Pokemon is a Video Game Franchise First.

I consider Detective Pikachu an Anime movie as much as a Video Game movie because I feel it's the Anime Universe's version of the Detective Pikachu story (perhaps even specifically more inline with the recent AU Anime Films) mainly because of how they did use the Pokémon Speak trope for more then just Pikachu.

But people like Folding Ideas keep saying it's not really a Video Game movie because Pokémon was a multimedia franchise from it's inception.

Pokémon only seems like that to Western Fans because we got everything at the same time in September of 1998.  In Japan Red and Green were released in February of 96 and the Anime didn't debut till April of 97, that's over a year, technically Super Mario Bros got an Anime faster.

So in Japan there were kids who'd already beaten the game and went into the Anime with expectations based on that.  The Anime was always an adaptation of the Games.

Now Pokémon is unique among Video Game franchises, especially Nintendo First Party ones, in how much true unironic success it's had in other mediums.  I think the Zelda Mangas are underrated but that's another rant, maybe for November.

But that's another thing, even if Pokémon had debuted in another medium I'd still think of anything in an intellectual property situation where post PS1 the Games still only appear on Nintendo consuls as a Video Game franchise first because Nintendo clearly owns it in some fashion.

Pokémon was in Super Smash Bros from gen 1.  That's clearly a Video Game franchise.

Batman vs The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a fun movie.

It has an interesting mixture of the Dark Gritty Batman and the wacky stuff.  It also has satisfying action and fight scenes.

I'm not thrilled about the character designs, or certain cliches they felt they had to include, but those are minor gripes.

The Voice Acting was good, though I tend to prefer this Batman VA as The Joker, and I found Robin's voice annoying.

The highlight was probably Barbara Gordon, she was dope.

Between this and the Scooby Doo movie I think these crossover Batman cartoons have become what DC Animation does best.  I wonder what project we'll get next?

Spring Seasonal Anime is halfway through

Since Sarzanmai is only gonna have 11 episodes, episode 6 is the exact middle.

It usually doesn't take an Ikuhara show this long to start breaking it's own formula.

It looks like next week will start explaining the backstory of all this a bit, that should be fun.

I'm disappointed I don't have more to say already, I guess there is something about Ikuhara shows where I need the full picture to really think about any of it.

Lots of other shows are halfway done by now, at least half way through the Spring Cour.  Tough I'm not that far yet following Simuldubs for everything else.

In the context of Time Loop driven Anime, YU-NO is more akin to Steins;Gate and Re;Zero then Madoka.  But still unique even in that context, I remain interested.

Afterlost also has my undivided attention.  And Fairy Gone is perhaps just starting to get really interesting.

Isekai Quartet is amusing.

I think Spring is gonna easily beat out Winter.

Detective Pikachu was a good movie

Now I have a history of heaping high praise on a movie when I just left the theater and after some time passes not liking it as much.  But my self awareness of that isn't gonna keep me from saying how I feel, it's a valid feeling now whether it sticks or not.

The Nostalgia was fun, some of it was genuinely unpredictable and not in the bad way.  And I loved the Batman89 Homage.

So I recommend seeing it.

I also got the Sonic The Hedgehog trailer which I didn't think looked bad at all, it's not something I care about seeing, but it seems perfectly fine to me.

I also got a Godzilla King of The Monsters trailer.  if you'd asked me yesterday if I thought using "Somewhere over the Rainbow" in a trailer for a Kaiju film was a good idea I'd have said of course not.  But somehow this one oddly worked.

For financial reasons this may wind up being the last time I ever see a movie in theaters.  If so it's a fitting one to go out on, Pokémon has been a part of my life for nearly 20 years now.

WCW's Halloween Havoc 95 is probably the best Halloween Havoc.

It may not contain the highest quality Wrastling of any Halloween Havoc.  But the point of Halloween Havoc was to be a the Pro-Wrestling version of a fun Halloween Special or Halloween appropriate film.  And I doubt any others (I have indeed not properly seen all of them) can compete with this one in that regard.

I've talked before about how I've never really been scared by any Horror movie so being genuinely scary isn't what I look for in a Horror film.  And much of what I enjoy watching when I get in a Halloween mood is a lot of Campy ridiculous Trashy "so bad it's good" type of horror content.

Halloween Havoc 95 being the peak of the Dungeon of Doom story-line is as good as any Halloween Havoc ever managed to be at that.  "THE YETI" is the perfect Halloween moment in my mind.  I didn't get to see this event live when it first happened since I became a Wrestling fan mostly in 97, but I'd rented it on VHS back in the day and it was a riot, I loved it and I'll always have fond Nostalgic memories of it.

I'd also rented the previous Halloween Havoc once, it's Main Event being Hogan vs Flair in a Steel Cage retirement match felt more like a Starcade Main Event to me.  They should have maybe done the first Hogan vs Vader here instead of putting it off (he was in Kayfabe already the Number One Contender) and had SuperBrawl be the rematch.

I was not watching Wrestling yet in 93, but from what I know about the Black Scorpion story-line I feel like it was probably originally conceived of with the idea of the blow off being at Halloween Havoc, the angle seems to have started back in August and it could have been a very fitting angle for the Halloween themed PPV.  I don't know if the delay till Starcade was because of Executives wanting to milk it more or because of everything that went wrong behind the scenes with who it was gonna be, but my theory is it was originally for Halloween Havoc, and would have felt more fitting for it then just Sting vs Sid.

During the NWO era this mostly just became one of the few events Hogan would actually work at.  The Warrior was doing some cool stuff in 98, I loved the build up to that match I don't care what anyone says, but the match itself was a dud.

My Birthday happens to be Halloween, because of that and when my brother was born, Halloween Havoc and Wrestlmania happened to be the only PPVs we had a chance of getting our parents to actually order.  I wish I'd pulled the trigger on that sooner for 97 which is probably a more highly regarded event the two I did get to see.

I do overall still love Halloween Havoc 98 however. Bret vs Sting and Hall vs Nash did not disappoint, the Steiner stuff was a fun train-wreck and Goldberg vs DDP was probably the best actual match WCW put on in 98 as a Main Event (we were not one of the houses for whom it was cut off, we got the whole match).

But then I had the unfortunate luck to waste my last birthday of the 20th Century on the WCW debut of Vince Russo.  I understand a lot of the arguments Russo apologists make, WCW was already on a downward spiral before this, but I was excited for Heel Sting vs Hulkamania, it was the main thing I wanted to get that PPV for, and Ruso ruined it.

My unique Nostalgia for Halloween Havoc makes me annoyed it's not one of the WCW PPVs Vince has ever brought back. Clearly what to do for the October PPV is something they struggle with, making it the stupid annual Hell in a Cell PPV.

It's kind of too late now since The Undertaker has it seems truly retired for good, and he should.  What would have made a WWE Halloween Havoc in the Ruthless Aggression era great is seeing it headlined by the Wrestling Icon who most compliments it's premise.  It could have been home to a Taker vs Kane match, or some new rival for The Taker.

Who knows maybe in the future some new Halloween fitting gimmick will get over.

I decided not to wait for October to post this since I don't know if I'll still be in the Wrestling mood I am now.  If I am I'll remind people of it.

Madlax is the most difficult to recommend of the Bee Train Girls With Guns Trilogy.

Noir is my favorite Anime period, and as such is better then anything else I've seen from Bee Train by a significant margin.  And I know it's a good show to recommend to people who are into Film Noir or Luc Benson films.

El Cazador de la Bruja is on a number of people's short list to recommend for Anime with a Neo-Western quality to it.  The fact that it's lighter in tone can also make it easier to recommend in some contexts.  And it comes the closest of the three to making the Yuri unambiguously canon.

Madlax is a show I love unconditionally, it's perhaps better representative then Noir of what I generally look for from Anime which makes it pretty important to my history with Anime as probably the second non Kids show I watched.

But like a lot of 2004 Anime it's look hasn't aged all that well, it arguably has the most Het of any of the three, and I don't think I can justify arguing that it's plot actually makes sense.

I however love how wacky and over the top ridiculous it is.

All three shows are a pretty fun relic of the period of Anime history they were made in, but in different ways.

Shoumetsu Toshi aka Afterlost is the kind of the show the 3 Episode Rule exists for.

The problem with Digibro's attempt to refute it is I don't think he picked the best possible examples of why it's important.

Last week I watched the first episode of this show and was initially going to just drop it, but since episode 2 was already up I figured why not, and I found that episode more enjoyable.  Now after episode 3 I can't exactly call it an Anime of the year contender but I'm firmly interested to see where it's going.

Also since I'm watching Dubbed I feel like observing that I think (Yuki, the main girl with the Blue Hair) is being voiced by Hilary Haag but very different from the usual kind of voice she does.  She usually voiced characters who are supposed to sound annoying. I'd already noted how she's quite different as Chloe in Noir, there is a she a cold calculating yet oddly kind hearted assassin with a slight subtext of being sexually aroused by what she does.  If this voice is indeed also her, it's very different from either of those.

[Turns out it's not Hilary]

Fairy Gone also had the third episode of it's Dub recently drop.  I'd say that's another show where episode three has increased my interest.

And as I was checking those I saw that Kampfer suddenly has a Dub, so I'll be checking that out.  Follow my Twitter and my MAL.

https://twitter.com/JaredMithrandir
https://myanimelist.net/profile/JaredMithrandir
Kampfer Dub Thread
https://twitter.com/JaredMithrandir/status/1125648214223392768

Origonal Anime vs Adabtations

I'm not as interested as some people in complaining about a perceived lack of original TV Anime.  The way I see it we still get at least a couple every season and that's enough for me.

I love a lot of Anime that are adaptions, especially huge universes that have the potential to rival the convoluted lore of a Western Comic Book universe, from Sailor Moon to Pokemon to Raildex, I often like these shows for the filler not in the original source.  But a lot of Manga and Light Novel adaptations only give us one season and so no matter how much I love it that I know I'm only getting the opening act of a saga kind of dampens things.

The pool of shows I consider potential top 10 material does have a decent domination from shows that do provide a satisfying beginning, middle and end.  Which is often Original Anime, Noir and it's sister shows, Witch Hunter Robin, Code Geass and Gundam 00, Serial Experiments Lain, Madoka and Yuki Yuna, (and I also technically count Nanoha), Utena and the Ikuhara shows of this decade, RahXephon and then if I'm feeling generous Evangelion,  And for some more recent memorable examples Princess Principal, Katana Maidens, and Darling in The FranXX.

Of course an original Anime can become just as seemingly perpetually ongoing, like Symphogear which gets a new season every 2 years it seems and will soon be on it's fifth.

What's often forgotten is that not all Manga and Light Novels are perpetually ongoing, some had a serialized but still limited story with an end planned from the beginning, so they become Anime that don't necessarily seem like they're obviously an adaptation, like Death Note, Future Diary and Akuma No Riddle.  Death Note has stuff left out of the Anime that Manga fans sometimes mention, but watching the Anime on it's own you never feel like something has been cut.  And for Light Novel adaptations that position goes to Kara No Kyoukai and Fate/Zero.

What I find interesting however is that the potential source material for Anime most capable of producing shows that can feel indistinguishable from an Original Anime are Visual Novels.  They aren't serialized in the same way so there is almost always an ending available to the adapters from the start.  Visual Novel fanatics are constantly complaining about all the things they say you're missing if you only watch the Anime, but every time I go "I got that from the Anime just fine".  So from Steins:Gate to Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works to Clannad to Higurashi, VNs have produced some Anime I consider possibly the best of whatever genre they are.

And I'm fascinated by some of the madness that exists in the Visual Novel medium that Anime hasn't touched yet.  School Days is still the only Overflow Universe game to get an Anime, but if you look at the Family Tree chart of that universe it will blow your mind, I wanna see that all get Animated.

Update November 30th 2019:  As an Update of sorts to this post.  More Original Anime I can add to the list are SSSS.Gridman and some Magical Girl shows I talked about in June.  And for Visual Novel Adaptations I highly recommend the 2019 YU-NO Anime.