Kangadawa Jet Girls [ANIME+OVA REVIEW] | There Is More To Racing Than Tits

There are many of these niche multimedia projects in the “anime sphere”, and sometimes they do get fairly big and well known even if they are still dedicated to relatively fringe, very specific audiences, like Girls Und Panzer, but most often than not these are fanservice heavy, borderline soft porn-adjacent… and while some of you might have thought of Valkyrie Drive (we’ll get to that, eventually), yes, i can see why, but this is NOT that Marvelous project.

This is the one with the jetskis anime girls, again a Marvelous co-produced multimedia affair, and unsurprisingly Senran Kagura’s producer (well, ex-Senran Kagura producer, nowadays) Kenichiro Taniguchi, is involved with Kandagawa Jet Girls too, there are anime boobs involved, after all.

I planned to review both the anime series (with its OVA) and the PC & console videogame, but due to schedule woes, we’ll have to tackle the game at later date, maybe next year.

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Senran Kagura: Bon Appetit! (Full Course) STEAM [REVIEW] | Ninja Food Porn Wars

You know what, i miss Senran Kagura.

There, i said it, for all its issues the Tamsoft ninja boobular spectacular beat em up series was fun, silly, fanservice extraordinaire, retro fun, and it actually got better as it went on, but then Sony basically becoming more prudish and pushing against these weird niche japanese games that made their console offerings more varied and unique, so the series mostly dabbled in ports and spin-offs, as the discussed new mainline Senran Kagura game, Senran Kagura Seven, become even more vaporware with the producer of the series, Kenichiro Takaki, moving out to a new company, and even moving out to the curiously “permissive” Nintendo of the Switch era didn’t help much.

Yes, technically the last notable entry (there are some mobile title never released out of Japan, one called Senran Kagura Run released last year) is not that old, being the 2021/2022 released Neptunia x Senran Kagura: Ninja Wars, but i think it exists and was released internationally mostly because of it being a crossover with the Neptunia series, itself not doing too hot, as they dabble in lots of spin-offs like the very recent Neptunia Riders VS Dogoos, but also have been struggling with rereleases and not a mainline entry in… a decade, as of now.

So it’s with bosomed heart i finally decided to dig into the Senran Kagura spin-offs, starting off with the cooking/rhythm game that is Senran Kagura: Bon Apetit!, originally released on PS Vita, but since it was digital only even in Europe, i decided to just get it on Steam this time around, expecially since its sold as the “Full Course” edition, meaning has all the content and DLC in one package for 20 bucks MSRP, which is actually reasonable.

Gotta love how they were willing to basically try anything with Senran Kagura, do not ever underestimate the power of horny, as it resulted in them having their own Splatoon-esque clone (which is technically a mainline game for story reasons) alongside a pinball game, a ecchi dating sim that’s also a reflexology simulator, but before all those, they did try their hand at a rhyth/cooking game hybrid, because sure, we can be horny AND hungry at the same time!

I mean, Food Wars exist already, so to add the Senran Kagura cast to the mix of battle shounen cooking bouts and horny fanservice was as simple as one-two-three, and you have a variety of ninja anime girls in often skimpy costumes (and now aprons), voilà!

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The Initial STEAM [REVIEW] | School Swords Gals Fight

Have been meaning to get around this one for a while, so much i eventually got a PC to run most games decently, in the meantime. As in, 3 years ago.

So, do you like games like Oneechanbara and Senran Kagura, are you into the niche of “anime ladies fighting with scanty clothes and swords”? Want more of them?

The Initial is borne of that mentality, and comes from a niche indeed, a chinese 5 people team called Restory Studio, who clearly know their audience, so much that one of the first paragraphs on the Steam store page says “THE INITIAL is a hyper action game about pretty schoolgirls battling against evil.”, which is a very apt and synthetic description.

Because you already know if you’re in or out after that.

You know where i stand on the matter.

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Oneechanbara Origin PS4 [REVIEW] | Blood Feuds, Zombies and Bikini Swords

So this finally went on sale on the PSN, i wanted to get to this sooner as it came out last year, but i refused to shell out 60 bucks for the whole enchillada since now D3 Publisher just releases these games digital only, and still tries to charge them the same.

Kinda, EDF 5 later got a physical release by Pqube, but i guess just because they already published a lot of EDF titles, and NIS – most likely – wasn’t interested in carrying this one westward like it did with Oneechanbara ZII Chaos.

But let’s get back on track, it’s the perfect time of the year after all.

This is the latest game in the series, but – as the title hints to – it’s not a prequel, but a remake-retelling of the first two Oneechanbara games, done to celebrate the 15^th anniversary of the series as a whole, i guess it was easier to do this instead of making a new one with new ridiculous looking scanty clad characters and ridiculous story.

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Senran Kagura Burst Re:Newal PS4 [REVIEW] | Godfrey Hoppai

Expect to see more Senran Kagura reviews in the future, for now we’ll talk about the remake-port of the first game in the series, arriving in the west on 3DS alongside the extra campaign added in the “Burst” version, and later remade for PS4 and PC. I choose the PS4 version, but it’s also on Steam.

Having played the 3DS version throughly, i wasn’t opposed to a remake like this, unlike many fans that didn’t want to accept the fact the game was crap. It was. It had something to it, but like most of the Oneechanbara games (and overall a lot of Tamsoft’s output), too many flaws and a lot of repetition harmed the experience, and in the case of the first SK game, it didn’t help it tried to pull off a 3D style beat em up while having the set-up of a 2D beat em up. And being really long just to be long, without any variation and the 5/6 stages backdrops re-used again and again.

One thing that didn’t change is the story or it’s presentation, they just upscaled and used better polished assets, models and sprite from the more recent main Senran Kagura games, but even so most of the visual novel segments and illustrations are preserved, alongside the anime opening. Which is fine.

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Azur Lane: Slow Ahead (2021) [REVIEW] | Slice O’ Boat

Might as well, since that second season or second adaptation of the Kancolle anime is still nowhere to be seen, so once again Azur Lane will outright “eat its lunch”.

And i did already review the previous Azur Lane anime adaptation, so i feel kinda obliged to cover this one as well. Not that it shares a direct connection, as it adapts an on-going Azur Lane 4-koma slice of life manga, Slow Ahead, which omits the whole “kriegsmarine” (and annexed wave ruling) aspect of the franchise and just focuses on the daily lives of the shipgirls living in the Azur Lane base, taking as main characters the girls’ quartet of Laffey, Z23, Ayanami and Javelin.

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Senran Kagura: Beach Peach Splash PS4 [REVIEW] | Wetworks

Senran Kagura Peach Beach Splash PS4.jpg

Copy Purchased
Platform: PS4
Developed by: Tamsoft, Honey Parade Games
Players: 1 offline (2-10 Online)
Also Available On: Steam

Many thing can be said about the Senran Kagura series, but i give Marvelous a lot of credit for going fuckin bananas with the franchise. For such a niche series of beat em up games, you won’t expect at all a rhythm game spin-off, or basically their take on Splatoon, i really like that constantly try to expand it in such oddball fashion. You’ve got bahonkas of steel, Marvelous, no doubt about it.

We’re going knee deep. In the plot. Continua a leggere “Senran Kagura: Beach Peach Splash PS4 [REVIEW] | Wetworks”

Azur Lane The Animation 2019-20 [REVIEW] | The Bone Of My Boat

Azur Lane The Animation 2019-20.png

Ah yes, one more for the evergrowing subgenre of “shipgirls military slice of life”, less Arpeggio of Blue Steel, and more Kancolle/Kantai Collection, which is obvious as hell as Azur Lane (by chinese companies Manju and Yongshi) came out to fight Kadokawa’s browser game, but actually bothered to give it more actual gameplay, implement less taxing gacha elements (which is akin to say “less rusty gambling hooks piercing my flesh”), and actually made it easier to access worlwide without any need to know japanese, use google translate constantly or set a VPN, just released an app for smarthphones.

And given it performed quite well (even in Japan), it was just a matter of time to see an anime adaptation of sorts, which came out in late 2019…not fully, as two last episodes were postponed to march 2020 after concerns on animation quality. I thought it was due to fans expressing criticisms on social media, but it seems it was mostly the staff itself’s decision in order to deliver a better and satisfying ending to the series instead of rushing it, which is commendable, and gave me time to catch up. Continua a leggere “Azur Lane The Animation 2019-20 [REVIEW] | The Bone Of My Boat”

The Island Of Giant Insects MOVIE (2020) [REVIEW] Shlock Stock Drop

The Island Of Giant Insects MOVIE 2020

In case you haven’t seen my review of the OVA, yeah, i found out after writing the review that the OVA was just an edited down version of the movie, also called The Island Of Giant Insects, so in retrospect it’s no wonder that was such a choppy mess, one that was made just for marketing purposes, and now is a completely pointless product.

For sake of completition, i feel compelled to witness myself – in full this time – the horrors in The Island Of Giant Insects. Continua a leggere “The Island Of Giant Insects MOVIE (2020) [REVIEW] Shlock Stock Drop”

The Island Of Giant Insects OVA (2019) [REVIEW] | Garbage Island Recut

The Island Of Giant Insects 2019 OVA

After being delayed and ultimately coming out last year, The Island Of Giant Insects it’s finally available as a movie on Crunchyroll, even in my region, i’ve heard it’s terrible, so yeah, i’m in, let’s review it… not yet.

Honestly, i kinda forgot this was a thing, i red announcements of this series coming soon in 2018, but i forgot and i didn’t knew they actually released it in 2019… as an OVA, guess that “series” plan fell through along the way, and they ultimately went with an OVA and now a full lenght feature.

I would have skipped it, but in response to criticism, the producer said it’s basically the prologue for a feauture length anime film project… it was a lie, i found out just before publishing that it’s just the movie edited to 22 minutes, i should have trusted my gut and avoid it all together, but since the review was already finished (and this new info doesn’t really change any of my complaints) i did some minor edits, and here it goes!
Continua a leggere “The Island Of Giant Insects OVA (2019) [REVIEW] | Garbage Island Recut”