Avatar: The Last Airbender Book 2 Review

Avatar fans as you know i've been on an Avatar mission to review each and every season and here we are at season 2 and I have to say that it's a really good season and so here is the review.

Unlike last season which had one story Book 2 pretty much has two the first one is Aang has to find an earth bending master it's an interesting story and it's one that I wish lasted the whole series but it doesn't but the second story is Aang has to learn to master the Avatar state and it's not really that interesting of a story and they wrap it up in two episodes.

All of the main actors returned for the series but sadly this was the final series to feature Mako as Uncle Iroh as he died after this series had finished production. Joining the returning cast we have Jessie Flower , Grey Griffin , Cricket Leigh , Olivia Hack and Clancy Brown and I have to say that I really enjoyed the newer characters and there performances but out of all the cast members I have to say that I liked Grey Griffin the best just because you could tell she was having playing Azula and I had fun watching her.

I liked what they did with Zuko this series they turned him being a straight out villain to something more along the lines of an antihero and to me that made him more interesting and it made his scenes more interesting to watch but I guess it was also helped by the fact he wasn't just stuck on a ship this series.

The animation for this series was handled by two different companies those being JM Animation and DR Movie both of whom also did the animation for the first season with only JM Animation returning for the third. I have to say that I felt that the animation got a huge upgrade from the last series which is saying something because the animation in the first series was truly something to behold but tho with that being said I did notice animation errors which like the first series it was mostly people missing faces and I hope to god the third series doesn't contain any errors.

What I hope doesn't change however is the wonderful looking action scenes and unlike the first series not all of them are forgettable I remember the first fight with Azula pretty damn well. I think all the fight scenes came of better this year because not only was there alot more emotion behind them but we as an audience had grown to love the characters more.

Speaking of Azula she is freaking terrifying she is such a good villain and she is so unlike how her brother was in the first series it's unreal Zuko could be terrifying at times but he also came across as a less emo Kylo Ren but Azula is freaking scary and is willing to put her own friends life in danger if she doesn't get her way so if she's willing to that to a friend then imagine what she'd do if she doesn't even know you.

In the same way that the Harry Potter series grew more mature with it's audience and story I think that this series is more mature with it's story and it's audience for example even tho we don't see it it's implied that a character dies and unlike the last series where it was done by magic and thus the character could live on here it's death and that's it I can't think of a series that came out at the same time as this show that did anything close to that.

Honestly I can't decide who was the best character this series which for me was between Azula and Toph now i've already gave my reasons as to why I think Azula is the best character but for Toph she was a delight to watch and it was great seeing her relationship with Katara grow from Toph pretty much hating her to seeing Katara as a friend and alley and she had alot of the funniest lines this year as well almost everything she said had me laughing out loud.

Overall this was an entertaining second season but unlike what i've done for both this and the first series i'm not going to watch every episode of the final season just the last four episodes since I think they will show everything that is great about this show so far me Book 2 gets a 9 out of 10 see you all for the third and final series Book 3 Fire. 

Voltron: Legendary Defender Season 5 Review

Hello there Netflix and fans and I guess you could say Avatar fans while I did watch a lot of season one and bits of seasons two and three i've never seen a full season for did a I even watch season 4 of Voltron but i've seen enough to get what the story is so here is my review of Voltron: Legendary Defender Season 5.

Even tho I just said i've seen enough to get the story for the show I still found the story for this season very hard to follow the closest thing to to a story that this season has involves something called the Kral Zera which I won't get into detail about and it only lasts about four episodes and there's no real story after episode four but at the same time the more I watched it the more I came to realise that the show is pretty episodic and i'm not sure if that works for something like Voltron or not.

Returning to the series we have Josh Keaton , Glenn From The Walking Dead , Finn The Human , Bex Taylor-Klaus , Tyler Labine , Kimberly Brooks , Rhys Darby , Neil Kaplan , The Great Cree Summer and A.J. Locascio. I think that not only was this season well cast but the show overall was cast really well since all of the characters sound really well and the actors do a good job pulling of this sci-fi heavy show and make it sound interesting.

Now I mentioned Avatar in my intro and that's because alot of the crew from Avatar and Korra work on this show and those people include co-showrunners Joaquim Dos Santos and Lauren Montgomery Joaquin directed episodes from both Avatar amd Korra while Lauren served as a storyboard artist for Avatar Season 3 but it doesn't stop there because Ki Hyun Ryu who's a producer and director on Voltron also directed episodes of Korra and writer Tim Hedrick who was a staff writer on Avatar and korra is the lead writer on Voltron so in a way this is an Avatar reunion.

Continuing this little Avatar / Korra reunion doing the animation for Voltron is Studio Mir do did the animation for Korra and I have to say that the quality of animation seen in the Avatar franchise does carry on to this series which does make sense since alot of the same crew worked on Avatar and Korra and like both of those shows this show does take it's look from anime and as an anime fan I like that alot of mainstream shows are looking towards the east for inspiration but that said I don't think Voltron needed to be one of them.

The animation for this season was well done with the characters having some great fluid movements and facial expressions. The great animation also carries over to the more emotional scenes which I won't get into since this season has just aired but to me and unlike Avatar I didn't notice any animation errors in this season of the show.

Now people say that Hanna-Barbera is bad at reusing animation and rightfully so however they reuse the Voltron transformation scene alot both in the show and in this season so people if your going to have a go at Hanna-Barbera for doing it then you need to have a go at Disney and at this show because they both do it and i'm willing to bet your favorite show reuses alot of animation as well.

I will say that while this show and season doesn't relay to much on action scenes when they do show up they are pretty nice to look at and that's honestly the best thing I can say about those scenes because they are pretty forgettable as of this writing i've just finished season 5 and I can't remember a single action scene so I do wish they would have put more effort into making the action scenes more memorable instead of just giving them pretty animation.

I will give this season this it did have some funny moments but again since this season just aired on Netflix I won't go into to much detail but I will say that I think that the animation really did help sell those moments due to how good the facial expressions were as well as how funny the joke it self actually was and yes there are no fart jokes thank the heavens.

The opening theme for the show was done by Alex Geringas and I have to say that I really liked the opening theme it makes the show feel more epic then I think it really is plus i'm a sucker for a good electric guitar which that song does make good use of and I wouldn't be surprised if you saw heard his music in movies one day he's that good.

Overall I kinda found this season to be a bit boring and that's not something I want to say because I do really want to like it but after watching that is Avatar it now makes me want more from Voltron and I believe it can be better heck the ending to this season does hint at bigger things and we'll have to wait until June 15th for season 6 and yes the poster does indeed main i'll be reviewing the second season of Trolls: The Beat Goes On! next week but as for Voltron season 5 it gets a 8 out of 10.

   

Avatar: The Last Airbender Book 1 Review

Well then after avoiding this show for so many years heck i've seen the movie more times then I have this show i've decided to set out on my biggest challenge yet and not just review the show as a whole but to review each season of Avatar: The Last Airbender so here we go with season 1.

When I normally do a review of anything I don't take notes and that's because most of the shows I've done a review of don't tend to have a story but since this show does have a story I had to make notes and the only two episodes I didn't make notes for was the two part finale it was that damn epic and it set up season 2 pretty damn perfect.

The plot for season 1 was young waterbender Katara and her brother Sokka find a yound boy Aang trapped in an Iceberg and when he's freed it turns out he is the avatar the one is destined to bring peace to the world but he hasn't mastered the elements of airbending those being Water , Fire and Earth and he's only mastered Wind so they set out to find both Aang and Katara a waterbending master. I think with this season it wasn't just the destination that mattered but also the journey it takes them a good eighteen episodes until they reach there destination where as if this show was made they would have reached it in ten minuets.

The first season starred an evil Jake long (look it up trust me you'll laugh) , Zach Tyler Eisen , Dee Bradley Baker , Mae Whitman , Mako and Jack DeSena. This is a sixty episode show so i'm not going to name every single actor but tho even tho Dante Basco is awesome in this show and why wouldn't he be his uncle is freaking Mako all I could here was Jake Long so in my eyes Jake turned evil.

The rest of the voice cast did a really great and that's in part because they are really good in this series every actor is truly believable but also because the voice director for this was the legendary Andrea Romano who's worked on freaking everything from Batman: The Animated series to the recent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles show and if anyone can get a great performance out of any actor it's her.

When I first started the show I thought that the story and the story telling was just going to be for little kids but my oh my was I wrong yes it does start out like that in the first few episodes but as the show goes on the story telling because more and more mature the audience isn't being talked down to instead we are being talked to on the same level and I never expected that.

Now what you might have noticed is that this show kinda looks like an anime and by kinda I mean it's anime in everything except the name but to this show's credit I think this kind of style helps with it's mature story telling and I think that having that anime look also lets you know that the comedy moments will be funnier due to the facial expressions.

The animation it self is truly stunning and is beyond what I was expecting from a show made in 2005 all of the characters even the ones that just appear in one episode have some great movements to them and in the action scenes the movements are really fluid and fast paced thud helping sell the fact that these fights are life and death.

I've been praising this season alot but I do have to say that I did notice some animation errors where people suddenly have no face and the fact that alot of the episodes just wasn't that good like for example The Waterbending Scroll episode while it does a good job of expanding the world it's not this seasons best episode and it teaches kids that it's ok to steal.

Now I have no idea how much research the writers did on this show but I found that Bumi in Hindi actually means Earth and one of the four elements that Aang has to learn is Earthbending so either that's a clever bit foreshadowing or it's a nice little easter egg for nerds either I thought it was bringing up here.

The amount of great actors who play villains in this season is truly breath taking it reads like a who's who of geek culture i've already mentioned Rafio from Hook and Mako are in this but The Fire Lord is played by The Joker / Luke Freaking Skywalker himself Mark Hamill and flipping over to another franchise with the word star in it's title original series Star Trek actor George Takei is in this show altho for the life of me I can't recall who he played and Harry Potter actor Jason Isaacs plays Admiral Zhao.

I freaking loved the fight scenes not because they were well executed altho that was part of the reason but because of how beautiful they were look at like I said before the animation is really faced paced in those scenes so it helps sell the scene and I hope to god these awesome looking fight scenes continue in seasons 2 and 3.

This show really knows how to balance between comedy and drama you get most of the comedy done with within the first five minutes of the episode while at the same time dealing out alot of story information and then you'll maybe get some jokes at the end and I have to say Sokka is easily the funniest character in this show nine times out of ten everything he says is funny as hell and I cannot believe they got away with using the word floozie on a kids show if you don't know what it means look it up but when I heard that I must have laughed for a good twenty minuets just because I didn't expect it.

Overall this was a solid first season i'm shocked that it didn't take me as long as I thought it would to finish it and I cannot wait to start season 2 Earth in a few days so for me this season gets a 8.5 out of 10. 

   

Robot Chicken Season 9 Episode 10 "Factory Where Nuts Are Handled" Review

Robot Chicken fans i'm back after a week of to get some rest and I have to say this was a very enjoyable episode so here is my review of Robot Chicken Season 9 episode 10  "Factory Where Nuts Are Handled".

In this weeks show Mary Kate and Ashley head to Mexico , Michigan J. Frog and his cousin Pepe have a chat and Megatron suffers from PTSD. I'm being honest here I cannot remember most of the sketches from this weeks episode and i'm not sure why that is they weren't that long and they were pretty funny.

This weeks episode starred Seth Green , Genevieve Angelson , Rachel Bloom , Larry Herron , Victorious star Victoria Justice , David Kaye and Tesha Kondrat. Whoever does the casting for this series well done because I had no idea who was playing who in this episode and that's the best thing you can say about any actor in any show or movie.

I'm not going to repeat what I say every week about the animation because honestly i'm getting sick of saying it which is why these reviews will be short unless something drastic happens and if not then i'll have to reconsider doing this on a weekly basis but yeah the production value for this weeks episode was pretty high.

Like I said before most of the jokes for this weeks episodes were just forgettable they were funny jokes but if your like me you'd forget them a few minuets after watching the episode but my favorite sketch featured the legend that is Michigan J. Frog he's a funny character anything he says or does is funny in this episode.

Overall this was a decent episode and like I said before i'm going to reconsider doing this as a weekly series maybe just doing the season premiers and endings with maybe the specials so that way i'm not repeating myself week after week this episode gets a 7 out of 10 from me.  

  

  

Wacky Races 1968 Review

Guys i've already reviewed the reboot of Wacky Races so I thought lets review the original series and it's spin-offs but for this week i'm just tackling the original series the spin-offs will follow in the following weeks so racers start your engines here is my review of the original Wacky Races.

For those that didn't know there was a show called Wacky Races before the reboot the show aired in 1968 and ran until 1969 with only one single series to it's name spanning seventeen episodes with each episode having two separate Wacky Races but what's interesting is the fact it was only cancelled because parents groups thought it was to violet even tho kids see alot worse in Scooby-Doo! this is the one that got canned. 

The set up for the show is eleven wacky racers race to see who is the world's wackiest racer and set up alone makes this better then the reboot because they actually feature racing and the race doesn't stop so the show can have a plot and that's what Wacky Races should be racing and nothing else and unlike the reboot there's alot of racers and the show makes good use of all of them.

The series starred Paul Winchell as Dick Dastardly , Private Meekly and Clyde the leader of The Ant Hill Mob , Don Messick as Muttley, Professor Pat Pending, Gravel Slag, Little Gruesome, Ring-a-Ding (also a member of the mob) and Sawtooth , Daws Butler as Rock Slag, Big Gruesome, Red Max, Sergeant Blast, Peter Perfect and Rufus Ruffcut , John Stephenson as Luke and Blubber Bear , Janet Waldo as Penelope Pitstop and Dave Willock as The Narrator. 

In all honesty I loved Paul Winchell as Dastardly in this series he's so evil and yet at the same time you want to see him win at least one race and unlike the reboot which gives Dick a British accent here he speaks American and it suits him better then a British accent does. There's not really much more I can say about the rest of the cast that hasn't all ready been said because of how legendary the voice actors are but I will say I really did think that The Narrator was played by someone from the racing world and was sad to see that was not the case.

The animation was done by Hanna-Barbera with the famous duo of William Hanna and Joseph Barbera directing and producing every episode of the show and I have to say that for me at least the animation wasn't that good I get that they made shows on the cheap but even so the animation seen in this show isn't there best work and I noticed alot of animation errors as well and not just in the early episodes either they were through out the whole series I honestly lost count of how many times Muttley's ears were colored wrong.

What this show does really well I thought was it focused more on Dastardly and Muttley the villains of the show I don't think there's been a show before it or since that had the villains get more focus then the heroes and because of that those two are the most developed out of all the characters but sadly for me tho the least developed is Penelope Pitstop at the most she gets a sentences worth of dialog in must of the episodes and that's it and I think that's because when they were making the show she was seen as an after thought and her character and car were created because the makers thought the show needed a female driver oh and by the way her official creator is Iwao Takamoto who's a legendary character designer.

People who talk about this show often talk about Dick Dastardly being capable of winning and it's true he is actually a good racer once you stop and think about it he often starts out last and yet works his way up to first place the only reason he doesn't win is because he stops to do his tricks which even after they've failed he still tries to work his way back into the race that takes alot of skill and I have to give him credit for that.

The show was written by Larz Bourne , Dalton Sandifer , Tom Dagenais and Michael Maltese I think that the all of the stuff Micheal wrote was largely ignored because I didn't find the show to be that funny and I know Micheal is a very funny writer I can easily see someone who's seeing this show for the first time laughing alot but I grew up with the show and I didn't find it that funny for some reason altho I have to say that I did enjoy the puns those were freaking funny as was sassy Dastardly and the show is very entertaining.

I have to talk about Penelope some more because I feel like she is such a product of the times she is the most feminine driver out of the cast of the characters , she always needs help from someone and her cars gadgets or beauty products now you could say that's part of her character and you'd be right to say that but at the same time if this version of the character was made today people would be calling the makers of the show sexist.

Now since the show's main goal was to find the world's wackiest racer I think it's fair to assume that the racer with the most wins would be that racer so i'm here to tell you who the top three wackiest racers or tied for number three with a total of eleven points it's The Ant Hill Mob and Penelope Pitstop and number two it's Rufus Ruffcut and Sawtooth with a total of thirteen points and beating them by one single point it's The Slag Brothers.

It wouldn't be a review of Wacky Races without talking about the cars I really liked the cars in the show they each suited there driver or drivers perfectly and each of the cars are just as Wacky as the people behind the wheel and I have to say that my personal favorite car belonged to the person with the best name on the show the Convert-a-Car driven by Professor Pat Pending the car can do anything the episode or scene requires it to do and I love the play on the Patent Pending.

Overall this was a really entertaing show and I generally didn't know who was going to win each race and while I do enjoy the reboot I think that this is the better version so for me the show gets a 7 out of 10. 

  

My Brief Thoughts On Apple & Onion

So then there's a new show on Cartoon Network out and when I say out I mean you can watch the first two episodes on demand the official premier isn't for a few more days but still here our some thoughts I have about Apple & Onion.

Just based of these first two episodes this looks to be an episodic show which I guess does make sense since this is a slice of life show but at the same time I do wish there was a slight narrative in the show but i'm only judging it of the first two episodes so who knows there could be a story developing in the future.

I had no idea this had a British cast as Apple we have the shows creator George Gendi but it's the voice of onion that truly shocked me as we have Richard Ayoade from The IT Crowd doing his voice and I have to say both actors are pretty funny in the first two episodes but the casting gets even more awesome as Onions dad is played by Stephen Fry that is just pure great casting right there and yes I know there's more actors in this but since this isn't a full review i'm not going to name every actor.

I'm going to come right out and say it the character look freaking weird to me and that's not just the side characters it's every character I get what they are going for making every piece of food into a person but that doesn't stop them from looking like they just escaped from a mental hospital and I can see the designs putting some people of watching the show.

I will say this about the show it's humor at least for these two episodes was pretty spot on I honestly cannot count the amount of times I laughed out loud and I think that's helped by the fact that Richard is a generally funny person and the kind of humor that this show has seems to be right up his alley.

Since i've only seen the first two episodes I cannot make a full comment on the animation but based on what i've seen the animation in the show is far better then most Cartoon Network shows these days I won't name any shows just because at some point it just becomes dull to bash on the same show time after time but lets just say it has a movie out this year with the name Goes To the Movies.

So far this does seem like it could be a great show for the network and if i'm still watching by the time episode twenty roles out then yes there will be a review but if i'm not watching it by that time then there's no review.

My Little Pony Equestria Girls: Forgotten Friendship Review

Pony fans when I woke up this morning I had no idea that by the evening i'd be here writing up a review on the newest Equestria Girls special so here is my review of My Little Pony Equestria Girls: Forgotten Friendship.

As far as I can tell the special is an adaptation of the book A Friendship To Remember by Perdita Finn and just going of the MLP Wikia the special does seem to be really faithful to the book. The plot is someone steals the memories of Twilight , Applejack and the rest of the gang apart from Sunset Shimmer so it's up to her to find out who did it and get her friends back. I'll admit I knew who the villain was from about the half way mark it's not a good mystery at all but the story it self is pretty solid.

The film stars the great Tara Strong , Rebecca Shoichet , Ashleigh Ball , Tabitha St. Germain , Andrea Libman , Cathy Weseluck and Kathleen Barr. In all honesty there's not much I can say about the acting since these actors have been playing there characters since 2010 so of course they are going to know how best to play there respective characters and thus all of the actors do a solid job and it is nice to hear new dialog from these characters since we are nearly a month out before the season 8 premier.

I will say that unlike Magical Movie Night which was just the Equestria Girls TV series sold as a movie there is one plot this time around and the animation for a TV special isn't that bad but the issue I have with the animation is this is following the movie which had better animation so anything that came out after that is going to look cheap by comparison but with all of that said it is not see the familiar animation style of the show.

The best word I can use to describe this special is cute and in all honesty I think that's the best word to use this spin off franchise it's cute nothing more and nothing less altho it does make me wish that this spin off franchise was canon just because it would present more story telling possibilities but i'd fully understand if any of you pony fans didn't like that.

There's a few good jokes in the special I personally laughed at lot at Twilight for spoiler reasons i'm not going to reveal which version of her but if you've seen this special then you'll understand why I thought that there were alot of scenes in this special with Twilight that were so in character they made me laugh and for some reason this spin off franchise is now meta because they make a lot of meta jokes and they are all really funny.

Honestly at this point with the Equestria Girls franchise I do wish they'd try something different which I know they are doing with the toy line but i'm talking more about the films and specials just because after a while they all start to blur into one and they all start to feel like they are the same thing and not a different film or special.

Overall if your into MLP or if you know someone who is into this franchise then they might like it but at the same time even if you are into MLP you'll see nothing new here and you'll know where the story is heading and who the villain is so with all of that in mind and bearing in mind this is more aimed for little girls because heaven forbid the guys get something aimed at them in this franchise I give this special a 5 out of 10.