See, there’s, uh, just one thing that doesn’t look right.
Before you, dear reader, is an atypical series with an atypical protagonist played by a rather atypical actor for an atypical runtime.
Columbo!
Read More »The L.A.P.D.’s Det. Columbo
Tag: review
Burgundy Shinobi VS Sakai Jin-dono
戦国時代VS鎌倉幕府
At this point, I’m milking Red Ninja for every ryo it owes me which isn’t something I normally do. I occasionally bring around my love for God of War Greek era and Max Payne as well as my contempt for the concept of Chainsaw Man and Tatsuki Fujimoto, not because I want to bury something to propel the other, but because I want to bring awareness to a multitude of different things that travel in similar circles. Since this is meant to be the conclusion of the Red Ninja recount series, the final part of this impromptu investigation into how a neat concept hung itself on its own cord by accident is going to be Ghost of Tsushima:
Sony’s a d[clang]khead for abandoning PC ports of popular games, I may never get to play Ghost of Yotei ಠ_ಠ.
Read More »Vermilion Ninja VS Ghost of Sparta
Hacky, slash-y, chained weapon attack-y
Another week, another comparison between two games I’ve talked about at length on this blog before concerning warriors scorned by the powers that be and in a way that requires service to an opponent and/or taking the entirety of the Pantheon and unleashing the wrath of Timur the Lame onto it.
Maybe it was a coincidence, but Stalin never should’ve trusted Hitler for that long. Same with Mussolini, they already hated each other.
Read More »Crimson Kunoichi VS One-Armed Wolf
赤くノ一VS隻狼
I don’t think Google Translate is doing me any favors.
Two weeks ago, I revisited the video game Red Ninja: End of Honor after leaving it be for a few months and briefly mentioning it during the 2025 Year in Review wrap-up. I was initially left quite sour by its dodgy mechanics interfering terribly with the plot and keeping me from getting as far as I wanted. The exploration design philosophy combines objectives with freedom of exploration so there’s no two ways to clear a level, which excites me having played Castlevania and various Metroidvanias, sometimes of a lewder variety to go along with the gothic subculture of Castlevania.
This has a SFW version if you wanna game without playing with two joysticks.
Read More »The Series About Three Things: F[kazoo]k, And, All
Alternatively known as: Jack, And, S[monkeys]t
Breaking up the Red Ninja: End of Honor Blog Post Saga momentarily to bring you the wonderful world of an animanga series featuring otaku culture and the comedic deconstruction of otaku culture.
No, not that one. We did that before. Twice.
Read More »A PS2 Game About Shinobi Vengeance
With dodgy mechanics
Months ago, I added Red Ninja: End of Honor to my list of topics to cover in the New Year and I had done so at a time when the game had frustrated me greatly. I briefly touched upon it in this post about what I found wrong with it, why I hadn’t advanced as far as I could, etc., etc. I was playing enough of it earlier to get a handle of it and return to form of sorts and this and the next series of posts are going to be subjective, but on reflection, I don’t think I was going to approach it as fairly as I had hoped.
Now Red Ninja is a game with flaws, but watching some video essays and reviews of the game, it has a cult following, so with that in mind, here’s the short version: it needed better controls and a better camera.
Which is something I don’t want to say about the game because it has a lot going for it. Stealth mechanics that make use of traditional stealth and historical context. I do need to clarify something I said in that post linked above. I mentioned that kunoichi didn’t exist. I retract that statement. They were real, but pop culture elevated their status a lot. This was due to sparse record-keeping, mythic statuses of actual female warriors, or onna-musha/bugeisha, and historian debate. There’s more records of onna-musha than of kunoichi. So you might happen upon a historical, if loose, retelling of Tomoe Gozen than of Mochizuki Chiyome. For that matter, The Elusive Samurai has one such onna-musha, the tomboyish Mochizuki Ayako as a retainer to that dastardly light-footed regent.
Read More »Midway’s Rise and Fall
Toy company extraordinaire brought down by hemorrhaging money
Last week’s gap was a “woke up and chose violence” moment. This time, for something back on track: Midway!
Miscellaneous Thoughts
A GAP! THERE’S A GAP!! NURSE!!!
Yeah, I intended for this week’s post to be about the Fate franchise, but that behemoth requires attention that I can’t split from a bunch of other things work and non-work related. The dedication necessary to commit to it exists, but it’s going to be broken off from several other things I either need to do or am viewing first. Something something undivided attention, something something divided like a math problem, something something… yeah, I can definitely do it, but whether I remember to knock it out before Christmas this year is up in the air with all the moving parts laid out and getting ready to be laid out so instead, I’ll knock out some thoughts and opinions for once about things I care about.
The Sci-Fi Animanga Series About a Dangerous and Ambitious A.I.
So even Japanese pop media is cautious about the issue
Due to a bunch of moving parts away from the blog in my personal professional life, I’ve been away from viewing things close to my expertise, so forgive me if this week’s entry is more than a little manufactured. But away with that; sometime ago, I jokingly floated around the idea of a chicken and egg question over when East Asia saw artificial intelligence and machinery as cute and cuddly instead of imposing and downright threatening like in the Western world. Probably not all that hard to figure out honestly, East Asia, specifically the Sinitic world (or countries that have been influenced by China through the dynasties and beyond), has severe reverence for their elders to the point that many technological advancements, especially now, would be focused on their aid with their aging populations routinely exceeding the 90s and 100s in age. Not everyone wants to be a caretaker for their 100-year-old baa-chan, so enter the robots to aid the elders. But not for nothing, it’s been at this stage for ages, with companies accommodating the old heads whose approach to technology is not dissimilar from Japan’s approach to the West when forced to open up for trade in the 1850s.
Hideaki Anno’s Dark Gundam Franchise
A long-time coming
My days of binging anime series may be well behind me in my adult years, but to make up for a lot of lost time, I’ve designated an alarm to get me up to speed on some anime I’ve been sleeping on, one of which I wrapped up recently with plans to watch the movie, despite my opinions on some anime movies. Looking at the title of this week’s post, it’s none other than:
Opinions on Entertainment 