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Dragon Ball Super: Broly is a showcase of what Dragon Ball can be at its best, but also at its worst. It becomes an absolute spectacle that deserves to be seen in theaters, but you have to get through a lot of schlock to get there. If you'll willing to put up with some nonsense to see something truly special, then DBS: Broly is absolutely worth your time, but if you're not sure, I'll explain my thoughts in more detail.

Story:

The ideas of the story are much more complex and inspired than Dragon Ball has ever been, but the execution of them is more schlocky than ... ever. It's full of awkward exposition that's often repeated two or three times, or extended sequences of dialogue that are so on the nose that they could have come from a Care Bares movie. This is particularly true in the prologue of the movie, which goes on way too long and is absolutely painful at times.

No, I don't need you to talk about how Saiyans take over planets and sell them again. No, I don't need you to talk about how looking at the moon turns you into a great ape for the fifth time. And would you please stop trying to shove in the phrase "battle power" into every second sentence? This brings back memories of bad anime translations from the 90's, and not in the good way.

It fades into the background once the fighting gets started, but whenever the story starts getting serious and it doesn't involve someone from Earth or Goku, there's a high probability that it's going to involve a bunch of boring nonsense.

When the story serves more as a background element, it is functional enough and adds to the tension. When the story is being goofy and fun, you can't help but by happy to laugh or smile. When the story is trying to actively do things? Oof. Pretty painful.

Art:

Yes, there's a bucketload of bad CGI. It's worse than RoF and better than BoG, but DBS: B makes up for this with some stellar choreography and animation quality that will blow your mind. The baseline quality of animation is nothing short of incredible, but once the action has been going on for a while, it suddenly kicks it up to 11 and demonstrates animation quality on a level I've never seen before. If only for the art alone, this is worth seeing in the theater. You will genuinely be amazed.

Sound:

The music is, for once, a fitting soundtrack that isn't bogged down with generic rock tracks or fanservice-y music that doesn't match what's on the screen. The only thing that brings it down is how multiple tracks have silly-sound chants that are VERY audible when watching the movie. A bunch of people in my theater laughed at the music, and I don't think that's a victory.

Character:

There's not as much character on display as with RoF. After such a long prologue, they needed to get to the action as fast as possible. That said, there are so many little moments that add to the quality of the film that show off just how likeable/hateable these well-known characters are.

It's nothing fantastic, but it helps to supplement the action.


Enjoyment/Overall:

After the awful prologue (and with the exception of some of the more awkward scenes involved two alien characters that get to know Broly), the movie is a treat. It's intense, it looks breathtaking, and all while just oozing the charm Dragon Ball is known for. While the story can drag it down when dealing with the more sci-fi elements, there's only so much a bad story can hurt a movie like this.

If you can, see it in theaters.

My Hero Academia the Movie: Futari no Hero is an shonen spinoff movie that knows what's wrong with shonen spinoff movies. It shows that it knows what it needs to be and what it needs to not be in order to satisfy its audience, and it delivers on that with enough enthusiasm and self-awareness to overcome its lack of any real substance.

Story:

Futari no Hero isn't about the story it tells as much as what the story allows the writers to make the characters do. This is a simple movie. It sets up a bare-bones premise and then it cuts loose and only worries about ... balancing three things:

1. Shoving much action as it can comfortably fit into the runtime.

2. Keeping up enough tension to get its audience invested and hyped for its climax.

3. Fanservice for its characters.

Hey, it's a popcorn flick, and it's a popcorn flick that is based on an established property. These aren't unreasonable goals, and the film has the right idea of what to sacrifice to meet those goals. It just sacrifices too much.

The film has the right idea. When the plot gets rolling, the stakes are established with little fanfare, and the film puts in the time to build tension before the fighting starts. However, once the focus of the film shifts to paying off that tension, it evaporates. There's just too much fighting! The film loses itself in cutting back and forth between countless action scenes and the plot gets stretched thinner and thinner the longer it goes on. I never felt like the fights had any real consequences to them until near the end of the film, and there are only a couple of times when I felt the characters were in any danger at all. More than once, I wondered, so what if the characters lose this fight? Why is this scene even happening?

Those fight scenes seem to be there because of why the middle of the film is there: for the writers to give us Class 1-A showing off why we love Class 1-A. Everyone has to show off the qualities that make people find each character so endearing. Everyone gets to see the characters fight. The fighting gets tiring, but the focus on its characters doesn't. It's part of what everyone who is a fan of a franchise wants to see in a film based on that franchise, and it serves as a strength in its own right. That focus hides the cracks in the story by being entertaining enough in its own right to maintain the interest of the audience right up until the climax begins, and that's just enough to carry it for me.

This doesn't mean that there's nothing about the story that's noteworthy for its quality. It's just that little what stands out has to do with the plot or premise of the movie, unfortunately. First is the utterly charming first section of the movie. It throws a gag a minute at you while keeping up a goofy and light-hearted tone that gives it a homey feel. It makes you want to smile even when you're not laughing out loud (which will happen more than you'd think!). Second is the ending of the film. I'll spare you any details except to say that it's action-packed and the level of intensity and emotion and energy surging through it all makes it feel like they kicked it up to 11 for this one.

Lastly, the humor. There isn't much time dedicated to comedy scenes after the action starts, but enough care has been taken to make you laugh every minute or two. It's the perfect accompaniment to the action, and it helps distract from the issues in the middle of the film, which is all you can ask for.

Down to the less-bad-but-still-annoying-stuff. This is what you'll notice in the film more than anything.

Flashbacks at the start and climax of the movie seem unnecessary and waste too much time. Kaminar and Mineta are comic relief characters that aren't funny. A couple of the fights had opponents that weren't very interesting. Some of the dialogue is just classic shonen cringe (Take a shot everytime someone says 'hope' or 'peace' at the start of the film or at the end!), and the moral of the story actually makes no logical sense (I wish I could explain that here, but no spoilers!).

None of this crops up too much, but these things are all very, very noticeable and, if there was much more of any of those things in the film, I'd cut the rating down to a 7 or even a 6.


Art:

You can tell that the budget for this got sank into the action and nothing else, but it was a worthwhile investment. Given the sheer amount of action in the film, it's worth mentioning that all of it is movie quality, and the film manages to make the ending fight look even more polished and fluid. They really had their priorities straight here.


Sound:

This is a category that you'd expect My Hero Academia to ace, and it does so effortlessly. Music is used in all the right places to enhance each scene and get you hyped for the triumphant moments, but there's real restraint on display in how often the film just doesn't play any music at all. It's not something you're going to notice unless you're paying attention, but it is something that you can appreciate once you do.

Character:

The highlight of the film for me. Class 1-A are all likeable and the film dedicates itself to being a showcase for its characters. That means that everyone gets the chance to play hero. Everyone gets to look good. Everyone gets to make the audience laugh. Even the villain has more going on with him than you'd expect. More than being an action movie, this is a character-oriented movie, and if there's one thing this property has going for it, it's character.

Enjoyment:

The film is just plain fun. It's so comfortable being whatever it wants to be and doing it in style. It's made to be seen in theaters. It's a spectacle meant to be enjoyed on the biggest screen that you can watch it on and with the biggest audience you can rope into seeing it with. It's not meant to be rewatched or examined as anything other than as a shonen movie, and what qualities make this a strong film don't lend themselves well to either. What it does lend itself to is making the experience of watching it as intended an absolute joy from start to finish.

Sports anime are cool. They're over the top, they're intense, they're silly and they're fun. I'm always up to throwing on Prince of Tennis and holding back a giggle at the absurdity.

But, uh, my guilty pleasure has always been romance, and to see a sports anime focus so heavily on romance is a breath of fresh air in a medium that's so crowded by imitation it drew me in and kept me watching!

...for better or for worse.

Let's start with the positive. Yuri on Ice does not hold your hand or over-explain anything. There are no hints about who King JJ is before he shows ... up and breaks up the monotony of repetitive ice skating scenes to make you believe that he deserves to win with an awe-inspiring performance that feels not just unique, but energized in a way no other ice-skating scene is.

Nothing in the narrative hints that Yuri is going to subvert tropes and sound so calm and confident as he grows into his own and pulls from an inner strength we haven't seen from him, and there are plenty of understated, human moments.

The romance doesn't have any. It falters from overdone and sappy to weirdly restrained. There's no ambiguity with how much it focuses on the romance, but the writers just don't follow up to give the relationship any progression at all. You either get the pair of them acting like friends that are a bit too formal to be lovers, to lines like, "Seduce me," out of nowhere!

It's all to do with the pacing. Most of Yuri on Ice is an endless series of figure skating routines accompanied by the personal stories of a number of side characters. Figure skating all looks the same and gets boring when it's all I'm looking at 99% of the time. They shove so much onto the screen that the story doesn't really progress, and the relationship doesn't get the room to be developed. There's little time for things to simmer and build, to ratchet up the tension--romantic or narrative.

What makes this worth watching, then? Characters. Even if the romance is botched, the way Viktor and Yuki interact is mesmerizing, and the stories of the side characters resonate in a way that shows real talent from the staff. The dialogue is especially noteworthy for sounding as human as the characters with few exceptions, and the subversion of the expectations brought on by events in the story is constant and quick. It's in moments like those, when it's moving fast and speaking volumes, when I see real potential for Yuri on Ice to rise above to join the ranks of the best of its contemporaries. But I can't.

The art switches from pretty good to pretty foul, and the overall story is just botched. There's only so much I can recommend a sports romance story that utterly fails in its handling of the sport, the romance, and the story. Characters and dialogue can only take you so far if the backbone of the show is broken. But it's enough to make me leave it with a positive impression. If it had cut out some of the extraneous figure skating scenes to try to add more weight to the competition and a bit more development to the romance, it could have been a powerhouse. But sometimes the line between mediocrity and greatness is razor thin, no matter how painful it may be to acknowledge.


You guys have a lot to prove in S2. Oh, and if I hear the song that Yuri skates to one more time that isn't the finale or something, I am going to lose my shit big time.