A Letter to Momo

After watching A Letter to Momo, it’s very clear. If Ireland ever sinks like Atlantis and were all left floating in little boats, in the sea. I’m paddling to one of the small islands of Japan. I’ll have arms like Popeye when I get there, but it would be worth it. Those islands look so beautiful and peaceful and A Letter to Momo captures this perfectly. I absolutely loved the animation in this film.

A Letter to Momo is about a girl, Momo. After her father dies, Momo finds an unfinished letter written by father, just before he died. The letter only reads “Dear Momo” which leaves Momo without clarity and yearning to know, what her father wanted to say to her in his letter.

Shortly after her father’s death, Momo and her mother move to a little island of Japan. Unable to watch over his loved ones himself, Momo’s father sends 3 spirits/guardians (or demons/Jinn, I’m not exactly sure what they were), to watch over his family and report everything back to him.

Unfortunately, these guardians are not the most well-behaved, are always hungry and have serious sticky fingers (i.e. they steal a lot and often). To make things worse, Momo is the only one in her family, that can see these unusual guardians. Momo must now cope with her father death and the move to the island, all while trying to keep her nightmarish guardians out of trouble.

Although being about something so sad, this anime was so much fun. There was a lot of little giggles from me, while watching this film. A true sign, I enjoyed A Letter to Momo. It somehow managed to make something, that should have been tragic and depressing, into something comical and entertaining. It safe to say, this was achieved through its choice of characters. Mainly the 3 guardians.

The only way I could accurately describe them, is as 3 Gobshites or Eejits (but, the lovable very entertaining sort). From their weird games of dress-up, Dad dancing and trying to eat baby wild boar, you’ll find it hard not to be amused by their antics. Not to mention, their complete cluelessness and that one of them looks like Gollum’s (Lord of the Rings), cuter younger more forgetful brother. It’s almost enough to forgive their thieving ways.

One thing I really loved about this film, was the animation style. It was that more realistic style, where the characters have rounder heads, instead of the typical anime pointed chin and where characters looked more human like. It was very pretty and nice to watch. Also, it has loads of super cute old anime people. Weirdly, anime old people are cuter than anime babies, so having loads of little old people just makes this film an extremely cute watch.

The storyline was fairly decent too. It told a very sweet tale of a child missing her dead father and adjusting to life, in a new environment without her Father. It also had the right amount of humour and fun, so that the film didn’t become overly sad and depressing.

In saying that, I did feel like this film was missing something. Maybe a little more detail on Momo’s father and his wandering spirit, would have been nice. They sort of throw the fact, that Momo’s father has to wander the earth for a while, before going up to the sky, on top of you near the end of the film. This kind of left me confused, but intrigued. Anything to do with spirits and wandering peaks my interest, so I would have really loved to hear more about this. Also, A Letter to Momo was a very long film and at times, it felt like it dragged on.

Overall, I thought A Letter to Momo was a great anime film. It was very fun and entertaining. It had the element of humour, but still told a very sweet and interesting story. The paranormal/Jinn guardian aspect, was truly fascinating and really captured my interest. For these reasons, I would highly recommend A Letter to Momo. It’s an amazing film, with a slight Ghibli feel, that I think both anime lovers and non-anime fans could enjoy.

Rating: 4/5

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The Drawing that Caused a Kerfuffle

I present to you, the drawing that horrified my friend. I honestly can’t see why she thought, this was a statement about bestiality. Granted, it’s not to my usual standard of drawing, but glob it’s probably the least sinister thing I could draw. I even made the man look unrealistically cuddly (like a giant teddy bear), to maximise cuteness.

I really thought I had nailed cute, but I must have been mistaken. Safe to say, I think I’ll stick to my usual way of drawing.

On the bright side, at least it got my friend to called me by my actual name, instead of cheek-a-boo/cheeky boots. Even if it was followed by WTF.

Drawing for my Friend (Oopsy)

It’s not a self-portrait, I’m still working on that. I’m learning to use water colours and oil paint (things I’ve never used before) and plan on using one of them in my next attempt. I’m myself teaching, so any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Funny thing about this drawing, is that my friend wanted me to create something bright and cheerful and I ended up drawing this for her. I did give bright and cheerful a go for my friend, but it didn’t turn out too good. I drew the cutest thing I could think of, which was a little man giving puppies a bath.

My friend didn’t see the cute side of this. Her reaction was hilarious, though. She thought I was making a statement about bestiality. I honestly wonder, what goes through that woman’s head. How you get from puppies having a bath to bestiality, really baffles me. But, her reaction was too funny, so no hurt taken.

Long story short, I drew this for her, to make up for the puppy drawing. Safe to say, she like this a lot better.

I’ll probably not share my puppy drawing, but if anyone really wants to see it, I might share it (if only for a laugh).

Don’t Knock Twice

I really don’t know what I was thinking, when I decided to watch Don’t Knock Twice. There are so many other horrors, I could have watched instead. But I suppose, by watching extremely bad horror, you learn to appreciate good horror. So, I’ll try to refrain from ripping into “Don’t Knock Twice” too much, in this review.

Don’t knock twice, is about a woman trying to regain custody of her daughter. However, before this can happen, her daughter knocks on a dead witch’s door twice. This somehow summons a demon, that’s hell-bent (King of Cheese strikes again) on capturing her daughter and devouring her completely. The mother must now do everything she can to save her daughter from the demon’s grasp.

The storyline of this film is incredibly messy, making the whole movie one big confusing jumble of nowhere sub-plots, that make no sense and have nothing to do with the outcome of the film. This film literally has no direction. It’s just all over the place. It drifts from one nowhere sub-plot to another and in the end, returns to its first one. All while making a poor attempt at a twist in the main plot, which was so obvious a one-eyed mole wearing a blindfold, could have seen it coming.

To add to this messy storyline, there was extreme badly Frankensteined scenes (a big pet peeve of mine). With the amount of teleporting the 2 main characters did, in the biggest scene of the film. I was starting to think, they themselves were witches and not just Ginger. It was just awful. The 2 characters actually swapped places, at one point. Leaving me to wonder, how on earth no one noticed that, before the film was released.

 A flaming flower. Some of my abstract art, to brighten up this review.

I think the most annoying thing about this film, was its psychic impulsive characters. Characters just magically knew things, without any sort of research or logical thought. At one point, the mother randomly decided to burn all the doors in the house, without having any sort of reason for doing so. Like nowhere in this movie did it say or suggest, that the demon needed a door to manifest. It had literally just appeared behind people numerous times, by this point. So, what on earth was this woman at. The demon clearly didn’t need a door. There was a lot of this sort of thing in Don’t knock twice, which was very annoying.

As I can’t let myself be completely negative, I had to find something good about this film (which was extremely hard). I suppose the witch aspect was interesting, even though it didn’t make for good horror. I only wish, they had gone into a bit more detail on witches and gave Ginger (the witch) a stronger backstory. They essentially just said she was a witch, even though she never really done anything witchy and was pretty much, just a demon’s slave.

I’ve watched a lot of bad horror films and have always been able to enjoy them, on some level. Whether that be, finding humour in its cheesiness or the irony of how not scary and fake/forced everything is. But with Don’t knock twice, I found it hard to enjoy anything about it. The whole witch thing, just didn’t work well and them trying to throw a demon into mix, just reflects this. They should have really stuck with one and maybe this film would have had some sense of direction. For this reason, I would suggest not wasting your time with this film. I personally wish, I had watched something better instead.
Rating: 1/5 (and I’m being incredibly generous)

Falling from the Gates of Hell.

It’s taken me a while, but I’ve finally finished another set of drawings. These are pretty self-explanatory, unlike my “Without a Bubble” drawings. There’s definitely no chance of horribly misunderstanding these drawings and thinking I’ve depicted some type of heinous act. “Without a Bubble” could have been received very differently, if I didn’t include some type of hint on what those drawings were about.

However, I don’t really like the idea of just posting a load of drawings, without some type of communication about the drawings. That seems too cold, so I’ll add a few words.

There’s just nothing like escaping from your own personal hell, and ending up in free fall.

It’s a weird feeling and very hard to explain.

I sort of missed my mark too and went crashing head first through the ground. Falling further than I expected.

But it least I’ve learnt a lot from this experience.

What the Fudge Anime!

I like anime as much as the next anime fan. Don’t get me up wrong. Watching anime has improved my existence, in just a chaotic and unjust world greatly (Glob, I sound like the King of Cheese). There just those moments while watching anime, that can only be described as WTF.
(F for Fudge, let’s keep this clean. There will be a lot of fudging in this post).
I hate to say it, but anime has a lot of WTF moments. Usually involving great shock, extremely confusion or incredible annoyance. We’ve all had these moments with anime, so why not share my own WTF moments with all of you.

No season 2- Fudge, this is annoying. You buy into a story, get left hanging at the end of season 1, with a ship ton of unanswered questions and the studio doesn’t bother making a season 2 (WTF). To rub salt in the wound, the same studio starts releasing new but dirt-poor anime series. Like that doesn’t ever make good business sense. What on earth are these studios at?

Lightning speed Subs- I don’t want to cause a sub vs. dub war here. Personally, I enjoy both. Which one I choose to do, really depends on the anime and my mood. Sometimes I even do both, at the same time (I wish that was a bad joke, but it’s not. Watch a dub on Netflix, with subs and it hilarious. So much swearing and randomness. Whoever writes those subs, really gets carried away). But occasionally when watching with subs, those subs go so fast it’s impossible to read. This is extremely annoying, especially if there’s no dub version. You’re left confused, not having a clue what’s happening. If it’s a really good anime, that you’re really into this can be devastating. You pretty much sit watching moving pictures, wishing you knew Japanese or considering making your own dub version of the anime.

Close up creepy bug eyes scenes – Death note is filled with these scenes, but so are a lot of other anime. They usually involve someone on their knees, begging for their life, looking like their eyes are about to pop out of their head. These scenes are so disturbing and creepy, I really can’t say much else than WTF. The only this worse, is scenes were characters don’t even have eyes. It’s terrifying.

The original intentions for Sebastian in Black Butler- Maybe I was too innocent to see this, first time I watched Black Butler. I literally just thought, Sebastian seen Ciel as food and that’s why he was acting a bit strange and creepy towards Ciel. Kind of like, how a hungry person looks at a sandwich. But I was so wrong and found out the creator had a completely different relationship for Sebastian and Ciel in mind. Luckily someone pointed out, that it was an extreme bad idea and the creator changed this, to produce the Black Butler we know today. However, knowing this I can’t help but see Sebastian as a serious creep and this has kind of spoiled Black Butler for me. For anyone with a Sebastian crush, this information will probably kill it. Therefore, I did not come out straight and said it, but I think it’s pretty obvious what I’m on about.

Brutality- Glob, anime can be so brutal at times. They rarely let up. No one can ever just die peacefully in anime. They’re always horrible disembowelled, torn to pieces, eaten or killed by a loved one, in incredibly dramatic act. Weirdly they always spitting up blood, just before they die. Anime deaths are always really heart-breaking too. They literally choose the most lovable character and murder them, in the most awful way possible. There just some anime deaths that never leave you (Wolf’s rain and zero eating his twin). On top of this, they give characters the most tragic background stories. Making anime pretty depressing to watch at times. I’m not even going to touch on the amount of blood spilled and limbs cut off in fight scenes.

Bath Buddies- I can’t think of anything more eye rolling, than anime character deciding to jump in the shower/bath together. At this point, it’s turned into a real cliché. They could at least come up with something a little more original.

Repetition and Unoriginality- Same story or same characters, done over and over again. It just gets boring and predictable. Maybe this is just my dislike of repetition showing here, but the amount of repetition in anime is getting ridiculous. It’s gotten that bad, that now character even look the same and you find anime doppelgangers. Although there is a lot of anime with original and unique storylines and characters, there’s probably twice that amount, that are just outrageously similar and pretty much mirror images of each other.

Weird anime crushes and other weird stuff- Yeah, we can’t completely blame anime for this one, we have a hand to play in this too. However, anime can really turn a person into a creep. It just has a way of making you discover very weird things about yourself. Nothing really shocks me anymore, when it comes to people and their anime creepiness. From developing a liking to cat and bunny people, to thoroughly enjoying tentacles. I’ve heard it all and I won’t and can’t judge. I too, will admit I’m quite possibly an anime creep and at times, I’ve had weird crushes on the most bizarre anime characters.
But so that, no one feels like I’m picking on their anime creepiness, I will confess my weirdest anime crush. Grell from Black Butler. I know WTF. Even weirder, I’ve discovered that every character I have a liking to, is either dressed in red or seen with a red backdrop. Anime has essentially given me weird colour association (WTF). I feel so manipulated by anime.

Blinding Light- There just nothing like watching a battle or magic scene and having the eyes burn out of your head, feeling like you might fit. I really wish the creators, Netflix and other anime providers, put flash warning on their anime. If I knew about the bright or flashing light, I could put a coloured filter on the screen and fix this problem. But nope they don’t and my poor eyes must suffer.   

The creepy side of regular anime- This is the biggest reason I have to watch anime in private, with head phones in and the door closed. Due to toplessness, perverted characters, giant breasts, weird angles and casual nudity, being common in regular anime (at least common in the anime I watch), you can’t really watch it, around people that aren’t uses to anime’s creepy side. They pretty much assume you’re watching porn and let’s just say awkward as fudge.
Forget that the person isn’t uses to anime’s creepy side, ask if they want to join you and this situation get a whole lot more awkward. Also, now you seem like a creep. Trying to explain that it’s normal anime, just digs a hole for yourself. Best just to confuse them and calmly ask them, if they prefer Yuri or Yaoi. If they go red or know what these terms mean, you’re in the clear. If not, they’re confused now and you’ve just fixed the awkwardness.
On a serious note, I wish anime didn’t do this. It has given anime a bad name and is why non-anime fans mix up regular anime with Hentai. From the outside looking in, you can see why they make this mistake, when characters are groping each other and have ridiculous large breasts. If the anime and story’s good enough, it doesn’t need nudity and perversions to be entertaining and gain viewers.

I was in a rose mood and had to make one for my favourite made-up characters.

Hope you enjoyed this post. Hopefully I’ve not rattled any anime cages.

Death Note (Netflix)

It’s been over a week since my last post. Unfortunately, I’ve been sick this past week and wasn’t in the mood to review anything. To be honest I felt that bad that at one point, I lay down and sung Si Deus Me Relinquit (in English, Latin wasn’t doing it for me), until someone very kindly brought me a blanket (The Full Moon Slightly Chipped, was also sung, but very quietly. Didn’t want everyone getting teary on me). Now that I’m not feeling as rubbish, I think it’s time I reviewed Netflix’s Death Note.

I have to say this wasn’t as bad as I thought. I really don’t know why a load of people, were getting their undies in a twist over this film. They made it sound like it was going to be painful to watch and it wasn’t. Granted it wasn’t great, but it was an okay film. Not as bad as people were saying.

The story follows the same main plot of the anime. That plot being, a depressed high school boy (Light) finds a notebook (the Death note), that enables him to kill anyone, by writing their name in the death note and visualising their face. Light then decides to use the death note, to rid the world of evil, by writing the names of the worlds hardcore criminals (murders and worse) in the death note. The deaths of the worlds criminals, does not go unnoticed and soon the police and a young detective named L, set out to catch the person behind all these deaths. This quickly turns into a game of cat and mouse between Light and L.

Outside this main plot, the film differs from the anime. For this reason, I think if you want to let yourself enjoy this film to the fullest, you can’t get too hung up on comparing it to the anime. It’s very different and is very Americanised. By comparing the two, you’ll only spoil the film for yourself.

My honest first impression of Netflix’s Death Note was, this is hilarious. As soon as I seen the actor playing Light, I was bent over in two laughing. He literally looks like a blonder real-world version of the evil Killing Stalking guy. I should point out that I’m not a fan of killing stalking (it’s not to my taste), I only know it from the YouTube crack videos. But from that, I think the resemblance is uncanny. If that was done purposely, that’s really well done and the irony is hilarious. Having your main twisted character look like, another similar twisted serial killing yet complex character, is quite the statement. However, I’m not sure, this could just be coincidence and some actually Killing Stalking fans might not even agree with me on this.

My apologies. I did the art work for this post, when I had a really high fever. Things got a bit weird. Sorry if this disturbs anyone. On a funny note, I didn’t intend for my Light drawing, to look like the Killing Stalking guy. It just turned out that way, making the irony even funnier.

Okay I’m rambling, back to the film. The characters are slightly similar to the anime, but at the same time very different. I don’t want to spoil the movie, so I’ll only touch lightly on this. Light was still very much twisted, but isn’t as ruthless. Ryuk was a lot darker, creepier and is terrifying. Misa is a hell of a lot more ruthless and scary as fring. Also, she seemed to get a sexual thrill out of killing people. L is still weird, but differently weird. These personality changes may annoy some fans, but I thought they made the characters more realistic and made a lot more sense, in terms of human nature.

Although this Death note wasn’t great, it wasn’t a complete loss. It did have a few things going for it. For one, it was very gory. They got very creative with their death scenes and went with the people are watermelons approach. Making for some very gruesome scenes. So, if you’re a lover of gore, you’ll really enjoy this part of the film.

It also highlighted Light’s small mindedness and childlike thinking and even showed him realising this for himself. I liked that about this film. It made Light feel more human and less monster. However, don’t get to excited. He only realises that innocent people could die as a result of his actions, making him as bad as the people he kills. He still doesn’t realise how narrow-minded his idea is and that its only treating the after effect, not the cause. Meaning he’s not really solving anything, just making more secretive and more dangerous criminals. But I guess if Light discovered that, there wouldn’t be a movie.

Another good point of this Death note is, the difference in the storyline from the anime. Again, I understand this may annoy some fans, but it makes the film less predictable and more interesting. If they had of copied the anime exactly, what was going to happen would be very obvious and the movie would have been kind of boring. Having these differences allowed for plot twists and allowed them to explore the rules of the death note a bit more. This added a bit of suspense and excitement to the movie and gave a whole different perspective of death note.

Unfortunately, Netflix’s Death Note has a lot of shortcomings, but to keep this short I’ll talk about the two that annoyed me most. One being, bad acting and annoying characters. You can literally smell the cheese coming from some of the acting. The acting is not bad overall, there just a lot of scene where you’ll cringe at the acting. This cheesy acting is somewhere between a bad soap drama and 60s batman (I love 60s batman). There also time were characters are so annoying, that you’re unsure if you just want someone to hit them or if you want their name put in the death note.

The second thing being that, Tokyo made a much better playground for Kira than America. I felt like this film was in need of some really nice city scenes and was missing the whole city vibe, that Tokyo gave the anime. If this film was set the movie in the middle of New York, this probably would have fixed this problem. But it wasn’t and didn’t have that same vibe. Tokyo just provided Kira with a lot more options for hiding, evilness and more criminals for his list. This really makes the film feel like it was missing something.

Overall this film isn’t great, but it’s not as bad as was made out. It’s just an okay film. If you view it as a tribute to the anime/manga, rather than being linked to the anime/manga. Then it’s actually pretty good and quite enjoyable. For fans of the anime or manga, I would recommend giving it a watch, if only for the experience or as a bit of fun. But it’s best not to take it too serious. For people wondering what the hell is a death note, I would say that this film isn’t great but is watchable. Probably only worth watching, if you’re stuck for something to watch.

Rating: 2.3/5

You can tell my hands were getting tired at this point. My stereotypical dyslexic and dyspraxic handwriting, really started to shines through. Hope it readable.