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.

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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.

The post Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba: Entertainment District Arc (Anime) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

When I checked out the first season of Goblin Slayer I was shockingly impressed.

It started as a bit of a generic adventurer anime, but quickly evolved into something more interesting as the bland armor clad Goblin Slayer became a fascinating and interesting character. Then as his party grew, the whole series became more interesting.

Well now with Season 2 I was keen to see where the show could go next.

If you haven’t seen Goblin Slayer before, it is set in a fantasy world where adventurers take on quests to level up their rank in the Adventurer’s Guild. Goblin Slayer is looked down on by most adventurers because instead of taking on more difficult quests to grow his rank, he just takes on goblins. As the show progressed, and after he saves Priestess, he built up a party and developed as a character. In this show goblins are truly awful creatures, capturing human women and torturing and raping them. Nasty stuff.

Season 2 kicks off with the party still fully intact. Nowadays people dont talk crap about Goblin Slayer anymore, in fact they want to share a drink with him. He is asked to train up a newbie who is a young wizard but Goblin Slayer isn’t keen. It turns out he is super cocky, and with Priestess wanting to get leveled up, they are paired together to take out a goblin. This quest turns out to be super dark, and despite the young wizard being super confident, he has to face the realities of these nasty creatures.

The series follows a bunch more side quests and stories.

These vary from goblin killing, to High Elf Archer taking the team to her sisters wedding, to killing goblins. The one issue this series has is that a lot of it feels like filler. It doesn’t have the super strong throughline and character development that Season 1 had. On the flip side, there are a lot less nasty sexual predator scenes from the goblins. While I get they did that to truly make the goblins the vilest creatures imaginable in Season 1, it was never a great thing to watch. There are some seriously cool fights in this series though, and the main party characters are consistently likable and fun to watch together.

While Goblin Slayer Season 2 doesn’t hit the heights of Season 1, it is still a damn fun series. The characters are fun, and the bulk of the episodes are great. It could have been a bit shorter by cutting some of the fluff down, or more engaging by sliding in more character development.

The post Goblin Slayer – Season 2 (Anime) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Tokyo Ghoul is one of those anime series I have always meant to watch, but never got around to.

Well, now there is a 10th anniversary box set, showing how long I have actually put it off. I was really glad to finally correct that in style with this box set.

The first Season of Tokyo Ghoul follows the young Ken Kaneki. He meets a pretty women, who turns out to be a ghoul. The ghoul attacks him and he finds himself in critical condition after the attack, but fortunately for him some construction girders fall and kill the ghoul.

Kaneki has some of her organs transplanted into him, and this turns him into a half ghoul half human. In this world, ghouls look like humans but are way stronger and with some distinct red eyes. The kicker is they have to feed on human flesh. In many ways it feels like a different take on the normal vampire type of show. Just flesh eating instead of blood drinking, and they walk around in the light.

Kaneki has to adapt to a life as a half human half ghoul. This means he has to learn that eating human flesh is something he needs to do, but also he’s still kinda a human. Of course as he is learning to live in these two worlds there has to be a bad guy right? There’s a few.

And they attract the attention of the CCG who hunt down ghouls to protect humans from being eaten. The issue is that some ghouls do everything they can to avoid killing humans, and the CCG doesn’t see that.

The second Season has the CCG fighting the Aogiri Tree which is a group of ghouls. Then Season 3 has our protagonist joining the CCG after he gets amnesia. Tonally there is a sudden change from Season 2 to Season 3, and it turns out there is a reason for that.

Apparently the second Season varies from the manga a fair bit, and then Season 3 pulls it back more in line. I liked Season 2 plenty so wish they kinda just followed that. The early stages of Season 3 are pretty hard to follow, but when you power through it does become plenty of fun.

The biggest issue, outside of that weirdness with Season 2 and 3, is that the show never really gives characters a lot of development. We get slices of their personality, but not really enough of their motivations. What I found was the show was plenty of fun, and the world is interesting, but it winds up being surface level. This box set has all the Seasons, some OVA’s and a heap of special features which I really enjoyed watching afterwards. It is all encased in blu ray discs in a gorgeous hard cover box that looks fantastic on the shelf.

Tokyo Ghoul isn’t a perfect series, but it’s a hell of a lot of fun. An interesting world, interesting story, and some great animation makes it a great chill watch. And this easily makes it worth watching.  If you haven;t seen it before this box set is a great way to enjoy it, just be ready for that sharp change from Season 2 to 3.

The post Tokyo Ghoul Complete Series: 10th Anniversary (Anime) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Demon Slayer is a fantastic series that has gripped me from the start.

Some truly dark moments, strengthened with some beautiful style that makes it look far too cure, and then mixed with some insane animation that just looks incredible on the screen.  When the Demon Slayer movie Mugen Train dropped I absolutely loved it.  So now it is time to check out the series Mugen Train Arc, but wait, how does that work?

In short, this series covers the same story as the movie did.

The only real difference is that instead of a tight 90 minutes, we have over 3 hours of awesome for the story. This allows a whole lot more development and story to be squeezed in, and honestly it’s worth it. The movie kicks off with our heroes in the train, but the series kicks off with the new character Rengoku already on the train enjoying his food. The anime series kicks off with an episode where Rengoku is looking into the mysterious death and disappearances from the Mugen train, and how it winds up back in action.  It’s a little thing, but adds heaps to the start of this incredible series.

If you haven’t seen either of them, well let me tell you, it’s a banger of a series. Tanjiro, Nezuko, Zenitsu, and Inosuke get on the strange Mugen train to help out Rengoku tracking down this demon. But nothing can ever be simple right? They all fall asleep and can;t wake up. That’s thanks to a freaky demon that puts people to sleep, and has sent some minions into their dreams to destroy an important part of their spirit.

At seven episodes long, it’s a relatively short series, so too much more about the plot is beyond spoiler territory.

In those seven episodes though we get to see some insight into Rengoku and his character, and through dreams we learn more about the spirits of our heroes. And the final battle is beyond awesome, and given how the battle ends Rengoku deserves that extra time we have with him. Just like the movie, the animation is gorgeous, and all the additional pieces make this well worth watching even if you have seen it.

Demon Slayer seems to just go from strength to strength. This season is no exception with stunning animation, a fantastic story, and just brimming with awesomeness. I love having this and the movie in my collection as the movie is a really succinct way to enjoy this amazing story, and this one is there for when I want to enjoy even more of the awesomeness.

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Many years ago I enjoyed watching the dark and freaky Psycho Pass first season.

Then as the seasons went on the quality deteriorated. Now with a re-release on Bluray I was super keen to see if the first season was as good as I remembered. And now I have watched it, it sure is!

If you haven’t seen it before, Psycho Pass is dark.  It’s set in a sci-fi world where everyone’s brain is constantly being scanned. With this it can tell if people are going to commit crimes. People with too high of a score are captured by the cops. These cops are armed with special weapons called Dominators, these are guns which will only fire if aimed at someone approved by the system. They can use this to stun someone, or explode them into a mass of blood.

So yeah, it’s pretty dark.

The series follows Akane Tsunemori who is a rookie cop. Her first crime she checks out has he persuing a messed up criminal who has a hostage who he has raped. They catch up to him to take him out, but the messiness of this future becomes apparent fast. The woman he has abducted and abused has her mind starting to go because of the awful crap done to her. Perfectly innocent not long earlier, and now a potential future criminal. Our new rookie is immediately caught up in the horrifying ethical situation of what to do with her.

Told ya it’s dark didn’t I?

The series follows the series of characters in the division as they investigate crimes and go after a big baddie. What makes the series interesting is the side stories that get pursued throughout. We have all of the people the live and breathe the system, then we get baddies and how some really undermine the idea of what’s going on. Akane being our main character is interesting. She has grown up in a world without crime because of what the cops do. But being one of the people that now has to do this she faces the reality of taking people out who haven’t committed a crime yet.

The theme is really good, but Akane doesn’t get the development she deserves.

Added to this is fantastic animation and voice acting. The world has been built beautifully to create a massive futuristic city that feels interesting and gnarly. It manages to capture the feel of futuristic and dystopian in ways that look initially very clean, but then with the awful horrors they uncover and the wider horror of what the cops do it creates that jarring feeling.

Psycho Pass Season One is still an exceptional series. If you haven’t checked this one out yet, then I can’t recommend it enough. And if you don’t have it in your physical collection yet then this blu-ray is a must add!

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