magicwalnuts

You might have thought Genndy Tartakovsky had already achieved this honor with Star Wars: Clone Wars and Samurai Jack, but in Sym-Bionic Titan Tartakovsky tops even those fantastic pieces of animation and creates the greatest action cartoon ever made.

Tartakovsky's trademark action, off-beat humor, and storytelling skills are ever present, but they are so much more refined and mature in Titan. We all knew Tartakovsky was a fan of Japanese mecha and this is chiefly where the show draws it's visual style from and it is truly striking. The character designs in particular for this show are incredible, but still familiar to fans of Tartakovsky's previous work.

The plot is nothing truly unique, but in typical Tartakovsky fashion, it takes its cues from all over the nerd-o-sphere from classic Anime, to American comic books, and even 2001: A Space Odyssey. Ilana, a young alien princess, Lance, a young rebellious soldier, and Octus, a robot programmed to guard the princess at all costs, flee to Earth from their home planet Galiluna, which has just suffered a crippling surprise attack led by a traitor general and an army of psychically controlled mutants. On Earth Lance, Ilana, and Octus must fit in as typical teenagers meanwhile defending themselves and the rest of the humans on Earth from a vast array of mutants the traitor general has sent remotely, to hunt down and kill the princess. Fortunately they have help in the form of Titan, a Voltron-style robot that Octus is able form when all three of them are together. The high school setting mixed with the, "save the world once an episode" structure will probably appeal to Buffy fans, and the action and humor is obviously top notch.

We've seen Tartakovsky do this before, he clearly loves popular fiction and loves incorporating it into his cartoons and for a sci-fi fan, it is really satisfying to see him at work in Titan. The special thing about Titan, however, is how good he's gotten at it. Characters learn, change, and evolve. Mysteries are uncovered and span whole episodes. Plot points are scattered all over the tragically singular season we have available to us and come together satisfyingly in an excellent finale.

I can not stress how quality this show is and how well it comes together as a full package. As of this posting Titan is currently on the 2am Saturday Adult Swim (now Toonami again) anime block, and that is where you can find it, and pray we get another season.

This movie is chock full of sci-fi action cheese, but it's OK because it ain't so bad. This movie is basically ripped visually from a bunch of different video games, and the end result is something quite innovative. Basically imagine a future (700 years to be exact) where constant fighting has reduced war to endless WWI style battles fought with no mechanization because there are little resources left. Overall this movie has a very steam-punk feel to it.

Visually this movie is more often than not stunning, with EXCELLENT CGI throughout. The life action effects on the other hand woefully show this movie's obviously low budget.

Then kicks in the sci-fi cheese story; alien mutant maker machine uncovered in a battle, yada, yada, yada, and you get to hear Tom Jane whip out some hilarious one liners as well as watch his stereotypically WWII faction styled partners and Ron Pearlman do some serious slicing and dicing.

The story is somewhat simplistic but mildly clever at points, and the movie is paced well with action pretty much not stopping throughout for more than a few painfully terrible scenes. The best thing about this movie is that it doesn't take itself too seriously. I found myself chuckling at a few points both at jokes within the movie and the parts of sheer cheeze. Basically if you like video games, mindless sci-fi violence, or decent but painfully low budget B no-brain action flicks then you'll like this movie.

Codename: Kids Next Door is a cartoon depicting a 5 child chapter of "super agents" part of a much larger organization known as "The Kids Next Door". Using their tree house fortresses sprawled across the globe and their handy "2x4" technology the kids are out to stop "adult tyranny" as well as their super nemeses the "The Delightful Children From Down The Lane" with their evil leader "Father". I personally think this rivals anything Gennedy Tarkovsky has put out in terms of originality, excitement, and humor. This show is chock full of parodies from various niches of pop culture that rarely fall flat, and never get tiresome unlike other cartoons that just take it way too far (Robot Chicken and Family Guy to give some examples). Some of the main characters can get on your nerves (they are brats after all) but the premise and the awesome villains often make you forget the minor annoyances. This show recently ended a few months ago, and I was sad to see it go, but the ending was very fitting. I would recommend this along with Avatar: The Last Airbender as two recent cartoon series that appeal to kids, teenagers, and adults as cartoons with good artistic merit.