Category: 2022

The Strange But Necessary Cloud Gaming On Switch

Published February 17, 2022

With the announcement that the Kingdom Hearts series is coming to Switch via cloud gaming, now seems to be a good time to discuss the development of cloud gaming on the Switch, how it is strange, messy and technically insufficient but also why it’s necessary.

Let’s start by discussing the Switch in the modern day. First off, there is absolutely no doubt that the Switch has been a successful console. It recently surpassed the lifetime sales of the Nintendo Wii as well as the first PlayStation console, continues to outsell all modern consoles combined on a weekly basis and has been a strong vehicle for the incredibly strong sales figures of nearly all of Nintendo’s games. However, it is a relatively weak system that saw numerous games struggle to be ported in the eighth generation of consoles, let alone games developed for the ninth generation. Cloud gaming theoretically allows the Switch to run games that its hardware couldn’t run natively. However, there are a few problems presented by this solution.

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What Are Spin-Off Manga And Some Interesting Examples

Published February 14, 2022

Spin-offs are increasingly prevalent in our modern culture. After all, it’s easier to sell something that’s related to a previous property than a completely new IP. While I would argue that Japanese media isn’t quite as fanatical about spin-offs as Western works, that doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at what spin-off manga are as well as some interesting examples.

We should start off by defining what a spin-off manga is. A spin-off is a work that’s set in the same universe as the original media but may follow either a previous side-character or brand new characters while expanding on certain worldbuilding aspects. This is in contrast to a sequel that would be a direct continuation of the story of the original media.

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The Surprising Appeal Of Episodic Anime

Published February 10, 2022

If you’re an anime fan, I’m sure you’ve been tempted to show a series that you’ve found incredible to your friends. I know I have but I’ve also run into the problem that most anime is serialised, meaning that I have to show them many episodes of setup before the series can reach the best bits. Considering how limited the time we hang out together can be, it can be hard to get invested in something that seemingly appears to be all setup. Instead, besides movies, I’ve found it more useful to show them episodic anime that I really like which has resulted in a surprising appeal for me when it comes to these series.

Don’t get me wrong, serialised storytelling is one of the things that attracted me to anime. Back when I first discovered anime, I was watching a lot of Western adult animated series and being able to watch an animated series that took the time to develop the story and not wrap everything up within a single episode felt very refreshing. I still tend to prefer this type of storytelling but that doesn’t mean that I don’t like to watch some episodic series every now and again. The fact that it’s easy to show to my friends is a bonus!

The cast of Lupin the 3rd. — Lupin the Third.

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My Ranking Of The Disney Animated Canon Part 3

Published February 7, 2022

Here is the conclusion to “My Ranking Of The Disney Animated Canon Part 2“.

19. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh is a fantastic showcase for what makes the franchise special. The characters are all so warm and lovable and interact incredibly well off of each other. While the stories are quite simple, I think it works to the films benefit for the most part. The animation is also quite nice although the standout is easily the Heffalumps and Woozles sequence.

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My Ranking Of The Disney Animated Canon Part 2

Published February 3, 2022

Here is my continuation of “My Ranking Of The Disney Animated Canon Part 1“

38. Oliver & Company

Oliver & Company is a film that I found surprisingly enjoyable. While several of the characters are forgettable, I do like the characters of Oliver, Dodger and Fagin quite a bit and care about what happens to them. The animation is very pleasant as well, more so for the characters since there are some scratchy backgrounds of New York City that I don’t care for.

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My Ranking Of The Disney Animated Canon Part 1

Published January 31, 2022

I recently rewatched the vast majority of the Disney Animated Canon, the animated movies developed by Walt Disney Animation Studios, with a few other people and had a fantastic time discussing the history of Disney, the place of each film within it and my thoughts on each movie. Having finally finished with Frozen II, I don’t have Raya and the Last Dragon or Encanto on Blu-Ray, I thought it might be interesting to do a personal ranking of each movie within the Disney Animated Canon. Understandably, discussing 58 films is quite a daunting task so I decided, to shorten the overall length of this article, I’m going to purely discuss my own thoughts on each movie, i.e., I’m not going to discuss their premises. With that being said, let’s start with my ranking from worst to best.

58. Chicken Little

As far as I’m concerned, Chicken Little is the worst film that Walt Disney Animation Studios has ever produced. The animation and character designs are very unappealing and the story itself is surprisingly mean-spirited and unpleasant. I’ve only ever seen this film once and, as you can imagine, I have no desire to see it again.

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My Thoughts On The Astonishing Microsoft Purchase Of Activision-Blizzard

Published January 27, 2022

On the 18th of January, I was finishing up some work just before I had my lunch and I saw an article pop up on Twitter. It was from PC Gamer and the headline was “Microsoft to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion“. I remember simply being stunned. I couldn’t process it as my first thought was to check if it was April 1st. Upon a little further research, it became evident that this wasn’t a joke or a prank, this was really happening. Given this, I thought it worth sharing my thoughts on the astonishing Microsoft purchase of Activision-Blizzard.

I should first explain why I was so surprised. A week prior to this news, I saw the information that Take-Two Interactive was acquiring Zynga in, at the time, the largest video game purchase in history at $12.7 billion. Given that this record had been set recently at a comparatively mere $12.7 billion, I couldn’t believe how quickly it was beaten by nearly five and a half times the price.

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Less Popular But Great Manga Recommendations

Published January 24, 2022

As manga has continued to grow in popularity, it seems like it’s easier than ever to get your hands on whatever type of manga you want. However, it’s easy to be swept up in the most popular releases, leaving some manga that are truly brilliant less successful. Knowing this, I thought it would be helpful to list some great manga series that I would consider to be less popular, perhaps even obscure, as recommendations.

The first manga series that I would like to recommend is not only one of my favourite romance manga of all time but also one of the best manga that I’ve ever read, “Girl Friends”. Written by Milk Morinaga and running from 2006 to 2010, the story follows a shy girl called Mariko Kumakura who ends up becoming friends with the outgoing Akiko Oohashi. As their friendship continues to build, Mariko realises that her feelings for Akiko are more than something friends would feel. The story is surprisingly well-written, examining the confusion that these two girls feel as their relationship develops and incorporating a brilliant cast of characters that both support and trouble our protagonists. Regardless of your thoughts on yuri manga, I fully encourage you to check out Girl Friends.

The cover of the manga series Girl Friends.

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Why Are So Many Anime Series Shorter These Days?

Published January 20, 2022

I was watching a YouTube video recently where a guy expressed an interest in Attack on Titan but stated that he was afraid to start the anime because “there’s like a million episodes, I don’t know where to start”. The others explained to him that there were only about twenty episodes (this video was back in 2016 and they were referring to the 25 episodes that had aired before then). I was quite amused by this as I’ve seen plenty of people also make the assumption that all anime are long-running series. This viewpoint, while certainly never true, did seem closer to reality back when I first got into anime but it feels like a lot of series these days are much shorter.

Over the years, we’ve seen anime steadily go from producing multiple cours in the past down to most modern anime series consisting of only a single cour. Additionally, long-running anime has become increasingly uncommon with manga such as My Hero Academia, which in my opinion seemed tailor-made to be a long-running anime, instead being adapted into a one cour first season with several two cour seasons following.

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Aardman Animations: Why I Feel They’ve Wasted Their Potential

Published January 17, 2022

I’ve been covering many animation studios and animation legends recently and there has been a particular studio that I’ve been holding off discussing, Aardman. The reason that I’ve held off on discussing Aardman Animations is because I have a weird relationship with their works in that I hold many of their titles in high esteem while I also feel that they’ve wasted their potential. However, I feel that it’s high time that I take a look at the company, their works and my thoughts.

In case you’re unfamiliar with Aardman Animations, they are a UK based animation company that are famous for using stop-motion. They were originally founded in 1972 and have since developed many notable animated works such as Morph, Wallace & Gromit, Chicken Run etc. It’s also worth noting that Chicken Run, their first theatrical movie, retains the record for being the highest-grossing stop-motion animated film in history.

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