[One Piece: Side Pieces | Retrospective] Sanji’s Food Wars manga [REVIEW]

Unlike some of the collaboration works with other Jump authors (Boichi one not-withstanding), Sanji’s Food Wars get an entire tankobon/volume worth of material, and conceptually it’s a no brainer, makes perfect sense in terms of people involved and the crossover itself.

And unlike most of the spin-offs/one shots/collaboration treated in this retrospective, i have no real first hand knowledge of the main series it borrows/uses for the One Piece crossover, i’ve heard some opinions on it,seen some pages out-of-context, but i’ve never read or seen Food Wars, honestly never cared too much to begin with… so keep this in mind.

Ironically i’m a lot more familiar with Yakitate!! Japan, an older Jump series about the culinary arts.

Sanji’s Food Wars also feature the collaboration of chef Yuki Morisaki, with both Shun Saeki and Yuto Tsukuda (respectively artist and writer for Food Wars itself, as it would make sene) returning to make a series of small episodic stories about Sanji’s prowess as a cook and gentleman, all inserted as a “side story” inside the established One Piece canon, going from Alabasta to the 2 years timeski, with the Baratie ones being fittingly as the opening and closing acts.

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[One Piece: Side Pieces | Retrospective] One Piece Episode A: Roronoa Zoro Falls Into The Sea & Nami VS Kalifa [REVIEW]

Yes, i’ve decide to review these two separately despite being included as bonus material in the volumes of Episode A’s manga… because they’re not part of the spin-off story, they are separate one-shot recreations of two specific fights in One Piece, but they’re also drawn by Boichi, so it makes sense to include them in there.

Imagine this as as addendum to the previous review, as a “Part 2”.

Roronoa Zoro Falls Into The Sea is indeed what you think it is, as it refers to the first (and so far last) time Zoro crossed blades with legendary swordman Dracule Mihawk during the early East Blue arcs (the Baratie one, in this case), which ended up with Dracule winning easily but deciding to ultimately spare Zoro’s life as he wanted to see his potential fulfilled and then eventually fight again as equals, as rivals.

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[One Piece: Side Pieces | Retrospective] One Piece Episode A (Manga) [REVIEW]

FIY, I’m aware this is based on a light novel called One Piece: Episode Ace, which i own, but having still to get around to that, i’ll judge the manga adaptation as is.

In a way, this is one of the most OBVIOUS choices anyone could make for an One Piece spin-off, as Portgas/guese D. Ace is one of the most beloved character of the series outside of the main Straw Hat crew, had been for decades and then became even more popular by being allowed the non-insignificant feat of dying outside of a flashback.

Yeah, there’s no getting around that, nor there’s any point trying to cover it up, i distinctly remember people going around cons (even here in Italy) spoiling his final fate the very same year it happened, and his martyrdom raised its popularity to the very stars itself, as expected, and his very presence in the manga leaves many holes to fill in, so yeah, an Ace spin-off about his yet untold adventures is a fan pleaser ripe to make so much berries was just bound to be made eventually.

And since Oda liked Boichi’s take on the Zoro VS Mihawk (and then later the Nami VS Kalifa battle) we’ll get to that next, he asked Boichi to illustrate the whole manga adaptation.

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Shark Exorcist (2014) [REVIEW] | #thesharksix

I knew the day would come.

I knew it was just a matter of time, and made sense since it had been so long, and my hatred for this film never subdued since i first saw it back in 2015. I wasn’t familiar with Donald Farmer’s “game”, so to speak, i though i knew bad, but seeing his Shark Exorcist made me realize i was still green.

“Still just a bud”, to quote Holly Summers from No More Heroes.

I did actually preorder the DVD for it, expecting it to be fun, a shitshow but we were still riding high from the Sharkenado phenomenon, before cheap homegrown filmakers realized you didn’t actually need these bad sharkmovies to be fun in order to sell them, and instead made poster than would never live up to the actual films, so yeah, a sweet summer child, etc.

And no, i didn’t plan to review the movie for it’s 10^th anniversary, and i didn’t realize it actually came out first in 2014 in some countries, but i guess it’s red raw anus-bound thread of Fate itself at work, pinching one out for the occasion, so let’s toast our glasses of expire communion wine!

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Shark! AKA Samuel Fuller’s Shark AKA 4 Bastardi Per Un Posto All’Inferno (1969) [REVIEW] | #thesharksix

You can hardly get any more basic with a title like “Shark!” (shouted, of course), so it’s no wonder it got mostly forgotten in time, its status as a pre-Jaws shark film not helping, hence leave it to the italian home video market to release under the title of “4 Bastards For A Place In Hell” (4 Bastardi Per Un Posto All’Inferno), far more eye-catching and way fuckin better than just “Shark (exclamation mark)” though making one expect to see a spaghetti western, because deception and bullshit was always the name of the game when localizing titles of movies here in Italy.

Though it also can be summed up as “the shark movie with Burt Reynolds in it”, as we have basically a shark-laden style “Treasure Of The Sierra Madre” plot as well, with the protagonist being a gunrunner that loses its cargo near a Sudanese harbor town, making him stuck there, until he’s hired by a woman to help a scientist raid a sunken ship in shark-infested waters for some.. “valuables”.

Pity is, he faces competition from other people hired to do the very same thing..

Not to be confused with 1975’s Shark Treasure by Cornel Wilde, also about a sunken treasure and criminals, and one that also publicized itself on the realism of the sharks in it, because… minds think alike, especially when you’re gonna cash into Jaws’ success.

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Zombie Shark AKA Shark Island (2015) [REVIEW] | #thesharksix

Of course this was already done, i would say i’m surprised it took so long for the obvious idea to actually materialize, but then again it came out in the mid 2010s, an all time high for cheap ass shark movies unafraid to lower the bar even further, this time with the brilliant “ “what if but zombies?” concept, but – again – we never had this specific flavor of shark movie, so whatever.

As even a blind rock could guess by now, it’s a TV movie for SyFy (retitled as Shark Island in some releases), and it’s from director Misty Talley, actually her first shark attack flick, before Ozarks Sharks/ Summer Shark Attack and Mississippi River Sharks (both previously featured here), but also starring Jason London, whom i guess he’s “shark movie borgeusy” since he also shows up in Dam Sharks, for one.

So we have all the ingredients for a mildly fun timewaster… and the result it’s exactly that.

I could end the review here, but lets talk about the plot, despite there being no real need to, since Zombie Shark it’s exactly what it says on the tin and what you’d think it would be.

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[EXPRESSO] Bad Boys: Ride Or Die (2024) | Crank IV: Cartellopallooza

So, i guess the Bad Boys series is back to stay after it got resurrected in 2020 with For Life, with this fresh new entry released a few days ago in cinema, and both meme slapper and Martin Lawrence are doing these until they die or release a movie as bad as Rambo V.

Which i don’t particularly mind because i’m also kinda indifferent to the series, but For Life was enjoyable, a decent action comedy flick (though honestly i don’t even remember what it was about unless i look it up), and Ride Or Die pretty much is on the same level, maybe a little better because they don’t have to appeal for nostalgia, not that hard this time around anyway.

I’d discuss the plot but honestly there’s very little besides picking one of the few types and variations of plots this kind of movie could feature, and this time the spinning wheel lands on a corrupt politician (via a rogue criminal army) trying to defame the “Boys’” old police mentor and frame them for a long time case of corruption in the force about dealing with the drug cartels…

Yeah, very little surprises, same goes for the villains, pretty forgettable too, one so obvious and cartoonish it’s almost a joke, but i will say the chemistry of the main duo still works perfectly fine, delivers some laughs, here thanks to Marcus having a mystical near death experience and going all new age non-sense on Mike’s predicaments, on top of the usual “too old for this shit” shtick, and overall it’s fairly entertaining, with the action scenes having often some decent setpieces to them and the camera work even going for some Crank/Hardcore Henry style sequences.

It’s definitely not boring, decent fun even if far from memorable or original.

The Reef: Stalked (2022) [REVIEW] | #thesharksix

I don’t think it’s controversial to say that The Reef is one of the best shark movies ever made, intense, straight to the point, yet captivating and suspenseful.

So when i heard that there was a “sequel”, i wasn’t surprised and contrary to the publisher’s intended response, i was even more wary because i felt like i was being trojan horsed another middling or subpar shark movie by using the respected reputation of The Reef.

On the other hand, the original director (also known for the Black Water movies and his contribution to the first ABCs Of Death) is back, so it’s not like this an apocryphal follow-up farmed to a random first-time director by the production.

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[EXPRESSO] Under Paris (2024) | Enviro-Jaws

A french Netflix shark movie, released now, it doesn’t look like a Mark Polonia film, yeah, i’ll bite.

Though i’m now convinced the genre will never leave the nursery waters of Jaws, since we still get stuff like a recalcitrant douchy mayor in the plot… though this time is because they plan to host the Triathlon in the Seine river, and there’s a good reason this is a tradition.

Speaking of which, the premise sound like if Sharks In Venice happened in France and tried to be more realistic… it’s not really, it’s actually a shark finding its way into the Seine river, the same shark that massacred the crew of an enviromental protection squad, and despite her past she intervenes to see that the shark is saved from its new unplanned habitat she’s not made for, and to also avoid the same carnage happening once again.

It has the expected horror moments or situations, but it leans a lot more into being a thriller and its enviromental message, which is kinda to be expected since the movie goes for realism, it ain’t trying to be The Meg or even The Reef, and it’s not like it mishandles its own message or themes… it’s just a bit slow moving, even if it uses that time to make the characters more sympathetic and manages that, they simply aren’t good enough to completely offset the pacing issues.

The final act does really pick up “the slack” in this regard, and overall, Under Paris it’s decent, it plays well its modern enviromentalist angle, the effects are quite good… sometimes, it’s just a bit too procedural, the pace is kinda slow until the very end to be proper involving, so it ends up feeling longer than it’s below 2 hours runtime.

Nice ending, though.

Megalodon: The Frenzy (2023) [REVIEW] #thesharksix

Somehow, The Asylum stumbled their way into making a trilogy of films about Megalodon sharks, with the third and last entry so far being last year’s Megalodon: The Frenzy.

I say “stumbled” because i seriously doubt they planned any of this at all, but Megalodon Rising was indeed a sequel to their own 2018 Megalodon film, and this one starts with a recap to get you up to speed and confirm that the events of the previous movie happened.

…not sure entirely to what end, as the plot itself doesn’t have returning characters from either Rising or the 2018 movie, and is about how a submarine mission meant to establish a supply of clean geoenergy from an underwater volcano ends up causing a fissure in the seabed, accidentally unleashing 5 megalodons that wreak havoc.

They do eventually reference the events of Rising and the 2018 film, and the USS King, damaged after the finale of Rising comes into play, but then is now helmed by a character played by Eric Roberts… problem is he wasn’t in Rising, but since the lead characters died in the finale, i guess he was on ship and took over, whatever, who cares, now Eric Robert is manning the ship, in this “it was supposed to be filmed for the finale of the previous movie, but wasn’t” intro.

Whatever keeps him to star into A Talking Cat?! 2: Paws Of Fury, i guess.

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