Reviews

Ah I remember when PR first came on and how big it was. It's splicing of Super Sentai footage was so flawless that unless you saw the respective SS series you didn't even know it was from Japan originally. So all I can say about PR now when I actually sat and watched it for story purposes is that it's very shallow entertainment with storybook clichés and bad writing that would make a 9 year old cringe with disgust. Seriously it's pretty bad. And since Disney took over it hasn't gotten any better. All of the story lines have been done before in someway or are bastardized, watered-down rip-offs from the Sentai series. The "action", or so the stuff that Disney calls "action", is ridiculous to the point of where it's completely unbelievable and fake. Sure some things are from the sentai series and they don't always look to good, but to take out some of the more realistic looking combat from the Sentai series and replace it with fake looking Matrix combat it just stupid. The actors Disney gets are pretty bad too. It's not like Saban's Power Rangers series were the holy grails of entertainment, but they were much better than what Disney's put out recently from Ninja Storm-Operation Overdrive which, every series in that area has been completely disappointing in some way, shape, or form.

Here's the thing, as much as I dislike PR now, Saban really did a much better job in terms of everything with the PR name compared to Disney simply because they were much more original, creative, and took more "risks". Let's take Saban's PR. They were good because they did not simply "cut and paste" the Sentai story lines and they created their own story lines with a good result. Like Lost Galaxy which is Sci-Fi/Adventure-esquire in comparison to Gingaman which is like Lord of the Rings. What I'm saying is that if things like Lost Galaxy can be made using something with hokey fantasy sentai, then why does Disney not try something original? Also, compared to now, Saban's PR were also "riskier" by having deaths of characters for example, but it's only because Disney just a big pussy when it comes to this stuff, ala, no guns, missiles, exploding buildings, "good guy" deaths. Completely lame. 3 of those things really make Power Rangers, the other would just be plain badass if it happened. Speaking of Disney, Why do I hate them so much, well...there are series like Power Rangers SPD. SPD is the biggest show of laziness and uncreative thought that I've ever seen from Power Rangers why? Because 90% of the story lines are nearly the exact same thing, but very watered down, as the episodes in Dekaranger or are slightly changed. The other 10% is original but it's like I'm watching Battle of the Planets compared to Gatchaman. You know, they're both kinda, nearly, the same show it's just that ones completely watered-down and retarded. Now half of the time when I watch some things in SPD, I see the exact same character motives, and story lines and then there's no other creativity whatsoever. It makes me wonder that instead of spending so much money on reshooting and hiring meh actors, why not dub the sentai series if you're going to use the same story/plot for some of the episodes? The world will never know. That and Disney's "original" episodes from SPD, or anything they've done PR, are just storybook clichés that any 3rd grader can write. It's not too good.

Overall, Power Rangers has been going downhill since Disney. Their lack of creativity and decent storytelling have just left this void feeling in comparison to the old Saban PR where things were actually creative, had good story lines, and weren't so much just a bastard copy of the Sentai series it came from. In fact I'd say that everything that Saban did was original and did not resemble the Sentai series it came from too much.

4/10

I've never seen Robotech outside of 6 episodes out of the Macross part so I feel like I can give a proper review without mentioning aspects about Robotech TNG vs Mospeada differences and having those sway my rating or decisions. I do take offense to the review that's on here where all it accomplishes is elitist Robotech propaganda and doesn't even review the series but only bashes it by saying Robotech is better which, there's no way it is. It's part of the reason I made this review since I know I had nothing to compare it to. Now the review.

This series is mainly about a man named Stick Bernard and he's trying to reach a place in North America called Reflex Point and team up with the army to defeat the Inbit, an evil race of aliens that have taken over Earth. He gets caught off course and he has to find his way to Reflex Point without knowing where he is. He eventually gains allies and they all travel together with him to find Reflex Point while sometimes having dangerous skirmishes with the Inbit.

Sounds good right? Well it's alright to be honest, but could have been a lot better at least in my opinion. The problem I had with this series, and it was a really big problem, was that instead of focusing on plot and story elements, like most series of this nature, a good 80% of the episodes are very episodic based. Meaning, for those that don't know, those episodes don't advance the plot too much at all. There are a few episodes here and there that are story and plot oriented but a majority are about random adventures that have no significance and can easily be done without. I wouldn't say that there is no story but I can say is that the ratio of episodes you need to episodes you don't need is very high. The reason why that's a problem is because the series establishes itself at the beginning as a story based mecha anime series, but as soon as establishing that it ends up turning into a random space and futuristic series that comes on Sci-Fi, and then back into a story based mecha anime series toward the end. Some of the episodic episodes are horribly painful to watch as well. I know I could've finished this series within a weekend but the episodes became chores to watch and felt draining after watching only 1 or 2 episodes.

There are some good things about this series. The Seiyuus (Japanese voice actors) really play their parts well. They actually helped me to continue watch this series. If it wasn't for Bin Shimada and Hirotaka Suzuoki, I don't think I could've finished this series. The Mecha designs are nice. Though the Legioss is completely ripped-off from Macross' Valkyrie. The Mospeada bikes are great they were very innovative. Same with the music. Though it sounds goofy and dated at first it really fits the mood of the series and is very fitting at all times. And Yellow Belmont's vocal songs are amazing.

Overall. I really wish that this series wasn't lacking in plot. If it had more of a story then I'd easily love this series but the episode structure and lacking story elements only make this more of a average Real Robot anime series that happened in the 1980's. It's a shame really I was gunning for this series the entire time. I know somebody'll like it though, it just wasn't for me.

6/10

What I say about all three versions.

Japanese: There are five seasons, "Classic", "R", "S", "SuperS", and "Sailor Stars". Personally this is were the real Sailor Moon is at. I never liked this show until I saw the Japanese version. Not that I have anything against the dubbed versions, but I can say that this version is better than the dub version. If you want comedy, romance, a great soundtrack, really dramatic moments, and great voice acting they're here. I say if you haven't seen this series yet I recommend that you watch it subbed. I have had no problems with it. 9/10

English DiC: DiC was the first company to bring Sailor Moon over to the English speaking world mid-way through the run on Japanese TV and they dubbed the first 2 seasons of this series, "Classic" and "R". Most fans, including myself, don't like this version for various reasons. The characters are renamed into something American or English rather than using their original names and there is too much unnecessary censorship. Such as, usually entire scenes and sequences being rearranged because there was a Kanji sign in the far corner of the screen, "violent" sequences would be cut even if they were slapstick or for comedic value, pretty much all references that this show takes place in Japan were eliminated such as, various Asian specific religious elements, signs in Japanese, and cars were reversed to look like they drove "American" style. Entire episodes were cut, 5 total from season one and the final two from the same season was merged into one. The second season only had one episode cut. DiC rewrote nearly everything. I can't list everything they rewrote because this review would be like a novel, but they rewrote a lot of things. The main characters have their personalities changed, somewhat. The entire soundtrack is redone. The original soundtrack is much, much better than the dub's music. The dub's music just sounds like one continuous track that's playing throughout the entire episode and has no real redeeming value to it. This coming up next is the worst aspect of DiC's dub of Sailor Moon. There's a segment tacked on at the end called "Sailor Says" to make some sort of "moral of the story" type theme, for every episode. This segment is just stupid, no other words are needed. The voices are either love 'em or hate 'em type of voices. For me at least, I don't care for anybody's voices here but I hate, Luna's and Makoto's(Lita's) English voices. And the girls talk like valley girls too. Overall this dub, currently, is liked by people who like the nostalgia of this version of the series, or if they have something against "reading" subtitles. There's no reason to watch this dub unless you fall into those two groups. I say that if you're old enough to watch a PG movie, and have not watched Sailor Moon then you should watch the subtitled version. Because DiC's dub is on the same level as breaking something then poorly putting it back together. 4.5/10

English Cloverway: Cloverway was the second company after DiC to dub Sailor Moon and they dubbed two more seasons "S" and "SuperS". Now this dub is disappointing to fans of the first DiC dub and is still disappointing to fans of the Japanese version. Fans of the DiC dub do not like the replacement actors. This dub changes nearly all of the voice actors and it does not use the DiC soundtrack. Now I can understand the voice actors thing because it's a real pain to get used to voices then they all change and you have to get used to completely different ones. That's very annoying so I can live with that. The omission of the DiC soundtrack I don't see, because that music is just unlikable. I don't see how anyone can like it but oh well. Fans of the Japanese version were promised a more accurate and uncut/unedited dub. Well the only things accurate about that the original BGM is used, it is, in fact, uncut and unedited video wise, and the "Sailor Says" segment is done away with. But the name changes from the DiC dub are still present and some newly introduced characters get their names changed as well. This creates a lot of problems. Since the video is unedited, there are times when their original Japanese names are on things like doors, books, signs, etc. And they aren't in Japanese characters either, they're in plain English. So it's not hard to miss these. Two newly introduced characters are lesbians but they get changed into cousins. You decide if that's bad for yourself, but this was one dumb change. Since Cloverway did not cut anything and the video is unedited, there are still scenes were they act like lesbians. And this change is pretty much forced down your throat. Episodes are still rewritten. There are terrible added jokes and bad attempts to spice up things in the dialogue. There is still stereotypical "girl" talk. But it's even more stereotypical than DiC's dub. And there are too many inconsistencies with this dub, even more than there are in the DiC dub. These inconsistencies either change the story, create plot holes, or just make things plain confusing. Sometimes this dub is better than DiC's other times it's beyond anywhere near good and worse than DiC's. 5/10

"Sailor Stars", the final season, has not and possibly will never be officially dubbed into English. There are a number of rumored reasons why, but the true answer is just that Toei revoked the license from every country around the world. So in the end, Cloverway could have dubbed Sailor Stars but they just didn't.

The best Sailor Moon overall is the subbed version. If you want to watch this show watch it subbed.

(Note: I wrote this in the Japanese Pocket Monsters Directory but this needs too be seen here.)

I Think it's a misconception about Pokemon being extremely better in Japanese. That's partially true, but here's how it really is.

Pokemon, in the beginning, is slightly better in Japanese everything's translated well,(apart from names of Pokemon and characters being changed), but the story is not hurt as the same plot points are kept and even the same words from the Japanese version are repeated in the English version. The voices aren't bad either, for the people in the main cast, the side characters and guest stars have horrible voices in English. The only out of place Main character voices in the English version I would say are Meowth's, Officer Jenny's and Gary's. The Japanese version makes Meowth sound like a talking cat with fits more to me, since his a cat and not a New Yorker. Officer Jenny's and Gary's English voices are just bad in comparison to Japanese though. The original music is kept for the most part. There are times when the music breaks in the Japanese version. The English version fills those in with "in-house" music. The "in-house" music is decent but you can tell the difference between the original music and the in-house music because the quality is drastically different. The original music would be anything that you hear in the Pokemon video games. There are a few originally made musical pieces for the anime too, and they are left in the English version too,(minus the vocal songs). The sequences where they say, "Who's that Pokemon" are really in the Japanese version. They are called, "Dare Da?", which means, "Who is it?". The only things that are different about them are that the video is different and they make them English. The video is also uncut in the beginning too(minus the paint edits). And there are a large handful of episodes that could have been dual-audio(Japanese language & English Language selectable) because everything is shown.

However, Once you start getting into the era where, Pokemon the Movie 2000 comes out, everything the English version does a 180 degree turn and gets embarrassing to listen to. They add way too many silly puns and jokes and the Japanese version overtime gets a bit more serious but the tone in the English version is still "comical". I know that this show is marketed for kids, but this same show was doing so well with keeping the original plot line and tone and was still marketable to kids, but it makes the Japanese version look bad past a certain point. That certain point would be after the Orange League. After the Orange League, in both versions, it seems like every episode's goal is to, "show the Pokemon from the game in the anime", rather than story, but the English version handles that a lot worse.

Pokemon overall is still slightly better to watch in Japanese though. You really could watch the English version for the first two seasons once Johto happens then you're screwed if you liked the English version. The Japanese version is better in the presentation and voices, but for you're one of those people who think, "The Japanese version's gonna p*** over the English version because the dub is crappy", that's not going to happen.

I think it's a misconception about Pokemon being extremely better in Japanese. That's partially true, but here's how it really is.

Pokemon, in the beginning, is slightly better in Japanese everything's translated well,(apart from names of Pokemon and characters being changed), but the story is not hurt as the same plot points are kept and even the same words from the Japanese version are repeated in the English version. The voices aren't bad either, for the people in the main cast, the side characters and guest stars have horrible voices in English. The only out of place Main charter voices in the English version I would say are Meowth's, Officer Jenny's and Gary's. The Japanese version makes Meowth sound like a talking cat with fits more to me, since his a cat and not a New Yorker. Officer Jenny's and Gary's English voices are just bad in comparison to Japanese though. The original music is kept for the most part. There are times when the music breaks in the Japanese version. The English version fills those in with "in-house" music. The "in-house" music is decent but you can tell the difference between the original music and the in-house music because the quality is drastically different. The original music would be anything that you hear in the Pokemon video games. There are a few originally made musical pieces for the anime too, and they are left in the English version too,(minus the vocal songs). The sequences where they say, "Who's that Pokemon" are really in the Japanese version. They are called, "Dare Da?", which means, "Who is it?". The only things that are different about them are that the video is different and they make them English. The video is also uncut in the beginning too(minus the paint edits). And there are a large handful of episodes that could have been dual-audio(Japanese language & English Language selectable) because everything is shown.

However, Once you start getting into the era where, Pokemon the Movie 2000 comes out, everything the English version does a 180 degree turn and gets embarrassing to listen to. They add way too many silly puns and jokes and the Japanese version overtime gets a bit more serious but the tone in the English version is still "comical". I know that this show is marketed for kids, but this same show was doing so well with keeping the original plot line and tone and was still marketable to kids, but it makes the Japanese version look bad past a certain point. That certain point would be after the Orange League. After the Orange League, in both versions, it seems like every episode's goal is to, "show the Pokemon from the game in the anime", rather than story, but the English version handles that a lot worse.

Pokemon overall is still slightly better to watch in Japanese though. You really could watch the English version for the first two seasons once Johto happens then you're screwed if you liked the English version. The Japanese version is better in the presentation and voices, but for you're one of those people who think, "The Japanese version's gonna p*** over the English version because the dub is crappy", that's not going to happen.

While most people criticize the prequels. There is no reason to criticize ROTS for anything except the acting. Sometimes the movie has it's stale movies and lines sound bland, but if you're a real fan and not someone who follows the crowd you'd be watching this for the story and quickly over look any of the "flaws" of this movie. Also this movie can have a, "gets better every time" effect or, "gets worst every time" effect. But I assure you that if you're a fan you'll like this movie. If you not, oh well, Why are you watching it in the first place? Anytime a slow scene comes up there is a fast scene to replace it. So it's completely balanced in terms of battle and dialog.

Overall, this is the best that the prequel trilogy has to offer however if you watch the animated Clone Wars Vol. 2, things will make more sense because it has multiple events that lead into the beginning of this movie and carry on throughout. And if you're a first time fan watch the original Trilogy first then watch the prequels with this one being the last one you watch.

Many people pass up the Mobile Suit Gundam TV for the Movie trilogy and you would be making a big mistake to pass up the TV series. Why? Because it was the first Gundam series ever. This was originally supposed to be a 52 episode TV series but had to get cut down to 39. Then Tomino, the director and creator, asked for 4 more episodes and he got them to make the count 43 and created the greatest ending to gundam. Though, and I'm not going to spoil anything but the final battle is much more epic in the movie trilogy than the TV series only because the show was getting canceled and things had to be rushed but whatever was rushed in the TV series was fixed or slowed down in the movies. Theanimation, though from 1979 and 1980 looks really good. I've seen anime from the mid-late 80's and in every gundam series animation, character and mecha designs are all high quality and have the power to stand up to newer anime, but if you were born into watching your anime bright and digital, circa. 1997, then you may be put off by it's animation style however that's your problem for missing something so great because of the animation. I highly, highly, recommend that you see the TV series first but only until episode 38 then watch the movie trilogy because it will be well worth it.

This is a good series, a series about two guys Gene Starwind and Jim Hawkins who get into a crazy adventure and get mixed up in the mysterious "Galactic Layline".

This series never lets up or feels like it slowing down. Every episode is fast paced and pertains to the story in some way and there are 26 episodes. I even recommend the English Dubbing because it is very high quality and stands up well against the Original Japanese. Oh and if you saw this show on the old Cartoon Network or remember this show from the old Cartoon Network, you should buy the Uncut DVDs of this show because funny moments, rude remarks, language, an entire episode, and things that only could offend a soccer mom, were cut. I never saw this on CN so I was spared of the lame edits. And when I was watching this it really seemed like it was a different show than what they were advertising on CN. Sometimes I thought, "How did that get by CN". That was before I realized it was edited to Hell though. So get the uncut dvds they're better and they're the only ones you can buy now. Oh yeah, even though this series came on Toonami it's not for kids under 13 or people can't take really crude humor, language, nudity, bloody violence, and gun play.

Why only an 8, if this anime had a few more episodes say, 36 instead of 26 it would have felt more complete as sometimes it seems rushed.

DBZ is an amazing action anime and is one of my all time favorite Anime series. Though as awesome as this show is it has its fair share of problems. It's really long. This anime goes on for 291 episodes. On top of that it's a sequel to the 153 episode, Dragon Ball. To fully understand Dragon Ball Z you have to watch all of those episodes. So if you're a casual anime fan then this show is not for you. There are also numerous filler episodes that were meant to keep the manga ahead during its original airing in Japan, and long drawn out battles. In the end, this anime makes me glad to be an anime fan. If I never saw this show I would not like anime as much as I do now. The episodes never get old, the characters "grow" on you, and there is huge character development for every character.

Here's what I think of the Japanese version and Funimation's dub.

Japanese: No complaints. I like this show way better in Japanese than English. All of the voices are better. People actually sound like normal people. And all of the voice actors here can actually act. (Rant) Everybody that complains about Goku's voice in Japanese is very, in a word, ignorant. One, he does not sound like a 4 year old girl. He is played by a woman but her voice is very deep for a female. Like it or not, she sounds like an alto/soprano sounding male in Dragonball and in real life. Two, Akira Toriyama handpicked her to play Goku in Dragonball, the series that half of Funimation's dub fanbase have never seen because it "doesn't have enough action", or is too "kiddy". Then she stayed around for DBZ to continue playing Goku because there was no need to replace her. Three, she does a much better job of capturing Goku than Sean Schemmel or any other language dub actor for Goku has ever done.(/Rant) The music here is better than the dub's music. Why was it changed in the first place? I don't know, but it's apparent that Funimation can't handle silence, tension, and good music in their dub of this series. The music here gives this show more of a, "martial arts adventure", feel more than the dub which gives a, "TV show to sell merchandise", vibe. All I can say about the Japanese version is the one to watch and is way more legitimate than the dub. 8/10

Funimation: I simply do not, and will never, like this dub. I have heard DBZ English fandubs of this show that are better, and almost every language in the world has a better dub than Funimation. One, the music's replaced. Every fan of this dub wants to believe that the music from the original, that was made before half of them were born, sucks. People, THIS REPLACEMENT MUSIC SUCKS. There's nothing good about it. I can't begin to tell you how many people think this tacky, talentless music is good but apparently there are people, excuse me, blind sheep(that's better), who like it. Standalone, the music feels cheaply made and sounds like it was created with the talent of an average 3 year old. During the TV show, it conveys no emotions whatsoever. Funny thing, out of the entire 222 episodes that Funimation dubbed of this show with that music, the fans that like it can only find less than 10 moments where it was actually good. Now if this music is so good, then why are the fans of this music only able to name less than 10 moments lasting less than 3 minutes in defense of it? Overall this music sucks, it just sucks. All of the dubbed voices are either meh, bad, or horrifying. The only good voice in this entire show is Perfect Cell. He is on par with the original Japanese actor. But, Vegeta, Bulma, Yamcha, Goku, Piccolo, Every Kai, Freeza, King Cold, Cell's first 2 forms, Recomme, Jeice, Oolong, Fat Majin Buu, Krillin, #13, #16, and #19, are some of the worst voices I've ever heard in any anime that I have ever watched. What's funny here, is that the same people who would complain about Goku's Japanese voice being voiced by a woman always overlook the fact that Freeza sounds like a woman in the dub. Well, Freeza sounds more like an 80 year old woman in the dub, but then again that's ignorance and it can't be helped. The dubbed voices make all the male characters sound like 1980's pro-wrestlers or some other bad male stereotype and the female characters sound like valley girls, hookers, or some other bad stereotype of women. In the end, nobody sounds like a normal human being. The closest attempt to a normal sounding voice in this dub is from a character named Trunks, for everybody else, they sound ridiculous. The acting is just forced, there are no good performances whatsoever. And all subtly is gone so everything's "in your face". The script is 70% rewritten from the original dialogue. Every word is changed. Important information to the plot is taken out and terrible jokes are added. When there's no dialogue in the original, there's dialogue in the dub. Everything is seems to be tailored for kids between the ages of 4-7, even in the uncut dubs, which are advertised 13+. And character personalities are altered. This dub the same class as a 4kids' dub but uncut. Because you have, bad and terrible voices(yep.), a terribly rewritten script(yep.), and replaced music that has no redeeming qualities or value(yep.). This dub is painful and I don't recommend it at all. If you want to see what a real dub of this show should have been like, watch DBZ Movies 1-3 dubbed by the Ocean group. The Funimation dub is just terrible. Here's a fact. Wonder why people down this show? It's because of the crappy Funi dub. 3/10.