TOP 5 HEROES

5. Goku

-Alright, so I had to get him in somewhere right?  The end all, be all of Dragonball Z characters. He’s the village idiot but also the strongest person in the universe…gotta love that right?

4. Mugen

-The laid back and ass-kicking hero of the Samurai Champloo series. He loves gambling, sex, and booze but deep down inside he’s a good guy. Definately the funniest guy in the series but also one of the more interesting characters in the series.

3. Kikuchiyo

-From peasant to noble Samurai. The big hunk of machine samurai from the Samurai 7 series based off the epic samurai tale “The Seven Samurai”. Great story behind him and really shows that heroes come in all shapes and sizes.

2. Vegeta

-Vegeta has been my favorite DBZ character since he first showed up in the series. He’s bold, brave, full of himself and powerful to boot…and lest we forget he’s the prince of all Saiyans!

1. Urahara Kisouke

-You don’t get much cooler than sandals and that hat. While not a major part of the Bleach series he is definately one of the characters moving the gears in the background. He’s still a mystery even though we know a bit about his past…If he doesn’t face off with Aizen then I’ll stop watching Bleach for good.

Top 5 Villains

5.Grimmjow

-Who else could lay the smack down on “golden boy” Ichigo Kurosaki all while laughing his ass off? No one that’s who! Grimmjow has been the man since he first laid a whoopin on Ichigo and he’s always had that badass attitude. Is he dead though? I don’t think so…

4.Itachi

-Hateful scumbag or loving brother? That is the question. He looks badass wherever he goes and always has some snappy thing to say to liven up the mood at parties like…”You must kill your best friend”…yeah…cool…

3. Broly

-The Legendary Super Saiyan! The strongest Saiyan in the universe, capable of crushing entire galaxies in his giant first! This guycan kick some serious hiney…and I seriously think he might use steroids, I mean, no one is that big…seriously.

2. Greed

-Not many people will agree with me here seeing as most people like Envy and Wrath a lot more than Greed. However, Greed has the attitude to go with the cool bad guy image that he has. He wears a vest, that’s about as villainy as you can get am I right or am I right?

1. Kid Buu

-The universe has never been closer to destruction than when this 4 foot tall, bubble gum-looking, midget decided he wanted to destroy everything. He’s psychotic and doesn’t know how to talk but he gives Goku a hell of a run for his money, matching his best even while in Super Saiyan 3. Not to mention that he threw back a massive spirit bomb which hadn’t been done before…give this little guy a hand!

Top 5 Douche Bags

5. Hitsugaya Toushiro

-I am so sick of the whole “lets make this little kid seem cool” thing. He shouldn’t even be a captain, he should be at home playing with hot wheels and getting his first boner…but no, they make him look all serious and crap…if you ask me I think he was never hugged as a child, that’s why he looks all bitchy all the time.

4. Sasuke Uchiha

-Someone get this guy a tissue…what a douche bag this one is indeed. He’s all obsessed with revenge and once he gets it what does he do?…HE TRIES TO GET MORE REVENGE! I mean seriously dude, take a chill pill and go to the Bahamas for a while, all this revenge stuff is not good for your blood pressure.

3. Frieza

-This one is really simple and to the point…You’re not fooling anyone alright? We all know you’re a girl.

2. Naruto Uzumaki

-Quite literally the village idiot, Naruto is naive and thinks he can save Sasuke. I’m sorry, but just give up buddy. I’m big on the whole friendship thing too but if one of my friends stuck an orb of electricity into my chest I think I’d stop hanging out with him on the weekends. BELIEVE IT!

1. Ichigo Kurosaki

-This one was a tough one…actually no it wasn’t I hate Ichigo. I tend not to like over powered main characters in anime series so yeah. This is also one of those age things like with Hitsugaya, I mean, Ichigo is 15 or like 16 or 17 at this point…He should be thinking about getting laid before college not achieving Bankai…although doing both would be pretty cool.

Top 5 Funny Guys

5. Krillin

-Well, you sort of have to be funny when your the comic relief character. Krillin is always saying something funny but also kisses Goku’s ass a lot which is why he’s #5…Mondo Cool.

4. Mayuri

-It doesn’t get much funnier than wanting to dismember and experiement with people’s bodies, all the while violating every single human right in the books. Not to mention he has his own, home-built, sex slave….hilarious!

3. Maes Hughes

-Loving your daughter so much that it becomes a pain in the ass for everyone around you…that’s funny right? This guy goes around showing people pictures of his daughter and also serves as Roy Mustang’s cool, funny sort of sidekick.

2. Mugen

-Well, he’s showing up again…Mugen is not only badass but he is hilarious to boot.

1. Urahara Kisouke

-Another second-timer here. He’s funny cause he makes Ichigo’s life a pain and not to mention he runs a small convinience store…I mean, you could base series just around that! “Urahara’s Shop” (insert seinfeld music).

Top 5 Badasses

5. Zaraki Kenpachi

4. Zaraki Kenpachi

3. Zaraki Kenpachi

2. Zaraki Kenpachi

1. Zaraki Kenpachi

-Nuff said…

I know, It sounds like I’m being a bit harsh but if you haven’t seen it(and I don’t suggest you do) than you won’t know the pain that I’m going through. I think that the first mistake that was made in making this movie was sticking it with a PG rating. The Dragonball series has never and never will be “PG”, You have people punching holes in other people and senior citizens grabbing some underage booty. A PG-13 rating would have been more appropriate and would have opened the doors for more thrilling action than what is in the movie now. Secondly was the dreadful acting from pretty much all the actors, Justin Chatwin was especially bad along with the Korean actor who played Yamcha.

The movie is filled with cheessy lines at every corner, and while people might hate the actors for delivering these lines it is the writers who packaged them. Being a screenwriter myself I found the writing to be beyond bad. Ther story was all over the place, sure, people who are “Dragonball-literate” knew what was going on and just sat back as they saw a story being butchered, however the people who didn’t know a thing about Dragonball weren’t well informed either. The whole point of changing so many aspects of the story and ultimately disappointing millions of fans was so that they could open up the Dragonball Universe to those  who didn’t know the story, it turned out being a waste however because the do a horrible job at explaining who everyone is  and where they come from.

Another wound that bleeds heavily is the fairly bad special effects which are force fed to you through the entire movie. I’m not quite sure what the budget for this movie was but they should have spent more on effects. The Ki attacks were disappointing and failed to really get the blood pumping like they do in the anime series. Their scale was also toned down quite a bit which lowered the blasts on the “epic-ness” meter. The fight scenes were painful to watch to the point where I felt like walking out. The wire work was so bad, everything looked exactly like if they were hanging from wires…hmmm…I don’t know, but aren’t we supposed to not be able to tell the difference? There were also weird extreme slow-motion clips of random things like drops of water and such sprinkled across movie which I deemed unecessary and not cool at all.

Ok, now for the big fish, the big cheese, the head hancho, the guy calling the shots, the guy who should be getting pelted with rocks!!! I am of course talking about the Director, in this case James Wong. This guy shouldn’t be allowed near a movie set, seriously…this man, with the coupled efforts of all the above stated facts, single handedly destroyed any hopes of this movie being in the least bit enjoyable. This man shattered my day with his horrible directing, and it’s all a chain really when you look at it from a few steps back. Bad Director=actors acting poorly=bad movie=explosive diarrhea…

Well, that is my review for this movie, which I’m certain will be among the top 3 worst movies of 2009 list. Now, you’ve probably been wondering from the start what the title of this particular entry of my blog means. “With Bad Movies Creativity Blossoms…” That is a little quote that I made up right after I stepped out of the theater, I did that because as soon as I walked outside the first thing that I said to myself was “I could do a better job”. And indeed that’s what I’m going to do. I’m not going to try and shoot my own version, oh no, that would take a lot of money of which I have none at the moment. I will however write my own version of the script. I will NOT however write a script that only the “Dragonball-Literate” people will understand. Dragonball is a gift that should be shared with the world, so I will try to do what the writers from Dragonball Evolution couldn’t. I will try to write a script that will satisfy the fans by staying mostly true to the original storyline but also opening it up to a new audience and making the story easy for them to understand. This will be my project for the next few months, so if you’re interested keep checking back for updates on that. Till then…keeps it real yo, peace!

Nothing Better than a Good Traffic Jam in the Morning

Perhaps it’s the primordial soup of smells flying around inside the cab on the way to the train station, or maybe it’s the 30 minute subway ride where everyone is packed like tuna, but I really don’t like Mondays.

Simply put, Mondays suck, the end of the world will probably land on a Monday it sucks so much.Everyone is in a bad mood and aren’t afraid to show it. The cab driver gave me a dirty look because I didn’t give him a tip on a 7 minute drive, and some really annoying guy sat next to me for the entire train ride. I hate that, the train is virtually empty dozens of seats are free but he chooses to sit next to me, and sighs in frustration if I take to long to clear my bags. Being the non-confrontational person that I am I let him sit down.

People don’t realize it but there is a fine art to choosing a seat on the train. First off, you sit down near the middle of the train where people will flock to last seeing as people naturally want to sit near the doors. If it’s a crowded day then you pick the two-seater because people are less likely to want to rub their legs against you so it’s more likely you’ll have the seat to yourself. If you know it’s going to be packed and someone is eventually going to sit next to you then what you do to get the most time by yourself comfortably is look at the “good-looking” people. Sit around people that you would consider better looking than you, 80% of the time when people get on they will sit next to the better looking person until there are no more seats and someone has to sit next to you. I don’t really know, perhaps I’m just reading way too into the situation but most every morning these techniques have gotten me a seat to myself with plenty of leg space.

After arriving in Boston, then it’s the mad rush to try and catch the T before anyone else so that you can get a seat. Personally I don’t mind standing so I don’t tire myself out on trying to get on the T. Seeing as I’m usually not in a hurry in the mornings I wait till the crowd dies down and then I get on the subway. However, there are those times when you can’t avoid the crowds, this morning was one of those occasions, and it was HELL. For some reason there were twice as many people and half as many trains this morning which meant that everyone was crammed into two trains. I, of course, being the gentleman that I am, didn’t grab a seat and let someone else take it…this is code for “the little old lady beat me to it”. So I had to ride uncomfortably close to people I would have otherwise not wanted to get too close to. By the end of the train ride I felt like I needed a cigarette, and I got to know four people on a personal level.

At last, after the gauntlet known as “The Morning Commute” I was safely at school, where I could rest and do as I please until the start of class. While the trip out of the city is usually a lot more laid back you can never predict when a homeless guy will choose to drop his pants in front of you while asking for change…Hopefully that won’t happen to me today, and if it does then I can always look foward to being blind…

I’m sure every Anime lover out there in the world has their calenders marked, they’ve either put a big heart or a skull over April 10th. This day is very important to us Anime fans, it is Judgement day in a way, it is the day when the live-action version of Dragonball will be released here in the U.S! Dragonball Evolution!

Many people were quick to cast it off as garbage when they first saw the list of actors for the movie (Justin Chatwin, yada, yada…). “This movie is a disgrace for true Dragonball fans”! some yelled out in the streets,  “It’s nothing like the series” others proclaimed on forums, but lets sit down and think about this for a minute. Lets, for a moment, pretend that they had done it exactly as the “True Dragonball Fans” would have wanted it to be like. We would have some guy in a green plastic suit with antennae and a couple of Asian guys with ridiculously large and odd wigs…Not to mention a talking pig, a flying cat, and pterodactyls and T-Rexs walking about. If this movie was overly faithful it wouldn’t make a dime at the box office and would look cheesier than Arny and Devito in “Twins 2: The Lost Uncle”.

Personally I am a HUGE Dragonball and Dragonball Z fan and believe it or not I am giving this movie a chance. Being a filmmaker myself I can imagine how much stress the production team is under. They are trying to make a movie that will not disappoint the fans but will not shut out anyone who does not know the story of Dragonball. Hollywood is after all a business, they’re not thinking “We need to make every single fan happy”, they’re thinking “Let’s make something people will enjoy and pay to see”.

Most of the complains about the movie stem from the actors, which I’ll admit wouldn’t be my first choice for this movie, but I also wouldn’t cast Asian people as so many people think they should have done. I don’t know if it’s me, maybe my glasses have been smudged for the last few years but Goku and the gang look about as Asian as Dr. Phil looks black…exactly. Another complaint is about them not following the original storyline. I’m split down the middle on this, in one side I’d like them to be completely faithful to the storyline but on the other hand I don’t really want to see some bad actors do something I’ve already seen. So what if Goku is 18 instead of 14? So what is Bulma doesn’t have a full head of blue hair? So what if Master Roshi isn’t wearing a turtle shell on his back? You have to remember that they are also trying to sell it to a larger audience besides the fans. All that stuff would add in to the “cheese” factor.

In closing I would just like to say that I don’t consider the people that are bad mouthing this movie before they even see it “TRUE” Dragonball fans. If they were then they’d stop bitchin and just go see the movie to see how it is. That’s what I’m going to do, hell I know from the looks of it that it isn’t going to win an academy award but as long as I have fun watching it that’s all that matters. And maybe it’s just me…but I’ve been waiting to see a Kamehameha for 18 years…

Ichigo Looking All Cool...Go Figure.

If you read the Bleach Manga every week than must have surely read the part where Ichigo oh so conveniently transformed into some steroid-fueled hollow and laid the smackdown on Ulquiorra. Personally I don’t like Ichigo at all and was rather enjoying the punishment that the demon-looking Ulquiorra was unleashing on him, however with the potent powers of Orihime’s tears Ichigo was brought back from death…oh joy.

"This Arm is your arm, this arm is my arm..."

After transforming, Hollow Ichigo proceeds to be all mysterious and badass as Ulquiorra asks him questions that he ignores. Out of nowhere Ichigo does a Cero and inspires the first “IMPOSSIBLE!” moment and then goes on to rip Ulquiorra’s arm off.  Ulquiorra pulls a quick one and out of his sleeve pulls out another arm, the fight is about to get really good…or so we thought…Ulquiorra goes on to explain how he can regenrate himself quicker than any of the other Espada and then came the line that killed him.

"Oh yeah...I can't lose now!"

“I alone am able to quickly regenerate any part of myself EXCEPT MY BRAIN AND INTERNAL ORGANS”.

Dude…seriously? Would Superman tell Lex Luthor his weakness is Kryptonite? NOOO!! Then why the hell would you tell Ichigo how to kill you? *sigh* Maybe it was bad translations or perhaps just really dumb writing to begin with but wow…just wow.

You had it coming...

Sure enough the next thing that happens has to do with Ichigo’s sword going through Ulquiorra’s lungs, heart, liver and kidneys…Ichigo then proceeds to destroy Ulquiorra’s brain along with the rest of him with a Cero to the face.

And so comes an end to what was one of the cooler Espada, and all because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Hopefully the #1 Espada isn’t this dumb, but judging from chapter 351, anything is possible…