Review: Highschool of the Dead 6

"Hold on, Takashi. I think I see a quarter."

So, remember when I said last week’s episode of Highschool of the Dead was the worst one yet? Allow me to amend that statement.

Episode 6 is even worse, by a large margin. It’s misogynistic, insulting, stupid, and some of it doesn’t even make sense. In was a complete and utter waste of my time, and I probably lost a few hundred brain cells just watching it. I kid you not, it’s quite possibly one of the worst episodes of any anime I’ve ever seen. And that’s counting Angel Cop.

So if you really want to know why HotD has inspired such rage in me, click the jump.

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Bakacast Briefs – Put Ya Guns On!

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ARE YOU READY GUYS?

Now that I’m back from my vacation, I can finally inject some much-needed silliness (and bromance) into the podcast with Sengoku Basara 2. There’s no news for this week, so you might notice that all that pent up discussion energy causes us to GET SERIOUS about…well…every show we talk about. So if you decide to listen, I hope you like arguments about world-building theory. Otherwise, you’ll need LOTS OF LUCK to make it through.

We take on:

You may notice I’m more forgiving of HotD #5 in the podcast than I am in my review. Funny how time makes the heart hate stronger, isn’t it?

Anyway, we like hearing from you, so feel free to leave a comment or two. Just don’t get SO CRAZY that the mods have to BREAK IT UP.

…okay, I’m done now.

[The opening and ending music is “Boy Walks Girl to Work and is Followed by a Ghost” by .hnz]

Review: Highschool of the Dead 5

DRAMATIC TEAM POSE!

The fifth episode of Highschool of the Dead is a perfect example of how to kill your momentum. Even though I may not have liked all of the previous episodes, I think they did a good job of slowly building the tension and scope of the zombie epidemic. By contrast, this week’s episode meanders toward the resolutions of problems that were brought up last week. It doesn’t help that the writing is a mixed bag of good, mediocre and terrible characterizations. These problems combine to create what is arguably the worst episode of the series so far.

I’ll explain why after the jump.

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Bakacast Briefs – Zombies Suck

The second episode of Bakacast Briefs is here, proving we can keep a schedule as long as we set realistic goals.

You can download it directly, subscribe to our RSS feed, or let iTunes do all the work for you.

Chris is back from being a responsible adult, so he joins us for this episode. We talk about:

Jon’s going to give Seitokai one more episode, but in the future we’ll probably narrow our focus to more detailed discussions of just three shows: Highschool of the Dead, Occult Academy and Sengoku Basara 2.

The music used in this episode is “Cloud Caller” by rhodo4.

Also, the first Bakacast Briefs post was updated to include the music credit for that episode, so check that post again if you were wondering what I used.

Review: Shiki 01

Gastly used Mean Look!

First of all I should probably say ‘Hello again’ and ‘Sorry’, since I’ve not posted since Christmas and even then only to wish the season’s greeting. I apologise to all you fans of me out there (none of you, I suspect) and hope you enjoy this, my comeback review!

The few of you that know me may realise that the imagery present in the trailer for Shiki immediately appealed to my tastes, and unless I watched at least some of it my brain would fall out. Luckily for me, the first episode aired a few days ago and I managed to watch it. What I had been expecting was an anime packed with wonder and the Higurashi-style creepiness I love. What I had not been expecting was a documentary on a stuck-up schoolgirl and her over-inflated ego. Granted, the creepy was still there in small portions, but not nearly enough for my fix.

You can read my first impressions in full after the usual jump.

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Review: Highschool of the Dead 2

Revenge of the nerds.

After the thrashing I gave the first episode of Highschool of the Dead, I wasn’t really expecting much from the series. Madhouse seemed to be focusing far too much effort on the fanservice for my tastes. However, I did hold on to a shred of hope that the absurdity of the first episode was partially a ploy to attract viewers who may not have bothered with it. I don’t like what that sort of strategy implies about anime fans, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t have some basis in reality.

Thankfully, if episode two is any indication, my theory seems to be correct. This episode was more entertaining and significantly less insulting to my intelligence than the first. I’ll explain in detail after the jump.

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Bakacast Briefs – The Saga Begins

Hey, look! It’s the debut episode of Bakacast Briefs! As always, you can download it directly, subscribe to our RSS feed, or let iTunes do all the work for you. So, what is Bakacast Briefs, you ask? Basically, we’ve resigned ourselves to the fact that Bakacast will only update once a month. However, we wanted to give our audience something to listen to during that large gap of time. So we figured we’d try doing mini-episodes that ditch our typical news and in-depth review format; instead, Bakacast Briefs will feature Jon (aka Ritsu), Chris (aka Kagami) and me giving our brief thoughts on each week’s new anime episodes. Unfortunately, Chris is unusually busy with something called “real life”, so it’s just Jon and me in this episode. We discussed:

I was hoping to add Sengoku Basara 2 to this list, but Funimation still hasn’t put the first episode up (so much for a “simulcast”). I’ll talk about it on next week’s show, I promise. Also, this list is likely to change as we drop shows we’re not interested in. So by the time we’re a few weeks in, we’ll probably have narrowed it down to a few shows that all of us are watching. In the meantime, tell us what you think of the new style. It’s very much in the “experimental” stage, so we’d love to know what you like or don’t like about it. The music used for this episode is “Colour Television” by J. Arthur Keenes.

Review: High School of the Dead 1

Here is the basic premise of High School of the Dead. There are zombies. There are high schoolers. The high schoolers beat up zombies. Some of the high schoolers have big breasts.

On the surface, that should be a show I’d really like. As I said when I talked about Gunsmith Cats, I’m kind of a fan of well-developed women who kick lots of butt. Unfortunately, High School of the Dead (which I will now refer to as HSotD, because I’m lazy), is a mixed bag. While technically impressive and fast-paced, some of the content made me feel pretty uncomfortable.

And not in the way that horror shows are supposed to.

I’ll explain in detail after the jump.

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