After Anora won a bunch of awards I decided it was worth checking out, but I decided the most fun way would be to go in blind. Well, now with it released on 4K, that seemed like the best way, and it was.

Anora is a very strange movie. It kicks off as we meet Anora, or Ani as she prefers, is a stripper. A young man, Vanya, comes into the club requesting a woman that speaks Russian and so he is assigned Ani. They have a great time together, and so he hires her for a week exclusively. It turns out Vanya is the son of some rich Russian oligarchs who sent him to the US for education.

Anyway, when out partying, Vanya makes a spur of the moment decision to take his friends and Ani to Vegas to keep partying. While there he decides to propose to Ani, and they get married on the spot. Well this information manages to make it back to Vanyas parents, and some of their contacts have to track them down and undo this mess.

A lot of this movie involves Ani and Vanya’s parents' contacts trying to track down Vanya who does a runner as soon as he realizes his parents know. There are elements of comedy including a few moments where I actually laughed out loud. The bulk of the time though it is more of a thrilling drama as they try to pick apart the mess Vanya has made.

One of the things I struggled with on the journey was the sheer volume of unlikeable people.

From the contacts sent by Vanya’s parents, to Vanya, to eventually meeting the parents themselves. The movie really wants to emphasize how different people can be awful. Vanya starts off as a bit of a silly fun spoiled rich kid. As the movie goes on we see him become a coward not wanting to see the consequences of his actions, through to him showing his true entitled piece of crap behaviour.

Another thing the movie does really well is showing a lot of the everyday people and their consequences as they service the rich. We get cleaners who are trying to clean up around them when they are chilling in the house playing video games, through to coming in to clean up the mess caused by Vanya doing his runner. When they are going through businesses looking for Vanya we see a lot of the staff being impacted as they try to do their jobs but have to deal with the powerful people in front of them.

In hindsight it really tells an excellent story of the power of the rich and its impact on everyday people. The majority of the people in the movie are those impacted, and the higher they are up in the chain the nastier they can be. Even the awful things they do, is clearly shown to be done through fear of the consequences from the rich. The most likeable person is one of the thugs who is new in the role and the poorest of the group.

Anora isn’t a fun movie, even if there is fun to be had. Some light comedy moments make it easier to sit through the deep thoughts you will have as you watch this journey. It’s an excellent movie if you go in with an open mind and are ready to receive the message the movie wants to tell you. It is definitely something I will return to so I can see if I pick up anything else new as there is a lot of depth here.

The post Anora (Bluray) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

It has been said many times that Seven Samurai is one of the most important movies in history.

This 70 year old movie influenced some of the biggest classic movies of all time, but the question is, is it still worth watching today? How does it fare when compared to current movies?

Well the short answer is, yea it is still worth watching, and that’s coming from someone who just corrected the sin of not having seen it before.

For anyone new to the movie it tells the story of a small farming village in Japan during the Sengoku period (16th century). The village is filled with peasants and they are being constantly raided by bandits stealing the very limited resources they have, including the crops that they harvest and sell to survive. Getting sick of this, the village tries to find a way to stop them.

Unfortunately being peasants they don;t have the ability to fight, so they decide to try an enlist
some samurai.

The problem of course is they are poor. Some of the villagers make their way to a local town to try enlisting samurai. They manage to convince one to do it for some food who then enlists a few other samurai. They all have varying personalities which can erupt in very different ways at times. We then have some time as the samurai and the villagers learn to trust each other, and the village has time to build up defences and go on the attack at times.

The movie is well over three hours, and coming from a new perspective parts of the movie can feel long.

Fortunately, it deserves that time. The story that is crafted hits so much harder because we are given the time to appreciate all the characters, but also the relationships that develop.

This time also allows us to really appreciate the other aspects the story wants us to know.

Things like the class system back then is really kept in perspective, both with attitudes and
consequences of actions.

Something that really stands the test of time is the camera use. Long shots of people travelling through the forest are both impressive they pulled it off, and a treat to view on the screen. The action is exceptional for the time, and stand up well now thanks to the excellent film making in place. This release has had the footage cleaned up a lot and it looks amazing. The audio does still sound old school, but given it’s in Japanese you’ll be reading the subtitles so that’s gravy.

Seven Samurai is a shockingly good movie 70 years on. It feels like watching a classic western movie, which is less surprising when you realise that it inspired a lot of the classic westerns.

Don’t be intimidated by the age, the black and white, or the run time. This is still a movie you need to see. This Bluray comes with a fantastic special feature that lets you hear from the iconic Akira Kurosawa himself and is well worth enjoying after the epic flick.

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Going into TRON: Catalyst I was totally blind. It turns out it’s the sequel to TRON: Identity, which I never played.

But with my new Switch 2 I was chomping at the bit for games to play, so thought I would give it a try.

The good news is if like me you haven’t played TRON: Identity, don't stress, you can just jump into this one.

The story follows Exo who is a courier program Exo gets himself mixed up in a conspiracy where the server they live on is going to get a hard reset. It turns out the server they are on has a big power struggle between Core, and people that want more freedom. As far as a story goes, it’s fine. It’s interesting at times.

The story is mostly told through scenes where it shows still of characters as they speak. This is a perfectly fine way of telling the story, and it has decent voice acting. It just has that vibe of an OK story being told via a decent way, which just results in it being decent. Never amazing, just decent.

The game itself is an isometric action game. You run around exploring and throwing your TRON spin discy thing at people. The combat is more than competent, and it’s fun for the most part. Dodging at the right time, slashing an enemy, then firing your disc to nail another is satisfying as hell. The biggest issue is it just gets a bit repetitive.

Fun, but repetitive.

The biggest thing that the game has going for it is the art style. The neon TRON style has been beautifully crafted in the game to always look stunning on the screen. The art style of the characters in the dialogue scenes also look cool. But really when exploring the world I was always loving the look and style the game had to offer.

On the whole, TRON: Catalyst is just a decent game.

Fun gameplay, a decent story, and stunning art design makes the game a perfectly fine way to spend a day. At no point was I blown away by the game, but I had a great time. The isometric gameplay does make it perfect for picking up and jamming on the Switch 2.

The post TRON: Catalyst (Switch 2) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

There is a basketball anime that is well regarded called Slam Dunk.

I never watched that, but when the follow up movie The First Slam Dunk released with a lot of acclaim and awards, I was intrigued so went into it blind. Can you enjoy this movie without having seen the series? Well I can confirm now, yes you can.

The First Slam Dunk follows Ryota Miyagi who is on his High School basketball team. His brother was a legendary player who unfortunately died. The movie starts showing him obsessed with playing hoops with his brother, and then it jumps forward to Ryota and his team playing a game against a top team.

The movie is then framed as this game takes place. Ryotas team are the underdogs and they are doing all they can to win the game. It then jumps back and forth from the game to the story outside of the game. We get some slices of the rest of the team, but the focus really is on Ryota. We see him dealing with the loss in his family and his family dealing with it.

What really makes the movie strong is the basketball game. Ryota’s team is constantly swinging from in contention for the win, to being outmatched and having to fight back in. The game shows their opponents having the benefits of more funds and great training. Ryota’s team on the other hand are more rag tag, and trying to prove themselves. Over the game they learn to work better together. What really stands out in the game is the incredible animation. The movie get these amazing shots that move through the court as the game happens. The animation really helps to make the game so damn thrilling as you watch.

Coming in with no experience of the series it is based on, I really loved this movie. The basketball game itself is intense and exciting, and then the story outside of the game smattered throughout is heartbreaking and touching.

It all winds up with a gripping movie from start to finish.

The Collectors Edition comes in a nice hard cover box, and includes a 36 page booklet, a numbered art card, a Folded A3 poster, and a sticker sheet. The weird thing with this collection is that the Bluray and the 4K UHD disc both come in their own cases.

It makes the hard box way bigger than it needs to be, which is odd. I like everything about this collectors edition except that. The disc also comes with a great behind the scenes special feature. What I really enjoyed was watching how they made the voice actors capture the sounds of playing like the grunts and breaths.

Whether you are into the series or not, The First Slam Dunk is a cracker of a movie. From the exciting basketball game, through to the serious story behind it, it’s a damn exciting and emotional movie. The beautiful animation deserves to be enjoyed in 4K where possible.

The post The First Slam Dunk (Anime) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Spy X Family really caught me off guard when I first got into it. The silliness I really struggled with until it clicked, and when it clicked, oh how it clicked.

The balance of silliness and the seriousness that is going on makes for a really bingeable show. And now with Season 2 on Bluray, I was able to dive in and see more of the Forgers story.

If you haven’t watched Spy X Family before, it is a cracker. It follows two nations that border and don’t like each other. Loid Forger is a spy that has a series of missions, but these require him having a good cover story. As such he adopts a daughter Anya and marries a woman who supposedly just needs help to stay in the country.

Well, it turns out the child Anya has psychic abilities, but after being in an orphanage, just wants a family. Oh and the innocent wife Yor is a badass assassin. The show really works well as it is in everyones interest to hide their talents and other lives, so they all try to keep their skills secret and keep the family together.

Season 2 kicks off with Anya struggling her way through school and some little missions.

The biggest part of the season kicks off with Yor having a mission to keep a family safe from assassin’s on a cruise ship where they will be dropped off on another boat to get to safety. To make sure the cover doesn;t get blown, the Forger family happens to win a trip on the cruise.

The adventure kicks off with Loid trying to be a fun dad, while Yor is busy with her work. By the end Loid is busy at work stopping terrorists, and Yor is being a total bad ass stopping assassins from getting the family. Anya, thanks to her psychic abilities, helps both of them achieve their goals while trying to achieve it secretly.

As far as seasons go, this Season is the best the show has had so far. It’s silly and funny, but loaded with awesome action. Season 1 was good, but boy season 2 is showing it really hitting its stride now. I am not sure how they will keep this up, but I can’t wait to see what will be on offer in Season 3. This is definitely a Bluray that is worth having on your shelf.

The post Spy X Family (Anime) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

I remember the original Bravely Default launch being something special.

Final Fantasy 13 and 13-2 had shown the direction that the iconic JRPG series was going and some of us craved that classic JRPG turn based action. Bravely Default demonstrated to us that Square Enix was able to evolve Final Fantasy and give us something old at the same time with its launch on the 3DS.

Now thirteen years later  Square Enix has released the 3DS port Bravely Default: Flying Fairy HD Remaster to Switch 2.

If you haven’t played Bravely Default before, it’s a banger.

The story follows the warriors of light who need to restore the 4 elemental crystals who have fallen into darkness. Sounds pretty Final Fantasy like right?

Well, the four heroes are all really interesting. Tiz is the sole survivor of a village that got destroyed by one of the corrupted crystals, Ringabel is an amnesiac trying to figure out what’s going on, Edea left an army that was trying to capture Agnes, and Agnes use to live in service to one of the crystals before it became corrupt. In many ways we have four JRPG tropes mashed into one game, and in other ways the mashing together makes it unique.

Anyway, they all need to work together to uncorrupt the crystals. Their journey takes them across the country as the story has some great twists and turns. It is all very classic JRPG and if that is what you are craving, then it is exceptional at it. The gameplay is pretty standard turn based JRPG action, with attacks and magic on your character’s turn. What is fun is that you get BP that allows the characters to do multiple actions in a turn until they run out of BP, you can go into negatives but have to recover if you do that.

This remaster brings a whole lot of upgrades. The whole game has been tidied up to look way better on Switch and the TV. It still retains it’s janky edged look, but with the games upscaling it looks way more stylised. The cut scenes have been given a much bigger upgrade and looks properly good.

This version comes with some fun new features like the game corner. There is a couple of brand new mini games here that use joy cons that can reward you with some stuff. There is a rhythm game and an airship simulator. The games were perfectly fine, but at least add a nice break to the gameplay to do something different. Doing so can earn you some amazing rewards like being able to increase or decrease the random encounters.

Bravely Default: Flying Fairy HD Remaster is one of the best cases for a remaster.

The base game is there and still shines, it looks a whole lot nicer, and there are some new features there to make it worth playing for fans of the original. This is a cracker of a release for the Switch 2 and is well worth checking out for JRPG fans.

The post Bravely Default: Flying Fairy HD Remaster (Switch 2) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

When I first checked out Jujutsu Kaisen Season 1, I was seriously impressed.

The interesting premise with the fun characters and the excellent action made for a super chill and interesting experience. The movie gave a fun story set before the first Season, but Season 2, well chronologically it is all over the place.

Season 2 starts off before the events of the movie Jujutsu Kaisen 0. It follows Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto who are both still students. They need to help out a weird situation. We learn that Master Tengen has to merge into a new human every 500 years. This is to stop him evolving into some weird ass entity. Anyway, Satoru and Suguru are tasked with protecting this human.

Easy right?

Well it turns out there are a couple of groups that want to kill this vessel. One of which is a bonkers religious group. They see Tengen as a god, and want him to evolve into his true form.

So you know, normal things. Now I won’t spoil much more story here, because this part of the Season is only 5 episodes long. That is because this chunk of the series is just 5 eps long, and then the next chunk jumps back to continue from Season 1.

It isn’t a silly idea given the clear separation of the story. But it does make this a weird short release as part of a ‘Season’. What I will say is the relationship between Satoru and Suguru is interesting to watch. They kind of like each other, then kind of don’t and really try to piss each other off.

As a short half of a Season, this is a fantastic couple of hours. The 5 episodes that cover the Hidden Inventory  story is great, and then the one episode for premature Death is great. I highly recommend you watch the movie first to build up the context for what you are watching. But I would be lying if I said I wasn’t itching to move forward to the second half of the series to get back to Yuji Itadori’s story.

The post Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 (Anime) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Attack On Titan has been a journey.

A decade ago we met Eren in Season 1, and discovered the terrifying horrifying world he lived in. Behind giant walls protecting them from the unnerving and terrifying titans beyond those walls. Then the journey took us through him becoming a scout, seeing him discover there is more to the titans than they thought, to now, he
is now the ultimate titan destroying human.

Now it is time to enjoy the huge finale from what was an insane Season 4 of the show.

Part 3 of the final Season is two specials.

The first being an hour, and the second being an hour and a half. Honestly I am glad they didn’t drag it out, as the end of the last season really was building to a big fast chaotic finale.

We left off with Eren being the terrifyingly huge rib cage monster called the founding titan. He is on the slow march with heaps of titans to do a… there is no easy way to say it… our old hero is doing a genocide. The series kicks off with a ruthless scene of the rumbling making its ruthless way through a village which is as dark as we have come to expect from the series now.

Then we get to see the final battle as humanity tries to be saved from the onslaught.

The tough part is it’s really hard not to spoiler it, and it is the finale so I really shouldn’t. What I can say is it is a really excellent finale. The series wraps up, and there are some unexpected moments like learning more about what Eren knew and when. All of this leads to a fantastic two and a half hours of Attack On Titan action.

The Limited Edition version comes in a big beautiful box that can house the Part 1 and Part 2.

When they are all put inside the box it looks fantastic. Just like the previous parts, the case opens up like a book with pages of beautiful art inside. It also comes with another soft cover art book with some words about the series, as well as some nice art cards and some more of the excellent pins of the titans.

Attack On Titan – Final Season Part 3 is the finale the show deserves. Between excellent animation, and the excellent wrap up to the series, you really couldn’t ask for more. The Limited Edition is worth adding to your collection as it looks brilliant on the shelf. It is well worth the price to have it look this good on your shelf and on the screen.

The post Attack on Titan Final Season Part 3 (Anime) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Dr. Stone is an interesting series. At times it is creative anime at its best, at times it is cheesy anime tropes at its worst.

And yet what it results in, is a silly fun series that is perfect to chill out and watch and not take seriously. Part 2 of Season 3 carries on the story, and it continues with the usual vibe.

The second half of the Season kicks off with Senku having made a bunch more of his revival fluid from nitric acid. The problem is, they watch as a bunch of their petrified friends get thrown into the sea. They have a very limited number of underwater breathing devices left, and their creator Kaseki is one of those petrified. So the plan kicks off to go and revive him first.

The two that are trying to uncover him realise it is too hard to dig him out of the sand, so they revive Taiju. When Taiju gets revived he realises he is under water. He takes on massive breath from the breathing device and is then able to pull out the petrified Kaseki. It’s so silly, but so fun and really emphasizes the vibes of Dr . Stone that keep carrying on.

Anyway, the series continues on the strange island they found. The Master is still doing his thing of petrifying outsiders. Ginro is still in the strange village’s community where they all have to keep the Master happy. It turns out that Ibara, who was representing the Master, had actually petrified and hidden the Master so he could take over.

That is where I will stop with the spoilers, because it is a super fun half of the season to enjoy headed into what I believe is the final Season.

As always, the animation is solid. The characters do get some more time to shine, and Ryusui continues to shine. Some of the character quirks like Gen using pig latin and the exaggerated ways Senku talks still annoys me at times. But hey, it’s some unique personality I guess? This set also comes with the Dr. Stone: Ryusui special, which really should have come with Part 1 as it is set between Seasons 2 and 3 and introduces Ryusui as a character.

Still, if you are just checking the Season out now I recommend watching that first.

Dr. Stone continues to be a solid and enjoyable anime. It has its average moments, but for the most part it is still a unique and weird world that makes it worth sitting back and enjoying. It has quickly become a chill out Sunday type of series for me, and I can’t wait to enjoy Season 4 on a Sunday soon.

The post Dr. Stone Season 3 Part 2 (Anime) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba is one of my favourite anime series of recent years.

The story is interesting, the characters are as insane as they are compelling, and the animation is next level. After the excellence that was the Mugen train movie and series, I was very ready for more. So I was keen as to check out Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba: Entertainment District Arc on Bluray.

Tanjiro and the gang go to the Entertainment District with the super talented demon slayer Tengen.

In order for them to blend in, they need to dress as girls to work in some of the houses. Here we discover a gnarly demon who is causing many women to go missing in the district. The initial half of the series starts a little slow.  It does the silly name thing as the very muscular men try to pretend to be women. It has its moments where it is funny, and the mystery is interesting as it unfolds, but the second half of the series is where it really kicks off.

It turns out there isn’t just one demon here. As the build up to the final fight takes place we start learning more about the mystery of the demon’s presence in this area. She is much stronger than expected and so is her partner. I don’t want to spoil it as there are a couple of amazing little twists here. The final fight goes through a series of stages as our heroes are properly challenged. We get to see Tanjiro develop a lot as a Demon Hunter, we get to see his sister Nezuko unleash with her demon abilities, and fortunately Zenitsu spends the whole fight in his asleep mode so he is a total badass in the fight. After the final fight we even get some backstory about the demons which I really enjoyed.

Demon Hunter has always had fantastic animation. The attacks that use elements are animated with thick lines that make it absolutely pop on the screen, but this fight is next level. Throughout the fight are animations and scenes that look more like the high budget scenes you see in anime movies. Once this fight started I really struggled to stop and go to bed.  It’s a cracking and engaging fight that makes every bit of build up worth it!

Entertainment District Arc might be the most engaging Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba series yet. The chill silly first half builds up to an insanely excellent second half with animation that deserves the Bluray quality to really appreciate on your TV.

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