Sean Akizuki's Fantasy Critic

This was during the late 90s and we know Transformers was pretty much a late 80s thing. Hasbro had its rather ambitious remodeling of Transformers but not exactly a reboot. It's pretty much trying to cover up what could have happened generations later after previous Generation-1 Continuity series which covered the first three seasons of Hasbro's Transformers. What always got me to my mind how I thought "Transformers jumped the shark." or how I usually preferred the old school Transformers for its civilian involvement. So what's going on? Instead of Autobots and Deceptions -- you've got Maximals and Predacons. Okay, don't confuse the Predacons here to the Deception sub-group that was introduced after Transformers: The Movie. The whole situation has the Maximals and Predacons were sent to the time of the dinosaurs -- so where did Cobra-La enter in eventually? Hmmm Hasbro has a lot of explaining to do! The series obviously look from elements from its own ...

After Mighty Morphin' became a monster hit -- we know what happened. Both Toei Ltd. and Saban got greedy. Considering that Power Rangers relies too much on Super Sentai footage and well fotoage has run out -- Saban actually requested Toei for 25 sets of fresh new footage. Toei created 25 more monster suits which weren't used in the actual Zyuranger show but were for exclusive use of Saban Entertainment during that time. What was interesting was this -- all 25 monsters were supposedly Rita Repulsa's. Lord Zedd was spliced into Zyu2 footage (and many re-edits of Rita Repulsa and perhaps an uncredited actress kissing Lord Zedd's foot). All 25 monsters encountered the DINOZORDS and they were supposedly Rita's monsters in the originally intended footage. This should also be very interesting... Yup, that's right, Piranhatis Head was actually fighting Dino Megazord! I just NEVER noticed that when I was younger! Also, you may want to notice this scene was slipped in...

This was among the many scenes that I thought really made me cry as a child. One of the many deaths that I could remember was the death of Mika Koizumi (dubbed as Casey) in Bioman. The other was the death of Optimus Prime in the Generation 1 Continuity. Sometimes, I just think to myself how this scene was probably one of the saddest scenes -- yet it also taught an important lesson to children about the casualties of war and that even the greatest hero can die in battle! One of the best scenes ever in the movie is the duel to the death with Megatron. I also think about the scene why I had a love/hate relationship with Hot Rod or Rodimus Prime. Some people want to blame Hot Rod for the death of Rodimus Prime. Yet, there's one detail we fail to see -- it's a desperate battle and it's not easy to think properly in a desperate moment. Megatron was trying to grab the gun and Optimus Prime had no idea about it. Hot Rod stepped in and tried to prevent it but to no avail. He co...

Well, I'm finally done with Spielban and it's one of those days when Metal Hero was still around. After the success of Juspion -- we have Spielban as its successor. It was trying to modify some stuff from the Space Sheriff series while being its own continuity. One good example is how Diana (and later Helen) were given their own transformation suits in order to assist the hero in his tasks. They were trying to do whatever they could to stop Wahrer or Waller (take your pick) from taking over the Earth's water supply. I wanted to give my thoughts on the Waller Empire and WTF really happened. What wasn't too surprising was that Waller-Sama was nothing more than an imagined concept. It's almost like the Org Master from Gaoranger -- a figurehead that never existed and was used by the actual ruler as some kind of manipulation tool. Pandora herself created the concept of Waller to control her followers one way or another -- though her own cruelty would cause them ...

There's no doubt that Mortal Kombat: Deception was praised back during the PS2 days. I can't forget how it had several good reviews -- it even had two awards that would have competed it against Tekken 5. While I still fee the urge to play Tekken 5 all over again even after the PS2 is officially dead -- I don't think the same can be true for MK Deception. I could remember the fun I had with this game and the frustration. Every good game will always have a flaw. I thought the easy dodging 3D gameplay was one of its obvious weaknesses. Tekken 5 required you to press up twice to sidestep. In MK Deception -- all you need to do was press up and down while using the diagonal directions for jumping and ducking. Also, replacing Stage Fatalities with Death Traps can be fun and frustrating. I ended up turning off Death Traps because I wanted a longer fight -- all the while why can't I do stage fatalities now? Plus, the multiple fighting style can make it too complicated. The...

What made Kamen Rider Black RX unique is that he's the first (and only) Kamen Rider to have been a direct sequel of a previous installment. The popularity of Tetsuo Kurata caused them to finally take Kamen Rider Black, upgrade him and finally the Child of the Sun, Black RX is born! This series Kamen Rider Black ended on October 9, 1988 while its successor aired on October 23, 1988. The Showa era finally ended on January 7, 1989 and the Heisei era just one day after. Right now, the tentative date that the Heisei era is coming to an end is April 30, 2019 assuming that the current emperor manages to reach said date! Technically, the final pure Showa Rider is Kamen Rider Black. Black RX got caught in between Showa and Heisei because it ended on September 24, 1989. Episode 11 of Black RX was delayed for one week because of the death of Emperor Hirohito. It was Modern Japan entering into the Heisei era which we are in right now. Also, the first Heisei era Super Sentai would be Kosoku...

G.I.Joe the Movie was one thing I enjoyed as a child yet had some issues with it as an adult. I felt like the movie itself just didn't make sense and is probably one of Hasbro's blunders. Now here's a bit of interesting stuff -- Duke in G.I.Joe was already scheduled to die for some reason. However, the backlash of the death of Optimus Prime caused a last minute change in the script. So what really happened? I've heard of how snake bits can lead to comas. Remember the scene how Serpentor was supposed to kill Falcon with a snake javelin? Some species of snake could actually be made stiff and immovable by qualified snake trainers. In this case, Duke was actually bitten by a snake near a vital organ. Serpentor said, "He took the snake meant for your heart but his sacrifice will be in vain." It has me thinking that even if this is fiction -- it would probably still make more sense if Duke died. Okay, we know Serpentor is bad science since it's just impos...

Ah yes the good old days -- I could remember I wasn't exactly a fan of Dragon Quest. Dragon Quest VII for the PS1 wasn't exactly my cup of tea especially with that LOOOOOONG intro scene. Ouch! I really found it BORING. Dragon Quest VIII managed to nearly perfect the formula of turn-based gameplay. In what way? You just don't see narration. You get to see the characters do some of their badass moves. What intrigued me was the graphics? The use of cell-shading made it look like a living Anime. Well, we've had 3D models and and I appreciate them. It's like a good mixture of old school and new school concepts that made the game memorable. You get the old school feel with new school mechanics and technology. The cell-shading art was really a stroke of genius. So what got me me into this game than the previous installments? I thought that the game's turn-based gameplay (though it can get annoying if you've got MULTIPLE FOES at once) was really near perfect. The...

The news yesterday that the Playstation 2 finally died brought back this memory. It's Tekken 5 -- the game which actually perfected the formula of Tekken in some way before the dawn of the PS3. This was one game that I think actually started balancing everything. Tekken Tag Tournament 2 still was slightly stiff but less stiff than Tekken 3 which I enjoyed. Tekken 4's easy side-stepping and uneven playing field in some stages was uncalled for. Tekken 5 decided to a better side-stepping mechanic which required you to press up or down twice in rapid succession -- something that the 3D era of Mortal Kombat could've used! So what's so great about this game? It featured better, smoother gameplay. I remembered one of the reasons why I didn't get much into Tekken during the PS1 days was because of the stiffer gameplay (and the lack of the use of projectiles while it's a sci-fi set game) though I found the graphics attractive. It's hard to imagine how the first T...

Well it's Jason David Frank's birthday, isn't it? I admit, over the years I've had good reasons to actually dislike Power Rangers. Mighty Morphin' overextended, the whole Dear John Letter in Zeo is just stupid (and personally, I can't comprehend the idea of Zeo being better than Ohranger), the Zordon seasons, the Disney rush seasons and Nickelodeon's two season split for ONE freaking season. Perhaps one person that I really still don't like Power Rangers is the Tommy hype. Sure, he was my favorite in Mighty Morphin' as a child -- though I ended up really seeing how much of an overrated prick JDF is and how much Tommy is just an overused character. Nope, he's not even half or quarter the legend that Hiroshi Miyauchi is. So what's with the Tommy hype? Is one's only reason for Power Rangers Zeo being "better" than Choriki Sentai Ohranger grounded on Tommy? I really found Zeo to be a mess and couldn't comprehend why some peo...

I remembered being a fan of the Sonic the Hedgehog series though I never played any Sega-created games until I had a Playstation 2. Here's a blast from the past with my childhood with Sonic the Hedgehog -- a franchise I had some obsession with such as having the Sonic comics by Archie and well, getting mad that I never had a Sega system back in the 90s. Those were the times when Sega was once butting heads against Nintendo and Sony in Japan -- a war it eventually lost that it ended up focusing solely on video games by producing games for those two companies.  The first one I remember was the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog by DIC. It was a widely successful cartoon which featured Dr. Eggman (called Dr. Robotnik in the show) with some cartoon-exclusive villains such as Scratch, Grounder and Coconuts -- all who were merely based on the Badniks from the video game continuity. It featured both Sonic and Tails as the main protagonists. It lasted for a good 65 episodes -- thoug...