Category: Comics

I keep forgetting to update this more regularly. It’s kind of nice because I’m at least semi-busy right now so I’m not just sitting around here with my thumb in my ass (however good that may feel). Wes and I still have a lot of work to do on our “magical mystery script,” but in order to do good work on that I need to be constantly writing.

Here are a couple of capsule reviews, one of which I already posted here, that I uploaded to Got Next the other day. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out how to get images up through their client, and it was already enough of a pain in the ass for my photoshop-tarded ass to round the edges of the images to their specifications. Hence, no pictures. It’s too bad, because I had a rad poster of NEGADON, the all CG showa-style kaiju short by Jun Awazu, ready to go up there.

I also have a pile of Animerica stuff staring at me. Most of it, predictably, is crap. Not just normal crap, but “why on Earth would anyone want Joseph Luster to write about this crap” crap.

So today I’m going to try and juggle a few things at once, mostly focusing on digging into the second act of this script, but also trying to work in some random reviews and deciding which jappy crappy superhero stuff I want to cover in my next Full Metal Tracksuit column at KFCC.

Any requests? I’m leaning towards Machine Man this time, but I don’t know.

My room smells like E. Honda’s asshole.

Seriously, it’s like a fucking third-world sweat shop in here. I’m sitting here in a wife-beater wiping my brow and farting. When I was staying in LA for a couple of months working on stuff with Wes, I got accustomed to a particular style of life (not that style, silly!). It mostly involved spicy asian foodstuffs and ramen bowls.

Well today was the Greatest Day™ because I remembered that there’s an Asian food mart about 10 minutes away from my house. I proceeded to grab about six whatevers and now it’s 3am and I’ve eaten half of them (I have also consumed enough beer as to reverse the effects of alcohol). Between the stagnant ass smell of ramen hovering around and the smell of my stagnant ass . . . well . . .

This short review will go up on Got Next later once I watch and write about the CG monster mash NEGADON: THE MONSTER FROM MARS:Welcome to Tokyo; a city with two populations, one human and the other demon. Dimensional separation keeps our worlds apart thanks to the guardian Karas and his masters. However, once a former Karas named Eko comes and rumbles the sacred balance while trying to take the streets, a newly risen Karas must fight for the sake of both dimensions.

Karas: The Prophecy has been speeding towards its final destination with a fair amount of promise and hard-to-crack hype attached for a variety of reasons, one of which is wholely studio-related. The 80 minute pseudo-feature is the first in a short series of OAVs by Tatsunoko Productions, solidified with legendary status for classic hits like Speed Racer and Gatchaman. As the primary part of their 40th anniversary project and helmed by Keiichi Sato (Animation Director for Wolf’s Rain and Mobile Suit Victory Gundam among others), theoretically Karas has all the right moves to make the next big splash in the medium.

But somewhere along the way it breaks out of its perfect ten dive and becomes content with landing in the water feet first with little hurrah. Karas is a mish-mash of slick visuals and hit-or-miss character design. The feature opens with a bang, though, and when it sticks to blazingly smooth action it makes you want to grab a controller and wait for Capcom or Sega to release a badass franchise actioner based on the metal-suited hero (whose design is somewhat reminiscent of Keita Amemiya’s gold-clad tokusatsu fighter Garo: the Fanged Wolf).

The score might be the crown jewel of Karas, thanks to Yoshihiro Ike’s composition and a performance by the Prague Symphony Orchestra. The swelling music is effective in making the great moments of the feature seem larger than they are, while at least creating a tolerable atmosphere around the less enthusing elements.

Still, this mix of traditional-style animation and CG only meshes well on occasion. There’s high contrast between the beautifully-animated characters and the hard knuckle metal beast fighting that plays out like an action game cutscene. Make no mistake, though, in nine scenes out of ten Karas is looking sexy. For all of the snoozer cliché segments, there are still moments worth recalling, making it a stunningly average cake with a grand coat of decorative icing. It should be interesting to see how the subsequent chapters hold up, but the swami says this prophecy is best told during a weekend rental.

The Coconut Boys are my life inspiration. If you don’t follow their teachings… well, whatever!

Tonight I rerecorded and improved my verse on “Well Bourbon,” off the upcoming Urbanatorz hit CD.

In other news, I bought the first volume of Hare + Guu today. Now, keep in mind that I’ve at least seen the 26-episode TV series before. I think Bryan and I just saw a few episodes of the OAV. Still, it’s a total classic that everyone should see and I want to support its North American release. I was extra impressed with the fact that the first volume + box came with a Chest Hair Afro Wig.

Okay, here’s what all the good boys and girls have been thinking about for the past 15 years: a new side-scrolling Mario platformer. Well it’s here, and it’s stellar. To sum it up briefly, it’s sort of a hybrid of Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 3, with some elements from the rest of the series thrown in.

Despite the fact that there isn’t much use of the touch screen, the DS hardware crafts a beautiful game, as well as some really creative platforming. The 3D graphics allow levels to morph and pulsate, and the enemies bounce and gyrate to the tune of the particular level’s music.

It’s about the length of any 2D Mario game, but there are a ton of diverging paths and level exits that zig-zag all over the world map. There’s also incentive to flex your tough-guy jumper muscles in attempts to nab the three star coins in each stage, some of which are precariously and cleverly placed.

New Super Mario Bros. reminds me of why the platformer is my favorite game genre. Making subtle and skillful jumps is as impressive and fun to me, if not more so, than being able to blow someone’s head off or punch a dude in his balls. Don’t get me wrong, though, I love doing the latter. You should see me unscrewing a car stereo while John steals a TV and throws it through the car’s windshield in The Warriors!