Sean Akizuki's Fantasy Critic

Here's how to write Power Rangers, Judd Lynn style: 1.) Not really copying too much from the source. Judd Lynn has originality in some of his works like how PR in Space differs so much from Megaranger, Lost Galaxy differs so much from Gingaman, Time Force actually had potential with its mutant/human war (which later, Kamen Rider Faiz had that plot). However he seems to have a habit of copying from past Sentai works instead. PR in Space had Astronema as a Shiima based villain, PR Lost Galaxy felt a little of Flashman while Trakeena felt like Ahames in Changeman in terms of cruelty. Lightspeed Rescue kept its rescue theme but removed the whole family theme. 2.) Darker and edgier. He tends to write darker works though because he's a Power Rangers writer, one might consider this. When he took over PR Turbo's second half, things started to get more serious. In PR in Space, one main protagonist namely Zordon met his end though he did allow Astronema to return back to her old...

No mistake I'm a Power Rangers fan, both of them did click to me for shallow reasons but I am still thinking of these two films.  First the MMPR movie (non-canon) and the second, the officially canon Power Rangers Turbo movie (which sadly gave birth to a worse series, not even Judd Lynn's interference helped). First I'd like to rant about the MMPR movie which was an alternate way of telling the Ninjazord arrival.  It was one cheesy movie with metallic armor instead of spandex, overly relying on CGI and one villain named Ivan Ooze who is hardly convincing as the "ultimate evil".  It was basically for me, just but fanservice to me.  Which I was thinking about the movie had a bad script.  So really, all too predictable which seemed nice at first, but the whole movie was for me fairly average.  Nothing awesome, nothing hateful. But here comes the worse, the Turbo movie.  Yeesh!  I just thought this video will tell you my thoughts of the movie tha...

So I'll admit I usually suck at survival horror games.  Well I did remember playing this game having gotten game over many times thanks to the Nemesis.  Yeah, the Nemesis was an utterly frightening creature and I would dare admit that, I wanted to slam down the game.  This was also my first Resident Evil game only having played the first after this... funny but true.  And I would say this game also proves why Jill Valentine beats almost everyone including Chris Redfield who just annoys me. The Nemesis for me is ONE incredibly annoying boss.  I mean, he just refuses to die and that's why he's my favorite Umbrella biological weapon.  He stalks Jill Valentine the whole game which he is, well hard to beat.  You might as well consider saving if you plan to beat him.  I mean, he beats up huge damage and in mere seconds, you can be good as dead.  In fact, I later dared to cheat using Gameshark just to beat him for fun!  I had my thoughts Ne...

It's annoying how Super Sentai fantards say that true Sentai fans should hate Power Rangers.  That's just wrong... I mean it's kinda like don't like it, don't watch it or I will still watch it because I like it.  And for one, I am thankful for Power Rangers fans who watch Super Sentai.  Now why I just can't hate Power Rangers no matter how much I like Super Sentai better due to my being yellow: For one, Power Rangers is still no matter what, part of Toei even if Saban is the main producer.  I mean, Toei lists down Power Rangers in its inventory since Saban had permission to make Power Rangers based on Super Sentai.  And I would say it is still part of me nonetheless!  And I could still appreciate Judd Lynn's writing though he is definitely no Naruhisa Arakawa, just your average writer but hey, at least he's NO Shoji Yonemura! Of course, Power Rangers came up with original ideas on screen that were later adapted by Super Sentai.  The Battlizer in ...

Before Capcom stank, we had some of the best games.  The Marvel vs. Capcom series was a crossover which I wish had a comic to explain the non-canon events.  These games made Capcom characters more powerful than they were like Ryu's Shinkuu Hadoken here becomes a beam super in contrast to how it is in the regular Street Fighter games. Now for the games themselves: X-Men vs. Street Fighter in the arcade introduced tag team play but not in the home systems.  I just thought the idea itself was a pretty good actually, playing two against two.  The story supposedly has the X-Men teaming up with the good guys of Street Fighter.  Before fighting the major boss Apocalypse, one must fight the sub-boss team of Magneto/General Bison.  Then after that, Apocalypse is one tough challenge which I freaking hate being attacked by his drill.  I just thought Magneto and Apocalypse are among my favorite villains.  So I was glad some new characters not in Children...

One of the best classic fighting games back before Capcom became Crapcom for not giving Megaman a proper finale before ending the game series, there was one of the games I enjoyed called Marvel Super Heroes.  There were ten selectable characters and two hidden bosses. For a start you get six heroes and four villains.  The heroes are Captain America, Wolverine, Spiderman, Hulk, Ironman and Psylocke.  The villains you can initially play as are Magneto, Juggernaut, Shuma Gorath and Blackheart.  The game itself has various special moves, air combos and the super meter.  When the super meter reaches at least one level (Shuma Gorath's only reaches one level and the others have three levels), one can execute the Infinity Super which is a damaging move.  But make sure it connects.  Trying to connect combos and Infinity Super to gain a high score was really fun. Aside from that, you also had the Infinity Gems.  These are Soul (life restoration), Power...

Dr. Wily obviously thought he needed to counter Megaman so he decided to create a counter-Megaman.  So let's take a look at them... The first counter Megaman robot is Bass himself.  Dr. Wily created Bass and Treble as evil versions of Megaman, to deceive Megaman and then he stole the blueprints of the S-Adapt upgrade.  Bass could merge with Treble to form Super Bass which has a really cool design.  The problem with Bass was that after Megaman 7, he was basically what you'd call a loner robot who refused to obey his own creator Dr. Wily. Instead he was focused on simply becoming the strongest robot in history.  Megaman and Bass allowed the player to use him in a different storyline where Dr. Wily deceived him.  Although he is hinted to have some "justice energy" he denies it.  Though he had a charged shot in the Power Battle series, he however had a different buster gun that allowed him rapid fire bullets firing at several directions.  Disadva...

As if video games just have not enough of copying each other and Tekken is no exception.  After all Tekken was inspired by Virtua Fighter then by Street Fighter in some ways (Asuka vs. Lili is similar to Karin vs. Sakura).  Now here we have Heihachi in the non-canon Tekken Tag Tournament 2 with his youth restored.  In his ending, we see him rapidly age and drink some youth serum to become young again.  Again, this is non-canon. In MK2, Shang Tsung went from old man (in MK 1) to being a younger man in MK2 (and became a cheap playable character).  Later on, senior actor Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa played as Shang Tsung in the first MK film (which succeeded) and as Heihachi in the must avoid even for franchise fans, the Tekken live movie.  I just thought did Namco take that into consideration when they gave Heihachi his non-canon story in Tekken Tag Tournament 2? If I'm to draw some similarities between Heihachi and Shang Tsung, they are both treacherous indivi...

So I never had a Super Nintendo and I only rented the Super Mario World game.  So later when I had my PS2 I was able to backtrack play with Megaman 7.  Shame the game never went into the PS1 but I would say the game itself rocked.  Nice graphics, really challenging gameplay and I'd say for the classic series I love the graphics here better than Megaman 8.  This game introduced the anti-hero Bass who in here was introduced as a villain (at first).  So what did I think? Megaman 6 was supposedly the end of Megaman.  Dr. Wily was caught in jail but this mad scientist always had some ace of sorts. So maybe he cybernized himself in secret, in six months his new robot masters and his new creation Bass was awakened.  They were assigned to help him escape, Bass was assigned to mislead Megaman.  Bass seemed like a good guy at first until you beat all eight robot masters, which reveals that Dr. Wily created Bass as his very first fully his own version of ...

Cole Evans in PR Wild Force had some bad reception.  So what's with it?  PR Wild Force from what I heard had a mixed reaction from other fans especially with Rick Medina.  I thought of Mr. Smith's reactions to Rick Medina and his character.  You can read it here .  While I don't find Wild Force acting annoying but it's bland in due fairness.  So he was an Internet joke and two, I thought Rick Medina being a real douche was something that hit me hard considering he plays my favorite PR red ranger. What did I feel about it?  And Wild Force was a season criticized for bad acting, and I'm among a few to like it. I had my thoughts on Cole Evans' character had some originality from his counterpart Kakeru Noboru in Gaoranger.  He had his backstory with Master Org.  However I do agree with Mr. Smith that Rick Medina's acting tends to ruin an otherwise good plot.  Some may even think that his occasional shirtless scenes are nothing more than ...

There's no doubt Tekken Tag Tournament 2 is a kickass game.  So I did write why Mortal Kombat 2011 kicks ass but here's why Tekken Tag Tournament 2 kicks ass! 1.) A great upgrade from Tekken Tag Tournament's tag team.  The first game was a great start, but it wasn't all that great yet.  Here, we get to see Tag Team taken to a new definition.  You have Tag Throws, Tag Assaults and Tag Combos which intensify the playing field while taking care you don't lose the round just by losing one character. 2.) Killer graphics.  I would say this is the best polished Tekken graphics to date.  I was thinking that it beats MK 2011's graphics and Tekken 6's graphics too.   Tekken Tag Tournament 2 takes advantage of the PS3's performance by giving it the best graphics it can possibly give. 3.) Multiple roster of characters from most Tekken series.  Like Tekken Tag Tournament, you have your dream matches but here, you have most characters from Tekken 1-6. ...

Well it's really no surprise that Godzilla monster designs are similar to the monster of Ultraman designs.  Reason?  Here's why- Eiji Tsubaraya was the co-creator of Godzilla (while at Toho) while he became the main creator of Ultraman.  Tsubaraya Productions became a special effects laboratory while Toho was also responsible with Ultraman.  I mean you might want to take a look at most of Ultraman monsters are actually inspired by Godzilla monsters. In fact, while Godzilla never appeared in any Ultraman series, however he was mentioned in Ultraman Tiga when an aleien went back in time to meet Eiji Tsubaraya (breaking the fourth wall).  Also in Ultraman Max two children were playing with Gomess and Godzilla toys.  And try checking the designs of Ultraman monsters, they are mostly very inspired by Godzilla monsters.

Tekken for me is probably my favorite fighting game series aside from the post PS1 Mortal Kombat (which made itself an indirect competitor).  So I was thinking Ed Boon is a fan of Tekken too.  So why do I think Tekken kicks ass?  Now here's why: Accessible to deep gameplay that's not just rock/paper/scissors.  Tekken features the use of a four limb system to which each fighter's limb attack depends on the martial arts style the character uses.  The gameplay itself is pretty accessible to beginners then makes them go deeper into the world of Tekken.  Of course, I could credit how the graphics of Tekken improves overtime.  Virtua Fighter 3 had good graphics going past the blocky ones but Tekken still beats it gameplay-wise. Quantity and quality.  Tekken does not just offer bare minimum as the series goes by.  Tekken 1 was pretty much bare minimum, Tekken 2 started adding more endings, Tekken 3 had some unlockable games, Tekken 4 well was ...

The Megaman collection series.  Well there are two of them namely the first Megaman series and second, the X series.  I was glad Capcom before it became Crapcom for not going through Megaman Legends 3 (really that game should be the Megaman series' finale just as Command Mission was a good exit for X series), you will be able to get a lot of classics in one pack.  I mean some people may have had a NES but didn't get an SNES (I never had one so to be honest, I only played SNES games on emulator).  I had a Playstation 1 and Playstation 2 back then.  Now for the game rundown. Megaman Anniversary Collection composes of a legitimate multicart with games from Megaman 1-6 for the NES, Megaman 7 for the SNES and Megaman 8 for the Playstation 1.  So yeah you'll play Megaman 8 with fast loading times.  On the other hand, I felt so gushy when I was able to play Megaman 7 on the PS2 since I never played it on the SNES and Megaman 2 and 4, which were games I was...

Megaman X4, it's one classic game that went to take advantage of the Playstation 1's technology back then and is still a classic.  So I did play Megaman X3 on the Playstation 1 (really hard game), X4 tries to balance difficulty of levels with easier controls and other stuff to make things "easier" while giving harder level designs to add to the fun factor.  And this was the first game to actually make Zero playable- his buster gun was removed in favor of his sword which he plays differently.  Like the "Rockman and Forte" game which was later released for the Game Boy Advance as "Megaman and Bass", you play as either Megaman X or Zero for the entire duration of the game.  So here once you play as either, you can't change characters and each one has a separate storyline. So Zero here is basically the "Bass" of the series but not really.  Playing as Zero, we discover his origins that he was actually a robot created by Dr. Wily, and th...

Tekken and Virtua Fighter frequently enter into the fan wars. I just thought I'll do a detailed comparison of the basics, plots and so on so people can understand the differences: Virtua Fighter has the basic Punch, Kick and Guard button (which for me, I prefer blocking by holding back but that didn't stop me from playing MK!) while Tekken has a button for each limb namely the left punch, right punch, left kick, right kick buttons. Virtua Fighter sounds more accessible than usual while Tekken is accessible but goes pretty deep. For Tekken the whole limb for each button is different for each character depending on fighting style rather than just merely hitting with which limb (this was copied into MK 2011). Virtua Fighter provides some fun combos but Tekken really is more than just a game of rock/paper/scissors, it actually gets deeper after some time of being accessible. Tekken is pretty popular for that! Tekken usually modifies Virtua Fighter, then they end up copying each...

I was thinking really Saban is trying to regain the glory of MMPR but for one thing, he should try new stuff!  I know it was a Magnum Opus for some time but don't you think it's time to MOVE ON?  I was thinking a retooling movie?  Sounds like Toei's making of Kamen Rider the First and Kamen Rider the Next movies (which are Inoue's disasterpieces).  So I was thinking hopefully Judd Lynn will be the writer of this film so it will be better.  This might actually rekindle my memories but I was thinking, maybe get Nickelodeon casts to be here or not?  For one, I wish whoever will play Kimberly will be smoking hot.

I remembered watching the Yaiba series when I was a kid and it was usually and mostly focused with Takeshi Onimaru as the main villain until the arrival of Princess Kaguya (Princes Moon in the dub). For me, the whole series was a fun with some Dragon Ball influence (obviously Yaiba is a Goku clone and Takeshi Onimaru almost resembles Tien). Now we can start with the whole plot of the series. We have the arcs that focus mainly on Takeshi Onimaru. Yaiba challenges a high school student named Takeshi Onimaru who for some reason is bald, one day gets the Sword of the Wind God. Takeshi becomes the Wind God demon but uses the powers for himself. He goes from nobody to nightmare and seeks the Sword of the Thunder God to double his power which he and Yaiba do engage in an epic battle later in the series. Takeshi is the antagonist from the Hakki Arc (where Yaiba fights Takeshi's eight top henchmen, two who became his allies namely Gerozaimon and Namako Otoko), the Kojiro Arc, the Fortr...

While Shao Kahn may be based on Genghis Kahn (a historical figure) or just any Chinese mythology warlords (ex. The Ox King), Onaga seems to mix elements from the Dragon King in the Legend of Nehza (who was later revived in Journey to the West) and he does have other video game influences.  The most obvious is that he looks like what could be a halfway transformation between Ogre to True Ogre, considering he is more humanoid in face yet he has those batlike wings, tail, fire breathing... think of True Ogre!  Or in Journey to the West, he would be based on Wansheng Dragon King. Now I thought he also has some similarities to Gargos.  So Killer Instinct fell into deep silence and later made a bad comeback (curses), so how is he similar to Gargos?  Like Gargos in Killer Instinct, he manipulated a protagonist to do his bidding.  Gargos manipulated Jago as "Tiger Spirit", Onaga manipulated Shujinko as "Damashi" to help for his return.  Jago's actions in the fir...

I'm not really a huge fan of Ultraman nor am I that updating on it.  But I was thinking about as a child I watched the Ultraman series but never got to see it thoroughly due to penalties I had from my parents due to my poor grades.  I did remember having an Ultraman toy, a Kamen Rider toy and a few... I just didn't bother to collect them all!  To my mom, she watched the first Ultraman and its main actor is already in his 80s!  I didn't pretty much understand until I realized that the Ultramen are basically aliens from another planet much bigger than ours (because its citizens are gigantic) who take human beings as hosts, to defend Earth from invading giant aliens from various parts of the Universe.  Also I didn't think there was such a plot until I started reading more about the franchise.  I remembered watching Ultraman 80 and Ultraman Leo on an Indoesian channel on Cable TV in the past but not understanding a thing.  The main villain isn't always kn...

Tekken has a history with bosses and later, made some differences with them.  Here they are: Heihachi Mishima- Back in Tekken 1, this guy is a PAIN IN THE ASS.  Ouch!  I mean, he was so powerful in Tekken 1 you needed to really practice a lot.  Actually, he was accessible once you've beaten the game with everyone but like all the unlockables, he was no ending until Tekken 2 and onwards.  He became the penultimate boss in Tekken 3 before fighting Ogre/True Ogre unless one is playing as him (he'll fight Jin Kazama).  In Tekken 4 he was the final boss for most characters except Jin, Kazuya and him.  Tekken 4 had him wear that funny diaper costume!  The character was played by Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa in the super lame Tekken film (gamers avoid it) who also played Shang Tsung in the first MK film and later back at Mortal Kombat Legacy.  He does look like senior martial artist Ti Lung.  He's also badass to return back from Tekken 1's cliff inc...

Although I like Hurricanger better but Power Rangers Ninja Storm got handling an Asian themed show for an American audience better done than Power Rangers Samurai.  Disney wasn't sucky until the Kalish era came which I don't even think Power Rangers SPD was really a one shot wonder, but it did succeed but the rest of Kalish failed. Most of the time it's a decent cast.  So pretty much, I would say that the cast is likable.  My only problem with the show are Mara and Kapri.  On the other hand we have Jason Chan here who plays the role of both Oboro Hinata (as the sensei's child) and later the sixth ranger which can be credited for trying to be a bit different aside from opening an interracial ninja school.  Jason Chan's character Cam later discovers he is related to Lothor which adds conflict in a supposedly lighthearted season.  Compared to Hurricanger, this was a lighter show but still enjoyable nonetheless. On the other hand Tori Hanson here is my g...