Mononoke vs. Bakemonogatari

Mononoke's badass Medicine Seller

Usually, I don’t like to do side by side comparisons of anything. I try to judge every movie, TV show, book, album, game, or anime on its own merits, and not judge it against another subject in the same genre. Just because two anime might fall into the same genre doesn’t necessarily mean they should be given a direct comparison. However, after recently watching these two series, I found that they have so much in common, I can’t help but compare them.

I’ve been in a major anime slump lately. Everything I have watched I have either dropped from sheer boredom, or found the show to be a complete and total pile of shit. I had been checking the usual sites for episodes of new (and old) series that I had never seen before. One night I watched the first episodes of Tatami Galaxy, My Hime, Mononoke, and Bakemonogatari. They were all chosen completely at random with only the knowledge that other people had recommended them. I really had very little concept of what any of these series were about. Mononoke and Bakemonogatari piqued my interest the most, and I continued to watch them.

Every time I sat down for a viewing I would watch an episode of Mononoke followed by an episode of Bakemonogatari. It worked well as the former series has 12 episodes and the latter has 15. Coincidentally, I discovered that both series fell into the same genre, had similar formats, similar subject matter, and even shared a voice actor, Takahiro Sakurai, who played the wise Medicine Seller in Mononoke and the wise Meme Oshino in Bakemonogatari.

4 Horsemen of the Film-Making Apocalypse: Part 3 – JAWSBUPS

 

The Four Horsemen of the Film-Making Apocalypse

For a long time I’ve been carefully watching for the end of the world. According to the Bible (the world’s most accurate and consistent book), the world will end in a fiery shit storm, ushered in by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Well, that time is here, albeit not in a form that anyone expected. In fact, all the pestilence, war, famine, and death are not coming literally, but figuratively in the world of cinema.

Horseman numero tres is none other than JAWSBUPS. Wait a second. Who the fuck is JAWSBUPS? Well, it actually isn’t a single director. It is an amalgamation of three small time, but horribly inept directors. Alone each of them is relatively harmless, but put together they combine to become the Voltron of shitty movies. JAWSBUPS breaks down to the original initials J.S., P.W.S.A., and U.B. Those initials stand for Joel Schumacher, Paul W. S. Anderson, and Uwe Boll.

Now, I know what you’re thinking, “BUT BRIK THOSE GUYS HAVE MADE SUM GOOD MOVIES YOU DONT KNOW WHAT YOUR TALKIN ABOUT LOL!” You may feel like they have made some good movies, but you’d be wrong. Your memory is playing tricks on you. Let’s take a closer look at their combined efforts: