True Reviews, Updates and Common Sense Opinions
I found a quirky anime that deals with topics about human anatomy and how its blood cells (white and red) work together with the rest of the bodily functions to keep the human body healthy.
Continue reading “Cells at Work | After five episodes (Netflix)”
I am excited about the upcoming season 4 of My Hero Academia starting on October 12th of this year! I’ve been waiting for the next part of young Midorya’s adventure with his fellow U.A. High School classmates and his favorite hero, All Might.
In preparation for the upcoming season, I am recapping season one, two, and three. They’ll be separate posts and will come up a few weeks apart from each other leading up to October 12th!
Of course, you can go back and watch the seasons for yourself if this series piques your interest. But for now, here is your My Hero Academia recap for season 1.
My Hero Academia – Season 1
A young boy named Midoriya grows up in a world where having powers is normal. These powers are known as quirks. Unfortunately, Midoriya does not develop a quirk like others his age for unknown reasons. As devastating as this is, he does not give up hope and continues his plans to get accepted to U.A High (the most prestigious school to train and become a hero).
This angers an already hot-headed, Bakugo, a childhood friend of his (if you can call him that at this stage). Midoriya’s relationship with his Bakugo was always a strange one. Midorya looked up to him and was ecstatic when he developed his explosion quirk.
One thing that Midoriya had that Bakugo didn’t was the ability to examine his opponent and determine ways to overcome them. A pretty awesome trait, if you ask me.
Bakugo was always a bit of a jerk to Midoriya, but his treatment gets worse when he finds out that Midoriya is invited to U.A Highs tryout despite being quirkless. As a result, their heated rivalry develops.
On a happier note, Midorya runs into his favorite superhero, All Might one day in the city. the two have a conversation and Midorya looks for his support in pursuing his dream to be a superhero without a quirk.
At the time of this conversation, All Might was struggling with a long term injury that causes him to transform into a gaunt state as a result of using too much power.
All Might was in a fight before speaking with Midoriya and his power was running low. This caused him to power down in front of Midoriya and reveal his secret.
During their conversation, All Might told Midoriya that he would not be able to be the type of hero he aspired to be without a quirk. He was later proven wrong when Bakugo was captured by the villain All Might fought earlier that day.
In his gaunt state, All Might looked on has heroes failed to rescue Bakugo due to the condition of the area. However, Midoriya sprang into action! He ran into the flames and goop that surrounded his friend in an effort to save him. He knew it was hopeless, but he had to do something.
This is inspired All Might to power up and help save the day!
From there, All Might catches up with Midoriya and gives him a strand of his hair to eat to pass the ‘One For All’ quirk to him. He also offers to train him for his U.A High tryout and help him master his powers for the physical exam.
Midoriya gets accepted after showing his bravery and concern for others on the battlefield during the physical exam despite being in danger of failing. Sure he almost permanently injured himself, but he showed he had heart! He struggles to gain control of his powers for the entirety of season 1 and gains control eventually in the seasons to come.
There’s a point in the season that Midoriya and Bakugo go head to head during a group training exercise at U.A High. While Bakugo focused on destroying Midoriya, Midoriya is strategizing on how to complete the exercise. Midoriya’s team wins and though Bakugo gets pissed off, even more, he realizes that he’ll need to work hard to be the best.
Among other exciting happenings at U.A. High, All Might joined the teaching staff and that attracted villains. The villain’s leader is named Tomura. He brings his multi-quirk monster, Nomu, to attack U.A High students to draw out All Might for a fight.
All might comes to the rescue even though he is weak and at risk of exposing his gaunt form. At this point, Deku and a few higher up members at the school know about this form and what caused it. All Might manages to defeat Nomu.
GO BEYOND PLUS ULTRA!!!
However, All Might is declining rapidly to the point where his skin is starting to sizzle. All Might want to keep the Symbol of Peace intact and holds on just long enough for Deku and a handful of other class members arrive. They distract the villains and give enough time to the other teachers/heroes (Eraser Head, Present Mic, Cementoss, midnight, Vlad King and a few others) to arrive and push back the villains.
Sure they save the day, but the breach of U.A high sparks the beginning of panic surrounding the school, the heroes and their ability to keep the city and its citizens safe.
In this episode, Shinra comes across finds out that the man he fought at the rookie tournament is named Joker. The ashes that caused the explosions in the air are the ashes of dead infernos.
The Hero and the Princess
After finding out this news, Maki sends Arthur and Shinra on a mission to rescue a dog. They end up running into the Fire Force mascots that we met at the rookie tournament. The man mascot named Mamoru was recently surrounded by citizens shouting “hip hip hooray” for some reason. He didn’t like it.
While Shinra and Arthur are still around, he tells them about Miyamoto. Miyamoto is a former fight fighter that killed four people for fun. Today is the day his verdict is decided by a judge.
While in court, the verdict is announced as not guilty due to psychological reasons. Miyamoto stood in the center of the courtroom with a smile on his face because he knew he would get off.
Moments after the verdict was announced, Miyamoto sparked and transformed into an inferno. However, he is still self-aware. During his transformation, he lit everyone in the room except his lawyer and the judge on fire.
He later killed the judge for passing judgment, but during his preparation to kill his lawyer he was thwarted by Shinra and Arthur her flew over to the scene as soon as they got word from their chief. The rest of Company 8 arrived, but Miyamoto managed to escape causing Shinra to chase him.
Shinra catches up to him and almost lays him to rest, but he ends up being distracted by Miyamoto’s tactics. This left enough time for the captain of Special Fire Force 5 to arrive at the scene with her troops and detain the inferno.
Shinra attempted to fight the entire company 5 but the numbers overwhelmed him. Fortunately, Obi and the rest of company 8 arrive. Obi and the captain of company 5, Princess Hibana agree that company 5 will take the subject and study him FOR SCIENCE and share the information they acquire.
Self-aware infernos are not common and they have the resources to study the subject. Obi is still weary but goes along with these terms.
Fire Force: S01, E03 | The Rookie Fire Soldier Games (recap)
When we last left our heroes, they were gathering supplies to make gun powder in preparation to shutdown Shishio’s plans to kill off adults still in their petrified state.
Spoilers ahead
Yuzuriha asks Taiju to tell him what he was going to say 3700 years ago before the green light turned everyone into stone. He refused but promised to tell her after they save the world.
Senku finished gathering the materials to create the gun powder. The materials include sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate. With all of the ingredients together Senku, Yuzuriha, and Taiju begin the packing process. During the packing process, they create an explosion they send a smoke signal in the sky.
Senku believes that Shishio can be negotiated with. This is a call back to episode 3 when Taiju offered to take hits to stop Shishio from breaking the skulls of petrified adults.
As Shishio is looking for Senku, Taiju, and Yuzuriha he says that he’ll have to kill Senku if he’s already made the gun powder.
Taiju notices another smoke signal in the sky. But, they don’t know if it’s a volcano or actual people trying to reach out. The group opts to build their fire in hopes that they can confirm more people in the world. They run out of materials to keep the fire going, so Taiju goes to find more firewood.
“I don’t mind getting my hands dirty to stop that.” – Shishio
Shishio arrives moments later and swiftly takes Yuzuriha hostage by knife-point. He claims that making weapons of science and reviving older generations will allow them to fight over their own established interests.
Shishio will accept being the bad guy if it means stopping old reality from resurfacing. He threatens to take Yuzuriha’s life if Senku doesn’t give him the recipe to the revival serum.
Senku bluffs that he doesn’t care about her, but Shishio slices Yuzuriha’s hair off without hesitation leaving both Senku and Yuzuriha stunned.
“I know longer have a reason to let you live.” – Shishio
Shishio then gives a long speech about how he never had anyone to care for and that is why he will always win. He blames Taiju and Yuzuriha for Senku’s lack of leverage.
But, Yuzuriha is prepared to give her life to save the world. But he gives up the revival recipe anyway.
Shishio drops Yuzuriha in favor of Senku. Claiming that they could have been friends under different circumstances, Shishio give Senku an ultimatum.
Abandon Science or Die
There’s a cute flashback of Senku’s life. We see his father’s sacrifice to get him supplies. We see his research and experimentation. And most of all we see his love of science.
Yuzuriha whispers out to Taiju. Somehow, they have a psychic connection because he suddenly runs toward his two friends after witnessing several more smoke signals in the sky.
We’re left with a cliffhanger as Senku accepts his fate because he will not abandon science.
Did Taiju make it in time?
Does he Taiju take the dagger for Senku?
Does someone else show up to help?
Dr. Stone S1 E3 | Weapons of Science (recap)
Have you ever had a moment where you stumble upon something and you have a moment of total satisfaction?
That’s what happened to me when I happened to find BEM on Hulu a few days ago. Right away I thought it reminded me of Juni Taisen: Zodiac War.
The artistic decisions, the dark scenery, and the misdirection are all there. Plus, the soundtrack is amazing! It’s smooth jazz during most times. Then when the action picks up, the jazz is energetic and fast-paced. It’s so attractive.
Of course, I decided to google BEM to find out more about it. By doing so I realized there have been a few iterations of BEM and this 2019 version is just the latest with the original work being titled ‘Humanoid Monster Bem”.
Please forgive me for not knowing in advance.
“You thought you could trust her?” – Bela
Beginning of the story:
You are introduced to a female police officer (Sonia Summers) that arrives in a new town just in time to witness a purse snatching. She begins to chase the thief down and in the process almost gets run over by a car. Luckily a mysterious man in the night, we find out his name is Bem, saves her life.
They both catch up with the thief, but he is dead by way of drowning. With no water to be found in the area, the police begin an actual investigation.
What’s scarier than being haunted by something that you can’t see coming?
Within moments of meeting her new co-workers, it’s clear that Sonia has a code and her partners are a bit more lackadaisical.
The water monster used to be a human, but after drowning he decided to become a “serial drowner of humans”.
In her efforts to find out how the purse snatcher was drowned, she runs into Bem again as he fights the monster in water form.
When back-up arrives, the water monster massacres most of them causing Bem to take action and transform into a monster as well.
After defeating the water monster, Bem runs from Sonia who is chasing him down. He ends up phasing into the wall to escape.
She sits stunned in terror and disbelief.
Why should you watch Bem?
Sonia gives me Akane Tsunemori (Psycho-Pass) vibes. She’s a rookie cop with a clear code, respect for the law, and she’s getting caught up in a situation where the lines are being blurred.
Bem and his two comrades Belo and Bela just want to be humans and think that by doing good deeds and believing in their humanity, they can become humans.
I’ve never watched any of the older renditions, so I enjoyed going through this anime with brand new eyes. I’m expecting this story to be a struggle for Bem, Belo, and Bela to completely turn away from their nature. Plus, Sonia will probably form an alliance with them at some point.
But it looks good in this modern format, so I’m very interested.
Oddly enough, this episode of One Punch man left out Speed-O-Sound Sonic’s monster cell dinner completely. We didn’t get a follow up about him or the actions he took in the previous episode. I was kind of looking forward to seeing what would come of the cooked cells.
Will they enhance Sonics powers more? Will the monster cell enhancement be moot because the potency was cooked out of it? Will Sonic’s metabolism play a part in whether or not the cells even make a difference?
We don’t find out. But, it’s still a pretty good episode.
Spoilers ahead
Saitama doesn’t play a part in this episode, except that he and King are too busy playing video games to hear a distress call from the Hero Association.
Speaking of which, the Hero Association was infiltrated by a transforming monster in the previous episode. This monster brings a message from the Monster Association in the form of one of Gyoro-Gyoro’s eyeball vessels.
They propose a cease-fire and living in harmony with humans. However, that’s just a horrible joke because moments later, the monster holding Gyoro-Gyoro shoots one of the Monster Association executives dead.
In reality, the monsters want the Hero Association to send it’s best heroes to City Z, the Monster Association headquarters, to battle for complete control. They offer a rescue of the kidnapped son of the Hero Association’s financial backer.
This battle is at the request of King Orochi. The plan is to bait the Class S heroes in with the hostage and then go for the kill. While Gyoro-Gyoro explains the plan to the monsters, King Orochi starts pointing our weak monsters and eating them. Do-S is almost the next victim, but Gyoro-Gyoro vouches for her skill set.
One of the monsters at the association meeting kind of favored the Menos from Bleach. I’m just saying.
Child Emperor tries to come up with a plan of action to storm the Monster Association and save the hostage, but Metal Knight just wants to bomb everything to get rid of as much of the monsters at once. They are at an impasse when we cut away.
The news outlets report on the Monster Associations demands and as a result, the entire city is in terror.
Next, we finally get some time with Garou. He’s just waking up from the kick Saitama gave him last episode. He limps to a nearby shed to recuperate but is followed by Death Gatling and a group of other heroes.
One of those heroes kind of looked like Gohan from Dragon Ball Super. He had the same hair cut, glasses and the green jumpsuit. I’m just saying.
Garou is still very injured when he is surrounded by Death Gatling’s group of heroes. He puts up a good fight, but when the episode comes to an end, he is completely surrounded and out of options.
Before the heroes arrived, Garou was talking to the little boy who always lets him read his Heroes Almanac. So perhaps in the next episode, the little boy will step out in defense of Garou, since he doesn’t know him as a villain.