Tag: Retrospective

One Piece TV SP 3: Save! The Last Big Stage (2003) [REVIEW]

Director: Junji Shimizu

Writer: Junki Takegami

Runtime: 46 Minutes

While it’s not One Piece’s doing a community theather version of Rigoletto…. yeah, it’s not that, years and years later Toei they eventually tried to do some musical style episodes, but of course the most the Straw Hats could actually do is the circus, with or without amish clowns.

And before you ask, no, they didn’t stoop as low as having Buggy/Bagy involved.

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One Piece TV SP 2: Open Upon the Great Sea! A Father’s Huge, HUGE Dream! (2003) [REVIEW]

Director: Munehisa Sakai

Writer: Yoshiyuki Suga, Junki Takegami

Runtime: 46 Minutes

Now we’re getting started…kinda, but as this came out when the anime series’ technical quality rose, it’s fair to say it looks better than the previous TV special, and features better presentation overall.

The story see a couple of pirates, Bonnie and Max, tired of working under their captain, Zap, but also have no money or resources to attempt an escape. One of the kidnapped children on the ship, Amanda, overhears them, and proposes a deal to them, since her was a treasure hunter and told her the location of this bounty. They agree, manage to escape to a small island, where the Straw Hats also happen to have landed to see if there’s anything or anyone there.

As the Zap pirates were chasing after the runaways, they find and capture again Amanda… while a narcoleptic Luffy accidentally launches itself into the enemy ship only to fall asleep and it’s also captured and brough to Zap’s boss, Bayan, who wants the treasure Amanda’s father hid for his children. After struggling with the inusual ability of Bayan and his crew, Luffy and company fight the Bayan pirates, find the treasure and Amanda finally understand why her father was never home and why he dedicated so much time and energy on his craft…

Continua a leggere “One Piece TV SP 2: Open Upon the Great Sea! A Father’s Huge, HUGE Dream! (2003) [REVIEW]”

One Piece TV SP 1: Luffy’s Adventure at the Bottom of the Ocean (2000) [REVIEW]

Director: Yukio Kaizawa

Writer: Hashimoto Hiroshi, Junki Takegami

Runtime: 50 minutes

We start your journey through the One Piece anime’s TV specials with one most fans known, and a fairly long one, even if it’s actually on the shorter side for runtime among the TV specials.

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One Piece TV Specials Retrospective

An entire retrospective on One Piece films is coming, but since i already reviewed them all (expect for Stampede, which was due in Japanese cinemas by the end of the retrospective) for the italian Wise Cafe just 2 years ago, and we already covered the OVAs & featurettes last year, i thinked about it and figured making more time pass would lead to better material, instead of me just translating and partially rewriting the old pieces. I want to, but not yet. Not yet.

This retrospective will only consider the 13 TV Specials considered as such, you could argue a lot of special episodes (like the Romance Dawn version 2 anime remake or the Chopperman episodes) also fit, but then i would have also to consider the crossovers episodes with Toriko and Dragon Ball Z, and i’ll come clean: i considered doing them as well, but i simply don’t have the time right now. Sorry.

Look forward to those and an extra One Piece videogame review as well!

Upcoming Attractions: Sharks und Pirates

(Source) https://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/4273516?q=sharknado+

(no, a Girls Und Panzer retrospective isn’t afoot… YET)

Just a quick overview of what’s coming for the rest of the summer on the blog.

July will be Shark Month. Usually it is anyway, but this year i actually have managed to pile up enough material (despite everything), so there will be a shark movie review out each day, and maybe some EXPRESSO ones too, depending on when i can get to some releases in theathers.

August will yet again be a One Piece retrospective…. of the TV specials.

Last summer we did go over the featurettes, and it’s still too early for me to properly re-assess all the One Piece movies. Like i said before, i’d prefer some more time to pass,, in order to avoid some lazy rewrite-recycle of the old reviews i made in italian years ago.

Also, i’m gonna take a break from the 15th of August (included) until the 1st of September.

This doesn’t mean i will stop posting at all, since EXPRESSO reviews will be made and published, but any time consuming form of review or retrospective will go on hiatus.

That’s about it, so look forward to another summer of sharks and anime pirates!

Konga (1961) [REVIEW] | British Jungle Beat

1961 was indeed the year of british giant monster rip-off movies, heck, this was released just 3 days in the UK before Gorgo debutted in US theathers, and both got a comic book tie-in (which eventually pitted them against each other), even if the production companies were different. But again, exploitation cinema is an universal language.

Where Gorgo obviously ripped off Godzilla, Konga went for the giant primate, even going so far as marketing it with this phrase written on the theathrical poster “Not since King Kong has the screen exploded with such mighty fury and spectacle”. But in this case there were no troublesome legal litigations on the name (the ownership to the name “King Kong” is an incredibly messy subject deserving its own detailed editorial or video), as producer Herman Cohen just paid RKO 25.000 $ for using the name “Kong” in the posters and marketing material.

Ironically, Gorgo’s plot was more akin to King Kong’s (or to be precise, Murders In The Rue Morge) than the one found in Konga, because there are no natives worshipping the giant ape, no company kidnapping him and all that jazz.

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Giant Monster March IS A GO!

As the long awaited Godzilla VS King Kong finally is set to it theathers pretty much everywhere (where theathers are open, not a given due to the pandemic), it’s time to celebrate, with a selection of giant monster movies reviews to showcase mostly lesser known titles or movies that nowadays are not as well known as they once were, despite still being remembered by genre fans.

Sorry it’s not a month of non-stop reviews this time. Enjoy!

Oneechanbara: Bikini Zombie Slayers WII [REVIEW] | Carpal Zombie Syndrome

As i said in the review of Bikini Samurai Squad, D3 Publisher released that and this Wii exclusive the same year in western territories. Aside being a fairly logical choice to do a “double feature” with games clearly drawing heavily from exploitation cinema of the 70s, these two games happen to be sequels, main installments in the Oneechanbara, as Bikini Zombie Slayers (“Oneechanbara 4”) is set after Bikini Samurai Squad (“Oneechanbara 3”), and features all characters from that game.

The story itself… it’s hard to say it has a plot. I played it years ago and completely forgot anything about the plot, so i had to google it and even that didn’t yield any synopsis, so i had to bust out the game’s physical manual, the old, old school way. One that would never fail… if they actually print any kind of story in the booklet to begin with.

They didn’t in this case.

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