Bleach Recaps: Ep. 177 The Reversal of Rukia, the Rampaging Blade

And so I am proven exactly 100% correct about everything.  Of course, predicting the events of a "Bleach" episode is about as difficult as predicting whether or not there's going to be another wave while standing on the beach, I'm not psychic.  But even when this show it at its most predictable, I can dig it, because just like last week, this was another good episode.  Good fights, good action, not the best, but whatever.  The fights still have too much talking and the animation isn't as good as I'd like, but this is as good as you can ask for.  If you have problems with episodes like this, then you probably don't like "Bleach", pure and simple.

So this week is just a continuation of the fights from last week, and their conclusions.  Then finally we end with the beginning of the Ichigo vs Purple-Hair fight.  But that doesn't altogether add up to twenty-one minutes or whatever the length of a "Bleach" episode actually is, so the intro is excruciatingly long, recapping the entirety of the last episode with way too much detail.  I know for a fact that its too much detail because Episode 176 and 177 originally aired* as two-parter in Japan, so what they're doing is here is recapping stuff that their intended audience just saw five minutes ago.  This was a common issue back when Adult Swim aired two "Bleach" episodes a night, but I'm glad to see the Japanese suffer along side us Americans.

Unfortunately nothing about this episode is at all appropriate to Halloween in any way.  I think I'll compensate by just yelling BOOOOOOOOOO!!! every so often.

Red

This is one of those tough movies to review, since I can't say that "Red" is an exceptionable good movie or an exceptionable awful one.  Its just good enough.  Not great, not amazing, not new, but good enough.  Its a B minus, you pass the test, but aren't proud of it.  And here I am, having seen a movie I essentially enjoyed, want to recommend it fully 100% but just can't.  Its kinda like my review of "Iron Man 2", the movie works in pretty much every entertaining aspect you can judge it upon and gives exactly what it advertises, but there's nothing special about it.  There was something missing from this production, and God knows if I'll ever figure out what it was.

I think the closest comparison I can make for an ensemble action comedy like "Red" is "The Expendables", a movie which I hate more and more with every passing day.  "Red" is exactly everything that "The Expendables" wasn't:  funny, well-acted, interesting, entertaining, and full of characters that you get to meet and love.  Of course, "Red" isn't exactly a collaboration of supposedly the greatest action movie stars of the last three decades (which "The Expendables" wasn't by the way), instead its a collaboration of great legendary actors like Helen Mirren, John Malkovich*, Morgan Freeman, Richard Dreyfuss, and Ernest Borgnine - who yes, is somehow still alive.  Mary-Louis Parker has brought all her sexiness over from TV's "Weeds", and is paired up with actually action movie star, Bruce Willis.  If you were wondering why Willis couldn't spend more than five minutes on the set of "The Expendables", I guess this is the reason:  he found a better movie to do.  So with an amazing cast like this, I couldn't possibly miss "Red".  So the funny bit is, all these mostly aged actors and actresses are supposed to put down their Oscars and go out and save America from a criminal espionage conspiracy that goes almost to the very top... just one office away from the very top, actually.

Also like every movie this year, its based on a comic book I've never heard of.  I guess movies have run out of ideas to farm from books, plays, video games, and Disney amusement park rides, so they're now turned to obscure comic books.

Bleach Recaps: Ep. 176, Mystery! The Sword-Consuming Assassin

So finally I'm happy to say that we have a "Bleach" episode that didn't totally suck.  This week we have nothing but three battles happening simultaneously and they aren't bad fights.  So unlike last week's episode, this one is total action and not just two characters sitting on a roof shooting the breeze.  Instead we have everybody but Ichigo fighting one on one battles with the NINJARS*.  And the ninjas don't do too badly.  So the whole episode is just three decent fights packed into twenty-two minutes, which is exactly what "Bleach" does best.  It isn't a perfect episode, but "Bleach" isn't a perfect show.  I do want to enjoy this Amagai arc, and so when there's passable action, I'm going to the first one to say "this is awesome".

The episode begins by replaying the last two minutes of Ep. 175, which were the only bit of that episode which I felt was worth watching.  This makes Ep. 175 even more pointless than it already was.  During the recap at the start of Ep. 176, the Narrator decides to tell us that Bakkotos, the weird swords that the ninjas have been using so far, give you immense power, something which nobody has bothered to say yet.  Last week I was openly asking "who cares about Bakkotos?"  This week's episode seems to be determined to answer that question, finally.  I would have preferred it happen earlier, but better late than never I suppose.  The main thing these fights have to prove tonight is that these ninjas are formidable opponents.  And I'm happy to say, they have.  Each one of those guys gives all of Ichigo's buddies a run for their money.  I still don't think they'll still be alive by two weeks from now, but the fights have enough tension to keep me wondering.  And they're pretty awesome.

Let the recapping begin!  For tonight's show we have Rukia vs. Short Laughing Guy, Uryu vs. Tall Guy With Goofy Hair, and Chad vs. Big Guy Wearing a Burka (no, I still won't learn these guys' names).  The Ichigo vs. Purple-Haired Ninja fight won't happen until next week, I'm sorry to report.

OVER 10000!!!

Yes, Planet Blue has now received over 10,000 hits according to Google Analytics.  10,062 to be exact as of 11:22 AM October 21st, 2010.  Of course, I've only had Google track my hits since late June, so the actual number of hits we've gotten might be something close to double that.  (I just didn't know how to use the hits tracker for an embarrassing amount of time.)  For nearly a year of time, that's a respectable number I think, especially since this is a really low profile blog.  Of course, I will admit that I always wish for more readers, its a craving I think will never be satisfied even if I got a million hits per day.  Even so I'm thankful for every single visit I get, I'm always appreciative of comments, and I do love all my readers.  If you guys weren't around, I wouldn't even bother.  Tell your friends!  You make me a happy shade of Blue.  ^_^

I'll keep you posted when we reach 50,000.

Metroid Other M

Oh God...

Let me start off right now by saying immediately that I tried to like this game.   I tried so hard.  "Metroid Other M" for the Wii is not an easy sell, but I wanted to buy.  I wanted to be that guy who could say "yeah, there are so many things wrong here, but the game is still mostly fun".  But I can't.  This game is a mess.  The Metroid franchise is one of gaming's sacred cows, a beloved series, and now its suffering and suffering badly.  It wasn't like I rented this game knowing I would hate it like with "Dissidia Final Fantasy" (which I only got for the laughs, but that soon turned into pain), I had some legitimately good expectations for it... but also quite a few bad ones.  I've been hoping to play this game since E3 of 2009.  You've probably heard bad things about this game already, I know I did.  Here's the crazy thing:  I was able to overlook those faults for roughly 99% of this game's running time.  Right up until literary the last minute, I was going to give this game a pass.  Then it screwed me over like no game ever has done before.  This game sucks, that's what I'm left with.

The sad, horrible, tragic fact of the matter is:  the gameplay isn't bad.  I liked it!  After playing this game, I would want to play another game like this.  If the next Metroid is in this game style, I'd be looking forward to it.  But its everything else that isn't the core gameplay that sucks.  The story is abominable - the worst storyline I've seen perhaps ever.  "Dissidia" has run for its money here in plot suckitude.  The game is very short, the cutscenes are long and unskippable, and what minigames (I guess what you'd call them) this game has are broken disasters that never should have made it into the game.