Ongoing Investigations: Case #075

I continued my journey with Detective Conan in watching the 4th Movie, Captured in Her Eyes. This one clearly makes Ran the focus of the movie but by giving her amnesia after she witnesses a police woman being shot in front of her as part of a series of attacks against police officers. So most of the movie is Conan trying to get her to get her memories back so she can remember the shooting while trying to simultaneously to solve the case.  I got a better insight into every one’s relationships as they tried to explain to Ran who they were. The story is weaker the the last movie but I still found it enjoyable. The story starts off strong with some action and murder and sort of coasts in the middle. The end gets exciting again and has some great chase sequences with a solid finale. Everyone role in this movie was more organic integrated than the last movie which was nice to see. Not the first Detective Conan movie you should see but definitely not one you should skip over either.

Captured in Her Eyes is strangely able to show Ran at her weakest and show her kicking ass in a properly dramatic scene. At first you may think, Ran sees murders all the time as does anyone involved with Conan! However, this time around she was close to death and what’s more, she has seen the killer’s face. There is a much more personal element in this movie, even in the mystery itself as one of the officers targeted is a recurring character. This movie also showcases a little of Ran and Kudo’s connection, not that it isn’t obvious, but it’s not always central and in this case there is a desperation on Conan’s part. For better or for worse, those are the best parts of movie. The mystery itself is enticing for sure but the figuring of it out isn’t as intriguing. Though this is all saved by some really incredible animation sequences including one of Conan skateboarding down this giant ice slide thing and then almost immediately after a nice boat chase scene! Enjoyable of course, but Capture in Her Eyes is more memorable for the animation than anything else.

Continue reading

Ongoing Investigations: Case #073

On the advice of Sheentaku I decided to give  Baka to Test to Shokanju a chance since he said it seemed right up my alley.  I can’t say that the Internet has utterly figured me out just yet. The premise is that after students take the entrance exam for Fumizuki Academy the score get get places them in classes A though F. The lower the class your are in the worse the facilitates are with the A class having the newest fanciest of everything and the F class has everything that is about to collapse. The classes can use an RPG battle system to defeat other classes and switch rooms with them. So the F class declares war on the rest of the school with the two main characters being their trump cards. Akihisa Yoshii, the main guy is a punching bag for Minami Shimada the tomboy is is clearly in love with him. Mizuki Himeji, the main girl is just sort of a genius Hyatt but not any more interesting than that. The trap, the pervert, and the rest of the school seemed standard character types. Yuuji Sakamoto looks like me might be interesting but I am sure they will under use him. Also Minami was way too violent for no reason for me to get into her character. I never disliked any part of the show unlike say The Familiar of Zero but it also never drew me in or made me laugh.

This past weekend with some friends in toe I went to the Tatsunoko VS. Capcom event being held at Nintendo World in NYC. Usually at these little gatherings you can get a copy of the game early, but not so this time around. Though you could win a copy by beating out everyone else in the game tournament. Of which there were tons, or atleast I think there were, maybe they were all just in line for the autograph and poster as seen above. In any case, talk about packed! Luckily we caught glimpses of the game as we were waiting in line. I am happy to report many people playing as Joe the Condor (as they should be!) who is basically the reason I want to play this game myself. Actually I was happy to see everyone really playing an array of the hefty cast. I did get to play for a minute at the end where I doubled up with Joe the Condor and Viewtiful Joe and promptly got trounced by Gold Lightan! Looking forward to this release so I can try again.

Continue reading