Saturday 16 January 2010

DVD Reviews

Saiyuki Reload Boxset
Tetsuya Endo
MVM Entertainment

Available Now - £49.99 (DVD)
Review by Blake Harmer

Saiyuki Reload is the sequel to the original Saiyuki anime (or manga where it first originated) and follows four anti-heroes collectively known as the Sanzo party, led by the monk known as Sanzo, as they travel to Shangri-La in an attempt to stop the resurrection of the demon king Gyumaoh, and restore peace and prosperity to the land caused by a wave of energy that has turned all demons mad and has destroyed the peaceful bond that man and demon originally shared.

This anime has great stengths. The story telling of some of the episodes is brilliant, as well as some of the character and monster design. The fight scenes, whilst not as impressive as some animes are also enjoyable and keep things fun and cool looking. The concept of the show is also highly original, sure it’s battling demons like nine thousand other anime, but the characters and setting make it different enough but keeping it familiar to allow fans of other anime to enjoy it.

However, the downsides to this anime is that it suffers from a lot of genre clichés. These range from crap humour similar to Samurai Deeper Kyo levels of awfulness. The traditional bad guy turning into something nasty before the big fight is so clichéd I couldn’t even remember when the idea was first used. If I wanted to watch that, I’d watch something far more entertaining, like Thundercats.

It is a huge shame that, for every sparkle of originality or other such awesomeness that Saiyuki Reload shows, it destroys it by having an annoying character making crap jokes or monster that makes you think you’ve seen this show before. This leaves the whole experience feeling incredibly average which is a shame because if it had tried to be different and relied on the storytelling, this could have been up there with one of the great anime series of all time.

The Emotionally Fourteen Rating:
Violence:
Lots of fighting but no real blood or gore, demons killed by Sanzo’s revolver just crumple in a heap. One character likes to put large holes in demons by firing balls of energy like Ryu from Street Fighter II but that is as graphic as it gets.
Sex/Nudity: None, which is great as I don’t particularly want to see animated demon wang either.
Swearing: A few here and there but were not talking Black Lagoon levels of language.
Summary: There is a good story and clever ideas here but you have to sit through all the things that make an anime crap in order to see them and appreciate them. If you are a fan of shonky anime humour then this will be right up your street, but with so many better animes out there, which are similar and do the whole thing better, it is too hard to recommend this. 5/10
“Listen”, the old man pleaded. “Listen to me. I been out there. I seen the great, red hunger, and where it walks everything aches. From the stones to the skies, everything aches. It is broken and lost, like those who live there, and they cannot go back. You should not go out there. You should not...”

It is the time of the Great Depression. The dustbowl has turned the western skies red and thousands leave their homes seeking a better life.

Marcus Connelly seeks not a new life, but a death - a death for the mysterious scarred man who murdered his daughter. And soon he learns that he is not alone. Countless others have lost someone to the scarred man. They band together to track him, but as they get closer, Connelly begins to suspect that the man they are hunting is more than human.

As the pursuit becomes increasingly desperate, Connelly must decide just how much he is willing to sacrifice to get his revenge.

Robert Jackson Bennett’s Mr Shivers is a compelling, original, apocalyptic thriller from an exciting debut author.

"If you find the scarred man, what will you do?" the man asked.

"What?" said Connelly.

"If you were to find this man, what would you do, sir?"

Connelly looked at him, then down at the water. He could barely make out his own reflection. It was faceless, formless.

"Kill," said Connelly. "I'd kill him."


Thanks to our friends at Little, Brown, we've got a copy of Mr Shivers to give away! For your chance of winning one, send us an e-mail to mrshiversgiveaway@rocketmail.com with your name and postal address before midday on Saturday 23rd January (UK time). The first name drawn out of the electronic hat will win a copy of this awesome book!

1 comment:

  1. “Listen”, the old man pleaded. “Listen to me. I been out there. I seen the great, red hunger, and where it walks everything aches. From the stones to the skies, everything aches. It is broken and lost, like those who live there, and they cannot go back. You should not go out there. You should not...”

    Genuinely chilling and quite superb! Writing this good is all too uncommon in any genre AFAIK. I think I'll be looking out for this book. ;)

    ReplyDelete