Henshin Robo Genndyzer (Or, Mike’s Quickie Review of SYM-BIONIC TITAN!)

Going through my referrals, I discovered that the one entry on this blog that always generated a large portion of the weekly hits turned out to be my report of Genndy Tartakovsky’s new series, Sym-Bionic Titan. It wasn’t so much because of it being a hard-hitting article, but rather the wait for its broadcast felt like listening to the first prolonged note of a three-hour opera –you want it to just start already! Thankfully enough, as of Friday night, that first note finally carried into what we came for.

Sym-Bionic Titan finally made its premiere on Cartoon Network, one of the two things worth watching that night (the other being the Star Wars: The Clone Wars season premiere. Screw everything else), and I’ll just tell you right now: It was worth every second of the wait. I posted about it on Facebook straight away, telling my friends “Animation buffs, you will love what they did with the style and backgrounds. Mechaholics, you will love all the homages and nods. Star Blazers[/Yamato] fans, you will cream yourselves at the climax”. Really, that’s the shortest possible way I can best sum up this premiere, but if you want the long-version? Hit the jump.

Knocking Weight Out of Orbit

Awhile back, I had asked for a review copy of Sayonara, Mr. Fatty: A Geek’s Diet Memoir; Toshio Okada’s quasi-memoirs about his miraculous 110lbs weight loss attempt. I figured, hey! I’ll review it for OUSA! This did not happen. R5 seemed to not work out either, things being the way they are. Now with my Dad recently out of surgery, I’ve devoted what little free time I’ve had to working on this and other projects of mine…and having to do a lot of waiting as a result of it. Believe it or not, the interim actually made me think back to this book–no, this is not a cop-out intro.

Read the short yet full review after the jump!

KITT, Transform…and Roll Out?

Alright, after viewing the second episode of Knight Rider, it’s time to unveil the Knight Rider Drinking Game

Take a drink when…
-Somebody fails the Bechdel Test
-Sarah gets scantily clad and/or captured
-KITT transforms into the 4×4 for less than 30 seconds
-KITT pulls a deus ex machina out of his arse
-The show starts to feel like it’s trying too damn hard

Take a shot every time when….
-Somebody spouts off some innuendo
-Zoe spouts off really bad innuendo
-KITT gets deactivated/damaged to the point where he goes offline
-There’s a Trademark Romantic Tension Moment between Mike and Sarah

Slight improvement but otherwise, it’s still crap. Three more to go before I jump ship. In the meantime, next week is At the Beach! What does this mean for you? More stuff for the drinking game :P

Please Don’t Turbo Boost The Shark

So you guys have probably heard about the whole KITT-Napping hoax.

To summarize, at a promo event in Toronto, some guy B-Lined it out from the audience and drove off with the new KITT from the forthcoming Knight Rider series. People thought it was a real thing but it turned out to be a stunt set up by E! Entertaiment as a contest to win the car. After watching the first episode of the series that’s now available on Hulu and Amazon Unbox, I kinda wish that the heist was real…and that he smashed the damn thing into a tree.

More after the jump. It contains spoilers but trust me, you’ll thank me later.

With Apologies For Chiharu…

Kamen Rider Kiva (right) pictured with Den-O (left), showing off his charming side by sweeping Nana Akiyama off her feet. You sly half-Fangire you…

Anywho, Igadevil has posted up his reviews for Kamen Rider Den-O and Kiva: Climax Deka. Go over to his site and check out both the Spoiler-Free and Spoiler-Full reviews.

When was the last time a Rider movie featured Riders from two separate series in the same movie? When was the last time a Rider film wasn’t just a vehicle for the writer’s self-indulgent pop star revenge fantasy/ horror movie rip-off that unashamedly sidelines the characters we paid to go see? Wait, don’t answer that last one.

From the descriptions, I’m really looking forward to catching this one on DVD when it comes out…whenever it does.