The Umbrella Academy Season Two Review.

I quite enjoyed the first season of The Umbrella Academy.
Based off the comic by Gerad Way and created by Steve Blackman for Netflix, the show followed the dysfunctional, superpowered family of the Hargreeves as they attempted to stop the end of the world… only to inadvertently cause it.
Now, we finally have season two with the family now trapped in 1963 with ten days to stop the end of the world… again.
And all of the Hargreeves family have their own storylines and new characters to interact with.
There’s the literal ticking time bomb Vanya (Ellen Page), gorilla bodied Luther (Tom Hopper), justice seeker Diego (David Castañeda), rumor girl Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman), addict Klaus (Robert Sheehan), and older man trapped in a younger man’s body Five (Aidan Gallagher).
Surprisingly though, I would say that my favourite character of the family this season would have to be Klaus’ ghost buddy Ben (Justin H. Min) who has a great arc.

Ben was unexpectedly the best character this season and Min does a great job playing the ghost sibling

However, I will say that the way Klaus treats Ben did make me like Klaus a lot less as a character.
Onto more positives now, we also get more insight into the Umbrella Academy’s horrible father Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore), with one of the best scenes in the season being a meeting between him and the family he traumatized.
As for new characters, many of them are great, with Allison, Vanya and Diego’s love interests Ray (Yusuf Gatewood), Sissy (Marin Ireland), and Lila (Ritu Arya) being especially interesting with their storylines.
We also got some pretty fantastic action scenes this season, like the opening battle and a fight with Five in the middle.
As well as this, the show is not afraid to go into weird territory with things like a talking fish and aliens, along with the bulk load of weird stuff from the first season.
Although, I will say that season two is not all good.
For one thing, I was disappointed with how some amazing characters from the first season were written out.
Not only this but even though I said some of the action sequences are great, some are rather bad.
This is the case for one of the final battles of the season, which has the absolute worst case of Stormtrooper aim that I have ever seen.

Seriously, there’s an entire army shooting at our heroes and somehow all of the bullets miss. How is that possible?

There is also some character logic that doesn’t really make much sense when you think too much about it.
Still, despite these issues, the second season of The Umbrella Academy is a solid season that I would rank just as good as the first.
It has a great cliffhanger that prepares us for more craziness with this crazy family next season.

Hannibal Review: Hope You Have a Strong Stomach.

I had been told plenty of times over the years that Hannibal was a fantastic show but I never got around to watching it.
Well, after stumbling across it on Netflix I decided to give it a shot and what can I say other than, wow.
I was hooked on this show from start to finish and NBC made a huge mistake cancelling it.
The series is equal parts gripping and horrifying with plenty of disturbing imagery that suits the titular Hannibal the Cannibal like a human skin glove.
Speaking of, Mads Mikkelsen is absolutely incredible as Hannibal Lecter, even rivaling the Anthony Hopkins version, which is no small feat.

Developed by Bryan Fuller, the show follows his sinister yet no less intriguing relationship with criminal profiler Will Graham (Hugh Dancy), whose unique way of sympathizing with murderers allows him to have an edge in catching them.
However, Hannibal’s interest in him leads to many disturbing events in Will’s life that may very well push him over the deep end by the show’s conclusion.
Dancy does an amazing job as Will and the chemistry he has with Mikkleson makes the friendship/romance(?) between him and Hannibal all the more investing and dark.
It’s not just these two though because every actor does a magnificent job from Laurence Fishburn, to Caroline Dhavernas, to Raul Esparaz.
The fact that you like many of these characters makes it all the worse when Hannibal, or some other killer gets a hold of them, like the terrifying Francis Dollarhyde (Richard Armitage), who has a fantastic score, by the way.

What makes it crueler is how disturbing this show can get with its gore.
Seriously, you need a strong stomach to watch this show, although you may get desensitized to the extreme violence by the end of it all.
Even if you cannot handle all of the gore though, it is all more than worth it because of the phenomenal television Hannibal delivers.
Everything just comes together, from the acting, to the cinematography, to the score, to make Hannibal one of the greatest television shows ever with some incredible seasons.
Season one is a slow descent into madness that introduces you to the show’s characters perfectly and makes you care about them before it’s gut wrenching ending.
Season two is definitely my favourite, delivering an intense thrill ride that culminates in one of the most shocking episode of television that I have ever seen, “Mizumono.”
That episode left me in stunned silence by the end.

While season three is a little slow to begin with, by episode five it gets back to the original quality of the first two seasons and ends on a high note.
Overall, Hannibal is an amazing show that easily lives up the legacy of The Silence of the Lambs film and Thomas Harris’ novels.
Mads Mikkelson, especially, is a highlight.
It was a mistake for NBC to cancel it but I hope we get some more terrifying content in the future.

Japan Sinks 2020: At This Point, I Wouldn’t Even be Surprised.

2020 has been a disaster of a year so it’s only fitting that an anime comes out, set in that year, where massive earthquakes cause Japan to begin sinking.
It also makes sense then that the anime is a bit of a mess, again, just like 2020.
Directed by Pyeon-Gang Ho and Masaaki Yuasa, Japan Sinks follows the Muto family who are caught up in the disaster of their country sinking beneath their feet.
The family consists of aspiring runner Auyumu (Reina Ueda), her brother, the gamer Go (Tomu Muranaka), and their parents, dedicate father Koichiro (Masaki Terasoma), and Filipino working mother Mari (Yuko Sasaki).
Over the course of the anime, they struggle to survive, encountering many other survivors who join them on their journey, but not everyone makes it out alive.

muto family — *Japan Sinks* doesn’t pull any punches with what can happen to any character at any time.

The first three episodes of Japan Sinks are very well done, for the most part, depicting the horror that such a disaster would have expertly, except for a few weird scenes like characters taking family photos in the midst of this.
These episodes also establish that no character is safe, which makes for a lot of tense moments, considering that I came to like a lot of these characters.
Surprisingly, my favourite characters came from outside the Muto family, primarily Haruo Koga (Hiroyuki Yoshino), Auyumu’s former friend turned introvert, and Kite (Kensho Ono), a famous YouTuber.
Both these characters have great arcs that made me really care for them as the show went on.

haruo — Haruo had a pretty great arc, going from introvert to hero.

I wish my care for certain characters had extended to a love for the show but, unfortunately, it couldn’t for a variety of reasons.
The primary reason though is that episodes four to six are a complete waste of time, introducing mostly terrible characters, and some awful animation.
It took me ten days to watch the entire show and, of that time, it took me five days to get through episodes four to six.
That should tell you how much of a drag those episodes were.
On the plus side though, episode six did provide the most unintentionally hilarious death scene I have ever had the pleasure of seeing.
Other problems persist throughout Japan Sinks, like the animation issues, amount of unexplained events and coincidences, and characters acting like no real person would, for example, seemingly moving on immediately after a loved one dies.
These problems are seen throughout the show and really drag its high moments down, although there are a fair amount of these high moments.
After episode six, the story picks up again and the episodes are actually enjoyable, delivering a reflective finale that brought a smile to my face.
Then there are the themes, which are very well handled.
For example, the show tackles racism in Japan with the mixed family of the Mutos experiencing a lot of it from purely Japanese people.
Also, I like a lot of the subtlety for certain characters, like Kite, who we learn something about in the final episode that I honestly didn’t catch until another review pointed it out to me.

kite — I didn’t expect to like Kite at first so I was surprised when he became one of my favourites.

There is a lot of good things about Japan Sinks.
It’s just a shame that the majority of those good things are dragged down by some truly awful episodes, animation issues and inconsistencies.
Japan Sinks is a mixed bag that delivers plenty of good moments but also a lot of bad moments.
So, I guess you could say that the show is 2020 in a nutshell.

Peninsula Review: Less Train to Busan, More Mad Max.

Train to Busan is my favourite zombie movie of all time.
It is an emotional thrill ride that I find myself returning to time and time again.
So, you can bet that when I heard a sequel was coming out, titled Peninsula, I was incredibly excited.
Because of the pandemic, many films have not been able to come to cinemas in my country but Peninsula was one that did.
I saw an advertisement for a limited screening and booked a ticket as quick as I could, viewing it in a packed theater.
However, I did go in with some reservations.
In the months before Peninsula’s release, I had seen the trailer and, to me, it looked like a generic zombie story that I had seen a thousand times before.
Train to Busan was so much more than that so I was hoping that its sequel would be at least of a similar caliber.
Although, there were some things that spoke in the film’s favor, like it having the same director as the original, Yeon Sang-ho.
So, when the movie started, I was hopeful, yet cautious.
Well, for the first half hour of the film, all of my concerns flooded away.
The opening of Peninsula had the same emotional impact of Train to Busan, almost bringing me to tears in the first ten to fifteen minutes.

peninsula movie — The first ten to fifteen minutes of *Peninsula* has the same emotional weight as the original *Train to Busan.* The rest of the film though…

This time around, the film centers on Jung-seok (Gang Dong-won) and his brother-in-law Chul-min (Kim Do-yoon), two survivors from the outbreak who have been traumatized by the losses they suffered.
Four years after the virus first broke out, the two and other survivors return to the peninsula to retrieve millions of dollars, which they can use to build new lives for themselves.
Of course, this operation does not go according to plan, with the characters struggling to survive not just against zombies but psychotic humans as well.
As I said, the first half hour of the film is amazing, setting up this storyline incredibly well.
However, after the half hour mark, the fears I had going in were sadly realised as Peninsula devolved into the generic, cliched zombie story I was afraid it would be.
The film honestly feels like they were trying to emulate Mad Max more than Train to Busan.
Seriously, there are so many car chases in this film that just defy the laws of physics and completely broke my suspension of disbelief on multiple occasions.
The CGI also doesn’t help with this but I won’t say that it was awful or anything.
Many of the characters also fall into the cliched zombie tropes of old, most notably the corrupt former soldiers who have become psychotic in the zombie infested landscape.
Look at the villain of the first film, Yong-suk.
He was a commentary on the bad aspects of business culture in South Korea, making him an investing character that we loved to hate.
The villains of this film are just generic, psychotic bad guys.

zombie cage fight — The antagonists of *Peninsula* are the typical crazy soldiers who feed people to zombies for fun that we have all seen before.

The other characters aren’t much better with the only exceptions being Jung-seok, Chul-min and possibly Min-jung (Lee Jung-hyun), but Jung-seok and Chul-min did have the benefit of having the film built around their struggles.
Peninsula also ends very abruptly and in a way that made me wonder what the point was.
There is a problem that I found to be very funny though and that is the English.
The movie has a lot of English speaking characters this time around and this creates many unintentionally hilarious scenes.
Not because of bad pronunciation though, no, but because of how bad the English dialogue is written.
An opening news scene felt completely unnatural and, worst of all, one hilariously bad case of English dialogue had me laughing at a scene that was supposed to be incredibly emotional.
However, I will not say that the film was bad overall.
Like I said, the first half hour is the best part with the first 15 minutes actually getting me close to tearing up because of how emotional it was.
As stated, I also did like a couple of the characters, like Jung-seok.
Unlike Seok-woo from Train to Busan, who was just a businessman caught in this bad situation, Jeong-seok is more of an action hero, which does suit the film he is in.
I liked his arc, which is one of redemption.

pensila character — Although many of the characters are bland, I did like Jeong-seok’s arc quite a bit because it was built up and executed well.

Another thing that is important to note is that, even though I have criticized this film for being just another generic zombie film, that makes it the perfect movie to just sit back and enjoy the action.
If you’re looking for a good popcorn film that you can entertain you for nearly two hours and then never think of again, then you can have fun with Peninsula.
The action is at least well shot enough for you to enjoy yourself.
However, if you are looking for a spiritual successor to the original Train to Busan then you will most likely be left disappointed.

Attack on Titan Chapter 131, Rumbling, Review: Attack on Titan’s Third Impact.

Last month, Hajime Isayama delivered an Attack on Titan chapter that had the potential to be in my top ten best.
This month, he did it again with Chapter 131, “Rumbling”, which easily goes down as the manga’s darkest chapter by an extremely wide margin.
The majority of “Rumbling” consists of the consequences of Eren’s genocide, resulting in many brutal deaths.
Without a doubt, the most horrific of these deaths are those of Ramzi and his brother Halil.
Ramzi is the boy from Chapter 123, who partied with the Survey Corps when they first came to Marley, and “Rumbling” opens with him showing Halil where he hides the money he has pickpocketed to help their family survive.
Here, we get a tragic showcase of how cruel their lives are, as Ramzi not only reveals that many of their people die during the winter because of the lack of shelter, but is also shown to have had his right hand cut off for stealing.
Not all is lost in Ramzi’s mind though, because he has hope that the money he steals will be enough to get his family out of poverty and give them all a happy life.
A sadly naive dream to be sure but one that is incredibly sympathetic, made all the worse by the arrival of the Rumbling.
With this genocide, both Ramzi’s family, life and dreams are crushed under the massive feet of the Colossal Titans.
Watching Ramzi and Halil desperately run for their lives, only for Halil to turn back for the money, and then be crushed by debris was absolutely horrifying.
This is made even worse to read when it is shown Ramzi survived the falling debris, only to see that his brother’s head has been smashed in and that he is still clutching the money that held all of their hopes.
We then get to see Ramzi slowly being crushed under the foot of a Wall Titan in agonizing detail that is difficult to stomach, let alone read.
Just as horrifying is the panels of the many other innocent people who are murdered in Eren’s genocide.
In one particular heart breaking panel, we see multiple reactions from different people.
Some bang on a door trying to escape their deaths, one breaks off to try and flee in another direction, a mother holds her child close, and a man holding his bags looks up towards their oncoming deaths and just seems to accept his fate.
What makes this situation even more tragic is Eren’s perspective.
It is interlaced with Ramzi’s point of view, and reveals that the hidden memory shard of him from Eren’s memory was not from after Eren left to hide in Marley but rather before.
After leaving the meeting where the person calling for Eldian rights damned the people of Paradis, Eren walked the streets, contemplating his future actions, when he came across Ramzi being attacked.
After some hesitation, wondering why he should save him if he’s going to kill him later, Eren gives in to his conscience and rescues the boy before tearfully telling him he is sorry for what he will do in the future, even if Ramzi does not understand.
This heartbreaking moment makes for a chilling contrast to Eren’s perspective while he is committing the Rumbling.
Here, he admits that when he found out people were outside the walls he was disappointed.
This reveals some selfish motivations behind the Rumbling that make Eren a much darker character than first thought.
Even creepier is the double page spread where Eren is in child form and cries out happily that, “this is freedom.”
This panel is easily one of the best in the entire manga because of how chilling it is.
What makes it darker is that if someone saw this image without context they would think it was wholesome moment and not the horrifying panel that it is.
The following images of more people succumbing to Eren’s genocide in between this horrific panel is gut wrenching.
This all combines to make the Rumbling feel like the Third Impact from The End of Evangelion.
There’s even a moment that seems to be directly inspired by that film because, when Ramzi is being crushed, he sees Ymir, just like all the people who died during the Third Impact saw Rei.
What this means is anyone’s guess but it sure will be interesting to find out.
However, although most of this chapter is horror and despair, there is actually a surprisingly wholesome moment, made even more surprising that it is a ship scene.
But not Eremika or Erehisu, no, this time it is Aruani, Armin and Annie.
Isayama pretty much confirmed that Armin has a crush on Annie and highly implied that Annie returned some of those feelings.
It was a happy moment that brought some levity to an otherwise horrifying chapter.
Armin also admitting that, like Annie, he is a monster too was great for his character, and the moment where a child Eren talks to him in Paths makes me think he is going to have a big role to play soon, which I am excited for.
However, I am also scared as well because Armin and Annie seeming to have a romantic connection now spells out massive death flags for Annie.
Well, at least I’m sure she won’t die until the final confrontation with Eren.
Speaking of, the last panel of the chapter shows Eren, who is seemingly sleeping in his monstrous Titan form.
Only thing is that his head appears to be attached to his body by his exposed spine.
Such a grizzly sight makes me wonder if Eren can even heal from this once he finishes.
Either way though, it will be interesting to see how Attack on Titan finally ends, especially with Eren’s genocide now in full swing.
“Rumbling” is another top ten Attack on Titan chapter with grizzly images that are horrifying but ones that we needed to see to understand the consequences of Eren’s actions.

The Promised Neverland Manga Review: Basically Tokyo Ghoul Quality vs Tokyo Ghoul: Re Quality.

I recently rewatched the first season of The Promised Neverland and was amazed by it.
I had honestly forgot how incredible of an anime it was.
So, knowing that the second season had been delayed to 2021 because of Covid-19, I decided to read the manga in its entirety.
After reading it, the best way I can describe it is Tokyo Ghoul quality vs Tokyo Ghoul: Re quality.
Essentially, the first half of the manga is fantastic, just like Tokyo Ghoul, while the second half is still good but it does have a lot of problems, just like Tokyo Ghoul: Re, creating an experience that is, overall, still a lot of fun to read.
Written by Kaiu Shirai and illustrated by Posuka Demizu, The Promised Neverland follows children Emma, Norman and Ray who learn that the orphanage they live on is in reality a farm made to provide food for demons.
They, and the other children, then plan to escape and embark into the world of demons, a world that contains many friends and many foes.
As I said, the first half of The Promised Neverland is absolutely fantastic, with many great twists and characters to cheer for.
As if the characters from the first season like Emma, Norman, Ray, Isabella and Phil weren’t already amazing enough, the manga offers many more interesting characters like Mujika, Yuugo and Lucas.
Yugo and Lucas in particular are great additions to the cast and probably tied for my favourite characters in the entire story.

yuggo — Yugo is an amazing character and the conclusion to him and Lucas’ arc are fantastic, even if I do wish this conclusion had come later on in the story.

As for the old characters, they are just as great, with Emma standing out as a fantastic protagonist, especially in the Goldy Pond Arc.
Speaking of, Gondy Pond is definitely my favourite arc of the manga with it providing a lot of awesome fights, tension and character development.
The villain of that arc, Leuvis, is also just as intimidating as Isabella and Sister Krone were in the first season.
Unfortunately, this continued fantastic quality does not last as the story begins to have more and more flaws as it enters its second half.
One of these big flaws is character immunity.
It became quite clear towards the final stages of the story which characters were safe and which were not.
For a series that started off with the “anyone can die” mentality, it sure pulled a lot of punches by the end in regards to character deaths.

Another problem is those characters themselves or, more specifically, the amount of them.
There are so many characters that a lot of them don’t get the screen time they deserved.
Norman, Isabella and Phil are missing from huge chunks of the story and Ray becomes kind of a stagnant character.
The worst example of wasted character potential though definitely goes to Ayshe.
She is introduced in the last few arcs of The Promised Neverland and is given a fantastic backstory and motivation that looks set to put her on a revenge path that will cause her to conflict with some of our main characters.
However, after this backstory is revealed, she never does anything.
All of that fantastic build up the reveal of her past had turned out to be for nothing and made wonder why she was introduced in the first place.

ayshe — Ayshe could have been a fantastic character if her backstory had actually been expanded upon.

There was also a complete deus ex machina towards the end that was very off putting.
As for the ending of the story, a lot of people have problems with it and, while I think those are valid, I still liked the ending and it did get me tearing up.
Which reminds me, I cried quite a few times when reading this manga.
Whenever the story ignored characters absurd plot armor and finally killed someone it almost always got a tear out of me.
So, I can definitely say that the good far outweighs the bad.
While the second half does have a lot of problems, The Promised Neverland is still a great manga that delivers a lot of emotional moments.

Pom Poko Review: Studio Ghibli’s Weirdest Film?

Imagine that you’re on Netflix and then an ad for a Studio Ghibli movie pops up.
You’re intrigued so you watch and see a police officer comforting a crying woman… only for her face to disappear.
As the police officer runs away from the faceless woman, she begins to follow him on a bike until he fires his gun into the air in terror, frightening the woman and turning her into… a raccoon?
Well, after seeing this bizarre ad, I knew I had to watch Isao Takahata’s 1993 film Pom Poko.
Now that I have watched it, I can definitely say that it is Studio Ghibli’s weirdest film by a wide margin.
Pom Poko follows a group of shape shifting raccoons voiced by Makoto Nonomura, Shigeru Izumiya, Nijiko Kiyokawa, Kosan Yanagiya and many others.
These raccoons are trying to stop their homes being destroyed by invading humans at any cost, including eco-terrorism, putting on a parade to scare the humans, and inflating their testicles to attack… wait, what?

balls attack — I expected some strange things going into *Pom Poko* but not attack by testicle inflation.

Seriously though, if you think the testicles technique is the weirdest thing this movie can come up with your mistaken.
Pom Poko has so many outlandish concepts and throughout the film I honestly wasn’t sure if I was liking what was happening or not.
I did go from disliking the raccoons to actually sympathizing with them by the end though, but I wasn’t incredibly attached to any of them.
One thing I can say that I really enjoyed was the creativity with the raccoons shape shifting abilities, which is on full display during the parade scene.
You can see that the writers and animators just let their imaginations go wild during here and it’s really enjoyable.

The parade scene is the best scene in the movie because of how creative it is.

Like most Studio Ghibli films, it also contains an environmentalist message that is well handled, especially with one act the raccoons take at the end.
Although, I will say that there are some plot points that don’t really go anywhere and the movie does feel a bit too long.
All of that said, Pom Poko is still an enjoyable film, despite its low points, with scene after scene of weird concepts.
It is definitely worth seeing for that weirdness factor alone.

Code Geass: Lelouch of the Re;surrection Review: A Mixed Bag Just Like the Show.

I have mixed feelings about Code Geass.
On the one hand it has instances of brilliant writing, on the other hand it has instances of pretty terrible writing.
That said, it does have an incredible ending that makes a follow up extremely difficult to pull off.
In order to solve this problem, director Gorō Taniguchi decided to set this story in an alternate universe with a few minor changes to the original story… with mixed results as expected.

lelouch meboy — The film has as many positives as it does negatives, just like the original anime.

Lelouch of the Re;surrection is set one year after Lelouch’s sacrifice during the Zero Requiem.
A revived Lelouch (Japanese Jun Fukuyama, English Johnny Yong Bosh) is under the care of C.C (Yukana and Kate Higgins) when his sister Nunnally (Kaori Nazuka and Rebecca Forstadt) and good friend Suzaku (Takahiro Sakura and Yuri Lowenthal) are kidnapped by the enemy nation of Zilkhistan.
Now C.C and the Black Knights must find a way to bring Lelouch back to his former self so he can rescue the two and defeat Zilkhistan.
The film is well voice acted, animated and scored, with some great action sequences throughout.
Along with this, the writing is occasionally great just like how it is occasionally great in the show.
Lelouch and C.C are definitely the highlights, with their relationship having a fantastic arc that ended the film well.

The way *Lelouch of the Re;surrection* ends with Lelouch and C.C’s relationship is genuinely touching.

It was a lot of fun to see the man of miracles at work again, defeating his enemies using his brilliant tactics.
In particular, one prison sequence where Lelouch got to show off his skills is a terrifically fun sequence.
And then there’s the villains of the film who, while they are not really interesting characters, do have an interesting motivation.
Their actions show the consequences of the Zero Requiem in a way that was believable and understandable.
Although, this does undermine the authenticity of the original ending somewhat.
Unfortunately, the issues of Lelouch of the Re;surrection don’t end there.
For starters, the changes to this story with the alternate universe don’t really have a point.
Take Shirley (Fumiko Orikasa and Amy Kincaid) for example.
She is brought back to life and the reason for this was so that she could sneak Lelouch’s body to C.C but this doesn’t really make any sense considering Shirley doesn’t have the skills to smuggle Lelouch’s body out.

It felt like Shirley was kept alive just because the writer wanted her to be rather than there being a legitimate reason.

Not only this but a lot of the characters seem to forget Lelouch’s actions in the parts of the original story that are still canon.
Cornelia, weirdly enough, seems to be not as angry about Lelouch, you know, using his Geass on her sister Euphemia and then killing her.
Also, Oghi does something in this film that comes out of nowhere and feels really out of character.
And then there’s the problems with the original series that is carried over, chief among these being fan service.
Now, there is nothing wrong with fan service but does it have to come during these big emotional moments?
I can’t get invested in a scene where C.C encourages Lelouch during a dire moment if the shot spends so much time focusing on her private parts.
It makes these scenes comical rather than emotional.
Still, despite these problems, Code Geass: Lelouch of the Re;surrection is a good film.
It does have occasional moments of brilliance, even if they are bogged down by problems, both old ones from the original show and new ones entirely.

Bodyguard Review: An Adrenaline Shot of a Show.

I’m not sure I have any nails left to bite through after finally watching Bodyguard.
In all seriousness, this political thriller, created and written by Jed Mercurio, and directed by Thomas Vincent and John Strickland, is the epitome of anxiety inducing.
The show follows traumatized war veteran, now police sergeant, David Budd (Richard Madden) who is assigned to protect the controversial Secretary of State, Julia Montague (Keeley Hawes).
However, after Budd joins Montague’s detail, acts of terrorism against the both of them begin to occur, raising suspicions of not just a government conspiracy but also suspicions against Budd himself.
Bodyguard is an intense experience from start to finish with terrific performances, especially from Madden who you quickly come to sympathize with as Budd.

madden — Madden plays Budd perfectly, portraying both the calm and collected soldier and the traumatized war veteran.

It is not just him though because everyone in the cast does an amazing job and, given how good the show is at making you care about its characters, it makes the scenes where they are in danger all the more suspenseful.
Speaking of these scenes, Bodyguard has some of the most heart attack creating moments I have seen in a good long while.
The first scene of the very first episode lets you know what you’re in for with an absolutely gripping opening.
This is followed by shocking moments topped by even more shocking moments as the episodes go on.

sniper — Just when you think this show has surprised you as much as it can, it presents another jaw dropping moment.

What makes it even better is how usually unexpected these scenes are.
For example, I knew coming into the show that there would be an intense scene with a sniper because everyone was talking about it when it aired.
I remember watching the show, wondering if it would happen at a particular point and then thinking, no, it couldn’t happen now.
Well, guess who was wrong?
I must have jumped a foot in the air when that scene started and I was gripping the arm rest of my chair in the absolutely terrifying minutes that followed.
And then there’s the final episode, which, instead of having a suspenseful scene that went on for a few minutes, stretched it out for most of the episode’s duration in some truly sweat inducing minutes.

shocking — Episode six had me almost tearing my hair out because of how intense it was.

In the end, the show wraps up most of its mysteries well, with plenty of foreshadowing to pick up on throughout the series.
Bodyguard is a series that will make you shake with worry and I think the best way to describe it would be like an adrenaline shot.

Tales From Earthsea Review: Studio Ghibli’s Weakest Film?

After watching Goro Miyazaki’s Tales From Earthsea, I went online to try and find out what had happened during this movie.
What I found was that many considered this film to be the weakest of all the Studio Ghibli films, which honestly does not surprise me.
Based off the book series by Ursula K. Le Guin, Tales From Earthsea is a slow, confusing film that left me with multiple questions but not in a good way.
Directed by Hayao Miyazaki’s son, the film follows disgraced prince Arren (Junichi Okada) who encounters a wizard named Sparrowhawk (Bunta Sugawara), who reminded me a lot of Lord Yupa from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.
The film then aimlessly follows these two characters, both of which have little to no agency.

sparrowhawk and arren — Arren has no goal for the majority of the film. Shadowhawk does but this just results in him wandering around until he conveniently finds where he is supposed to go.

This lack of agency eventually results in them taking refuge with Sparrowhawk’s old friend Tenar (Jun Fubuki) and the girl in her care Therru (Aoi Teshima).
Oh, and there’s an evil wizard who wants eternal life that is thrown in there for good measure (Yūko Tanaka).
In all seriousness, I spent an incredibly large portion of the film wondering what the plot of Tales From Earthsea was.
As I said, the characters have little to no agency.
They just spend the majority of the film on a farm talking before the plot suddenly propels them into a confusing finale that left me baffled.
There’s this weird thing about characters having two names and an even weirder dragon scene that isn’t explained.
I had absolutely no idea what was going on during the ending.

Therra something — The third act of this film is confusing, raising way more questions than it answers.

Not only this but some of the characters’ actions make no sense or are not explained.
Probably the worst case of this is our hero Arren.
A terrible act he commits at the beginning of the film is not explained well and it leads to some weird spiritual thing happening within him that feels entirely lacking in substance.
Also, why was Arren a prince anyway?
That had no significance whatsoever.

I’m not going to act like the film is completely terrible though.
Even though a lot of the animation is average, there are a couple of stunning shots here and there.
I also found myself liking Shadowhawk’s character, with one great scene where he uses his magic being very funny.
Overall though, Tales From Earthsea is a confusing film with mostly uncompelling characters and an aimless plot that left me scratching my head.
I have to agree with the majority of people in saying that this is Studio Ghibli’s weakest film.