is dead. Bogeyman is the main stalker of Murphy Pendleton and Anne Cunningham. While Pyramid Head represented James' desire to be judged for his sins Bogeyman to me represents someone who needs to be judged. To Murphy when he sees the Bogeyman's face after defeating him in the Monastery his face flickers between his own for how badly he screwed up his life and his son's killer Patrick Napier. As for Anne she sees Murphy as the Bogeyman because she thinks he's the one who  beat her father into a vegetative state. I'd put him on the list proper but he's just a big dude with a cinderblock hammer, gas mask and raincoat. Not that it doesn't work sometimes the simplest designs are the best ones (Mario comes to mind here) but compared to other Silent Hill monsters he's a bit on the meh side, then again so are most of the monsters in Downpour so there you go. 

Alexander from Final Fantasy. I mean come on it's practically a Megazord how is this not awesome? Hell look at this scene from FF9 (AKA the best FF) standing tall against Bahamut with giant angel wings how is this not cool?! 

Songbird from BioShock Infinite. Now when I first saw this clockwork gargoyle I was psyched for the boss fight against this thing. I thought what weapon would work, what would its weaknesses be? But in the end we never actually fight Songbird in the game!

Now my absolute favorite Monster in Fiction #1 The Big Daddies from BioShock.

Yep Mr Bubbles and his many models are my personal favorite monsters.

 While there were entries on this list that had far more interesting backstories and designs I personally love these lumbering foul smelling palookas. Originally prisoners, political dissidents and Plasmid test subjects that were imprisoned in Persephone Penal Colony they were further spliced, brainwashed, had their skin and organs grafted into these diving suits and conditioned to protect the Little Sisters at all cost. And to do that these beasts were equipped with Sea Stone piercing drills, rivet guns, rocket launchers (kind of stupid considering were they are, one wrong rocket into a window and BLAM instant fish tank) and high powered laser guns.

 Just imagine everything that you were just stripped away, existing as a sleepwalking zombie whose only function is to protect a blood sucking ghoul while fighting off genetically mangled maniacs who could kill you if they gang up on you in just the right way. Honestly I think that's the most terrifying thing about the Big Daddies, the very idea that your mind, personality, everything that makes you you repurposed into this beast if you cross Ryan. Honestly that fear of the loss of self, one of many hippocratic actions Ryan permitted in his "self made paradise" is horrifying. So that's my Top 10 favorite monsters in fiction as of this list. But I'm betting you want to know what my least favorite monsters are, well that's what next year is for, so happy Halloween and now to see how the rest of this year unfolds.

Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica is owned by Gen Urobutchi, Studio Shaft, and Studio Aniplex.
Karakuri Circus is owned by Kazuhiro Fujita and Shogakukan.
Garo is owned by Keita Amemiya and TV Tokyo.
Bioshock is owned by 2K Boston, 2K Australia, Take-Two Interactive, Ken Levine, Alyssa Finley and 2K Games.
Half-Life 2 is owned by Valve Corporation
Overlord is owned by Codemasters, Lennart Sas and Triumph Studios.
Monster Musume is owned by Okayado, Tokuma Shoten, Monthyl Comic Ryu and Seven Seas.
Persona 4 Arena Ultimax is owned by Atlus, arc system works and Sega.
Persona 2 Eternal Punishment is owned by Atlus and Sega
Silent Hill Downpour is owned by Vatra games and Konami Computer Entertainment
Final Fantasy 9 is owned by Square Enix
Beavis and Butthead is owned by MTV Networks and Mike Judge.

Tokusatsu Review: Kamen Rider Ex-Aid Uuchu Sentai Kyuuranger Spring Break Special Part 1: Game over Dumbluck.

When you're done read, comment, spread the links, re-tweet and follow me on Twitter @OnDavidsBrain! and support me on Patreon.

 Yep boys, girls and everyone in between it's time for the spring break crossover special between the currently running Kamen Rider and Super Sentai series. Just like last year however this isn't really a crossover so much as a short fight scene cameo, also just like last year one of these series is slowly but surly getting better and is actually good while the other is worse then somebody stealing your wallet after telling you that someone close to you was eaten by an alligator. I'm just going to cut the pretense here and say that Ex-aid is the good series and Kyuuranger is absolutely horrible. I might as well get the anger out right now and talk about Kyuuranger first.

 The series takes place in the future in space where an intergalactic empire called Jark Mader (get it it sounds like Dark Matter, all consuming indiscriminate darkness? Well, I get it and appreciate it for what it is,) has already conquered the star systems which make up 77 of the 88 constellations and they only have a few more left to go before they completely conquer the Galaxy. The only force standing in Jark Mader's way is the Uuchu Sentai Kyuuranger who harness the power of their native constellations using devices called Kyuu Tama to fight and liberate planets under the dominion of Jark Mader.

 While that all sounds good on paper this premise does have one teeny tiny little problem. THE RED RANGER IS A FUCKING MORON!!!! Hey do any of you remember last year when I said that Toei finally listened to their fans and we were apparently done with idiot Red Rangers? Oh we are staggeringly naive fools, how little we were prepared for this fresh slice of hell which no doubt brings us one step closer to the world of "ow my balls". No seriously folks if you thought Wrong from Toqger or Leftovers from Ninninger were bad allow me to introduce you to the latest moron to come off of Toei's idiot Red Ranger production line, Lucky. 

Better get used to that folks cause guess what he says every, single, fucking episode? GAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH

  From the very first time you see this guy you will despise his rotten guts and those who put up with him, as his name implies his main schtick is that he has super Luck powers, meaning that he always wins his fights without any effort, bulldozes his way to victory and of course he always screams out something with the word Lucky in it almost every single time he opens his goddamn face hole. He's an insensitive, idiotic, pigheaded, misguided piece of shit who only manages to survive due to his stupid, stupid luck to the point where I have given him the nickname of "DumbLuck" which worked so well that pretty much everyone in my click of Toku viewers have basically adopted that as Lucky's official nickname just like Leftovers became the nickname for Takaharu.

 The biggest problem with Dumbluck is that since Toei's of course going to over glorify his presence the rest of the cast is going to suffer in terms of their development since because Dumbluck exists any episode focused on their development will be superseded by him. Hell at this point I barely know anything about the rest of the main cast aside from their name and gimmick. Spada's gimmick is that he's a chef and randomly speaks one Italian word every so often in his sentences (even though they're all from space so they shouldn't even know what Italian is much less know how to speak it!) Next is Hammy the first official female Green Ranger, her schtick is that she's condescending to Dumbluck but since its though laughing at his stupidity it's actually encouraging it since he's too stupid to pick up on her ridiculing. The Black Ranger is a Bull Robot named Champ who likes to work out even though again he's a robot and thus has no muscles to develop with the exercise.

 Next is Garu, he's a wolfman who had his entire race slaughtered in battle by Jark Mader and thus had his spirit broken. That is until Dumbluck told him that he's stupid for giving up so easily! Hey asshole he just told you that his entire race was exterminated right in front of him and you basically tell him "oh get over it you big baby and fight back?!" Go jump in a hole full of poison tipped bamboo spikes you insensitive cumchugger! That was honestly even worse then what Wakka said after Home was destroyed in FF X.

 Next is the thieving pair of Naga and Balance. Naga's a Vulcan knock off and Balance is an asshole robot voiced by Josuke. Then there's Stinger and he's a live action Sasuke Uchiha who is a spy for the Rebellion but has killed lots of people to maintain his cover, including Champ's creator. But Dumbluck still wants him on the team just because he's a Kyuuranger. Even after Champ told you he killed his Creator/father and lethally poisoned the rest of your team all in the same episode! 

 Do you all see why I hate this guy?! If not then here's my last piece of evidence with our last Kyuuranger, the gynoid Raptor. She's always wanted to be a hero, but it's revealed that if she is damaged, because her parts are so rare nobody can repair her and thus any damage she takes will be permanent and if she takes enough she'll die. So what does Dumbluck do? Tell her to ignore her safety and fight anyway despite the fact that she'll eventually die if she becomes a full Kyuuranger! So to sum up my feelings for Dumbluck I think that Joe Pesci said it better then anyone else.

 All this is made worse due to the fact that the designs for the suits, mechs and weapons are all really good. 

They were designed by Bandai of America and they did a really good job of making this Sentai team stand out from their contemporaries. They each still have a uniformed style but diverge in just the right ways. From Balance and Champ being the robots having more armoring on their suits to Garu's suit actually having fur in the colored segments and claws on the boots, Stinger's having; well a stinger to Raptor's suit having actual wings. 

The mechs themselves are also cool, with the Lion being the center while the others are interchangeable by the four ball joints which by my calculations means it could have up to 32 possible combinations, at least so far.

 But again if the main character makes me want to vomit in absolute disgust every time he does something stupid then I refuse to take part in this madness. As I said before aside from riffing on this every Sunday I will not be watching this in my free time. But I may finally start to make V-logs on this show since I will undoubtedly bring in the views since everybody loves to see someone else suffer. I mean you literally can't spell slaughter without laughter so yes you all will soon be getting your pounds of flesh. But I need to take a break from Dumbluck so I'll see you all next time as we talk about Ex-aid.

Super Sentai is owned by Ishinomori Productions, Toei Productions, and Bandai.

Final Fantasy X is owned by Square-Enix and Yoshinori Kitase.

My Cousin Vinny is owned by Johnathan Lynn and 20th Century Fox.

Video Game Review: Top 10 Worst Video Game Sequels I've seen so far: Part 1

When you're done read, comment, spread the links, re-tweet and follow me on Twitter @OnDavidsBrain! and support me on Patreon.

For those who want to see what I think are the best video game sequels here you go

 Now while this list mostly consists of sequels I haven't played I've heard more then enough horror stories surrounding them to draw a decent conclusion. You may be asking why you would be talking about bad Sequels that you haven't played acting like you know what you're talking about. One reason, I value my time and my money and like to avoid spending either on entertainment that isn't worth it. Besides sometimes you can just tell a sequel is going to shit the bed just by looking at it. So let's go down the list of lost time and investment shall we?

#10 Final Fantasy XIII (All of them)

 Yes I'm cheating with these but the internet mostly agrees that Final Fantasy's time during the 7th console generation was nothing short of a monumental disaster. From the boring combat system, the nonsensical leveling, the criminally bad writing to the most unlikable protagonists we've ever seen in a Final Fantasy game it all just amounts to a horrible pretentious mess. Every game in the 13 line had their own problems from the first game being stuck to a giant hall way, 13-2 having a god modding Gary Stu villain on top of one of the worst time travel stories ever created. (Even considering Japan's apparently horrible track record with Time travel stories, for every Madoka Magica and Crono Trigger there's at least 20 Inuyashas and of course the infamous Endless 8 fiasco!) Lightning Returns even takes the message of FF 7, shits all over it and turns Lightning already one of the most unlikable and boring protagonists and turns her into a god damn robot. Supposedly removing all of her emotions and creating a loli version of her to cause chaos whose origins are horrible contradictory and; ugh the more I try to discuss Lumina the more my head starts to split from all the convoluted and contradicting information.

 Needless to say FF13 and its sequels seems to have almost killed my interest in the FF franchise which was pretty small to begin with. For the record I've only played 6, 8 (the worst i've actually played) 9 (aka the best one) 10, and some of 10-2. I just hope that Lighting and none of the characters from 13 ever make it into Kingdom Hearts 3. Whenever that'll come out which of course was delayed because Square for some horribly dumb reason pushed that game back to focus on shitting out these turds. So yes Final Fantasy XIII is to blame for Kingdom Hearts 3 being pushed back for so long, fuck you Lightning and the robot horse you rode in on!

 #9 Mass Effect 3

 Two words can describe every single thing wrong with Mass Effect 3, Electronic Arts. Once again the Unicron of the gaming industry has claimed another victim by getting rid of Mass Effects head writer, replacing him with a guy who hated Mass Effect with the passion of a million flaming hemorrhoids, let him take the franchise and flush it down the toilet by chucking your Shepards history out the window, retconning almost everyone and giving one of the absolute worst endings in recent history. On top of all that they slammed in Multiplayer and online passes to really piss everybody off. Also if you signed onto EA's servers you've most likely been hacked because their security is absolute flaming monkey poop.

 Now the reason this is so low on the list is that I was never into Mass Effect in the first place. I'm a Sony guy and since Mass Effect 1 didn't come out on the PS3 until the collection pack was released I never bothered to care. I mean I tried the Mass Effect 2 demo and was repelled almost immediately, from the intimidating character creation screen to the mountains of data logs dumped onto my lap with all these terms and events that I had no idea about it was just the absolute worst way to entice someone new into the franchise. It was like you were transferred to a new class and on your first day you were given a test that you had no prior knowledge about and the teacher hates your guts and couldn't give a shit whether you knew the material or not.

 Like "who the hell is Cerberus, why was I brought back to life, why did that bitch shoot that guy, why are robots after me, what is going on?!" Personal history with the franchise aside I do know a bad sequel when I hear it and when EA is involved you know it's going to suck something fierce. Now before you even ask, no I am not getting Mass Effect Andromeda because I refuse to give EA my money. All that's left is to paraphrase Spoony and say this "oh fuck you EA you killed Mass Effect fuck you!"

#8 Sly 4 Thieves in Time

 As I said before I'm a big fan of Sly Cooper and I really was enjoying this Game, especially since it gave my PS Vita something to do aside from playing Persona 4 Golden and PS1 rpgs. That is until we got to the fourth level. The villain in that level was a robot called the Black Knight and we later find out the Knight was just a suit controlled by Bentley's girlfriend Penelope. Yep she betrayed Bentley, sold their time travel technology to Le Paradox the big bad for this game and was going on about how she and Bentley could have made a fortune in weapons development but figured that since Sly was holding Bentley's potential with his moral code she decides to help Le Paradox destroy the Cooper family line. Now considering everything that happened in Sly 3 this twist comes out of nowhere and feels like a slap in the face to Bentley and fans of his, that it just drags the whole game down with it.

  Personal issues aside there's another narrative problem, namely with some of the ancestors you play as. Aside from Bob and Tennessee Kidd the rest of the ancestors have techniques that they shouldn't know namely Rioichi, Sir Galith and Salim knows Tennessee's rail run and slide techniques and Gallith and Salim knowing Rioichi's ninja spire jump. The ancestors also know their own exclusive techniques which are never mentioned before in the Thevius Racoonus. I mean if the ninja spire jumps are used before Rioichi you think they'd be written before his time where he could have transcribed how to perform his dragon jump instead of something everyone in the Cooper family would have known and perfected before him? 

 This game also has gameplay problems on top of everything else. I know most people have problems with the motion controls but you can just turn them off. But the developers clearly were trying to do something with the six axis function of the PS3 and Vita, so all that effort can just go out the window. But the biggest problem is the final boss fight. Now the Sly games have had varying degrees of success with their final bosses, the best being Dr M in my opinion. But Le Paradox, just some platforming and quick time events. Your final boss is a quick time event, that gets this spot on the list just for that. Now to wait until Sly 5 shows up and hopefully fixes this mess, you all know it's coming the secret ending makes it clear as crystal, so all that's left to do is wait and see.

#7 Batman Arkham Knight

 The PC version was complete guano and that alone deserves a spot on this list. Though there are some other reasons on top of that, most people didn't like the Batmobile and the repetitive fights against the tank drones. The two main villains aren't as interesting as the true villain of Arkham Knight AKA Joker. Scarecrow just drones on and on about fear and what not and as for the titular Arkham Knight, anyone who knows anything about Batman can tell who it is from the first time he opens his mouth. Yep angsty boy himself Jason Todd, though this is one of those cases where they use him correctly, as a villain who stands as a living reminder of one of Batman's greatest failures instead of trying to make him an anti-hero who never shuts his mouth. 

 His depiction here isn't as good as "Batman Under the Red Hood" but it's still good. Also the Season Pass and DLC was crap. Though thankfully the Riddler Challenges were nowhere near as taxing and numerous as Arkham City. As a conclusion to the Arkham trilogy it's passable but the PC version was simply unforgivable and it would be unprofessional of me to ignore such a horrible crime inflicted on 1 3rd of your paying customers. So WB can choke on the Jokers ashes as far as I care for the horrible butchering of the PC version of the conclusion to one of your biggest franchises.

#6 Kingdom Hearts RE:Coded

 Sorry I know this is technically a spinoff but there are events in this game that are cannon to the whole franchise so yes it's a sequel as much as Kingdom Hearts 2 so it's on the list. Gameplay wise this is the weakest game in the franchise and also the ugliest looking. Though considering that the game involves removing bugs from the data in Jiminys journal I can't help but think that was part of the joke. We don't even play as Sora in this one just a data copy of him that eventually becomes his own being. The only saving grace for this is that they remastered all the relevant cutscenes and plot points of this game in the 2.5 collection as a 3 hour long movie so now people don't even have to go through the trouble of hunting down the old DS game on Amazon anymore. And really when the only redeeming feature of your game is not having to play it, you know it sucks.

#5 Mega Man X6

 I know people would have expected X7 to take this spot but I can't since at least X7 experimented with the 2d to 3D gameplay. It didn't work and they hid the ability to play as fucking X behind the grinding busy work of rescuing Reploids in the Maverick stages. But guess where that mechanic was taken to its absolute worst degree? You guessed it X6, my spot for this list. 

 Keiji Inafune cleary wrote and planed for the Mega Man X series to stop with X5 and holy crap does it show here. The plot is uninteresting, the maverick bosses are boring and unnecessary as if you take out High Max in any of the stages you can jump straight to Gate's stages. But since you have to get all of X's armor parts to make it through the bosses are still required to be beaten so why even give us the option to skip them? Also yes the Reploid rescue system is back and even worse since not only do some of them have upgrade components but there's the new Nightmare Virus that turns them into enemies if you take too long. Also if they turn bad they're gone for good and so is their potential upgrade, and since most of the ones that do have them are hidden in very hard to reach places and the Nightmare is more often then not very close once you see them, you're screwed.

 Not to mention every two stages or so Dynamo shows up to fight X and Zero if nothing else because Capcom didn't know what to do with the guy after X5 and they wanted to pad the game out. Speaking of reoccurring bad guys Sigma is easily the worst he's ever been in the series here. Now narratively I get why he's all broken and crazy here but still why did you include him here anyway? I mean in X5 it was very heavily hinted that he was working with some remaining figment of Dr Wily so why not go with that? Have Wily be the real mastermind as he pretended to be loyal to Gate, stab him in the back and and admit to using Gate and Sigma as part of some grand final world domination scheme as well as completing his revenge against Light by destroying X as well as Zero, himself a failed experiment in Wily's eyes? 

 Maybe even have him play a part in Axl's story in X7 as maybe being the one who created Axl's copy chip and designed him based on Bass' designs? But no we get this poorly designed cash grab instead. X6 is my pick as the worst in the X series and that's my two cents on that. But we still have five more bad sequels to deal with people. Follow the link here to see what I consider to be the absolute worst video game sequels I've seen.

Batman Arkham Knight is owned by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, Rocksteady Studios and DC Comics

Final Fantasy 13 is owned by Square-Enix, Motomu Toriyama and Yoshinore Kitase.

Kingdom Hearts is owned by Square Enix, Disney Interactive Studios, Tetsuya Nomura, and Shinji Hashimoto.

Mass Effect 3 is owned by Bioware and Electronic Arts.

Mega Man x 6 is owned by Capcom and Tokuro Fujiwada.

Sly Cooper: Thieves in time is owned by Sony Computer Entertainment of America and Sanzaru games.