Sean Akizuki's Fantasy Critic

If there was any fighting game in Capcom that was pretty "creepy", it was Darkstalkers. It was focused on the supernatural, yep you got it with an array of popular horror movie creatures like vampires (Demitri Maximov and Morrigan Aensland, in extension Lilith, Donovan is half a vampire), werewolf (J. Talbain), a merman (Rikuo), the undead (L. Rapter, Victor, Anakaris, Bishamon, Hsien Ko), other animal based creatures (Q-Bee, Felicia), a sasquatch (Sasquatch, duh) and to the devilish ones (Pyron, Jedah). B.B. Hood may be fully human herself. What I thought kept Darkstalkers going was this- the flirty rivalry between Demitri Maximov and Morrigan Aensland. As vampires, it could go on for a LOOONG time. Why? Well Demitri Maximov thought of conquering Makai, only to have his castle absorbed by Jedah. So they are the main characters and were unjustly portrayed as evil in the cartoon series. Since they're both vampires, he can't control her. She seems to have feeli...

In Fushigi Yuugi, we had the fact that Lady Yui was once in love with Tamahome but as time passed, she gained the attention of Suboshi and later, fell for Nakago who was manipulating her but I believe at some point, he really loved her. But I thought about it that she and Nakago seemed to make the perfect match- if Tamahome was to Miaka then she would be the perfect match to Nakago. All that while, I thought she would be the key to melt Nakago's ice cold heart and just end the war. Of course, Nakago also had the lover in Soi but to Nakago, Soi was more of a comrade than a lover. Maybe not. Nakago after failing to control Tamahome for good, he became Lady Yui's confidant and signs of them falling in love were present. Of course, Nakago wanted to have Yui to wish him power. Was it so he could rule the world with her or so he could have her? Maybe. I suspected that Nakago may have known that if he can't wish for Seiryuu for her and Yui to be together, he'll have to...

Before He-Man was finalized, He-man greatly resembled Conan storywise. He started off as a barbarian but a lot more humane than Conan was, who was destined to fight against the evil skull-headed sorcerer known as Skeletor. Rather than portray him to be super strong, he isn't that super strong. He is portrayed to be more human, like Conan was in Conan the Adventurer. He is the member of a barbaric tribe and its champion. The arch-villain Skeletor was meant to be the quite similar to Thulsa Doom. Rather than being a bonehead, Skeletor was meant to be a SCARY villain. He was from some other dimension, he was an immortal foe that just wouldn't die. Well I believe that in order to avoid being too much of a Conan inspired cartoon, a lot of changes were made such as making He-Man the alter ego of Prince Adam instead.

Skeletor I believe had several inspirations. Here are the possible characters that inspired him: The evil wizard Thulsa Doom by Robert E. Howard- He fought both Kull and Conan in different eras of his life in the comics version since he never fought Conan in the novels. Like Skeletor, this guy is an UNDEAD sorcerer who uses force as means to control his troops. Thulsa Doom's personality was slightly used for the He-Man live movie. Dr. Destiny- Actually it's all just appearance-wise.

I remembered watching the He-Man movie when I was still a naughty child, yes... naughty and TV obsessed. Anyway, I have noticed that the movie version of Skeletor had greatly deviated from the cartoons. Instead of being comical, he is portrayed to be more mature and not only that, far more menacing to the point he does succeed in entering Castle Grayskull and nearly defeated He-Man.  His personality was almost like the comics version of Thulsa Doom. Also, he was able to use the powers of the Universe for himself, which was NEVER done in the cartoons. I sort of later compared this scene to Conan fighting the comic version of Thulsa Doom (where his inspiration is apparently from), much more epic than Conan beheading the movie version of Thulsa Doom. I personally thought however, maybe James Earl Jones should have voiced him. :-P

It has come into my attention that the lovely Kimberly Hart had some unwanted suitors in MMPR and they are: Skull- For a number of episodes, he's been after her and it made his situation worse when Tommy arrived. When Kimberly Hart fell for him under a love potion, his dream came true only for an episode but it wasn't real feelings. I personally thought this was disgusting. Lord Zedd- This was pretty disgusting. So he requires a bride and he fell for Kimberly Hart. Well, I guess she's just that hot. Hmmm... and he wanted her for only one episode fortunately. I personally found the episode too disgusting. Fortunately he found the bride that serves him well- Rita Repulsa. He did forget about her after that one episode and that was a relief.  I guess he knows EVIL when he can have it and he's not overly fixated... but he got overly fixated over Rita even after the love potion was gone.

Tekken and Virtua Fighter seem to copy from each other. Okay I'm more of a Tekken fan and I admit that Nina came AFTER Sarah Bryant but I'd like to present some similar characters: Akira Yuki and Jin Kazama - Too self-explanatory. Wolf Hawkfield, El Blaze, King I and King II - They're all wrestlers. Duh. Sarah Bryant and Nina Williams - Both are amnesiac blond women. Wang Jinrei and Shun Di - Both are old men who are masters of martial arts. Aoi Umenokoji and Asuka Kazam a- Both are daughters of dojo masters. Taka-Arashi and Ganryu - This is where Virtua Fighter gets an idea from Tekken. Both are sumo wrestlers. However Ganryu made more appearances than Taka-Arashi.