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kennykenworthy
Reviews
One Piece: Wan pîsu (1999)
Good, but not great
Quick wrap-up of why I think this anime DOESN'T deserve a 10/10 like most fanboys think.
1. Overly long story arcs - Alabasta story line and Impel Down-Marine Fort is horribly drawn out. You can actually skip chunks of episodes and nothing will have happened when you pick it back up
2. Poorly realized power mechanics. The Devil fruit powers don't always work/make any sense. Example 1. Blackbeard: eats darkness fruit, but it doesn't affect his physical body, but for some reason it affects admiral who eats light fruit. Example 2. Magma admiral burning/killing Ace. Magma does not burn hotter than fire. Fire can burn up to 3000+ C, much hotter than magma. Read a science book.
3. Jobs ancillary characters. So many of the great supporting cast get shoved to the side for multiple parts of the story. I like Luffy, but completely overpowering him and eliminating the need for his crew for most fights ruins the "crew" dynamic.
Hanma Baki: Son of Ogre (2021)
Pretty bad writing
Don't need to go into too much detail here. Just every episode has elements of ridiculous and unbelievable story writing that makes one scratch their head and wonder WTF? Action is pretty good, that's the only reason I didn't rate this even lower.
Kengan Ashura (2019)
Amazing animation and action, but...
This show is one of the best action animes I've ever seen, but it still lacks that certain something. For one, it has a little too much of the "amazing, radical technique trump card blah blah blah". It makes some of the fights ridiculous when it would just be cooler to watch a fight with this amazing animation. Secondly, the series comes off a little ethnocentric. Fighting and martial arts are practiced the world around and they could have focused on more diverse martial arts (probably going to butcher the spelling on these but: Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, krav maga, Greco Roman wrestling, shota Khan and others). Also, any character that isn't strictly Japanese kinda gets jobbed. It would have been cooler to see a more universal representation of fighters, especially if this is supposed to be about the best fighters in the world. I mean, if you look at modern day contact fighting sports, your have representatives from South America, Mexico, USA, Korea, Japan, Africa, Europe/U. K., Russia, China and more. Having more diversity in the breadth of characters would have added more legitimacy of an ultimate fighting tournament. I will say however, the mocking of massive modern conglomerates was pretty funny. Overall, it's and enjoyable watch, just not an amazing one and it does get a little repetitive.
Hilda (2018)
Amazing
Just watch it. It's F'n amazing! Every episode is a new and wonderful adventure.
Blown Away (2019)
Previous reviews hit the nail on the head
I don't have much else to add that others haven't already said. The one thing I will say is I think it's a little harsh to give the show 1 star just because the judges picked the wrong contestant. Do I agree that Deborah should have been eliminated earlier than the finally? Yes. Does that negate the fact that the show is pretty cool and there are some amazing pieces? No. It's still a fun show
Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005)
Good, but some inconsistencies
I, like many others, really enjoy this show. The comedy is top notch and the originality is refreshing. It is a show that is appropriate to watch with your kids but entertaining for adults as well. While I enjoy the show as a hole, there are a few inconsistencies that exist that stop me from giving this show a perfect score. First, the bending.
For the most part, the creators are very consistent and logical with the bending, i.e. there needs to be water to bend water, there needs to be earth to bend earth and so forth. Where they fall off is fire bending. Throughout most of the entire show, the character Katara has to keep a vial of water with her to bend water (as it would be ridiculous to pull water from the humidity in the air), yet most of the firebenders can bend fire with no fire around. Fire, unlike air, doesn't exist in its natural state everywhere and all around us, it has to be created via ignition, oxygen and a fuel source. But throughout almost the entire show, firebenders will just create fire from thin air. This creates a catch-22 in the logic of the show that ruins some of the credibility of writing.
Also, lightning bending should have really nothing to do with fire bending, or at least it should really have more to do with air and water as the creation of lightning comes with the charging of air molecules creating added energy in the molecules, usually in the form of water. While lightning can create a fire, lightning is not caused by fire, thus fire and lightning should have nothing to do with each other.
Lastly, and this is a purely personal bias, I think the machinations of Azula are too perfectly executed in most instances. Generally, the only times her plans fail are is if one of her underlings fail, not by any lack of foresight or fallability in Azula's character. Other characters imperfections are what make them so great in this show: Aang's love, Zuko's pride, Sakka's arrogance... These traits are what make the show great and Azula just lacks that and feels too perfect/fake. But again, this is just my humble opinion.
Van Helsing (2016)
Not as bad as some make it seem
To put it simply, yes it's cheesy, but if you give it more of a chance than just the first episode, it grows on you. It still has that Syfy cliche feel but it's actually somewhat enjoyable. Its fairly gritty, some of the characters are likeable/hateable (on purpose), and it creates an interesting atmosphere. I don't like most Syfy shows but this one is good enough to binge on Netflix. Give it a go if you want something not so serious but still gritty and violent.
Iron Fist (2017)
Worst Marvel show on Netflix
The comic is awesome and has great plots. The show is awful with characters that are unrelatable and abysmal writing. For example, my wife isn't a marvel fan but she has watched all of the other Netflix Marvel shows with me and generally likes them, she has tried to watch iron fist twice and has never been able to finish it. I decided to give season 2 a try in hopes it would redeem season one. Nope! Season 2 just kept going the crap filled dumpster fire that is this show. Netflix, please cancel this show ASAP so you don't further ruin this character. It's like the people they hired for the writing have never read or even heard of the iron fist and have their own twisted agenda.
The VVitch: A New-England Folktale (2015)
Biggest snooze fest ever
To put it simply, this is a historical, dramatic period piece with some supernatural elements, NOT a horror. This is about as scary as a sudden fart and stinks just as much.
Wiedzmin 3: Dziki Gon (2015)
Massively overrated!!!
So I bought this game expecting to play something truly transcendent. After all, this game has a better rating than Skyrim (which I hold as the golden standard for most video games and all action fantasy). I was sorely disappointed. The things that irked me the most were there graphics, fluidity of gameplay, lack of consistency, useless elements and lack of free world roaming. For graphics, to put it short and sweet, Skyrim destroys this game. Never once was did I go "wow". It was just meh. For fluidity of gameplay, there was multiple times through gameplay when I got stuck, primarily with the water elements. For example, how is it that your character cannot jump out of two feet of water? Geralt can do parkour but can't get out of a mud puddle. For lack of consistency I bring up the crossbow. Somehow in water it can kill enemies in one or two hits but out of water it's the equivalent of a Nerf gun. WTF. For useless elements, gwent. It's basically a massive waste of time that isn't even really that fun. The only reason to play is to get accomplishment trophies. Lastly is the lack of free world to roamability. In Skyrim, I used to just love walking around and seeing what random cave or fort or bandit camp I could come across. In Witcher, it's considered "open world" but it's about as open as a closet in an underground bunker. Overall not a bad game, but DEFINITELY not worth the praise it gets over much more deserving games.
Westworld (2016)
Had it, then lost it
This show started great, but devolved into a jumbled mass of convoluted plot threads, contrived and unrealistic scenarios, and an over abundance of characters. What was an interesting introspective of humanity and the possible future of technology turned sour by season two. First, the technological consistency doesn't work. For example, The technology to create synthetic humans exist but the security forces use P-90 machine guns invented in the 90's? Secondly, the scenarios don't seem plausible. A park with that much scope doesn't have any fail safes or government oversight when the bots go crazy? I call BS. Third, their are too many characters and plot threads to follow. There is Bernard, Delores, the man in Black (Ed Harris), and Maeve as main characters and a plethora of ancillary characters that just add more mud to the clarity of the story. Also, some of the plot threads seem unnecessary and useless (I love me some samurai but that plot line was completely irrelevant except to say that Maeve has special bot controlling powers). And lastly, the plot (s) have a very difficult time staying consistent. One second it's focusing on the past, than the present, than questioning the essence of humanity, than showing tits, ass, blood and guts with a pinch of SciFi powers all wrapped in a confusing conundrum of fictitious reality. I usually roll my eyes at least once an episode at the ludicrous events that are unfurling.