Yu-Gi-Oh: Duel Links Review

Before I named myself the Shonen Otaku, I grew up on a lot of the shonen anime for the younger audience in the 90s and 2000s with 4Kids and Saban dubs.  The Pokemon anime in particular took the world by storm and while I was definitely a big fan of that for a while, the series that stuck with me the most was the original Yu-Gi-Oh, or at least the original for America, since season 0 wasn’t dubbed.

I loved the fun dubbed dialogue, the monsters battling each other through the finesse of a card game (even though rules were loose in the anime), the way each character’s deck reflected their personalities and the high stakes with the magic and sci-fi elements that kept me wanting to see what happened next.  Even today I can watch it and enjoy it and I highly recommend giving it a watch either on the official Yu-Gi-Oh website or Netflix.

Why Kids Should be Watching Mr. Pickles

TV shows for kids these days are not of the quality they once were.  I don’t mean TVY-7 shows for slightly older kids like Adventure Time, Steven Universe , Avatar: The Last Airbender or the Amazing World of Gumball.  Those are all thriving and practically in a golden age.  Shows for the younger audiences, on the other hand, are not doing so well in my eyes.  Most shows for the younger audiences are cheap computer generated fluff like Sofia the First, Blaze and the Monster Machines and Doc McStuffins.  Although that last one has Choji Akimichi’s actor Robbie Rist, who seems to like it so maybe there’s something I’m not seeing there.

In an age where kids are being given expensive glass electronics to keep them quiet, it’s nice to have a show that harkens back to the good old days, before the internet took over in the first place and when hand-drawn animation was the norm.  That show is Mr. Pickles.

10 Praises I Have for Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice

Warning!  This article is one giant spoiler for every Ace Attorney game out, but mostly the newest one!  It is practically a discussion of nothing but spoilers.  If you have not played through Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice, do not read this!  I repeat!  Do not read this!

Years ago I wrote an article about Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies and how it disappointed me.  Though fun, it wasn’t nearly as good as the games before it and had a lot of issues holding it back.  Since then I’ve played the latest game, Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice.

Talk about a total 180.  Spirit of Justice does everything right that Dual Destinies did wrong and may be one of the best games in the franchise.  My big praises for Spirit of Justice can be broken down to these key points:

Trump Plays Civilization 5: Day 5

Germany has been taking everything I hold dear from me!  They are sorry pieces of shit!  They took Manhattan!  I was supposed to be the only one with Manhattan and they took it from me!  They have the balls to ask for peace by giving it back after taking what is rightfully mine!  Fuck you mustache man!  I will take back what is rightfully mine even if I have to kill you and every single one of your people!

It’s because of Germany I have to keep my armies near every one of my cities!  Every single turn ungrateful assholes come out of my cities to destroy all I have built and need to be put down!  And then Washington completely betrayed me!

The King of Fighters: Destiny (Web Series) Review

When The King of Fighters: Destiny web series was announced to complement the upcoming mobile game of the same name, I was very skeptical.  Web series don’t have a reputation for having the highest production values, 3D animation is hard to do right and it comes from a Chinese animation studio that was not a big name as far as I can tell.  I was prepared for the worst, but at the same time KOF material outside of the games have been enjoyable even at their worst, with the exception of the movie we need to try to change the title of and forbid from ever discussing.

Several months later the series has now ended its first season and animation studio Idragon has two more planned as well as a movie.  They have some serious confidence in this series and with the overall positive reception, it’s not unwarranted.

Since it’s a web series you can see for free on Steam or Youtube, the question isn’t if it’s worth your money, but rather if it’s worth your time.  That’s not as much time as it may look.  Listings show episodes as being 20 minutes long, but the truth is more than half of that is the overly long opening prologue about Orochi, the rather bad opening theme and an excruciatingly long credit roll.  Each episode is only 7 to 9 minutes long if you skip all that.  With enough editing they could make it into a movie.