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We going to make an episode you can’t refuse. Hey look, it’s that line from the Godfather that everyone knows. Which must mean we’re doing the Mario Puzo pulp classic which became one of the best films directed by Coppola. To top it off, we managed to see it in theaters as part of an anniversary rescreening with a small quiet audience without screaming children.
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Bob Ross always like to say there are no such things as mistakes. Only happy accidents. This is pretty easy to say when you paint for a living in a studio without anyone to backsass you. For those of us living in the twenty first century with access to multiple forms of instant communication, this compounds things and makes mistakes impossible to avoid.
Which is how Weltall and Tim both ended up reviewing the same manhwa, Terror Man. We kick off with our protagonist sitting in class getting challenged by a classmate to rock paper scissors. He never loses because he has “eyes of misfortune” that turn the wrong choice into purple. This also allows him to cheat at tests.
Luckily the author knows we’re not interested in seeing this develop into some love triangle at school because a transfer student shows up and is purple. He goes to the mall with his dad’s live in maid. She’s from Russia and loves pressing her large breasts into his face to tease him. When he tells her he sees the building is purple and figures it will collapse, she asks him how they should evacuate people.
They, reasonably, come to the conclusion that no one will believe the place will collapse without evidence. Instead of pulling the fire alarm, she calls a friend to bring over guns so they can spook everyone out by pretending to be terrorists. Yes, that is a much better plan than calling in a bomb threat.
Tim read ahead a bit further than Weltall and found this appears to be the start of a theme where the protagonist runs into a disaster and decides to dress up as a terrorist to save people. It manages to land firmly in Read It Now territory.
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There was something about the eighties where they firmly believed surfing was cool. Sure it was popularized by the fifties and sixties. By the time the eighties rolled around, the parents who surfed forgot to warn their kids how lame it is. This oversight lead to the Troma movie, Surf Nazi’s Must Die(1987).
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Deep in the heart of the South American mountains there is a place, hidden among the peaks. There, artisans follow the craft of their ancestors, working with techniques that have remained unchanged for generations. All to make garbage that’s easily inferior to tools purchased at any big box store. Proving traditions can be stupid.
Tim reviews Prison School. The premise starts off simply enough. A school formerly restricted to girls only has decided to coed. How could this go wrong in a manga? Five guys decide to try and sneak a peek at the girls bath and get caught. The student council decides to punish them by placing them in prison uniforms and in a small prison on school grounds. It’s optional for the boys but if they don’t decide to participate, they’ll be expelled. It gets a Read It Now.
Weltall’s Hunter Age changes things up by being a full color comic. The first two chapters begin setting up a tragedy which befalls the kingdom. Then we flash forward sixteen years, just long enough for one of the protagonists to grow up and be clueless about it. When a prince has to escape assassins and plows directly into protagonist, the adventure begins. It gets a Crackers.
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There was a time where Sam Elliott wasn’t the glorious be-mustached man that he’s been since cowboy films were invented. It wasn’t only two seconds after passing through the birthing canal, into the world, and then ordering a whiskey with a side of broken glass. Are word needn’t suffice for it has been well documented in movie form.
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Considering all of the genres of manga and all the subjects covered, there’s probably one thing among them that’s near taboo. That would be the original english language “manga”. We’re pretty sure that OELs were the meteor that killed the dinosaur of Tokyopop along with the nuclear winter of Levy’s ego. Yet there must always be an exception to the rule and a part of that is what we’ve been sent today.
Tim gets Rwby Anthology 1. Not being a fan of Rooster Teeth or any of their productions, Tim approached it decidedly neutrally. Hoping that, at worst, it was a generic fantasy manga with pointless rankings and fifteen year old wielding weapons that weigh as much as a cargo container. While Rwby, reportedly, has a story the anthology has no part of it. It is a series of disconnected scraps of rejected parts scooped up from the cutting room floor and crammed into a volume in order to milk fans of a few extra dollars. For this it earns a Burn It.
Weltall gets to Rwby Anthology 2. Like the other one, there’s nothing of substance for anyone who’s not already a dyed in the wool fan of this thing. There’s a short story with one joke that appears to be actually setup. One of the girls makes cookies that are hard as rocks and they get used as throwing stars on some random mooks. It also has random eight panel pages with interactions that are somehow more boring that the pointless stories about baking cookies. It also gets a Burn It.
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Comedy is probably one of the few genres we don’t often bother to review as it’s far too subjective for a fair review. Joe Dirt may be one of the dumbest things David Spade was involved with outside of letting Chris Farley die alone but, apparently, it had some sort of a cult following which earned it an illegitimate sequel years later.
Still, we decided to do Big Stan[2007]. All because it’s our second movie pairing David Carradine and M Emmet Walsh. It’s a Rob Schneider movie and falls on its face harder than the Rob himself. He plays a sleazy land developer who gets sent to jail. Determined not to get assaulted, he decides to learn martial arts from Carradine. Tim says that, of the two parts that he laughed, one was Rob being punched for saying ‘that’s what she said’.
Tim then gets to a request, Run the Tide[2016]. It star Taylor Lautner in yet another desperate attempt to keep his film career from petering out. It’s about as effective as a homeopathic cure and brings Lautner a step closer to doing bachelorette parties for the rich. He’s a high school dropout who’s taking care of his brother while mom is in prison. Tim at least has a lot to say about how much he dislikes it.
Weltall then talks about First Man[2018]. The movie based on the first moon landing by the USA. It does decent job of conveying some of the lesser known aspects of the astronauts like their intelligence and that they’re adrenaline junkies. It’s very difficult to saying anything about a historical movie when they don’t drop a six ton weight on their balls.
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You know what makes our shows and weddings better? Yes, money and professionalism. The answer we were looking for was themes. I’m sorry but no points for any of you. Also all answers must be in the form of an email to the hosts. While we prepare the next round, please enjoy the following messages from our sponsors.
With the theme of monster catching, Tim has Pokemon Adventures. The manga made to tie into the success of the original red and blue games. As such the protagonist is named Red and has rivalry with Blue. In the tradition of all adaptations of games, the rules of the game are ignored for the sake of making a plot favoring particular pokemon. Take for example the arc where Red uses a Pikachu to beat an Onix. It still gets a Borders.
Weltall then cracks open Yo-kai Watch. Nate Adams is a normal manga kid who’s parents are busy drinking and playing pachinko. He walks face first into the state’s program to curb population control by sending kids on deadly adventures when he cracks open a gashapon that has a watch and a yokai in it. He then starts seeing yokai, talking them out of being pests and gaining the ability to summon them to pester others. It lands on a Borders in a surprise to us.
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We had a plan for this. Thanks to the kind of ineptitude which is the hallmark of the show, we completely failed to do the movie we set out for. So we had to settle on the Ben Affleck movie, The Accountant[2016].
Ben plays an accountant who’s on the high functioning part of the autism spectrum. A role that seems custom tailored to Affleck’s brand of acting. He makes his money getting called to audit accounts that are too complex for the average bear. Also, he’s trained like a special ops agent because he dad decided that he wasn’t going to let a learning disability block his aspirations of raising two contract killers.
Tim then talks about Jurassic World[2015]. Having held off on seeing it until well after the sequel has come and gone, he figured it was time. It’s more self referential than a modern comedy and hangs enough lampshades to stock a Pier 1. Half the cast is given the role of Malcolm from the original in that they trash talk science and the park for no explained reason. The monster was apparently give a copy of the script which informs it of exactly what to do in order to drive the plot. But audiences appeared to like Chris Pratt’s mugging and all the dinosaur scenes.
Weltall then talks about Sandy Wexler[2017], and Adam Sandler film. Being as it wasn’t the kind of movie which received an oil tanker load of sponsorships and was promoted by tie ins with Burger King, it’s not quite the usual garbage. He plays a Hollywood agent who’s personal success is hampered by his genuine good nature. This is put to the test when he ends up representing a talented singer. Weltall believe it’s worth seeing if only to show Adam we don’t hate him when he stops putting together the cast of his friends and taking them on vacation while calling it a movie.
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Turn down the lights, pour a glass of moonshine, and join us for another installment of requested manga theater. Wherein our free will is taken away and we’re forced to read things sent to us. To cope, we will undoubtedly be tapping into something delicious or at least highly alcoholic. Just as long as we don’t start dipping into mixed drinks.
Tim reviews Platinum End. A manga brought to us by the same people who gave us Death Note. We start off with our main character deciding it’s time to kill himself, climbing to the roof of a skyscraper, then taking an asphalt swan dive. He gets saved feet before death by an angel. She offers him the ability to tavel anywhere on earth nearly instantly or to fire arrows that make people love him. He says he’ll consider not dying if she gives him both. Turns out he’s one of twelve people who have guardian angels who are playing last man standing with the winner getting to take the place of god. It squeaks into a Crackers and will be worth a follow up.
Weltall then reviews Umineko: When They Cry. It’s set on the eighties where the Ushiromiya family gets summoned to the island they own. There’s a legend that grandpa Ushiromiya got the seeds of their fortune by making a deal with a witch. But if he doesn’t pay her back by a particular time and date, she’ll exact a price from the family. There’s excellent pacing and well assembled pacing that erans it a solid Read It Now
