March comes in like a lion (3-gatsu no Lion): Episode 1 Review

March comes in like a lion episode 1 was pretty good, in my opinion. I wasn't expecting the art-style to be so rustic but I think it could grow on me, especially since it really goes hand-in-hand with the slower pacing. Basically it looks more "sketched" like in a manga, instead of having the fine crisp lines of the usual anime. The coloring of the animation is pretty good.

Artistic! I would categorize this anime as one of the more artistic types that gives some "good feels." I'm guessing, having watched only episode 1 so far, that the anime will be a Your Lie in April and Barakamon mix. I think the protagonist (Rei) will warm up through his experiences (with the three sisters and maybe rekindle his old friendships) and step past this lonely slump he is in right now.

Also, I must mention that though there is a slower pace, there are some humorous scenes that fit well with the storyline.

By the way, here is the plot summary of the anime, if you are interested in getting more background on it:

Rei Kiriyama is a 17-year-old boy who recently started living alone, financed by his salary as a professional Shogi player. Despite his independence, however, he's yet to mature emotionally, and his problems continue to haunt him in his daily life. His relationship with his adoptive family is strained, and he has difficulties interacting with his fellow high school students. Meanwhile, his professional career has entered a slump. Burdened with the heavy expectations placed on him as the fifth to become pro in middle school, his wins and losses are fluctuating as his record and progression into the ranks begin to stagnate.

Acquainted with Rei are the three Kawamoto sisters: Akari, Hinata, and Momo. Unlike Rei, they live happily in their modest home, which they warmly welcome Rei into as if he were one of their own. Despite his reservations about becoming too close to the family, he frequently visits, interacting with them and receiving the kind of care and affection he never quite had while under his foster home.

This is the story of Rei's triumphs and failures, relationships new and old, and his growth as a person.

Lastly, I really think that the artistic style of the anime makes pretty good wallpapers, as you can see :)

Thanks for reading <3

The Good Dinosaur

So, it looks like Pixar/Disney released another movie, hooray! I finally got around to watching the 2015 movie The Good Dinosaur and I thought I would share my thoughts on it (potential spoilers ahead).

Okay, basically this a great movie because it's simple enough for little kids to understand and it's funny (cute, light humor). I would that the whole movie can be blanketed around one motif/moral,which is: Once you put in your best effort to persevere in life, you can make your mark on the world. The movie sends this message quite literally in the course of the movie.

Of course the movie itself is extremely fictional, I mean really, in Ice Age the humans and the animals can talk, fine.... but in this movie the dinosaurs live like people and the humans live like dogs (and I mean this literally).

The movie starts off with a corn-farming family of dinos, with Poppa, Momma, and their three children. You have Buck the big jock-like one, Libby the clever sister, and little timid Arlo who seems afraid of everything (though I don't know, those dino-chickens are pretty scary hahahaha). Lots of happy feels.

Now everyone in the family in the family except for Arlo make their mark by doing something good on their little dino-farm. Poppa builds a corn silo and puts his mud paw-print (tada literal mark) on one of the rocks along with Momma because they have made their marks already. Then each of the children is expected to persevere at their chore on the farm. Buck got his for being strong enough to rip out the trees to "clear a field" and Libby got her mark for then plowing the entire field. Alro is the smallest and wimpiest of the children, but he too is trying to "make his mark."

Anyway, life is all good on their dino-farm but they seem to have a "critter" problem that is eating their corn crops. Since everyone in the family made their mark in the family except for Arlo, the critter problem is up to him.

The critter is a human boy around 6yo and gets caught in a simple trap and its up to Arlo to smash him like a bug, but alas he cannot commit such a violent act and releases him, Poppa finds out that he let the human critter escape and they run off after him into a storm *cue the Lion King!!!* and as they run along side a river and a mountain, a flood comes and in a tearful goodbye Poppa throws Arlo up a cliff ledge before being swept away.

Change scene to Momma and Alro collecting the harvest onto their back and Mamma falls down from being overworked and 11yo Alro states he will make it all right and he will be strong too (like Poppa *tears*).

Cue critter boy and Arlo meet again where Arlo does the usual "You killed Poppa, it was all your fault" etc. and while rushing him, they both fall into the river (I bet the plot is wonderful for children, I just have seen it all before so at this point, I thought "man they really should put a fence right there on the river-side as it would solve a lot of problems"). Anyway to speed up, they fall and end up lost~

Being alone in the wilderness together, they warm up to each other and have a fun adventure back home to their three-pointed mountain home. We also find out that the human boy's name is Spot (woooow real clever). They also meet some interesting side characters on the way too. The pterodactyls are the main bad guys in the movie and the T-rex (ugh I hate how I can't put an --s at the end of rex, anyway) are surprisingly (no really, I was not expecting it, so it made me pretty happy) buffalo-herding ranchers (and here I thought I had seen it all hahahaha). Really they way they run is super cute/funny, its like the T-rex are running on their own feet, but in a weird side-way sort of way that makes it look like they are horse-back riding ranchers. I can't really describe it, you will have to seen it for yourself :)

Another funny thing I found that I wanted to point out is only in a fictional movie can a 6yo human boy run off and bring back an iguana in his mouth~ I was like WHAT~~~ and then he rips a giant bug's head off with his teeth. Boy, I never knew our human teeth were that strong ;)

Anyway, it's an adventure, Alro overcomes his fears and in the end saves Spot (the human boy, sigh that name though... like pfffft he doesn't even have spots). They also have a touching (another tear-jerking moment) where they show their families and we see that Spot is a little orphan boy who lost his parents while Arlo lost his dad. So they totally bond and we get little teardrops of feels as we look at those family circles~

Continuing on, at the end of their journey, right before they get back to Arlo's dino-farm, They hear (aka the humans howl like wolves?) and then see a family of foxy white-haired with black tips HUMANS with a mom/dad/two kids (boy and girl) --- the picture of a nuclear family---- they come up and are like: oh yeah, we will totally take you in orphan Spot, we will all just stand here together staring at you while you say your goodbyes. 

AWWWW, tear-jerking #3 of them parting ways and Alro goes back home, finally able to put his mark on the corn silo.

Fin.


So yes it's a pretty cute movie, if totally predicable, but totally full of laughs and good feels that the little kids would probably really like (errrr I think it will keep K-5th grade entertained enough, if not just for the laughs). Like it's probably safe to say that kids up to 11yo would like it (afterall, ding, the MC is an 11yo). If the people are Disney/Pixar lovers, they will also probably sit through it well (I know I did, even if I was mentally poking fun of it at times, but all in good spirits). The animation is really pretty too, with lots of beautiful settings and a dash of glowing fireflies on top~

 OH and look at these little character blurbs I found:

We have the MC-Dino

We have the MC-Human

Don't Lion King Poppa, nuuuuuu (TT^TT)

the quarterback brother (though the are the same age)

she has freckles, GASP I didn't notice until now

Wow she really doesn't get many lines

Awww, my favorite bunch of the cast

they so nice too

can you believe this big old softy didn't eat anyone, awww

Ha and here are all the villains of the cast (these gave me a deranged surfer dude kind of vibe)

 and these villains gave me a hillbilly kind of vibe

and this guy gives me the just insane kind of vibe

But really, my villain describing vibes aren't kept to be mean, they are just ... well literally (I guess stereotypically) portrayed that way along with the rest of the cast. WHICH I COMPLETELY AGREE WITH aka child-development and all that. You know, children (really really small children) don't really have the world's gray-zone figured out, they don't understand the in-between stuff. Therefore, I completely agree that they need examples of black and white "good" vs. "evil" as "gray" is literally still too hard for them to comprehend. This movie gives the little kids three examples of "bad" aka bad is:

Pterodactyls -- at first they are nice and helpful as they call you "friend," but alas they then do something violent, and when you start backing away, they are all like "Where ya going, friend?" you are not leaving mwhahaha *the main villains of this movie*

Raptors -- mean people who steal your stuff and start fighting you when you try to take it back

Pet Collector -- I don't even know how to describe this category, those really weird people who talk to talk to themselves and behave off and are probably a danger to themselves and others? Meh, yeah, that sounds about right.

Anyway to conclude, I guess I would say its a 9/10 movie for little kids :)
Also, it's an pretty-okay movie for everyone else, with lots of G-rated humor it's great family movie, might bore the parents a bit though, but not too bad, as the graphics are really nice!    


Thanks for reading <3

Leviathan Series by Scott Westerfeld

Hi everyone!

       

I had randomly come across this book series quite recently and I must say that the story is amazing! First off, this is a trilogy book series with the titles being: Leviathan, Behemoth, and finally Goliath. All the books are out, so you could marathon them all right through to the conclusion with no waiting around!

I actually ended up listening to them on audiobook while driving and whatnot and so I can recommend listening to the series too because there is a great cast voicing each of the characters, which only gives more personality to the development of the characters. Speaking of which, the character development is wonderful! The two lead characters happen to be Aleksandar Ferdinand, the prince of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Deryn, a girl who disguised herself as a boy to join the British air-service under the guise of being Mr. Dylan Sharp. If you haven't noticed by the Ferdinand reference above, Alek is indeed a fictional son of the Archduke and that Archduke is the very same one whose dead had started the catalytic beginnings of WWI aka the Great War of the time. Now this isn't some boring historical book (Hooray) but it does take the plot of the time, the alliances and the relations between all the countries of the world. That being said, Alek wasn't a real person but purely made for this alternate history. Also, another great thing is that this book series is actually not only blending history with fiction but also *drumroll!* STEAMPUNK and BIOPUNK~

That's right, it makes it much more interesting as the Allied Powers, are the biopunk Darwinists (the British Darwinists are the MC country here) against the steampunk Clanker Central Powers of Austria, Germany, etc. Basically the Darwinists have fabricated chimeras big and small to use as their weapons, while the Clankers have mecha machines/robots at their disposal.     

Anyway, so far I have finished the first two books (starting into the third one right now too mwhaha) and there are so many positives! The books are very high paced and they never get boring or lose your interest. The perspective usually switches between Alek and Dylan as both of them struggle to get through this war. Alek is the heir of Austria-Hungary and so the Germans are always chasing him because he is the key to stopping the war that Germany started by killing his parents. "Mr. Sharp" on the other hand is trying to work as a midshipman on a flying whale-like war ship (called the Leviathan and therefore makes the title of the first book) without being discovered as a girl. Okay, side-note, Dylan/Deryn is quite successfully pulling off Mulan amazingly well with her quick-thinking and bravery. She isn't going to save China maybe but already she has saved her crew, Alek, and helped win major battles for her country Britian and for the Allied Powers. AND **little spoiler** she has a thing for Alek but he doesn't know that she's a girl (yes~ my personal favorite plot from Mulan is also in this series, what can be better then that!).

The plot moves through from forest to frozen Swiss Alps to aboard the Leviathan to a revolution in the Ottoman Empire in the city of Istanbul and then I'll say no more because I don't want to spoil anything more!

In conclusion I give this book series a 10/10 as it's completely engrossing with action, plots, secrets, humor, alliances and even some love (and by love of course I don't only mean the romantic kind as there is also the love and loyalty between crewman and best friends. And in war-time that takes the priority with our strong leads of the book --- so nothing is dreadfully gushy about the series). Thus you would have to be a "ninny" not to read it ;)