Sean Akizuki's Fantasy Critic

Image Source Eto Ranger is probably one Anime that either you heard of it or you haven't. It was an Anime series during the late 90s by Shaft Studios and aired on NHK. It does take inspiration from the Super Sentai franchise and somehow Ucchu Sentai Kyuranger had inspired it one way or another. Now, it's time to remember the time ABC-5 (now TV-5) used to air it in the Philippines with dubbed names. I could remember Bakumaru (my favorite character) dubbed as Powell and Cream dubbed as Kelly. Right now, it's all about the actual Japanese names that make it feel more authentic. The Tagalog dub just phases out of my head eventually. So, here's the REAL names and not the names that were given in the Tagalog version: Bakumaru the rat Hols the bull Gao (Growl) the tiger Cream the rabbit Drago the well, dragon Nyori the snake Pakarachi the horse Souffle the sheep Monk the monkey (and he even temporarily became Sun Wukong!) Tart the chicken (and nope, it's ...

There's no doubt that Super Mario is indeed a beloved franchise. However, like every franchise, there is ALWAYS something stupid that will happen every now and then. One such game that is totally an imbecile about designs and innovation is Super Mario - the Lost Levels . It was a game that was only released in Japan. The game Doki Doki Panic was repackaged as Super Mario Bros. 2 presumably due to the fact that Lost Levels just felt too hard for the American audience. How bad is the game? Well, there are a lot of very uninspired and very difficult-level designs. I may have played some really hard games like Megaman 2 and Megaman X6. Still, those two are more reasonable (that is, if you're playing the Anniversary Collection and the Legacy Collection ) than The Lost Levels . Personally, it took me some time to finish Megaman 2 due to it being an early, hard NES game but its design is still far more reasonable than what The Lost Levels had to offer at more than one level. So...

One move that I didn't notice was in Tekken Tag Tournament 2 was Miharu's hidden selfie move. Granted, I'm no Miharu player so it's no surprise that I missed it, right? The move involves her doing a selfie before her opponent falls down. I was thinking that considering Mortal Kombat has been copying ideas from the Tekken franchise (such as Onaga being obviously a nod to True Ogre) - the reboot then took the idea of one button per limb. MKX would later even create an obvious Ancient Ogre knockoff (though he ended up in the side of good most of the time and was no villain) called Kotal Kahn.  As if making the rebooted version of Sonya Blade look more like Nina Williams from Tekken wasn't enough - I think to give her daughter Cassie a bloodier version of Miharu's selfie was something. Only this time - Cassie only does it as fatality while Miharu did it as a special move. I still can't help but laugh at how Cassie bloodily ripped off Miharu's selfie ...

A bit of a nostalgic trip also made me think of various older people playing as the gods in Hercules - The Legendary Journeys . Zeus was played by the late Anthony Quinn and the late Charles Keating. Meg Foster would later be Hera. However, as popular as the series was, I'm always annoyed by Hera who only spoke through a pair of disembodied eyes. Ares later got his human form and more menacing presence in the late Kevin Smith. Hera was put in the background like she always does. Now, it had me thinking that Honor Blackman herself (since she's a few years younger than Keating) could've also made a good Hera in the same show. Watching the old-school version of  Jason and the Argonauts from the 1960s makes me think of how Blackman herself could still cause trouble to Hercules as Hera. Blackman had a very magnificent presence as the queen of the gods. Although I would still say Foster is the best Hera ever (and I wish she acted as the same goddess in many more projects to ...

I may have enjoyed Mortal Kombat 11 more than Tekken 7 but I still have some issues on its own. The game sure has its share of interesting online content though it can be too much of a grind. Now, I'd like to comment on the rather uninspired brutalities. If anything, I can say that Mortal Kombat X had more inspired stage brutalities. Back when I was playing MKX - I would say that there were pretty good ones. Remember how you can do a stage brutality uppercut at the kove, how Blanche the old lady can do a hilarious kill, how you could use Shao Kahn's hammer to smash your opponent, how the Lin Kuei torch can burn the opponent's top, impaled with the piece of wood at the dead woods, or bash the opponent's head for a kill in the jungle stage? Unfortunately, the same can't be said about MK11 with the new batch. First, we got the rather uninspired skull brutality in the desert. New ones were added such as the car bash brutality in the desert, the amulet brutality in...

It's no secret that Winspector is about to turn 30 years old in the same year with Fiveman. Strangely, Lightspeed Rescue will go 20 too. I decided to revisit a highly ambitious show when the Kamen Rider franchise had no new series except the 1992-1994 movie series. So, let's get started with a bit of the rather unique series itself. It makes the heroes a little less powerful. While Super Sentai and Kamen Rider show the heroes aren't invincible - the vulnerability of the heroes in Winspector makes them a little more relatable, right? It's no secret that before this show - there was the Robocop-inspired Jiban. This show was going to take a lot of stuff together to create a rather unique Tokusatsu. Does it feel like the typical Metal Hero shows before it? No monster to defeat, not-so-fancy mecha, and it's more of the case-of-the-week scenario. I'd probably wish Toei referred to it as the Rescue Hero series rather than the Metal Hero series. They operated very di...