12 Days Of Dino Dicember #37: Two Lost Worlds (1951)

h boy, two lost worlds for the price of one?

Sign me up for one ticket, Jimmy boy, because you know a movie it’s good when it marketed the same way as grocery store coupon for breakfast cereals or boxes of cuetips.

It’s kinda funny too how curiously there wasn’t a Lost World adaptation (talking about the Conan Doyle book, obviously) in the 50s, so i guess, just in case, they doubled the worlds lost, just to give you more bang for your buck, or make you believe that only to get suckered into watching a dinosaur film that couldn’t even afford its own dinosaurs.

Leaving aside the dinosaurs/reptiles don’t show up until 45 minutes into this… 61 minutes film, this in independent production that literally borrows his dinosaur footage from One Million B.C., the 1940 film that will end up being mined of its of stock footage for decades, as in used not a quick reference to the olden days, just ripped off because they couldn’t afford the special effects for the prehistoric creatures they wanted to as a selling point on the poster.

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[EXPRESSO] Overlord: The Sacred Kingdom (2024) | Lichdom: Battlemage

After the 4^th season of the anime, we got a Overlord film, depicting the Sacred/Holy Kingdom Arc that was discussed/teased but not shown during Season 4 itself.

For reference, the series is about a regular guy that get stuck in a VR MMORPG when the servers close, as its character, Momonga, an elder lich, with previous NPCs start acting on their own, including the servants/characters made by his fellow guild members basically electing him as supreme leader, and he’s basically forced to live up to their expectations while plotting schemes for world domination as the Overlord.

The plot here sees Momonga/Ainz Ooal Gown, finally having established its territory and himself as the “Sorcerer King” getting into an alliance with the Sacred Kingdom, needing help to slay the Demon Emperor Jaldabaoth that’s attacking them with his hordes of humanoid monsters..

Again, this is as about as good a synopsis as it gets without doing huge spoilers, and while it strikes a good compromise between being watchable on its own, since the story here presented (picking up the previously established but basically ignored “Jaldabaoth” storyline) has mostly original characters, provides enough closure, and you can guess/deduce some things… having context for the characters and situations definitely benefits the experience (since it doesn’t recap shit, just giving a very brief text explanation of the premise), which does deliver on both the spectacle, violence and some honestly fun, enjoyable “anime isekai non-sense”, including fantasy politics.

I was worried the animation might had the “CG-isms” seen in later Season 3 and Season 4… not as much, the animation isn’t notably better but you can tell there’s a bump in quality and direction to take advantage of it being a film, more battles to show the animation off, etc.

Quite satisfied with it, i must say.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath Of The Mutants PS4 [REVIEW] | Arcades In Times

Since it’s un-officially “ninja month”, let’s talk ninja. Mutant teenage turtles ninjas.

And while their popularity and games based on the series still doesn’t waver, so much that we recently got a tie-in game to the 2023 animated film TMNT: Mutant Mayhem, TMNT: Splintered Fate, and one about the Last Ronin spin-off series by the TMNT original creators coming next year.

But we’re not talking about those, or the well received Shredder’s Revenge.

Nope, we’re going back to 2017, indirectly, thank to the recent release of the 2017 TMNT arcade game by Raw Thrills, in this expanded port (gaining the “Arcade” moniker and a new subtitle since there are literally dozens of TMNT game just called “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”) handled by Cradle Games and distributed (even physically) by… shovelware maestro Gamemill Entertaiment.

Though this is not shovelware, i had the pleasure to play this machine/arcade cabinet more than once in my local arcades, and it’s quite fun 3D side scrolling beat em up, obviously trying to arken back to Turtles In Time, as these arcade TMNT titles often do, for nostalgia but also because it was indeed a quality title worth trying imitation and the flattery that – ideally – that would imply.

It’s a pleasant surprise regardless, since i doubt anyone was expecting this, expecially given how some digital only TMNT titles have gone delisted entirely, especially made for smarthphones offering and arcade releases. The TMNT Cowabunga Collection is great but some titles will always be bound to being emulated, at best, like the Tiger handheld games and such.

This not the case, as we get the game seen and played in the arcades as well as some new extra levels, which is a good things since Gamemill still asks more than it should for a physical copy, but we’ll discuss that later.

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My Deer Friend Nokotan/Shikanoko Nokonoko Koshitantan (2024) [ANIME REVIEW] | … Once Bit My Sister

No comfy camping this time of year, we have a deer left to dispose of, so to speak, by following up my first impressions with a full lenght review on the anime adaptation of My Deer Friend Nokotan.

Might as well do it now, it’s about as timely i might care to review an anime series, and since City The Animation isn’t out yet, people might still be talking about this with posts on social media comparing to Nichijou, gotta get that engagement up in spite of reality, as in both “Nokotan” and “Nichijou” are similar in the sense they are both comedy slice of life non-sense anime series.

I’m gonna have to repeat this later too, but i feel it’s worth making this extra clear because people that like Nichijou and will be misled into watching this by Twitter dimwits and grifters that really want to make bank after letting people know they do pay for using Twitter.

(not calling it X, since at the time of writing and posting there’s an exodus from Twitter to Bluesky going on and “Muskardini” basically invites people to fuck off his SNS if you’re not a nazi, pedophile, and affiliated-adjacent garbage)

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Suicide Squad Isekai (2024) [REVIEW] | Through The Unlooking Glass

Why i am reviewing this, you may be asking yourself.

Just for the trash factor? Just because its seems like “easy prey”?

Not quite, it’s more due to how since its debut (and even then, i learn this was gonna be through the collaboration with V-tuber and singer Mori Calliope, as she composed the ending theme) i never heard a single peep online about it, not even to shit on it, which worried me even more.

Also i learned after searching that it was being streamed in my region via a sub-channel on Amazon Prime Video, absolutely zero marketing had been spent to even make people know it was legally available on a commonly used streaming platform (FIY, there’s no HBO Max or Hulu here).

But still, this looked and sounded like like the kind of trash Twitter (not calling it X) loves to shit on weekly, just for the hell of it, but the only thing i saw on there was someone else befuddled by how the internet decided to skip having any discourse on it all together, that it was likely not even worth that kind of engagement, as nobody bothered, not even for the finale…..if anyone knew this series was a thing to begin with, that is. No one using the new Joker and Harley designs for their profile pictures, it was THAT much ignored or just never actually marketed properly after its announcement.

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Parasite Dolls (2003) [REVIEW] | Bubblegum Boomers

Wanted to get around to this for years, as i distinctly remember its cover displaying in the anime section of pretty much any video stores here in “Da Boot” back in the 2000s, and also being pretty featured or sold online. The power of anime cyberpunk and early CG.

Curiously, i’m not really familiar with the series this being a spin-off for, Bubblegum Crisis, which may sound sacrilegious to many, but i never saw as it was distributed on VHS at the time here too, but it was never pushed as much as others, at least as far i remember, i was a more casual anime fan back then and i would have been busy catching localized broadcasts of Dragon Ball, Hokuto No Ken/Fist Of The North Star and -especially – Ranma ½ anyway.

Parasite Dolls does feel immediatly like a product of the late 90s early 2000s, as in it’s not a feature film per sè, not a compilation film of 3-4 episodes, but an anthology/mini series of 3 stories set after the events of the original Bubblegum Crisis OAV series.

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[One Piece: Side Pieces | Retrospective] Dream 9: One Piece X Toriko X Dragon Ball Z Super Collaboration Special (2013) [REVIEW]

Oh yes, this one, i held back on tackling it while i covered the One Piece TV Specials also because i never read nor did know much about Toriko as a series… that has changed, as i’m almost halfway through and quite liking it, and yes, i’m aware of Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro “canon event” that happened in 2002, but unlike Oda’s other acquaitance, Watsuki, an actual pedophile that had terabytes of child pornography (and suffered for it just a hiatus for its Rurouni Kenshin follow-up series, after the charges in 2018, which is even more insulting since recently the author of The Apothecary Diaries got punished far worse for tax evasion), it seems to have been a mistake he owned up to, he really paid for it in terms of being ostracized by the industry, actual consequences of his actions, plus it been 22 years, so i feel it’s pointless to still hold it over the man.

Had to get this over with because i didn’t want to talk about, you didn’t want to learn about that for a review of a special crossover about 3 popular Jump anime series (which already appared together in some of the Jump crossover videogames but not in anime form) colliding in a TV special, many couldn’t care less either way, but some might not have known or still held some incorrect info on the matter (like i did myself), so i had to make things clear(er) and to address the question.

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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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[One Piece: Side Pieces | Retrospective] Monsters: 103 Mercies, Dragon, Damnation (2024) [REVIEW]

To kick off this little retrospective about One Piece spin-offs and One Piece related stuff, let’s talk about Monsters: 103 Mercies, Dragon, Damnation, a short anime film adaptation of a 1994 Eiichiro Oda’s one-shot manga, simply – and terribly – titled “Monsters”, though most fans of One Piece have most likely read it when it was later recompiled in “Wanted!”, a volume collection of Oda’s pre-One Piece one shot mangas.

Apparently it was previously adapted in 2021… as a voice comic audio thing, but again, it was a “voice comic” affair, something made as part of the celebration for the series’ publishing its 100^th volume, so this 2024 anime adaptation for streaming services like Netflix might as well be the first.

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