Anime Review: One-Punch Man

One-Punch Man had been on my radar for a couple of years now. It has one of the weirder journeys from original material to anime adaptation, as well as being one of the more curious success stories that I’ve heard. It was originally a web comic created by an amateur manga artist going by the handle “ONE” in 2009. Though not exactly the prettiest comic ever created (ONE was literally just messing around with manga software for fun when making this comic) it ended up striking a chord with fans and soon went viral. It eventually came to the attention of professional manga artist Yusuke Murata, probably most famous to Americans as the artist for Eyeshield 21. Murata offered to redraw the web comic and publish it on Young Jump Web Comics in 2012. Since then the popularity of One-Punch Man has skyrocketed and millions of copies of the collected volumes have sold in Japan. As someone who has seen the original web comic believe me when I say how flipping crazy it is that One-Punch Man has gotten so big.

In 2015 an anime seemingly based more on the remake by Murata began airing. Produced by big time studio Madhouse and licensed by Viz Media in America One-Punch Man was actually simulcast in the US as it was debuting in Japan, which is something that has become more and more common in the last three years. I accidentally came across it on Hulu last Fall and nearly lost my mind, as I had no idea watching this show legally in this country was an option.

I’ll get more into this in the review itself but it’s important to note that One-Punch Man is a parody and there’s a lot of jokes and puns involved. But since I’m a dumb American (as are a lot of you, according to this blog’s stats) a lot of these go right over my head. One outstanding example we should all be aware of is that the name “One-Punch Man” is itself a pun based off the long running children’s picture book series Anpanman. This is apparently hilarious. If nothing else it automatically tells you exactly what tone you should expect when going into this one.

Anpanman's head is filled with bean paste or something?
I'm not sure because I'm not a Japanese child

Full review after the jump.

Beta's Top Ten Favorite Movies of 2015

So…yeah. I guess it’s been a year since I posted anything on this blog. This is awkward. There’s a reason, though I don’t think this is the place to discuss it. I may talk about it in detail at some point in the near future (or maybe I won’t post anything for another twelve months) but since it’s doubtful there’s any regular readers at this point it probably doesn’t matter too much right this second.

Instead today I want to continue a tradition of this blog; my Top Ten Favorite Movies list. I obviously didn’t review a single goddamn movie this year but I watched more flicks in 2015 than I had in years. And what a year it was for movies! There were so many great films this past year that it was not unlike sensory overload for me. I wasn’t able to see every movie that was out there so this list only focuses on what I was able to see. So, any fans of Spotlight getting upset that it’s not on the list are going to have to calm themselves down.

I will say that I did see The Hateful Eight and, while I enjoyed the heck out of the flick, it just barely didn’t make the list. Let’s think of it as #11 or an Honorable Mention. I also saw Jurassic World this past summer. Spoiler Alert: it doesn’t make the list, though if you need a good sleep aid I would recommend it.

Beta’s Top Ten Movies after the jump.

Five Year Anniversary is Dead

Despite a severe lack of updates I’ve somehow made it to Beta is Dead’s fifth anniversary. BALLOONS!!!

Balloons make everything better

It seems I’m still kicking, despite all appearances to the contrary. A year ago I wasn’t sure I wanted to continue with this blog since there’s so little reward in it. By mid-2014 I was actually feeling significantly better about the blog but I was hampered by some personal issues (and, no, you don’t get to know what those issues were, you nosey so-and-so) which led me to working on my novel rather than writing about movies or cartoons or whatever is it is I normally do. Almost immediately after I finished the first draft and was ready to get back to reviewing things I got a new job that not only ate up all my time but made me not really want to touch a computer after work (eight hours staring at computer screens will do that to you). So in a real way 2014 was probably the worst year in this blog’s history.

But there’s no use in feeling down about it. Instead on dwelling on a lousy year it’s best to plan for the next one and that’s what I aim to do! (I actually had a pretty good year, just not for this blog)

So for 2015 I foresee myself being busy enough that regular updates will not be in the cards. I’d always had the pipe dream of a MWF schedule but I don’t think that’s likely to happen, not unless I make enough money to justify it. I will try to post as often as I can. Expect an anniversary related blog sometime before the end of the month. I also promise I will do everything in my power to make sure there will be posts for Black Superhero Month.

Reviews may be a bit trickier but we’ll see. Traditional the first review of the year is a Mila Kunis film (not because I’m a big fan but because what else am I going to review, am I right?) but that may or may not be the case this year. Jupiter Ascending was delayed to an early February release so if I don’t review something before I see it then tradition will prevail.

A major thing I want to talk about is my book. I finished the first draft last September but since then I have not had the time to edit it that I would like, mainly due to my new job. In 2015 my number one goal is to begin (key word) the process of getting it published by December, even if that’s only shopping it around to agents who won’t return my e-mails (or whatever the first step is; I dunno, man). So I need to get this second draft done, then the third draft, then the fourth draft and then maybe a fifth draft depending on how I feel about it. I plan on this being my priority which means if I feel I have to choose between this blog and my book I will put Beta is Dead on an extended hiatus. If this happens I will likely say something on here.

Any way my hope is that 2015 will be a good year and that we’ll all be here for the sixth anniversary.

Beta's Top Ten Favorite Movies of 2014

2014 was a hard year for me, as evidenced by my lack of updates, and while I’ll likely get into that more when I do my anniversary blog (though I doubt I’ll go into specifics as this still isn’t that type of blog) the most relevant issue I had was an inability to see movies as much as I had in the past. I used to see several films a week and now I’m averaging one every three weeks which is really upsetting for me as going to the movie theater is my favorite hobby. As a result of this trend I missed out on a lot of films that got a lot of buzz (Birdman being the obvious example). Also what movies I did see I simply didn’t have time to review. So this will likely be one of the least interesting “Top Ten Favorite Movies” list I’ve ever done. But I will do it nonetheless!

Anyway the rules are the same as ever: 1) I only count movies I’ve actually seen and I can’t see every movie so if your favorite film or some critical darling didn’t make the list there’s a decent chance I never got around to seeing it. 2) This is not a “Best Movie” list; it’s my list of personal favorites. It’s subjective and you’ll do well to take that in mind. But please, feel free to post your own Top Ten list in the comment section or even if you just have a movie that you think I snubbed. I mean, also comment if you agree with the list but seeing as this is the internet I’m not hopeful.

Beta’s Top Ten Movies after the jump.

Nerd Rage #17: Beta vs. Marvel Studios

They've come a long way from being a bankrupt joke

A blog in November? What madness is this? As I suggested a while back I have decided not to participate in National Novel Writing Month this year, partly because of all my work with my book earlier this year but main due to having recently started a new job that would not allow the time to writing 50,000 words in a month and still have anything resembling a life (actually my new job doesn’t leave much time for any writing at all, to my great chagrin).

Anyway Marvel Studios formally announced their movie schedule through the year 2019 (and for some reason this is considered a fine move) and apparently it made everyone I know go insane with anticipation. Some of the films sound pretty cool and others one sound kind of “meh”. I thought it would be fun to briefly at all of Marvel’s upcoming flicks and judge mercilessly despite knowing almost nothing about any of them. And hey, maybe you don’t know much about the characters in the film and this may be a nice learning experience.

Of course supposedly a list of Marvel movies was leaked earlier this year and I distinctive recall many people on my Facebook feed losing their shit over it; taking it completely at face value. I recall being very skeptical about it, especially with World Word Hulk, Captain America: The Fallen Son, and Avengers: Civil War as none of them really made any thematic sense to me based on what had already been established. (Though, let’s face it, Marvel could have easily changed key details of their films after the word got out but we either way it’s hard to know of sure) In any case I didn’t even want to talk about those rumors until things were verified. Now that the official list of films have come out I thought I’d go through them (and since I had a few friends who asked my thoughts about it I get it all out of my system at once).

Congratulations, suckers; you f**king fell for it!

So today we’ll look at all of Marvel Studios’ upcoming films. This does not include the upcoming X-Men, Spider-Man or Fantastic Four flicks as they are produced by different studios (Fox and Sony respectively) nor will be looking at DC Comics' line-up partly because they probably deserve their own topic and partly because I don’t want to angrily ramble right now. I mean, I may still do that today but at least this way I’m not starting out already being annoyed and pissed off at the source material. (Doctor Doom is an angry hacker? Really?)

Marvel Studios’ future after the jump.

[WARNING: While most of my ramblings are just conjecture I may be spoiling plot points for future films simply by taking about the comics they're based on. Read at your own risk.]

Review: Pontypool

Happy Halloween, everybody. As you may well know by now I’m not a huge fan of horror films (like, at all) but I had such a fun time reviewing Evil Dead last year that I decided to review another horror film today. My friend Travis, upon hearing I was thinking of reviewing a horror flick, got super excited and sent me a list of films he thought I would like because he’s a giant fan of the genre and is also history’s greatest monster. Despite reservations I decided to take him up on his suggestions and watch the 2008 film Pontypool which is based on the 1995 novel Pontypool Changes Everything by Tony Burgess (who also wrote the screenplay). It’s a zombie flick…kind of. The fact is that the film is part of the zombie genre of horror but plays itself differently from the norm.

Directed by Bruce McDonald Pontypool is a low-budget Canadian feature that didn’t get a heck of a lot of screen time in the USA until finally being released on home video in 2010. Despite this the film received a lot of favorable reviews over the years. Perhaps now something of a cult film whether or not it can overturn my long established dislike of the genre is the question of the day.

Full review after the jump.

Mini-Reviews: Sin City - A Dame to Kill For, The Maze Runner

It's taking me longer than I anticipated to get back into the swing of reviewing things again here on Beta is Dead (the previous blog was actually started after I was half-way through this one). To make matters worse both the movies we’re looking at today are pretty much old news and you’ve already either seen them or at least decided that you’re not going to bother seeing them. The cost of being idle is high when you’re a writer, I guess.

Anyway today we’ll be looking at two film adaptations, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For and The Maze Runner. Sin City 2 is the long promised sequel to the 2005 film and both movies are (mostly) based on the comic of the same name by Frank Miller. Now I’m not sure what the shit took so long for this movie to get made but here’s a list of movies Robert Rodriguez chose to direct over Sin City 2 during the near decade gap:

The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl (2005)

Planet Terror (2007)

Shorts (2009)

Machete (2010)

Spy Kids: All the Time in the World (2011)

Machete Kills (2013)

No less than three kids films and a full length version of a fake trailer AND its sequel (neither of which were all that great). Planet Terror is the only film on that list that doesn’t feel like a waste of time to me. Oh yeah, Frank Miller directed The Spirit in 2008 and it was one of the worst films of the decade; that’s not as important but it’s still notable.

The Maze Runner is based on a young adult novel of the same name by James Dashner that originally came out in 2009. And…that’s pretty much all I know about it. The Maze Runner did extremely well in the Box Office while Sin City 2 was a major bomb, possibly the biggest bomb of the summer. But as we learned from Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Dredd, and any Transformers movie monetary success does not always determine the film’s quality.

Two reviews after the jump.

Kickstarter Weekends: Like Father, Like Daughter; Zombie ApocalyOOPS!

By my calculations (i.e. I looked at the archives) it’s been about eight months since the last Kickstarter Weekend. Aside from the obvious glitches this summer with me working on my novel I think the major reason for this has been that I haven’t been visiting Kickstarter and other crowd funding sites as often as I used to. Perhaps my obsession over them has cooled off. That successful, but ridiculous, Potato Salad campaign that floated around everywhere certainly didn’t make me too eager to visit any projects for a while. I should point out that the most interesting crowd funding project I came across during the off time was Hullabaloo, a steam punk hand drawn animated short film starring a strong female lead character (!) that made 588% of its goal on Indiegogo. I would have blogged about it if I wasn’t so distracted this summer but obviously it didn’t need my help.

Anywho today I’ve decided to get back on the horse, so to speak, and look at two new projects. In this case both of them sort of tugged on my heartstrings as the creators remind me of what I myself might need to do in the near future to see my own dreams and vision come to fruition, more so than the average campaign I cover. But before we get to talking about the new stuff we need to revisits the old stuff…and it looks like there’s a lot of old stuff.

Michigan City Vandals Album Project: Funding Semi-Successful

Final Earnings: $1,150 ($5,000 Goal)

This project failed to meet its $5,000 goal but because the Michigan City Vandals were using Indiegogo it would seem they got to keep what they made (to a point; Indiegogo’s cut was probably pretty steep). As it’s been such a long time since the campaign ended the album has since been recorded and released so I guess it all worked out in the end. I’ve listened to it and I think it’s pretty good. You can find (and hopefully buy) it here.

One Nation - Out of the Darkness: Funding successful!

Final Earnings: $13,515 ($13,000 Goal)

Another close call but the project managed to end in success. As far as I can tell they’re still working on getting the book itself done but I haven’t heard a tremendous amount of things about the comic lately. Of course that’s partly because I sort of forget to keep tabs on it over the summer. Oops.

Water War: Funding Unsuccessful!

Final Earnings: $0 ($30,000 Goal)

This one bums me out but in a way I’m not really surprised. The concept of this film was amazing but the presentation of the project was overly ambitious. With a super long KS video (not to mention several prequel videos!) I imagine a lot of potential backers backed away without giving it a fair shot. Director Josh Nikolas had vowed that he’d try to make the movie even if the campaign failed but I’m not certain what, if any, progress has been made since then. As of right now it seems that my dream of seeing a flick about children shooting each other with squirt guns and being over dramatic about the whole thing will remain just that; a dream.

Robot Heart: Funding Successful!

Final Earnings: $28,914 ($3,000 Goal)

Absolutely no surprise here since the project was funded before I even got to post the last KSW. I do want to mention that since I posted that last KSW one of Kawehi’s video covers (I think it was “Heart Shaped Box”) and went viral and she has become massively more popular and famous than she was before. In fact she’s had another project on KS since the last one and it not only got funded super quickly it made $42,972 ($3,000 goal)! Wow! [EDIT: The new project is still ongoing as of this writing, though not for much longer, and has picked up even more money than originally reported].  Overall this makes me feel really good as I get to see someone I’ve admired do very well after seeing them struggle with their art in the past plus it gives me some hope for my own artistic endeavors.

Then again if there’s one thing I’ve learned this year it’s that "hope" is bullshit and poisonous. F**k it, let’s move on.

Two new projects after the jump.