[Dr Kain]

Oh boy, I have a lot to say from today.

First up, the anime:

Sailor Moon Crystal 7 - Another fantastic episode with incredible animation and probably the best fight scene of the show thus far. There was quite a bit deviated from the manga, but it still kept the main plot and idea true to the story, so I am okay with that.

Ghost in the Shell Arise 4 - A confusing, but truly incredible finale to this four part OVA. I do hope Production IG decides to do more stories in this universe as I feel like the story was not truly complete since not all of the villains meet their end. Nevertheless, the soundtrack to the show kicked ass and I look forward to watching this show in English in a couple weeks.

Gundam Reconguista G 1 - I'm not really sure what I can say here as it was boring, featured way too much exposition, and yet, I feel like I know next to nothing about what is going on, and the animation is quite lacking. Also, it seems like the main character knows he is the main character as he can already do anything. I mean, he is a low ranking officer, but no one objects to him just opening up the Gundam cockpit and playing around with the controls. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. There is just not really much here to talk about as in the 22 minutes I feel nothing actually happened. I know it is a Gundam series, so it is bound to get better after 15 episodes, but there is nothing really here that makes me want to come back. Finally, I cannot figure out if they are trying to make this series be serious or comedic.

Finally, this is not really about anime, but it is related to Dragon Ball, so I wanted to post it here. I finished the Z manga today and I have to say that I have spent the last 7 weeks reading through the entire series in manga form for the first time and this series was nothing short of stunning. While it was my first time experiencing Dragon Ball, even reading the Z portion felt like I was experiencing the series for the first time even though I have watched the anime a million times. Some of the fourth wall breaking jokes in the manga (like the one where Krillin calls out Toriyama for reusing the same panels when Trucks and Goten are practicing the fusion dance) were fantastic. In fact, I have to say that the Boo saga was really well done in manga form compared to the anime. It felt like it was taking the mysticism and comedy of DB and adding in the action aspect of Z. Boo is actually a pretty cool villain even though I do still feel it got ridiculous as the villains came off like a sales pitch. "Freeza is the most powerful being in the universe, but wait, there is more. Cell is actually the most powerful being as he contains the DNA of all of the characters including Freeza. Hold on there though, we have even more. If you buy Cell and Freeza right now, you will get the true ultimate evil in the universe, who was forgotten because he was locked away, Boo."

From a story point of view, I definitely think Dragon Ball was the better of the two series as the plots were short and simple, but had this great mystery to the world around it. Not only that, but I like Goku much more as a child than I do as an adult. On the other hand, Dragon Ball Z has a lot more memorable villains compared to the original series, who really only had King Piccolo. Sure, I love Tao Pai Pai and Pilaf was cool, but Tao was barely in the thing and Pilaf never accomplished anything. In fact, I think that is one of the biggest weaknesses for Z, as it seems like Toriyama just forgot all about Pilaf. Hell, in the anime, it would have made more sense for Toei to have used Pilaf over Garlic in the Black Water Saga.

Nevertheless, I did enjoy everything about the manga except Raditz. I do not know why, but Raditz is just hands down the worst character Toriyama had ever created in this series. He was not the least bit interesting, did absolutely nothing, and never received any sort of development. I would love to see Toei just put the money and effort and do an entirely new Dragon Ball anime that adapts all 42 volumes of the manga into a 100% accurate series and does it in less than 200 episodes.

Finally, there are some issues I do have with Viz's translations. First off, when Trunks is telling Goku about the future, he says it is 19 and 20 that have ruined his world even it is 17 and 18. That just makes no damn sense. Also, I do not like that Viz changed Mr Satan's name to Hercule and they call Vegitto Vegerot.

Overall, I give the series as a whole a nice big 9/10 stars as it is phenomenal and one I plan to reread in a few years.