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thomasstevelink
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Arslan Senki (2015)
The Anime of Thrones
What an enjoyable anime, I was completely surprised that I had never heard of this one before, it's filled with emotion, action, drama and much more.
The Plot/Story was amazing, we actually start off with a powerful kingdom and the kind prince, his maiden battle should be memorable and it sure was! A complete defeat although I did see it coming, it was needed for the show to go like it did. Prince Hilmes is an amazing character with a good backstory and clear ideals, he is almost exactly the opposite of our protagonist Arslan. One is physically skilled, strategical mastermind and tends to use his people for his own benefit who doesn't necessarily inspire his men and the other one is physically pretty weak however he is kind and just, Noble and raises the morale of his men and causes devotion. The greatest conversation was probably during episode 24, with Lord Sam and Lord Kishward. Their conversation had the morals of both side and they both had their reasons for following their princes, the emotion from the voice actors was great.
The Music, in my honest opinion this is definitely one of the anime with the better soundtracks, it used them at the good time and it helped implement power for the scenes a lot
The Tactics and Strategies, sometimes they clearly gave away what might happened but most of the times they gave a fraction, you knew something was going to happen however you didn't know it for sure and I loved it. I was sitting on the edge of my chair every time the strategies came into play
The Characters, The bond between the characters had good development. Each one of them had their reasons to question why they followed Arslan and the moment where they decided that he was the right king. The characters had good comedic relieve at the right times and was not forced. Some minor characters in the beginning were forgettable however it did give a clear few of rankings.
Historical Accuracy, now I am not the best historian however there were definitely some historical accurate things as in the terms used in ranks and combat was based off or straight from the Middle East (Persia). The recruits were untrained and fought with spears and shields which were easier to handle back in those eras. The Armors were usually pretty realistic except for the fancy looking armors of some of the higher ups, Armor had actual effect sometimes which is also nice to see. Not going to talk about the magic or the easily throwing multiple people away or Bahadur. I felt Bahadur was kind of a let down, that was certainly not expected nor appreciated.
The Animation and Scenery, the main animations was pretty good, the fighting animations of the armies was pretty crappy CGI. However the one on one were good, not great but good. They used a bit too many cuts for those duels. The scenery was amazing tho, it looked great and Almost hand drawn.
This anime was great in my opinion and I'll give it a 8/10
Tian jiang xiong shi (2015)
A Decent Film
I think that this was a surprisingly good movie, you can see there has been a lot of work within it.
For everyone that says that they hinted the people's harmony too much, one of the main morals of the movie is that people, Eventho we differ in appearance or race are able to live with each other instead of against each other. Throw yourselves in the shoes of the characters, you fought, built, slept, laughed with each other for months and then some foreign invader comes to attack those who are dear to you, would you not have acted the same? In my opinion yes I would.
Another great thing was the amount of fighting choreography was needed to pull off this movie. The fight between Lucius and Huo an was amazing scenery just like all the other duels and little number fights. The armor had effect and was played with nicely, although my only two points with this were: The amount of Wounds and The Hawks. Huo an took a considerable amount of wounds per example the spear wound in his stomach area, which he received early final battle. The Hawks that came in for the safe was pretty cliche and didn't look good at all.
Now onto the humor, I found the humor pretty decent. You like it or hate in, I found the captain and his assistant a decent comedic relieve. It's definitely not the best humor but again this movie isn't aimed at comedy.
The Music was absolutely amazing, they timed it well with the scenes and didn't overuse the most important soundtrack/song "Light of Rome" which was absolutely beautiful.
The rest of the story/plot. Well here is the thing that really brought it down for me, the child emperor and his "guardian" were almost useless in the movie, the suicide of Tiberius was pretty ludicrous as well considering he was this sort of mad man for the entire movie and changed minds late movie, sounds pretty ridiculous. The Flashbacks were really short and didn't have much info on them but it gave enough info for a decent vision of what had happened. Some things are pretty over the top but then again it's already a movie that's not trying to be historically accurate so fantasy elements like a stone on shield with spears is slightly excused.
Overall I think this was a pretty decent movie and I give it a 7/10