Personal Post: My media recap of 2016.

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My Christmas haul for this year. Some of which will be for your benefit in the up coming year.

 What else can I say about 2016? It's been a big year, several anniversaries for various franchises, I finally moved on to Lets Plays, reviewed the Sentai series that premiered on the same day I was born which was Jetman and I'll just leave it at that. Oh and I also managed to get Madoka Magica Beginnings and Eternal on DVD for a somewhat reasonable price, thank you holiday sales. So for this list I'll just be going through the pieces of media that were released in North America in 2016 that I've played/watched in no particular order.

 This isn't a best of worst of list I'm just going through new movies, video games, anime what have you that I've seen which premiered in 2016. Though I'll only count remasters or HD remakes if they've made a significant change compared to the previous version of this product. But I won't include Demos that I've played since by definition I haven't played the full game and thus feel uncomfortable giving my thoughts on a full game based on the first hour or so.

My Favorite movie of 2016, good continuation of the MCU story, brilliant adaptation of the Civil War comic and just the perfect thing for people to cleanse their palates after ingesting the garbage fire that was Batman Vs Superman. But if you want a more detailed account of my experience with this movie, here you go.

I've finally finished this game and surprise, surprise it's really good. Now I still don't want to give too much away but we do see some good character development, the bosses can kick your teeth in if you have no idea what you're doing and Dagda is one of the grand poobahs of dickery. Read my review of my first impressions, get both SMT 4 games and have some fun. 

Essentially Iron Man with magic instead of technology but by the Emperor are the special effects impressive. Also it reveals one of the Infinity Stones so if you're a hardcore MCU fan this is required viewing. Especially for the upcoming Thor Ragnarök. Review post, like share subscribe moving right along.

It's Pokémon's 20th anniversary game, of course it's really good. The Kahunas are an interesting reinvention of the Gym Leader concept, Team Skull is my second favorite villain group behind Team Plasma, and I love the concept of regional variant Pokémon. My personal favorite is Aloan Marowak. Though I wish these games could provide a decent challenge like Hard mode in Pokemon White 2 and Black 2, please Nintendo, bring back Hard mode for the next games, pretty please? Here's my thoughts on Sun, me and my Fire Kitty are almost to the end.

I've played this since Day 1 so take my advice. Don't ever go for Free to Play, unless you have great patience and self control with your money. I do I only limit myself to deals or exclusive events but for the rest, you may want to just watch a  Lets Play. Or since Kingdom Hearts 2.8 has HD cutscenes of all the important events of this game, just wait for that. You can get by without purchasing new Medals, but only for so long. Sure there are Events that give you great medals but unless you know what you're doing and log on at least once a day to contribute to your party for events you'll be out of luck. But hey it's better then Final Fantasy All the Bravest. 

A great remake of a Point and Click Classic. I've never played the original game back in the day I was more of a Putt-Putt, Freddi Fish, Pajama Sam kind of guy. I was a little kid can you blame me? Back on point this was a real brain scratcher and while I have a Lets Play of this game I may want to avoid making another one in the future since they take time, I want to beat them without walkthroughs and I doubt all you members of the PC Master Race want to see this filthy console peasant miss what was OH SO OBVIOUS on my walkthroughs. But all in all a good game, an interesting experience and you should definitely check it out for yourselves. Also it has the original Maniac Mansion in the game so 2 games for the price of 1, can't beat that.

GET THIS COLLECTION RIGHT NOW!!!
Seriously this is a compilation of three of my favorite games of all time, in HD, with all their single Player DLC and minus Bioshock 2's pointless and irrelevant multiplayer. You will not regret this. But even if you don't since next year is the 10th Anniversary of the franchise guess who has two thumbs and is going to do Lets Plays of these games and their DLC because he is a humongous fan? d o_o b This guy!

My favorite game of 2016. Though I couldn't show it the way I intended. See I originally wanted to do a lets play of this game but for some reason I couldn't upload any clips from my PS4 to Youtube. Though the few I could were flagged down by copyright because they had clips from the failed movie. But I do want to show my love for this game somehow so why not here? I personally view this as non-cannon to the main series due to Quark telling this story to a fellow inmate and; let's face it the guy is about as unreliable a narrator as you can get aside from the Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past from the Future so you have to take this story with a major grain of salt. Besides we still have the original games, they're not going anywhere and I do still have a lets play of the original game so I can at least show how far we've come.

Now for your viewing pleasure my first impressions of the game as well as a small sample of my constant failures at the Hoverboard track before Patch 1.03 that actually made the minigame winnable. The others you can see on Youtube.

I'm betting that you all forgot this came out this year and quite frankly I don't blame you. This is almost a textbook example of what NOT to do in a sequel, reuse gags without the proper context of the original, pointlessly reset character progression, jumps the shark even more then the first you name it it's here. The only time laughed watching this flick was whenever Will Ferrell was on screen. Just give this flick a you-googly and move on.

Technically the worst movie I've seen this year, but that's only because I haven't seen that many movies and the few I have seen were really good. So all I have to say about this movie is that it was just kind of "meh". Though I will agree that Jerod Leto had no business being the Joker. I get what they were trying to go for with him but every-time I saw him I wasn't seeing the Joker I was seeing a pusher for Dr Rockso. Besides at least this wasn't Batman Vs Superman Dawn of Cheap Cash-ins. Also I really liked the part in the final fight where Diablo turned into an Aztec Fire monster to duke it out with Incubus. But aside from that, just meh.

I honestly wanted to review this movie in my usual style but well life happened and I wanted to talk about other stuff. However I do think this movie is decent. Not great but decent mostly coming off as Toei trying to make an apology (somewhat insincere but an apology nonetheless) to fans of the Showa Era with Hiroshi Fujioka's name slapped onto the writing credits. But considering how he hated Takashi Hongo's depiction in Kamen Rider Taisen and the retcons included in the Kamen Rider Yongo netmovies that remove that and Grand Prix from cannon I can see why he'd want the chance to set Takshi Hongo back on the right path. It's certainly better then the last Taisen films as at least this does seem like we're watching Takashi Hongo fighting Shocker to save Tachibana's granddaughter who is essentially his Goddaughter.

A man on his last legs desperately fighting to save the family of the man who helped shape him into what he is today, and like most Inoue scripts while the execution may be clumsy I get the emotion and sentiment trying to be conveyed. But there are somethings wrong with the movie. Mainly the new look for Kamen Rider #1. I really don't like the over-muscled look and he looks like "he's been hitting the roids bro!" Also thankfully while Ghost and Specter are in the movie they don't overshadow Takashi, since this really is his story just with elements from Ghost crammed in. So all in all better then what we've got but could have been far better.

Speaking of Hiroshi Fujioka we have Project X Zone 2. I enjoyed the first game due to the crossover madness seeing characters from various franchises and three different companies fighting against familiar and new (and sometimes sexy, hello Saya) evils trying to conquer or destroy the muliverse. Hell it even motivated me to Pick up Endless Frontier to see the intro for Hawken Browning and Kaguya as well as how Reiji, Xiaomu and KOS-MOS were so familiar with them and Phantom. I've also been watching a let's play of the original Namco X Capcom on Youtube to see how the whole fiasco got started, that shows how much I've been hooked.

Project X Zone 2 has the crossover fun of the first Project X Zone game as well as really botched localization. If you have at least some knowledge of the Japanese language and hear the clips you can tell that they went off the reservation with some of them. Now I can get that directly translating languages involves various constraints like how Japanese is very contextual and English not so much but Bandai of America has a bit of a reputation of not giving the slightest amount of a shit with their localizations these days. But those who've played this and Digimon Cyber Sleuth can attest to this claim.

Also, Sheath, oh dear. While I do like to see Vilenesses who are cute, strong, competent and not an evil, hateful, irredeemable bitch who doesn't know how to crack a joke, did we really need one who was a Weeaboo Squealer? I get the joke with her but still the boarder between Parody and reaffirming stereotypes is paper thin (see the Dave Chappele "Racist Pixies" sketch for evidence of that). I can tell she was meant to be a parody of the American fanbase who petitioned to have the first Project X Zone game brought into the international market but if it wasn't for the scene where Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine reaffirmed Reiji and Xiaomu that not all Americans are like her it would have been the developers biting the hand that feeds them. Pedantic complaints aside these games did inspire me to check out some of the games these characters come from, like Devil May Cry, God Eater, Xenoblade and Strider for example. So all in all get these games, see if there's a franchise that looks interesting and give it a try if only to expand your horizons.

And now my list of characters that I really want to see in Project X Zone 3. Now some of these may sound silly but then again this whole series as basically an interactive fan fiction so might as well get into the spirit. If you have suggestions I'd love to hear them.

Heroes:

Viewtiful Joe and Sylvia
Alastor (Viewtiful Joe)
Amaterasu (Okami)
Asura and Yasha (Asuras Wrath)
Axl (Megaman X)
Atoli (.Hack)
Sonic and Tales
Knuckles
Shadow and Rouge (Sonic)
E-123 Omega
Flynn and Nanashi (SMT 4) (Sega owns Atlus which made SMT, both SMT4 games are on 3DS so it makes some sense.)
Isabeau (SMT 4)
Guile (Street Fighter)
Dan Hibiki and Blanka (Street Fighter)
Trish (Devil May Cry)
Kamen Rider Ex-Aid and Kamen Rider Brave (Well Namco-Bandai's letting Toei use Pac-Man in Ex-aids movie and Ex-Aid is based on Video Games so I hope that'll happen. Probably not but not outside the realm of possibility)
Kamen Rider Lazer ( Yes I know he's dead but this series is known for using time slips so again not impossible.)
Jotaro Kujo (Part 3) & Jolyne Kujo (Namco-Bandai published Eyes of Heaven and Cyberconnect 2 developed it so all they'll need is Araki's blessing, or some negotiations with David Productions; again a man can dream)


Villains:

Jet Black (Viewtiful Joe)
Orochi (Okami)
Deus (Asuras Wrath)
Sakaki (.Hack)
Dr Eggman
Metal Sonic
Krishna (SMT 4)
Walter/Lucifer (SMT 4)
Johnathan/Merkabah (SMT 4)
Balrog (Street Fighter)
Vega (Street Fighter)
Mundus (Devil May Cry)
Kamen Rider Genm
Kamen Rider Snipe
DIO (Jojo's Bizzarre Adventure)
Enrico Puchi (Jojo's Bizarre Adventure)
Nightmare (Soul Caliber)

Like I've said before I'm not a big Star Trek guy, but this was still a decent movie. The plot kept me engaged the characters' back and forth was witty and it didn't seem to be just a rehash of previous Star Trek movies.

It's Telltale's Walking Dead of course I think it's great. Hell I'm doing lets plays of every episode of the new season so don't take my word for it. Watch and then play for yourselves.

It's not as good as Seven Samurai, now that the obvious is out of the way I can talk about this movie on its own. Especially since I haven't seen the "original" Magnificent Seven so thus no point of comparison. It's a kickass movie, Denzel Washington is a badass, Vincent D'Onofrio is coo-koo nuts and I love it and I seriously want that gold gatling gun.

Again never really was into Gundam, my only exposure was that SD show that was on Toonami back in the day and Gundam Seed which is apparently the black sheep of the franchise. So you can tell with that kind of first impression why Gundam isn't exactly in my top 10. But I decided to check this out and holy crap this hooked me. The characters are charismatic the fights are close, hard hitting and downright grizzly. Though unlike Code Geass where that was an entire new universe I've had a bit of a hard time trying to follow the politics of IBO since I've never seen any previous Gundam series so I have no idea about half the terms they're talking about.

I do get most of it but I may just have to go through it again to grasp the full scope. Also the funniest episode was when a certain character dies when Tekkadan was attacked on Earth. I won't say who but it was soooo obvious that this person was going to die I was surprised he wasn't wearing a red shirt talking about how he wasn't afraid of anything anymore since he had two days left till retirement. I mean it was so obvious that when it did happen it wasn't like when Mami was killed by Charlotte it was more like that Steamroller scene from the first Austin Powers. Maybe not like that but it was more like a boring punchline to an incredibly drawn out joke.

Aside from that my favorite characters are Naze and Orga. Naze is calm, cool and a charismatic charming SOB who also acts a good mentor for Orga. Also yes the dude has a literal harem of hot, smart capable ass-kicking women at his beck and call and essentially a Space Polygamist. On the one hand one can't help but be teeth grindingly jealous of a charismatic dude with hundreds of girlfriends who love him as much as he does them. But on the other hand; well to quote Charles Britannia from Code Ment "I swear to god if I have to sit though one more episode of Bridezillas I'm going to saw my own arm off." Pros and cons to everything am I right?

Though speaking of Code Geass Orga is basically Lelouch but with a key difference. If I had to compare the two Lelouch would be more book-smart where as Orga was Street-Smart. Then again somebody must have thought the same thing considering Johnny Young Bosch voices both characters. Considering that Code Geass is one of my favorite anime I'm not surprised that one of my favorite characters is Street-Smart Lelouch. But still dispite some setting issues IOB gets my seal of approval. But seriously don't fuck with these guys.

I get the joke, it got pretty tiresome, thankfully there's a good story, likable characters and more then just the main joke for this show to fall back on. Saitama is basically what would happen if Goku were strong enough to beat Superman, he's the strongest man in the universe so what now? Why just be a hero for fun of course! Also possibly find someone or thing that could give him a challenge. There's more to Saitama then just his insane strength though. He does know what it means to be a hero, he's not a glory hound and will go so far as making himself look bad to make sure that the other heroes who fought before him get their fair share of credit for their bravery. This is also getting a second season in the near future so be sure to check it out.

So that was 2016. Now on to 2017 and hopefully bigger and better things.

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Tokusatsu Review: Shruiken Sentai Ninninger vs Toqger Part 1: Why too much silly doesn't work.

Please be sure to read, comment, spread the links, re-tweet and follow me on Twitter @OnDavidsBrain! and support me on Patreon.

 Well people, here we are, the crossover I have been dreading for quite some time, my current personal worst Sentai series to date crossing over with the current most critically and commercially panned Sentai. You all know my complaints about Toqger by this point, the Red has severe brain damage and is insufferable, the suit designs for the heroes and their mechs are the most lazy I've ever seen and their message is personally disgusting, offensive and just plain wrong. While in Ninninger's case I give it more slack then Toqger if only because Toqger came out first so all my rage was probably spent by the time it fell apart. While yes it is structurally far worse then Toqger and has not only lame villains and also an even worse mentor then Gosei from Megaforce (YES I WILL TAKE THAT TO THE GRAVE!!!) and Takaharu was just a little less annoying and slightly more tolerable then Right I will still rush to Ninninger's defense before Toqger. Especially since Ninninger has a chance to redeem itself from adaptation since Saban seems to agree with me and is skipping Toqger for adaptation once Dino Charge is over. 

 Now before I talk about this crossover and no doubt get drafted into the Red Lantern Corps when I'm done with it I need to share some theories as to why Toei has been shoving out goofy series for three years after Gobusters wrapped up. The reason is due to what fellow Tokusatsu critic Des Shinta refers to as the "Carranger Effect" named after the series Gekisou Sentai Carranger, which was what was adapted into Power Rangers Turbo. This refers to Toei's tendency to follow up a failed sentai series with a more goofy silly sentai to try and bring back viewers who they think left because "Kids are stupid and can't understand more complex stories so bring them back with brightly colored nonsense." 

 Yeah but see here, the reason why Carranger helped saved Sentai back in the 90's? It was because a more goofy series was needed since the previous series Choriki Sentai Ohranger was a super serious war Sentai that premiered during a Terrorist attack!!! On top of that apparently around the 9th episode Ohranger was going to do a storyline that apparently would have been very similar to what just happened and Toei; figuring that little kids wouldn't be particularly happy being reminded of horrible attacks that killed several thousand people potentially including their loved ones had to cobble together new episodes and plots extremely fast which put their series far over budget. This is exactly what happened to Evangelion by the way, also this is just speculation based and what I've found online in forums discussing this topic so it could be false but it does seem rather plausible that these are the circumstances that lead to the Carranger effect.

 Back on topic here Toei seems to have forgotten that Carranger helped Sentai get back on track due to it being a necessity at the time, not so much afterwords. But now they seem to think that if a series sucked, crank up the goofy and they'll come back in droves. When they don't acknowledge that it sucked because the writing wasn't up to par. But I could just go on about this and since this is a review blog and not an opinion blog let's get on to the real question of this review. Would I prefer a Shuriken in my eye or being run over by a train?

 We begin our festival of pain with our band of Ninja numbskulls on a train, though Takaharu doesn't know exactly where they're going. Apparently they're off to a Ninja theme park for summer vacation. The intercom tells them that their stop is at Dream Ninnin Live Station and if you have two functioning brain cells you can immediately tell that they're on a Shadow Line train but no time for that now we have Kinji doing a rock cover of their ending theme song, because reasons. After the Big Lipped Alligator Jam Session we see a familiar face.

Great, Rule 63 Right's the first apperance in this crossover, I can already feel the Pixie Sticks being force fed down my mouth. And she's in her grown up form WTF? Also she's a pop idol in this dream for some reason, speaking of.

 Back on track Kagura grabs Kinji and runs off with him. We cut to.... the opening of the movie again, kay? Though Takaharu notices that while the core five are there there's six bentou lunches. However the intercom chimes in again telling that they're now in Dream Spy mission Station now. Where they apparently become a much better Sentai team, the Gobusters. Ok not really but they're spies now for some reason. The group split up and Yakumo, Nagi and Katsumi get chased down by thugs when they're saved by the only Toqger that I wouldn't want to toss into a Gulag.  

Dude you can ask people to call you Susan for all I care just so long as you usurp Right as leader of the Toqger I soooooo don't care!

 He's not here to take up my advice however and just takes the three with him. The next loop of Endless Eight happens again but the two have their next station up ahead.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! THEY'RE BROTHER AND SISTER MOVIE WHAT THE HELL IS THIS I DON'T EVEN!!! Oh good lord I swear I can hear Banjos already.

 Oh thank whoever's up there that these two aren't at the alter and Fuuka's dream groom is really Tokacchi, but is it? No for you see he's really this guy!

 No no Mio shows up, chews out Tokacchi and tries to get Fuuka out of there but are stopped by Jukkarage thugs. The four transform and the Toqger explain that these dreams are actually illusions created by our movie exclusive Yokai Wanyūdō.

And oh dear god he's just a weird head strapped onto a Kuliner Robo suit. Once again the laziness of the Toqger mandates infects the production. Now it just looks like a spooky stupid Gunman. If only Kamina would show up, give a over the top man speech and kick its ass. But no we have the Toqgers and Ninningers to do it instead, joy bunnies.

 So our lazily designed monster traps the four inside of itself so the "veterans" can give the two newbies the lowdown. Takaharu remembers that they went out to fight Wanyūdō and got abducted and out muscled. So greetings are exchanged, introductions are made, title cards are shown yeah yeah yeah we know the drill. The Toqgers continue saying that even tough they beat the main Shadow Line their resident Doctor returned from studying abroad and that he's the one behind the Dark Ninja land. Takaharu says his catchphrase and of course the other 3 sane people are flummoxed by his stupidity.

Well they both make me want to take a staple-gun to my ballsack then put up with them so yes, Tokacchi yes they are.

 Speaking of which he shows up for the rescue and drives the rainbow line up to Wanyūdō's train form to let them make the jump to safety. Wanyūdō however sends in Jukkarage and Kuros to take the four out. They transform and try to fight off the forces but they just keep coming. Wanyūdō eventually manages to escape into a tunnel but not before the Toqgers manage to get Fuuka at least to safety, Takaharu however didn't make it, not because the grunts overwhelmed him, not because Wanyūdō got inside the tunnel no no. 

BECAUSE HE SLIPPED ON FUUKA'S GODDAMN BANANNA PEEL!!!!!

 Why did I say I'd stick up for this asshole again? So one dumbass red gets kidnapped so our other dumbass red chases him down. And to pour salt into the wound the Kibaoni foxy general shows up to gloat.

No not that Foxxy.

Dear god not that Foxy.

Oh I wish it was that Foxy, at least she's fun and competent. Also HELLO NURSE!

 No no it's Kyuemon who tells them the obvious, that he was the one behind Wanyūdō, speaking of he delivers our dumbass Ninja to the dark Ninja land park. You know all this blatant stupidity is getting to me. I'll cut it off here before my brains are reduced to yogurt. See you next time where we learn more obvious crap like how the sky is blue, feet stink and Takaharu and Right couldn't outwit a box of oatmeal. 

Super Sentai is owned by Ishinomori Productions, Toei Productions, and Bandai.
Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion is owned by Studio Sunrise, Gorō Taniguchi and Funnimation.
Code Ment is owned by PurpleEyesWTF.
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure is propriety of Hirohiko Araki, David Production, Tokyo MX, Warner Bros Entertainment and Viz Media.
The Spoony Experiment is owned by Noah Antwilder.
Drawn Together is owned by Comedy Central, Dave Jeser, Matt Silverstein, Double Hemn, and Rough Draft Studios.
Five Nights at Freddy's is owned and created by Scott Cawthon.
Project X Zone is owned by Banpresto, Monolith Soft and Bandai Namco Games.