Reviewed by Alicia Glass

Another in a long line of newer isekai (alternate fantasy world) anime, BOFURI introduces VRMMO gamer Kaede Honjo as her online character Maple, in the game New World Online. As the long title rather cheekily suggests, Maple doesn’t fancy getting hurt in any way, shape, or form, and so maxes out her defense as much as possible, with cascading consequences!

In any online RPG, hell in pretty much any video, PC, or even live-action game these days, there is the danger of twinks. That is, folk who for one reason or another, load out their character to be as overpowered as possible, complete with cheat codes and whatever other hacks they can get away with, epic legendary weapons they obviously didn’t obtain the ‘right’ way, a completely unearned sense of superiority over all the newbies to the game, and a determination to make playing the game hell for whomever they encounter, usually through seriously mismatched PVP or player-versus-player duels and the like. And while it seem like Maple is a twink in the purest sense, this is a slapstick anime full of heart that finds sweet Maple and her maxed-out defense getting better and even more overpowered, making friends and a Guild and sharing her astounding skills, much to the dismay of the NWO usagi plush-like gamer Gods!

So, Maple begins as a shield-user with maxed-out defense stats, which makes sense to me given her predilections, though most gamer-girls don’t usually start out with such a crippling loadout. Maple continues to put every single subsequent status point she earns into defense, resulting in very slow movement speed and no magic at all. But honestly Maple doesn’t need it, and both of those things are addressed when she begins making friends and allies in the game – all the people in her party need to worry about are ricochets offa her shield!

The very first episode sees Maple off on her own, to tackle a damn Poison Dragon, and not only does she beat it in the most creative way possible and earn Poison Immunity, the manner in which she beat the Dragon has her gain alllllll of its abilities and a unique set of armor to boot! Soon will be a Battle Royale game for all the players and Maple is making friends and allies in the interim – along with the swashbuckling Sally, the character of Kaede’s real-world friend Risa Shiramine, is Kuromu the fellow shielder and Iz the crafter, and May and Yui the dark-and-light hammer wielding twins, who all form the basis of the Guild they end up building around Maple and her God-like defense skills, aptly dubbed, Maple Tree.

The list of skills and abilities Maple acquires through her stubborn defense gets quite staggering, especially for the first season of the anime – beating the ice bird boss Silverwing gets her and Sally monster eggs, that hatch into a pet turtle Maple inevitably dubs Syrup, who can freaking fly and get large to defend or attack the bad guys after Maple make him a Mobile Fortress; the skill Loving Sacrifice that allows Maple to share her amazing defense with her guild members, and also alters her appearance to look like a blonde Raphaelite angel, complete with astonishing wings; on the flip side of RPG gaming Maple earns the Machine God skill which basically makes her into an entire interchangeable Mecha, complete with guns and anti-tank-like missiles; the form of the skill Atrocity, which basically turns Maple into a Alien xenomorph-like horror creature, the polar opposite of Loving Sacrifice but just as powerful, if not more so.

How many different video game genres – horror, sci-fi-, fantasy-adventure, TPS, RPG and more – can they stuff into Maple’s bag of staggering defense? BOFURI is currently airing Season 2 on Crunchyroll now!

Reviewed by Alicia Glass

Spoilers be knockin’ too!

Based on the 2018 novel The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul G. Tremblay, while on vacation at their cabin, a family is terrorized by a quartet of strangers who demand they make an impossible decision in order to avert the world-destroying apocalypse!

This is a strange one, even for Shymalan. The theme of “it’s just not enough” runs rampant throughout the film, whether it be character motivations, resolve, end results, or even proof of what these strangers are espousing. I could excuse the whole apocalypse news non-proof as a matter of faith, which isn’t supposed to be proven as a matter of course, but it’s not as if any of these characters had an actual religious revelation. Just speculation, and a leap of faith, not in any kind of deity, but the potential inherent goodness in humanity, at the very end. And if any of the characters, either Andrew and Eric or the apocalypse crew, had had some kind of massive revelation in that vein, the ending would’ve had a lot more punchy impact. As it was, things just kind of petered out in an exhausted fashion.

So Eric (Jonathon Groff) and Andrew (Ben Aldridge) genuinely love each-other, despite parental and societal objections, and personal shortcomings, to the point where they’re ready to have (adopt) a baby together. And Wen (Kristen Cui) truly is a miracle, scarred lip and Asian heritage and all. But the fact remains that our lovely gay couple have to pretend that one of them is the brother of a fictitious wife who mysteriously couldn’t be there on adoption day, otherwise it wouldn’t be allowed at all; Andrew’s parents drove seven hours to meet the love of his life and stayed for all of forty-five excruciating minutes of virtual silence; and then there’s the homophobic trash starting fights at a bar, that ended with Andrew traumatized and determined to defend himself and his love. (One of the few great things about the film is the clear demonstration of an expression, pardon me here: “Just because a man is gay, does not make him a p*ssy.”)

All these experiences had a tendency to have a kind of polarizing effect on Eric and Andrew, who are still together but now seem to have deepened into separate opinions on humanity – Andrew is, to my mind anyway, justifiably angry and wrathful, whereas Eric simply smiles beatifically, like an angel who forgives you no matter what you do, willingly suffering martyrdom or at the very least some massive head trauma, offered up like a sacrifice of love. And hey, speaking of sacrifices ….

None of that has been piecemealed out to the audience as yet, when Wen meets a large disturbing man while out hunting grasshoppers at the cabin. Leonard (Dave Bautista), is the gentle but insistent giant, leader of the quartet come here to present Eric and Andrew’s family with an impossible choice: voluntarily sacrifice someone of our trio, to save the whole world from the apocalypse, end of days, wtfever you want to call it.

With Leonard is a trio of believers, all claiming to have seen the same visions, seeing each-other wear the exact same colors as they invade the cabin, the horrific destruction of the world by fire and flood and plane-death, even the homemade apocalypse avatar weapons, all intent and terrified, but singularly determined. Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird) is, or was, a nurse practitioner, and deals violence with one hand while immediately trying to heal it with the other, hence a mightily contradictory character who still resolves to see this through to the end. Adriane (Abby Quinn) is the twitchy, nervously tic-ing line cook, the one who regards serving good food as a form of love and laughs a little too much, like she’s gone insane just by being here, which is about par for this course. And rounding out our foursome is Redmond (Rupert Grint), impatient and jittery and more prone to violence than any of the rest of them, the one who seems eerily familiar in fact, the first to suggest savagery to get Eric and Andrew to cooperate, and the first to die as a consequence.

Time is running out and though Leonard is profusely apologetic, we absolutely must continue with the attempts to save the world, there are rules to be followed, and we only get a few more chances. As if the calamitous news stories about planes falling out of the sky and catastrophic tsunamis consuming coastlines wasn’t enough, every time Eric and Andrew refuse to make a choice, a believer has to die and (another) plague is unleashed upon mankind. Seeing a stranger, fanatic zealot or not, get brutally slain with homemade doomsday weapons after voluntarily dropping to his/her knees and donning a white hood is disturbing, to say the very least. And yet, despite literally shaking in their boots and sobbing like the Niagara, our faithful are here to give it a few more last, desperate goes at saving the whole world!

There’s a general agreement that director Shyamalan’s films have been steadily going downhill since arguably his magnum opus The Sixth Sense, and Knock at the Cabin is no real exception. There isn’t really even any kind of twist or gotcha that Shyamalan’s known for – actual aliens, ghostly supernatural shenanigans, killer plants, centenarian-laced beaches, all of that and more is nowhere to be found in our Cabin. Just a very disquieting sense that two beleaguered gay men forced into being the deciders of the fate of humanity as a whole, to offer up their true, real love as a sacrifice to some seriously sh*tty (and yknow, occasionally murderous) other humans is highly inflammatory and judgmental. Maybe that’s what Shyamalan was going for, who knows? And as always, Shyamalan himself gets a cameo in the film, see if you can spot him!

Save your judgment for the very last scene and catch Knock at the Cabin in theaters now!

The first Black Panther movie was a critical and box office beast. But, more so, it was a cultural phenomenon. It showed that a movie with that many Black actors, actresses and people on the other side of the camera could be a viable crossover success and it fueled more than a few other opportunities for more diversity in the Hollywood blockbuster world. It was already a massive undertaking for director Ryan Coogler and crew, to take on the challenge of trying to continue a series that has so much weight to it and live up to the expectations of fans and those deeply affected by it’s impact. Then after tragedy struck and the lead actor,, Chadwick Boseman passed The film had his shadow looming over it to contend with also. How do you replace him? Do you replace him? Will the movie as good? How do you outdo one of Marvel’s best villains in Killmonger? With so many questions everyone was ready for some answers

The newest chapter in one of Marvel’s most praised films center’s around the world dealing with the sudden death of T’Challa from a mysterious disease. This piece of the story is art imitating the real life of Boseman as very few knew of his private fight with cancer which led to his passing. With the King now, dead and the world now aware of the precious resource of vibranium metal and all of its power we have politicians doing what they are known to do; trying to figure out how to get their hands on the resources of other countries for their benefit. We see a group of mercenaries breaking into a Wakandan facility to steal vibranium and being stopped by Wakandas chief protectors, The Dora Milaje. These mercenaries are brought before a council of representatives from various countries and the now Queen of Wakanda, Ramonda. With these new threats to Wakandas’ safety and secrets the political intrigue that is prevalent in the comic pages of Black Panther is more of a factor in this film. The mad scramble by the World to find and exploit vibranium takes the search in to the deep seas. This is how we introduce Namor into the storyline. As his up to now, unknown people of Talokan have vibranium as well, he is not so keen to have people in the oceans searching as it’ll lead to the world finding his people as well. Namor says to Shuri, something to the effect of “people have been exploiting people like us for resources for centuries.” He wants to protect his people much like Wakanda did before opening itself up to the world but, is willing to kill to do so like Killmonger in the previous film. This helps slot Namor into line with the”He’s got a valid point” villains that tend to be more interesting than the generic evil-to-be evil villains we usually get from Marvel movies. I did enjoy the choice of actor Tenoch Huerta as the underwater villain. He adds even more diversity to a cast of talented minority actors. The Mexican actor helps give Namor a new Mayan background for his origin and honestly I believe it adds gravity to his reasoning for wanting to get rid of those who may expose his people to the world as he would know how this story has played out through history.

The acting in this one is some of the best I’ve ever seen in the superhero genre, period. Tenoch Huerta as Namor is forceful and ruthless but, able to show grace and tenderness when around his people and it helps make you feel something other than disdain for the”bad guy” Angela Bassett as Queen Ramonda gets far more lines this time around and is impactful during her screen time but, the accent is a bit shaky at times. Not, After Earth, Will and Jaden Smith bad but, not the strongest aspect of her character for sure. Shuri (Leticia Wright) does get to open up and bit more and gets to show more than her snarky side this time out as she grieves her brother and her own weakness. Danai Gurira as Okoye is as good as before but, not much is new in her portrayal of the character. M’Baku is now an ardent ally of the Wakandan people and an advisor to the throne. He’s a bit more light hearted but still as tough as before. Trevor Noah as the AI for Wakandas tech gets way more lines and funny moments this time out too.

One of my primary complaints of the initial film was the crap final fight being too FX heavy and taking me out of the film. This I feel was addressed (because I’m quite certain Ryan Coogler takes my opinions to heart) as the fights in general seemed to be better handled to keep you engaged throughout. The final confrontation in this one was far better than T’Challa vs Killmonger. Still, using VFX but, not focusing on it for massive periods helped ground the shots in relative reality. The film itself is better than the first overall, in acting but, slightly weaker in story. The villain is as strong as Killmonger which keeps with a great tradition I hope continues in the next part in the series. This film is truly one of Marvel’s best. In story, acting, and introducing new characters (Namor and RiRi Willaims). This movie was fitting and loving done tribute to Chadwick Boseman and afantastic way to move the MCU and the Black Panther series in to the future.I know I said this one is better than the last and I gave that one a 5 out of 5 but, hindsight and all that a revised review I give the first film a 3.5 and give Wakanda Forever a 4.5 out of 5.