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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The Spooktacular Eight #23: Mutant Girls Squad (2010)

I planned to review Blood Friends for this year’s Spooktacular Eight, after finally seeing and reviewing Vlad Love earlier this year, but since i can’t manage to find some actual english subtitles for the thing and time is a-ticking, instead of a Mamoru Oshii film we’ll feature a Noburo Iguchi one, with Mutant Girls Squad.

Which is also co-directed by fellow gore-tastic filmmaker Yoshihiro Noshimura (Tokyo Gore Police, Helldriver, Vampire Girl VS Frankenstein Girl) but also Tak Sakaguchi, better known as an actor in many films, like Versus, Godzilla Final Wars, the Azumi films, and even some of the aforementioned Iguchi-Noshimura gore flicks, but he also directed a live action Otokojuku film adaptation and Yoroi: Samurai Zombie.

Here they direct a chapter of the three the movie is divided in, and you can tell which one did, definitely if you have previous experience with their works.

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[EXPRESSO] My Hero Academia: You’Re Next (2024) | Mafia Might

Ok, that was fast, i didn’t heard any marketing for this new My Hero Academia film, but i guess its hitting theathers internationally and simultaneously this 10^th of October onwards (after its Japanese premiere in early August), so let’s go!

I wasn’t exactly too excited about this one, as this is the 4^th MHA movie, the premise screams of “taking time” until the TV series catches up, but then again the manga actually concluded and this released in Japan precisely close to the last chapter’s publication, which means this is the last MHA film, ever, and is set chronologically at the start of Season 7 of the anime.

This time we have Dark Might, an impostor italian mafioso willing to forcefully “carry on All Might’s will” by replacing him, using his mysterious powers and his Quirk enabled mafia goons to engulf anyone into his giant flying fortress, including the 1A students and a lone assassin, Giulio….

Minor villains are forgettable, and even the better of the movie’ original characters, Giulio, even he is a bundle of cliches, and while Dark Might as the main villain has some potential, the script never explores any potential themes that would naturally come with the “Dark Might” concept or character, so he ends up being… basically a less interesting Gild Tesoro from One Piece Film Gold while also doing the “villain posing as the superhero” sthick, and yet he’s not the worse of these sadly lukewarm MHA movie villains.

Animation is pretty good and more consistent than in WHM, and let’s be clear, MHA You’re Next it’s far from bad, it’s quite enjoyable, it’s not even the worst one of the films, heck, it might arguably be the second best, it’s decent overall, but its disappointing for the final film bout of the series.

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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Introducing the One Piece: Side Pieces retrospective

It’s August again, so time for a little One Piece themed small retrospective, this year with a review every 3 days till the 15th (after that i’m going into the usual August hiatus to resume on September), curating some of the spin-off One Piece material i have yet to cover, after a One Piece film retrospective (and one curating the various featurettes), a TV Specials retrospective, and having other various reviews about One Piece related material.

This year we’ll basically picking out manga spin-off, one shots, collaborations, mostly focusing on the manga side of things, for a change, starting off later today with a “blast from the past” for Eiichiro Oda fans.

Summer Of EDF: Checking In, Metal Slug Tactics and the Promise Of Deer

Just a quick post to inform you i plan to have an EXPRESSO review of EDF 6 somewhere in late July/early August (the game comes out westward July 19th), i’m finalizing my thoughts on the Metal Slug Tactics demo that was made available on Steam, and also that i’m aware of that “girl deer hybrid” anime that has spread the brainrot meme animedance of the moment, i’m actually gonna cover it, if nothing else because the marketing team did a bang up job at making it a viral sensation months ahead of its actual broadcast.

And it might actually live up to the Nichijou vibes it gives off.

I also have an announcement for August… but i’ll reveal it later in July, maybe mid-July.

Mitsurugi Kamui Hikae STEAM [REVIEW ] #meleemay

Since i did already cover The Initial and the “sequel” hasn’t yet gone on sale on Steam, i feel it’s time to revisit (so yeah, it’s technically a rewrite in the sense that some of my opinions didn’t change over time, but it’s also a revision i wrote from scratch) another Oneechanbara adjacent title from the indie tier of Steam “famous” japanese hack n slash games heavy on the “school uniform cum swords” anime-derived aesthetic, the kind where you’d expect the dutch wives looking characters to randomly start fucking in a robotic, unappealing fashion, if you didn’t already know this was just a fan service-y hack n slash.

This was actually a fairly popular release, as in it was a smash hit when released during Comiketto 84 (AKA the 2013 august edition of Comic Market, that huge japanese only event) by his developer-creator Zenith Blue, and in March of 2014 PLAYISM picked it up to distribute and localize it in English for a worlwide Steam release.

It received a limited physical PS4 release via Limited Run Games and it’s also available digital on PSN and X-Box systems, FIY, but i got it in a bundle playable via Steam years ago, so i’m reviewing the Steam release alone, sold at a MSRP of 10 bucks.

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Spy X Family: Code White (2023) | Alpine Capers

So, the Spy X Family movie, which feels kinda odd to see release in most territories (EU and english speaking ones) now in late April, as it debuted Dicember 2023 in japanese theathers, an and it’s very easy to notice it was meant as a winter/Christmas release, because of it taking place in a faux-Switzerland-esque city and the tone of a winter holiday vacation.

Not having watched further than Season 1, i was a bit worried to accidentally spoil myself, but this is a non-canonical original story…… that actually doesn’t even really need you to have watched Spy X Family at all, as it introduces the main characters and quickly explains the gist (which i won’t for time’s sake) anyway, you will miss some context for some side characters, but there’s nothing that you can’t catch on the fly by watching the movie.

The plot has the Forger family go into a vacation in the nearby alpine and Switzerland-esque town of Frigis in order to get the recipe for a cake that will make Anya pass the cooking exam at her prestigious school, in turn advancing her career and letting Lloyd get closer to the target of the secret operation he undertook and formed the family for.

But things go south when Anya accidentally gets imbroiled with the army and discovers their plan to undo the fragile peace between non-East Germany and non-West Germany…

It’s a fun time, but it could have been easily a 2 parts long special episode instead, very little feels “cinematic” until deep in the second act, but even in terms of animation quality there’s little (some brief dream sequences, mostly) that feels like this “needed” to be a movie.

Still quite cute and wholesome as is the series itself, but nothing really impressive either way.