Hetalia Axis Powers: An Italian Perspective

This rant in the guise of a review was originally written all the way back in 2012, on a dare. Some minor aspects of it have been modified ever so slightly to reflect my current feelings for this series.

Humour is a thoroughly subjective matter. Its functionality depends on several factors such as personal tastes, current mood, specific settings, styles, pay-offs and the charismatic endeavour of its igniting devices - which is to say, the comedians and/or props involved. There are shows, animated series to be exact, out there that are usually considered funny and entertaining by a general audience (like the first season of “Adventure Time!”, to give you a random example) but that, quite frankly, don’t really appeal to my tastes, mostly because they try too hard to be nonsensical and weird for the sake of being nonsensical and weird or maybe just because something about the main characters’ behavior annoys me to death.

The LEGO Movie: Corporate Stasis Versus Chaotic Freedom

This piece was originally written in 2013, just as the subject in question was being released in theatres.

“The Lego Movie” is a hurricane of no holds barred bombastic fun whirling in a canvas of creatively cohesive chaos. It begins as a clever parody of the classic Hollywood-branded Chosen One narrative (with a particular keen eye for "The Matrix") and it evolves into a multi-layered allegory for… well, many things, actually! It's a critique on corporate power killing off the individual's creativity, the dichotomy between childlike imagination and adult-minded, self-imposed rationale limiting the creative activity, a commentary about the necessary relationship between Art and a business model to give Art a direction without abusing its power and, almost by accident, the perennial conflict between Man and Fate. For the sake of brevity, this article will only focus on the first point.

Bite Size Review: "Happy Sugar Life"

This short review is the second half of the original transcript for the Master Presentations episode already mentioned in this article.

   Year: 2018  
   Original author (manga): Tomiyaki Kagisora

   Directed by: Keizō Kusakawa and Nobuyoshi Nagayama

   Animation by: Studio Ezo'la

"Happy Sugar Life" is what happens when somebody takes the premise of an especially disgusting, borderline illegal hentai pornography (without the actual sex), deconstructs it and repackages it as a straight-up horrific, intentionally disturbing, unapologetically gut-churning, psychological horror.

Brandish #1: Dissection of a Bad Hentai

Rusty Soul’s “Brandish” is a low-bar hardcore hentai fantasy manga starring a voluptuous succubus princess trying to have sex with a young hero, only to get usually raped, gang-banged, physically humiliated and/or blasted away in return. It’s a comedy, laugh with me.

Bite Size Review: "The VVitch"

The following text is part of the transcript from a longer video entry in Madhog's Master Presentations review series, currently available on his YouTube channel along with most of his works of criticism.

                         Year: 2015

                         Written and directed by: Robert Eggers

                         Distributed by: Universal Pictures

Solatorobo: A Furry, Mecha, Environmentalist Hodgepodge

If there ever was the need to cater to a very specific niche of the gaming audience wanting to see cartoon animals piloting disproportionate steampunk-themed mechas with grabby limbs that grab things in a grabby/throwy way, Namco Bandai’s “Tail Concerto” (1998) had it all covered. Naturally, with a title like that one would be inclined to assume it’s a game about an unstable cat lady with delusions of grandeur trying to conduct an impromptu feline orchestra in an effort to recreate Toby Fox’s “Megalovania”  with the sound of cat tails smacking onto each other – or maybe that’s just me. Instead, the world depicted in the game (and in the eventual sequel) is more akin to an episode of “Tailspin” viewed under the influence of heavy Japanese-imported drugs. Which is to say, it’s an inherently interesting and creative idea that gets progressively more baffling the longer you think about it: it’s literally about an anthropomorphic dog-like creature awkwardly meandering about in a silly looking robot, fighting and defeating enemies by way of pick up and launch based mechanics.