Sean Akizuki's Fantasy Critic

One of X-Men's most interesting plots way back before Marvel Comics fell apart even more, was that of Cable's relationship with the Techno-Organic Virus.  Apocalypse kidnapped the infant Nathan Christopher Charles Summers, the child who would grow up as Cable and return in time, twice older than his parents.  What puzzled me is why did Apocalypse not just crush Nathan as a child after absorbing some of his power?  The answer might be in Apocalypse' belief that he has come to weed out the weak in favor of the strong.  Remember that Nathan even as an infant, manifested such tremendous power which awoke Apocalypse from slumber.  Perhaps Apocalypse saw Nathan as what would be the time of testing.  Although he mentioned it's best to put an end to the "brat", it might have just been an excuse as he sees some use to the child after all. What would be the reason behind infecting Nathan with the virus?  To kill him?  More likely not!  I would see...

I looked at Shinnok's outfits and then, he does look like a court jester of sorts.  Doesn't that remind you of of... That's right, Loki in Marvel Comics but with some modifications.  I just thought that like Loki, both of them are rivals with the thunder gods of their respective universe with their plans to rule the Universe in their own twisted way.  Unlike Loki though, Shinnok also has the attributes of Mephisto being the ruler of the Netherrealm of their respective universes.  

Mortal Kombat X takes place 25 years later so we do have a new cast of younger characters: The new Mortal Kombat cast features the following characters from left to right namely Kung Jin (a possible nephew of Kung Lao since the latter is celibate), Cassie Cage (the daughter of Johnny and Sonya), Jacqueline Briggs (Jax's daughter, possibly he sired her before he died) and Takeshi Takeda (a Liu Kang lookalike, who is the son of Kenshin but never knew he existed until later).  So far, these characters are the new generation.  From these characters, my favorite as of current might be Takeshi Takeda (who is actually a ninja, perhaps he is like Jago in Killer Instinct)... he looks like a real new generation Liu Kang, a title that Shujinko DID NOT deserve.  Takeda so far has been the most impressive on me.  Kotal Kahn at the center (NOT related to the late Outworld emperor, Shao Kahn) looks like Ogre from Tekken.  Meanwhile we have D'Vorah (left) who looks like s...

Ed Boon producer of Mortal Kombat is a Tekken fan. He had admitted that he is a Tekken fan and the PS2 up to the recent Mortal Kombat series obviously had some Tekken influence. Tekken was influenced by Virtua Fighter then later, Street Fighter and some of Capcom's characters (Heihachi is a Dr. Wily inspired character, later Asuka and Lili are like Sakura and Karin). So far, here's what I have noticed were taken directly from Tekken (note that Shang Tsung's actor Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa also played Heihachi in that failed Tekken movie): Mortal Kombat Deception featured the final boss as a True Ogre inspired character. The Dragon King's design in the ending of Raiden in Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance was different. We ended up seeing Onaga as a True Ogre inspired villain instead. Mortal Kombat vs. DC ditched the three fighting stances in favor of a Tekken-esque gameplay which one button responded to each limb like Tekken's series. It has the left punch, right punc...

Well Liu Kang is back and looks like he's pretty pissed on this trailer!  Pretty pissed and pretty evil... a struggle with inner demons (but I wish his fatality here was more brutal or at least, make a bloodier version of his Arcade Drop fatality).  Now one character comes up to mind namely... Ryu from Street Fighter going into Evil Ryu mode!  I would admit that, I was expecting him to be part of Shinnok's Army and now HE IS PART of Shinnok's Army which makes sense, remember he died in Mortal Kombat's reincarnation.  In contrast to my fan fic Mortal Kombat vs. Marvel Universe which Liu Kang and Kung Lao are redeemed by Raiden (but they must save their friends) at the start, looks like we will get to play as "Evil Liu Kang".  For one, Liu Kang is obviously a modified Ryu clone for this reason.   One may notice that Liu Kang didn't get a red headband until Mortal Kombat II.  For Liu Kang having a red headband and a rival/friend in Kung Lao...

After months of worry, I dunno why I just can't let go of Liu Kang to the point I hated Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance for that. I would admit that I did love Mortal Kombat Deception even if the story was stupid (Shujinko is TOO OLD)... meanwhile I am starting to think of the possibilities of Liu Kang's gameplay and variations aside from regular Liu Kang. One variation I think Liu Kang might have is "Evil Liu Kang" variation, which might be similar to Evil Ryu in Street Fighter. If we will have regular Liu Kang, Evil Liu Kang may possess more damaging moves and crazier combos than the regular Liu Kang ever will. My guess for this variation is that this version of Liu Kang may be able to warp back and forth like Evil Ryu and Akuma in Street Fighter. I'd like to see this version of Liu Kang also have a SHORYUKEN type move exclusively for this variation. Another variation that I am guessing for Liu Kang right now is... he will be Zombie Liu Kang. This variatio...

Saban's Masked Rider for me was a failure on its own and ruined itself.  Okay I could be very biased considering that I have seen Kamen Rider Black RX first on Cable TV so I didn't really have much of an opinion.  What really happened was prior to Saban's Masked Rider airing (correct me if I am wrong on this), the special three part series called " Friend in Need " with Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers hence the first unofficial TV crossover of Kamen Rider and Super Sentai. What I thought of Saban's Masked Rider was well, as a child, it ruined Kamen Rider Black RX.  In truth, it ruined itself with bad acting, bad writing, poorly written comedy and no wonder why it was a failure in the United States.  However the failure may not be so bad considering that out from its ashes came out some ideas Toei would later reuse after it was shelved. So far, no Kamen Rider and Super Sentai was ever done until Kamen Rider Decade.  Purists may rant about the stage show...

Knowing Janperson takes a lot of inspiration from Robocop, it's no surprise that Omni Cosnumer Products a villain corporation (which was also responsible for Alex Murphy's reconstruction into Robocop) was also copied into Janperson.  Rather than just one similar corporation, you have two corporations in Janperson based on Omni Consumer Products. The first would be the Tatewaki Konzern which controls finances, steel, medicine, information and so on in Japan, seeking world domination.  Like Dick Jones and the Old Man, Ryuzaburo Tatewaki is the head of a powerful corporation and sends out goons.  Like Clarence Boddicker, he is utterly crazy with a fondness for sweets.  The Tatewaki Konzern seeks to become a global force and controls much of Japan behind the scenes.  Most likely, Tatewaki is what if Boddicker owned Omni Consumer Products. Yet Janperson didn't stop with just one version of Omni Consumer Products.  Instead, it has the rise of the Super Scie...

Whenever I rewatch the Kamen Rider Decade/Shinkenger crossover (the first true Kamen Rider/Super Sentai crossover after Saban's idea to take it on TV failed and was shelved by Toei), I thought the scene that Kimberly got sick was just stupid. So I had her idea of how she might have reviewed the Shinkenger Arc in Kamen Rider Decade and her words would be in another font and color: Kimberly here and I am now watching the Masked Rider Decade/Shinkenger special to which I have crossed realities to do so. Moving on... I could actually say start with a few concerns about me being sick and Mako was healthy for the whole crossover. It was a bad thing that I had to be sick... fortunately for Mako, she was pretty much healthy for the whole crossover and she didn't have to fight with a Gedoushu under a cold. What amazed me was that unlike in MMPR, the cast of Decade entered into the world of Shinkenger, a world with no Masked Riders. So Decade is followed by that annoying Naruta...

While rewatching that awful Masters of the Universe movie, I had my thoughts on who should have been He-Man.  I didn't feel like Dolph Lundgren looked like the character and Brad Pitt (after seeing him as Achilles) looked like HE-MAN in that film.  Brad Pitt would have made a good He-Man after seeing that Troy movie, I think that for the 80s movie, he would have sufficed to play the role of the hero instead of Dolph Lundgren who felt pretty wooden IMO. So what's my issues?  Unlike Arnold Schwarzenegger's version of Conan, Dolph Lundgren was just too stiff.  Brad Pitt for me would have made a better He-Man for that stupid Masters of the Universe movie. Meanwhile, while I did like Frank Langella's role as Skeletor, I thought the villain should have been acted by... James Earl Jones for a better Skeletor.  Well maybe it's because Thulsa Doom in the comics was a Skeletor-based villain (and Skeletor is most likely inspired by Kull's archenemy Thulsa Doom). ...

While Zyuranger now has subs by Shout Out Factory, I thought that Americans should at least get a taste of how their Robocop also inspired the creation of Asia's own version of Robocop, Janperson.  Janperson itself is not your typical Tokusatsu, instead it becomes a Robocop-like show except the new guy in town wasn't a slain police officer, but a completely mechanical robot. What can be put in the description at the box? Sure Robocop was a big thing in the 80s but did you know what while America has its Robocop, in 1994, a Japanese version of Robocop was born?  Yup there's a new guy in Tokyo Town and his name is Janperson!  Janperson is a fully mechanical version of Robocop that fights to keep Tokyo safe from the three major criminal organizations known as Tatewaki Konzern, Neo Guild and Super Science Network, each with their own criminal goals.  Now be prepared to witness the action of the Asian Robocop, Janperson! Janperson's subs may be considered by the comp...

Janperson itself was memorable with its villains and one actor I can always love is Shun Sugata.  Knowing Janperson heavily draws inspiration from the Robocop movies, they had created Ryuzaburo Tatewaki from two Robocop villains in the first film. The character felt like a combination of the psycho lunatic Clarence Boddicker and the main antagonist, Dick Jones from the first Robocop movie.  Like Boddicker, Tatewaki was an insane psychopath with an obsession for sweets.  Like Dick Jones, he was the powerful head of a corporation who secretly ran a gangster.  However, most of Tatewaki felt more like the insane Boddicker than he was Jones.  But still, you can't deny he shares both attributes from two separate characters though most of the time, Tatewaki was more of Boddicker behavior-wise and like Dick Jones, he hired crooks to do his dirty work. The challenge behind Tatewaki was that, it's not just playing one character.  You have be Dick Jones in fron...

Well Power Rangers villains do have standards too.  Like it or not, even if early on that they were just evil for evil's sake... but later Power Rangers seasons started writing villains who were more 3D than the usual American TV show villain.  So let's get started shall we? Even evil has loved ones Well in MMPR, later on, Lord Zedd's character decay made him more 3D like when he discovered he truly loved Rita deep within.  I know MMPR Season 2-3 had a lot of decay but one can think that Lord Zedd himself cared about his wife Rita, Rita cared about her idiotic brother Rito and so on.  In Power Rangers Zeo, Queen Masheena cared about her two sons (in Ohranger, both Gaskett and Sprocket were just one person, Buldont) and husband.  Although Trakeena was a complete monster, she still cared about her father Scorpius.  In Power Rangers Time Force, Ransik cares about his daughter Nadira. Honorable villains Power Rangers in Space was the end of the Zordon...

So I did get a second hand Super Street Fighter IV game for my birthday last month. Although I am mad with Capcom for its ill treatment of Megaman but I am still a Street Fighter fan. I decided to pick up the game while I do have Tekken Tag Tournament 2, Tekken 6, Mortal Kombat (Komplete Edition) and this is my current fighting game for the PS3. On the other hand, I have Street Fighter Anniversary Collection (PS2), Street Fighter Collection, Street Fighter Alpha Anthology and Capcom vs. SNK 2 from my older series. So I started to pick up the game and well, it had really impressive graphics for a 2.5D game but not as great as Mortal Kombat (2011) for me. Still, the cell-shaded graphics made a 2D/3D effect. I soon noticed in spite of new concepts, the game itself still throws back to one series called Super Street Fighter II Turbo. In what way? Here's what I observed after playing the game. There's a lot of throwback to Super Street Fighter II Turbo: I.) Some characters play...

All the Sentard and Powtard wars is getting old and not to mention CANCEROUS... the comments from both sides are giving me cancer especially with Azrael Darx Cross' agenda of getting rid of Power Rangers, calling it bootleg and well you know what I mean... or some Powtards too.  Sentards think Sentards dont' exist... even if they are the real Sentards.  I'm amazed that a lot of other people who are carrying out the fan wars are ADULTS?!  I can understand if it were a group of toddlers but ADULTS?! Again common sense, COMMON SENSE.  Power Rangers is also part of Toei and like it or not, if it were bootleg, Toei would have sued Saban into oblivion.  I know Saban also created really trashy productions like you know, Saban's Mashed Rider looked more like a terrible, terrible fan film but it was still legitimate.  However, when Kenji Ohba was interviewed, he DID NOT admit Power Rangers was bootleg, merely "recreated" then he thanked the people at the end of ...

If America has a Robocop, Asia also has a Robocop but he's fully mechanical! The success of Robocop in America in the 80s spawned the Metal Hero Jiban in January 29, 1989 but true to the typical Toku spirit, Jiban was a Robocop that fought against monsters of the week.  Not so much in Janperson.  Janperson itself presented himself as a mysterious hero who one way or another was the "new guy in town".  Much of Janperson really followed the successful Hollywood movie Robocop in a very Japanese fashion.  Unlike the typical Tokusatsu, he doesn't fight monsters of the week but instead, focuses on fighting super criminals beyond the control of the Tokyo Police. Yup there's a new guy in Tokyo Town... and he ain't Robocop but Janperson! Janpersion's first episode was just like... well where is Janperson?  It starts with the crisis of a little girl who caught a rare virus that has a hard to reach vaccine.  Just then you have robot criminals and crook from a...

There's a new guy in town and his name is... Robocop errrr Janperson... Back then, I remembered the time I watched Jiban and compared the character to Robocop.  It wasn't long until I entered my teenager years, I was thirteen years old when I saw Janperson aired in ABC-5 (now TV-5) and saw the premiere episode.  I expected him to be a Henshin hero of sorts, instead i saw him as a robot that just appeared out of nowhere.  The whole premiere showed familiar faces such as Shingo Takasugi's actor (Bioman) and Shunsuke Hino's actor (Turboranger) as police officers.  Janperson appears out of nowhere and deals with robotic criminals making it feel like a very different Tokusatsu show. Who would have thought Robocop would inspire Toei to create a fully mechanical version of him? What came into my mind was this... ROBOCOP.  I thought Robocop was copied from Janperson (and I had that biased mind on American TV but not so much) when years later, I would learn that ...

The Megaman X series had the mysterious Maverick Virus. Just where is it from? While Megaman X was launched for the SNES after Megaman 6 and Megaman X2 was launched prior to Megaman 7 and Megaman 8, I believe Megaman 7 and 8 were made to bridge the gaps. Bass would probably be a prototype to Zero (Zero was later revealed to be Dr. Wily's greatest robot). Megaman 8 while it didn't finish the Megaman series (though it looked like Dr. Wily died from that incident), there was the existence of this Evil Energy . Duo mentioned in Megaman 8 (Duo does look like he would later be used as a basis for some Maverick Hunters and even Sigma himself) that the Evil Energy absorbs evil within a person's mind and then it multiplies to infect others. While it was an alien source, later it fell down on Earth allowing Dr. Wily to use it for what could be his biggest project that would soon cause chaos in the next century. Doesn't that sound like the Maverick Virus in the Megaman X series? ...

While watching through some episodes of Hurricanger and having completed Ninja Storm, I had my thought on Nanami Nono and Tori Hanson.  Supposedly, Japanese prefer cuties and the Western audience prefer hotties.  So why the reverse? Based on observation (I could be wrong), Japanese would prefer cuties over hotties.  For Nao Nagasawa, she is really, REALLY hot and she's a distraction.  Don't believe me?  You might as well watch Nao Nagasawa's two-parter guest role in Kamen Rider W (which happened AFTER Hurricanger, it came AFTER Decade) as Lily Shirogane.  She is really, really hot and very distracting one way or another. I could raise Tori Hanson as well.  I do have a soft spot for blonde beauties and I tend to like them, but Tori's just cute, not really hot nor is she a real distraction.  Even the scene where Tori was at the beach in her surfer attire wasn't really distracting.  I just imagined Sally Martin if she wore Nao Nagasawa's c...

Sorry I can't buy this either! Another of the biggest pairing mistakes made in Power Rangers ever is during Power Rangers Zeo.  While I don't hate Kat nor have anything against her, again I am totally nailing the really bad writing of how she was treated.  So what happened? During MMPR Season Three, Amy Jo Johnson wanted to depart presumably due to how Saban's crew was treating her character.  To be honest for her sake, leaving was good for her career .  The show was already getting overextended one way or another and no better stories were made.  Being stuck in Power Rangers is a very bad way to go.  So I can respect her decision of leaving but not what the writers eventually did the unthinkable one way or another. During Zeo, either they wanted her back and can't get her or whatever reason, they really wrote a "F*CK YOU AMY JO" episode when Kimberly done the out of character Dear John letter .  I mean, the whole idea is that Kat is the new Ki...

Mortal Kombat X is one game that gets me excited and scared at the same time.  Meanwhile, I am thinking of the story that takes place 25 years after everyone was reincarnated.  In the next life, Sonya and Johnny Cage marry and have a daughter.  Jax was able to somehow revive and have a daughter named Jacqueline.  A Liu Kang-lookalike named Takeda is Kenshi's son.  The whole story somehow takes place to 25 years instead of having a reboot of Mortal Kombat 4/Gold.  Somehow, this game is how everybody's reincarnation is either for the better or for the worse. So what's new for the fighting game's engine?  Each character will get three variations each which will determine how a character is played as.  In a way, I think it will be exciting but might frustrate beginners at the same time compared to Mortal Kombat (2011).  Another thing that has been featured are throwing some foreground objects. Brutalities are back but they aren't the lo...

If America has a Robocop, now Asia has its own Robocop too... Considering Janperson has been more Robocop in terms of execution than Jiban, it's highly possible that Janperson might have had an origin closer to Robocop than the final draft. Jiban was very loosely based on Robocop while Janperson feels like it is the first Asian Robocop. So what's the possible intended origins of Janperson? Jiban itself had copied one element from Robocop. Jiban used to be a human being known as Naoto Tamura who was gunned down by the Bioron Syndicate. Later he was revived as the cyborg police cop known as Jiban. But unlike Robocop, Jiban could revert back to his human identity to hide the fact that he is already a robot. Only later on did people realize that Naoto is the cyborg known as Jiban. But unlike Robocop, Jiban fought against monsters of the week and Janperson didn't. Janperson on the other hand appeared as a mysterious hero who the cops later warmed up to. Nobody knew where ...