FlorisV

As a fan of the first 2 Shenmue video games I was delighted to find out SEGA made an animated series of it. It's beautifully animated, with lush backdrops and in bright colors. Biker girl Joy is beautiful as ever and even gets a bit more of a background story. I loved to revisit many things from the game, like the taoist who teaches Ryo a powerful move of which he has to prove his mastery by punching a tree so hard that it's leaves drop.

There are some things in the game not in this anime like the many beautiful little Chinese tunes for each area in Hong Kong, or the ways Ryo has to make money like Lucky Hit or gambling Big or Small. In the game, Ren asks an extravagant amount of money before he helps Ryo, this is one of the things skipped in the anime.

The only things I can hope for is a new season since Shenmue 3, while out as a game has not been adapted (yet?). And after Shenmue 3 at least one more sequel is necessary to wrap up the story. One can hope. I'm sure that yet another Kickstarter funding would be succesful as long as they listen to criticism.

Shenmue 3 has not been received too well despite a succesful Kickstarter. Many fans were as eagerly awaiting it as they were disappointed for it's lack of revelations in the story as well as tedium in it's gameplay compared to the previous chapters. Shenmue game history is a troubled one, with the first two being the most expensive game projects ever at the time and having a hard time to earn back the costs as the SEGA Dreamcast flopped hard.

The main gripe I could find with this anime is that Ryo is too strong and wins most fights. I would have liked to see a bit more struggle. The show makes some giant leaps to cram the epic tale so far into 13 episodes. But it was quite addictive to watch with a lot of tempo, some good jokes among more serious philosophical musings related to martial arts as well as a bit of esoterical mystery.

I can highly recommend this even for people that never heard of the games.

This installment of the Cobra series provides another juvenile pulp fantasy that is silly as ever, closer to Barbarella and James Bond (in Moonraker mode) than Star Wars, in which the space scoundrel can't help himself but getting entangled with nothing but the finest of female specimen to be found in space.

There's unashamed fan service, with a female "scientist" called Utopia More dressed like an erotic dancer, wearing little more than a thong, shot from nothing but the most sexy rear angles. If academia ever gets this hot in the future, count me in.

Feminists will probably cringe at the female mutants used as deadly wildcats by one of the antagonist, constantly on all fours. But for those who can't distinguish sexy from sexist, the Cobra series should be a screaming no no to begin with.

There's not much explanation of Cobra's back story, we never learn about his mutation, the psycho-gun that his left arm can turn to, or how he met his android companion (Lady Armaroid). Cobra has lost his memory and does seek to regain it.

But despite that opportunity, the story ultimately remains little more than an excuse for plenty of entertaining and fairly creative action sequences and of course has to involve the fate of the entire galaxy. There's also the familiar light tone as things never get too serious. Arguably the plot is as scantily clad as Utopia More (a not so subtle reference to Thomas, get it) and you're mostly expected to just enjoy the view. A good one to watch when you're tired.

Only 4 episodes of roughly 25 minutes kind of make this another movie. Animation is reasonably faithful to the original but obviously modernized and looks pretty slick. However the villain, Crystal Boy (sometimes called Crystal Bowie), while strong as ever, does not look as epic as in the 1982 movie.

The music can be nice (intro fits well) but later on it gets a bit odd at times, borrowing too heavily from John William's score of The Phantom Menace. Yello's silly sexy tunes from the original fllm's intro are also sorely missed.

All in all they could have done much worse. It's little more than a mindless and slightly wet dream, but very self conscious and displaying plenty of the animators' craftmanship.