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Feb 19, 2010
Hello, it's been a while since I've wrote a review, so I decided to write an article on one of my favorites, the famous but yet not so famous Soul Hunter (aka Hoshin Engi). It sounds like I'm contradicting myself but listen to this tid bit of history. Soul Hunter was a popular manga series from the very renown Shonen Jump Magazine, and lasted for a good 4 years (1996 to 2000) and won a best Manga award. Which soon became an Anime in 1999, one year prior to the end of the manga series. The show had good audience and was pretty successful. When
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the series traveled overseas to the US it was meeting a market that was just being introduced to Anime: Animes like Akira, Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon, etc. But the series quickly fell short into a VHS format due to its short 26 episode line up. Major Television channels in US refused to air the Anime since it didn't have enough marketing potential like Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball which had season after season of shows. So the series was left to collect dust at video stores. Fortunately the series was a big hit with European and South American audiences, along with other popular Shonen series such as Saint Seiya, Ranma 1/2, and uncut versions of Dragon Ball Z.
That's enough History let's get into the details.
The story takes place in Ancient China, when the five great Kingdoms come into power. The story is also based on a Chinese folklore, just like The Great Journey West (which is the basis of the Dragon Ball story line). The world is split into two planes, the plane of mortals and the plane of Doshin. Doshin are like immortal spirits or demi gods in the Chinese folklore. Our main character is a lazy Senin named Taikoubou, basically he's training to become a Doshin, who is sent on a quest to capture over a 1000 Yokai (aka Demons) that plague the Mortal world. Taikoubou doesn't like fighting but uses his sear wits to out smart his enemies. Though he seems to get himself into near death situations, he always proves victorious in the end, while accompanied by fellow mortals, Senin, Doshin, and even Yokai that wish to make the world a better place.
The characters are all likeable, and you'll eventually pick your favorite character since the story also revolves many of Taikobou's companions. Along with a mythical or fantasy like storyline, many characters have some futuristic looking weapons like lightsabers, laser cannons, with a splash of some panda looking robots. Another good mention is that there many awesome battles where they use the natural elements as their weapons, so action junkies will get their fill.
With many pros there are also a few cons. Even though the series was made near the turn of a new millennium, but it still looks like it came from the late 80s or early 90s. The show has a lot of political intrigue so prepare yourself for half hours of war and economic strategies (feels like I'm watching the news). The series is also 26 episodes long so you won't get your fill, and trust me there is no continued storyline either.
All in all its worth watching. There are complete DVD box sets of the whole series at Best Buy or FYE for like $29.99. And for those who have ever played Shonen Jump Super Stars on their DS and never learned the name of that bunny eared character you've just learned now.
And that's all I have to say
Yours Truly
Otakufreak
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Apr 26, 2009
An Anime Classic, and must watch, Ushio and Tora is one of those good to see old-school animes. After watching a continuum of new Girl Meets Boy, and Gothic over tone anime I decided to do some looking up for something different. Luckly I stumbled on a game that recently came out for the PSP called Shonen Sunday Vs Shonen Magazine which featured many famous Anime and Manga Icons (I.E. Inuyasha, Negi, Ikki, etc), Ushio was one of the selectable characters. I was really interested in the character to begin with and decided to look up everything about it.
The series started out as a 33
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vol. manga that was featured in Shonen Jump Sunday, which eventually won the Shogakukan Manga Award in 1992. The manga quickly became a 10 episode seires which was a shortened version of the Manga but depicting many of Ushio's and Tora's main battles.
The story is pretty solid and resembles many themes to Animes based on Japanese mythology. The main character Ushio was forced to release a demon that was imprisoned underneath his family shrine, which was imprisoned by the Beast Spear for 500 year, in order to protect his friends from demons that were running amok in his hometown. After that the Demon, which he calls Tora (due to his tiger like appearence), begins to haunt him and says that he'll eat him when he drops his guard. At that point Ushio keeps the Beast Spear with him at all times to protect others from Demons.
Character wise, they are pretty generic. There is the typical Tomboyish girl childhood friend and timid girl classmate that hang around Ushio most of the time. Tora is big talker, thinking highly of himself all the time until the spear is pointed at him. Ushio develops a strong bond with Tora which is typical, and that's basically it. The entourage of villains in this series isn't strong, mostly random mythical monsters out for revenge or reeking havoc, but that's okay.
If you're looking for high class animation with CG and all that stuff, you ain't finding it here. This is early 90's work so you get what you see. A few cut and paste scenes and not much detail on the character expressions. But that is what is great about old school anime, if it weren't these kinds of animes you really wouldn't have high budget stuff like Soul Eater, Code Geass, and Inuyasha.
In the long run, it is worth watching and keeps you asking for more. The action series will get you addicted and might want you to start reading the manga, I know I will. Take my word for it, if you are such a Shonen fan or you just like animes with Mythological overtones this is your stuff.
Yours Truly,
Otakufreak
PS; Sunday Vs Magazine is a bad fighting game but so addictive!!! Check it out anyways.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Mar 29, 2009
This is a review not just of the second season but both 1st and 2nd seasons together. The reason I do this is because I consider many Gundam series like these to have 50 episodes like many of them do. So if you read my first review of Gundam 00, this is a modified/continuation. It's been a long run since Gundam SEED but this series was far better. Though I wouldn't say it was great, it didn't really disappoint me. The story of this series follows the same formula as Gundam Wing, bunch of girly looking guys piloting overly powerful mechs for a rebellious cause.
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So lets break it down shall we?
The Story of this series was decent. Political intrigue was great since that's what most Gundam series should have. Many of the Characters had okay back stories, but I'll explain them later, and the story didn't go off course. The problem I noticed is that though it had these redeeming features it still felt like I was watching Gundam SEED. It was excessively flashy. The Gundam concepts with Trans-AM and super beam sabers that can take down a fleet of ships just didn't make sense. They are never explained and seem so surreal. Any Gundam fan would agree that many of these elements were really unneeded, and the series would continue to flow even without those..."things". When the series began, the GN drives (the energy source of the Gundams) were rarely explained and just lead to more questions. The same goes for the whole purpose of the Celestial Being cause. We know they were a secret military force made by a man, Aeolia Schenberg, that was to fight off and prevent Wars. Whoopty doo... but it was nothing but plot holes that make you think what the hells going on, but if you have ADD you become distracted with the Flashy battle scenes instead of noticing it.
The Characters of the series is another topic I want to explain as well. Many of their personalities switch back and forth making your wonder what the hell is going on. Character development in this series isn't one of it's strongest points. Some characters never have any development at all, i.e. Allelujah Haptism. As the series progresses to it's final battle, their importance to the series becomes less apparent and all the focus changes to Setsuna. Yes, I understand that he is the main character but if I do recall this series is about 4 Gundam pilots, not one. And how is it that only Setsuna reaches the next step in human evolution but not the others, dam I just gave a spoiler. As I continued to watch this series, there was barely any serious interactions between characters. Oh, there was that one time that Anew...blah blah blah, that doesn't count. It's a formulated Gundam storyline, that's what it is. Yes I say this because I've seen it happen over and over again.
Art and Sound, pretty well done. I like the designs of many of the mobile suits, and I can't wait to see the MSVs (Mobile Suit Variations) of them. I am totally digging the intros and end themes as well. I like UVERworld, and L'arc~en~Ceil. I always find myself putting them on my MP3 every time I turn it on. I would be a better music critic if I could but I'm just not that kind of person. Anyways, back to Art. Character concepts for all the characters were decent. Of course, after Gundam Wing, all of our Gundam pilots have to look like girls, just because to create a larger female interest in the series. I can totally see many of them end up in some Hentai or Yaoi magazine (pretty sure they already are), like those from Gundam SEED Destiny. Like I said of the Mechs, they are pretty cool, but like Gundam SEED they are really flash and seem to have so many unneeded attributes attached to their bodies.
In the end of all this epic sword swingin', trash talkin', and totally confused adolescence screaming, I was able to sigh in relief that the series was over. I knew if it continued any further, It'd probably change into it's own kind of monster. I did enjoy it, don't get me wrong. I would prefer this series over Gundam SEED any day. I wouldn't count on it as the best or greatest of the Gundam anthology. As far as New Gundam series it should bring in a lot of new comers for the franchise and probably have more people to talk about it, and I like that. I'm looking forward to the new Gundam 00 installment that's coming out next year if you hadn't herd, that's another spoiler I guess. What I am really wishing for is that they would reanimate the original series and air it on TV, calling it Mobile Suit Gundam HD Remix (Like Street Fighter II HD Remix Turbo, lol), like that will ever happen. My ending conclusion is, it's worth watching, but you'll know it's not something to die over, figuratively speaking.
Yours Truly
Otakufreak
P.S. Don't be messin' with Zakus...
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Mar 19, 2009
Well, what is there to say about an Anime about trading cards....hmmmm. Nothing, that's really it. It's a bunch of prepubescent kids, battling out with cards. We all know that this series is a sequel to the Original Series, we've seen some different reviews of people who hated it or those who simply love it. It's now my turn to throw down....a face down.
The story of the series is supposed to take place in a distant future of Yugi's home town, Domino City. There have been some freaky things going on that made Domino split into two parts; an Island called Satellite, and the main
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land Neo Domino City. Those who live on Satellite are dirt poor and mostly criminals and ex cons live there. This makes them processable to Neo Domino City. In summary there is Rich land and there is Poor land, a YuGiOh spin off of Robin Hood. Our cast of heroes come from different parts of Satellite and Neo Domino City, but though they have different aspirations they're destiny is fated to ban together and fight an evil force that has been hidden for a millennium that desires to concur the world....Well this sounds a lot like X 1999, and how I hated that movies so much.
Story wise, it was made for kids. What do you really expect? Though watching the Japanese version is always better then the 4Kids TV version, I wasn't expecting anything exciting besides a few cliff hangers (with an obvious result). The characters in the series (Yusei, Jack, Aki, Rua, and Ruka) don't have many desirable development. They have the same tracked mind and always fight till the very end *Yawn*. Also the story is very screwy too; dueling on Motorcycles. Some one at Konami was really desperate to think of a new marketing idea. Riding 40-50 mph on a motorcycle down a stretch of high way while dueling is not my idea of super thrilling action; just plain stupid. Though this is such an idiotic course of action, they had to find one way to make the series keep existing. Another thing I'd like to point is they the changed the theme from Egyptian Mythology, to Aztec and Inca Mythology. Wasn't YuGiOh supposed to be about Egypt? I guess Kazuki Takahashi was impressed when he went on a trip to Peru or Mexico so he had to make a story based on that.
In the end I've watched a total of 50 episodes of this series, that a lot compared to the people who've given up on the series but watch it time to time. Probably reached the quarter make of it (my guess 160 episodes). At first I hated it but I had to give the series a chance since I like the Original YuGiOh series to begin with (Not the Duel Monsters one). The theme songs are pretty catchy and you find yourself looking for them online to put into your MP3. If you're a big player of YuGiOh TCG like I am, you might want to watch an episode or two but not dedicate to it. For those who like the series, you're probably a Narutard or some hopeless DBZ fan dope who can't differentiate between good Anime or something you saw in your monthly Newtype or Shonen Jump magazine. In the end of this I don't hate the series, but it's not a good series. You're probably better just playing the game and pretend this series doesn't exists.
Yours truly
Otakufreak
PS. I activate a Trap Card, take evasive action!!
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Mar 9, 2009
It's a Crash!!! Well, I'm pretty sure many of you are stressing out since the MAL crash, so to lighten things up a bit let's start another course in ANIME HATING!!! This time I'm going to show you how Mediocre some animes are by intoducing you to this fun filled peice of shit Called "My Wife is a High School Girl". Yes, that's the fulll entire English translation of the name so bare with me.
To begin with, this series is slow and boring. The character development doesn't really change, and you become more facinated with the support characters over the main characters. The story
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to this series goes like this:
The main Heronie, Asami Onohara, is a 17 year old High School student who is mairred to Ichimaru Kyousuke, a 22 year old High School Physics Professor. They both try to keep this a secret from basically everyone in the whole entire series (besides the Father of Asami). And they are deeply in love with each other, so much as wanting to kill them. The one thing that Asami really wants from her Professer Hubby is his cock, yes his fucking cock. She hopes that her relationship with him will grow when they do the midnight games. On the other hand, Kyousuke can't really do anything to her yet until she Graduates High School, an agreement he made with her Father. Basically he turns to a wuss when she tries to advance on him because he is afraid of her Father cock blocking him, which basically happens all the time when they get into the mood.
As each episode passes by, they go through this random situations that tests their love for each other. In other words, there are other women out for Kyousuke's cock, and some random perv out for Asami's giant rack. Eventually their secret is revealed to select characters in the series that basically stalk them. But guess what...NOTHING HAPPENS!!!!! No concequences, no back draws, no drama, JUST ACCEPTANCE!! What a way to make an Anime not thrilling.
26 episodes, thats how long it is. They are actually 15 mins each but many Sub-sites puts them together so it doesn't waste whatever time you have, making it 13 episodes. Art, nothing much there, just the same stereo typical big eyes, big rack, and no serious complections. Don't get me wrong the story is not a bad idea, but this series is basically better off as Soap Oprea of some sorts. The characters were obviously made for some Ero Manga, or it probably is already. This Anime just reeks of Formulated crap straight from a pigs ass after eating a weeks worth of Taco Bell. So if you want to waste time on filler anime, you're not missing anything here. I rather suggest Ikkitousen for the major Boobage you guys are looking for, because you ain't finding it here. Not even Shojo fans will like it because it lacks any sort of serious drama. Just pass on this, don't even double take on it. Just let it go. I watch this anime to tell you this.
Yours truly
Otakufreak
One more thing...IT"S A TRAP! OPEN TEH HATCHEZ
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Apr 14, 2008
Here is an anime that's not like many others. Hayate the Combat Butler is a colaberation of all kinds of Anime thrown into one, in order to make fun of it of course. What I mean is that Hayate is one of those Animes that make fun of Anime in general. I first herd of this series when it came out as a manga and so I got the manga and read a few books. Now even more intrigued, I began my search of the animated version. To my surprise there it was and began to watch it with my good friend from campus, Edge.
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Both of us fell in love with the series and it's comedic view on Anime.
Like I mentioned before, Hayate is a comedy anime, so it doesn't have a strong storyline. But what it's missing in story line makes up with many vibrant characters. Each character has their own interesting persona which gives a feel and equal balance between characters. It is obvious to say that the little storyline is really nothing to complain about. Another interesting thing to point out is how they transition many aspects of the Manga into the Anime. Though the Anime doesn't follow along the original chapters of the Manga, the characters still have the same aspects and don't astray from their original concept.
The comedy in this Anime is truely halarious, but not many will understand it if they haven't seen many mainstream Animes like; Dragon Ball Z, Mobile Suit Gundam, Saint Seiya and the Knights of the Zodiac, etc.. This Anime heavily uses other anime quotes, actions, and scences as references. They also use alot of Japanese television cullture in this as well. References to famous idols, Soap Opera, and other TV shows. Most of the anime's they bleep out during discusions are purposely done because of how it was like in the Manga. Originally the manga would bleep out certain words so they wouldn't get sued by other companies by using certain names, example; Gundam would be changed to Gu--am or ---dam on the TV show or Manga. But that in itself is halarious.
The art in the anime is pretty good. Though the characters are all flashy with serveral Neon color overtones, they don't look all too bad. There is no serious fan service in this anime so if you are looking for enourmous Boobs, you won't find any here. Many other characters are of proper proportions and aren't really saturated. Though in certain scenes they make tease pictures of certain characters in the end of the episodes for Fan Service, which are really more funny then sexy. Also they have certain episodes where they change the animation stylings as well. In one episode they hire the designers of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann to do the episode.
In the end I wrote nothing but good about this anime, that's because I favor humor against many popular animes. Indeed not many of you will enjoy this Anime, it's all about preferences and interests. I, however, will encourage you to watch a few episodes and see what I mean. This Anime is one for my record books. I've got my laughs and can't wait till the next season comes out, oh wait...kinda spoiled it for you guys, lol.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Apr 1, 2008
Well, it's truely been a while since I wrote a Gundam review. Yes, I've basically written a review for nearly every Gundam series for those who don't keep tabs on my Reviews. But lets get to the point shall we?
Over the past few years the Gundam series has gone through a lot of riticule by many American's and has totally lost its market here making nearly impossible to even know of the franchise. Bandai's last attempt to make Gundam popular among American viewers was Gundam Seed which epically failed, and was placed in the 4 am death spot on Cartoon Network. Even though Gundam
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Seed Destiny, sequel to Gundam Seed, won best anime of the year 2004 in Japan the series didn't do so good because it was basically Fan service and "Many" Gundam Fans were disappointed by the fact that there were more Hentai then Side Stories of the series. In other words BANDAI milked the crap out of Seed for all its worth.
Few years later a new Gundam series was made to replace Gundam Seed, this series was, of course, Gundam 00. Yes, this series was intentionally delayed in order to make a new Model Market. But all in all the series wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I've watched many Gundam Series and have seen the progress they've made through the years. Gundam 00 is basically a hybrid of many old concepts mixed with thoughts of many modern day techno realism. Yes, I just made up a new term- Techno Realism. The term means technology that will possibly be invented.
25 episodes is quite surpising for most Gundam series. The shortest Gundam series was Gundam 0080 War in the Pocket which had 6 episodes. Gundam 00 wasn't the shortest series but it was able to sum everything quickly and yet very understandable. Usually something like this would take the average 50 episodes and then a sequel would have to be made to finish the project, but no, they actually did good.
The characters of the story are of course young adults who have their struggles and for the most part look like Bishi boys. They aren't really aren't Emo or uncontrolable as many other Gundam characters and have much more of a sense of responsiblity. Their backgrounds are interesting stories within themselves, making you more connected to them. Unfortunatly there is a downside to this, characters that get to involved with their past tend to stray off from their first impression.
The story is very well thought up and looks like it took much time to think up. How the world looks like in this Gundamverse makes you question if our future would be like that as well. Many politics are involved which many modern Gundam shows were lacking.
Mecha designs were simply superb. They aren't as wymsical as the suits in Gundam Seed or as in Gundam Wing but this sense of common technology is what brings me in. I kinda have a taste for generic looking Mobile suits, the ones with rough detail.
In the end of it all Gundam 00 didn't disappoint me, but it didn't make me overjoyed either. Sure the show is good, but you can't help but feel that eventually things will go wrong and fan service will ruin it all. So far in my opinion Gundam 00 is way better then Gundam Seed/Destiny, and Gundam Wing. But it hasn't reached the greatness of Tomino's original works such as Mobile Suit Gundam, Zeta, Char's Counter Attack, and Turn A. All there is to do now is wait until the second season comes out, won't we. Until then I leave the first season with this review.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Jan 1, 2008
The first time I saw Genshiken, I was just completely taken in. Now the second season has taken it to the next level. Continuing from the OVA series that takes place after the first season, Genshiken 2 makes another Otaku come back for the fans. This time with some new characters and some interesting background stories, the story of Genshiken has become more in depth with the real world while still having it's Anime based zanies.
The story begins when Sasahara takes his new presidency of the Genshiken club to the next level, by entering the club into a Comi-fest Dojinshi retail. Now he teams
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up with a new member, Ogire, to make some awesome manga. Meanwhile, Madarame is having a difficult time leaving the sanctaty of college, Ohno and Tanaka are getting closer then ever, Kasakabe is starting to understand Kousaka's Otaku lifestlye, plus Kugayama is starting to learn to standup for himself and speak out. Alot goes around until Sasahara decides to leave Ohno as president in order to become a Manga editor, and admit his true feelings to Ogire.
Yes, alot has changed with the Genshiken crew. For those who read this should agree that this Anime shares alot of what most of us go through everyday while living in this Anime loving world of ours. I believe if you watch this Anime from the first season to this new one, you'll say to yourself "yea. I love being an otaku".
All in all the story was solid and kept in touch with the first season. The character development is great. And the comedic attude is right where it should be. Now, you just have to watch it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Apr 14, 2007
Well it's been a while since I came back on and made a review. After adding animes to my list, I came upon Gundam Seed Stargazer, and the first thing I thought was disappointment. Gundam Seed was a horrible attempt to revive the original Mobile Suit Gundam seires, but what caught me off gaurd was that this was a really good one (Amazingly). Thought I'm a hatter of Gundam Seed, and all you Kira and Lacus followers might get a bitch on because of it, this seires was a true turn around with me. It had a strong motive, good story line, great characters, and
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(of course) the Mobile Suit design.
When watching this I learned more about the Seed universe. From reading Gundam Seed Astray manga, I thought I already knew everything that there was needed to know of the Cosmic Era world. I was wrong. This explained the Earth Alliance deep hatered of ZAFT and the Coordinators, the hardships of war, and the brutality of the human mind. I didn't think that Gundam Seed was capable of this kind of monster of a show, but they were able to change little complaintive kids to something serious.
The story goes with the beging of Junis 7 being dropped on Earth by the renagade ZAFT forces that were fighting for Patrick Zala's ideals. We see the devastation of the impact of the colony in many countries. Then a scientist named Selen McGriff launches into space while this conflict happens. She is helping to create a Mobile Suit capable of space travel called the Stargazer. Meanwhile, an Earth Alliance pilot Sven Cal Bayan battles against Coordinator Terrorists that are attacking Earth Alliance forces. Soon these two meet in a battle and they soon learn that there is no difference between Coordinators and Naturals.
I was disappointed that this Gundam seires was only 3 episodes long. I was expecting much more to happen, but I am satisfied by what I have seen. Hopefully the creators of the Seed Universe might actually get better and not create a disappointment like Seed Destiny. My conclusions, Seed and Seed Destiny are underpar while it's side stories such as Astray or Stargazer are way better. Believe me, I like Gundam and I've done alot of Gundam reviews.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Feb 22, 2007
Well after watching the first season, the second season isn't as much different. Kazuhara is still up to his pervy ways, Yukinari still allergic to Women, and Miharu is still acting like the dits she always is. But this time things change a bit. Now Yukinari and Miharu become more indeph with their small relationship, and there are still many people trying to ruin it for poor Yukinari.
It seems the Women of Seiren Demensional Security are trying to bring back Miharu because if she stays on Earth for too long strange things may happen. Also a mysterious cloaked person is constantly following Yukinari, watching his
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every move. What's all the comotion about? Welll I don't want to spoil it for you.
But like I said to begin with, nothing much has changed. The series begins where the other left off. There aren't any new additions to the character line up, unless you think a masked cleaning super hero as one. But if you are a fan of the series and wants to see what happens to our unfortunate Yukinari then please do watch. Don't complain when you start to think it gets too repetative.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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