The Untamed: A Sinner’s Prayer Review by Eugene Alejandro

The Untamed: A Sinner’s Prayer is the both the first The Untamed comic book story arc, as well as the very first comic published by Stranger Comics for their Asunda Universe imprint. It is written and created by Sebastian A. Jones, illustrated by both Peter Bergting and Darrell May, and lettered by both Joshua Cozine and Troy Peteri.

Before I start this review, I should quickly mention the fact that I am only reviewing the hardcover collection of The Untamed: A Sinner’s Prayer only because that is how I read it. Also, this (along with my other reviews for Stranger Comic’s Asunda Universe titles) will be a spoiler free review.

The plot of The Untamed: A Sinner’s Prayer is about a man who is sent back into the real-world after dying in order to collect seven souls in exactly seven days. While on this mission, he encounters a human-elf hybrid named Niobe (with this comic being her very first appearance as she also appears in other comic books in the Asunda Universe from Stranger Comics) who ends up becoming his ally on his quest.

Before I start saying how I personally felt about The Untamed: Sinner’s Prayer, please allow me to quickly talk about the Asunda Universe for just a bit since I’ve mentioned at the very start of this review. The Asunda Universe is an imprint from Stranger Comics that publishes comic books and graphic novels that are all connected in the fictional world of Asunda. Asunda is a world in the fantasy genre where humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, and other typical and even original fantasy races exist. This fictional comics universe was created by Sebastian A. Jones, and (as already stated) is published by Stranger Comics.

For the very first comic that’s part of the Asunda Universe (as well as the publishing imprint its named after), The Untamed: A Sinner’s Prayer is a good beginning and introduction to the fictional world its a part of thanks to a lot of the qualities it has that are required to make a good comic.

For starters, the writing by Sebastian A. Jones is very good as the story is very easy to understand and pay attention to, and all the characters are written with a strong amount of development to them. While there isn’t too much world building in this comic, what is presented here does at least help the reader understand what goes on in the world of Asunda.

The artwork in The Untamed: A Sinner’s Prayer by Peter Bergting, and Darrell May fits this comic very well thanks to how awesome Peter’s illustrations are as he truly knows how to draw emotional and thrilling panels in this comic. This is also helped by Darrell May’s layout designs as without his contribution, the art wouldn’t be as good as it is now.

Joshua Cozine, and Troy Peteri’s lettering in this comic looks excellent as it is very easy to look at and understand all the dialogue spoken by the characters. The speech bubbles are presented in a very clear fashion, and the rest of the overall lettering is easy to follow.

Since I am reviewing the hardcover collection of The Untamed: A Sinner’s Prayer, I want to quickly talk about all the special bonus content featured at the end of the book. I don’t wanna spoil any specifics as to what they are, but what I will say is that if your the kind of reader who wants to see some extra content after reading like I do, then I highly recommend buying this comic in the hardcover collection format because what is presented at the end of it is really interesting and totally worth taking a look at.

So in conclusion, The Untamed A Sinner’s Prayer is without a doubt a solid beginning and introduction to the Asunda Universe, and I look forward to reading the next The Untamed comic whenever I can.

I give The Untamed: A Sinner’s Prayer 5/5 Stars, and Two Thumbs Up.

Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy 15 Review by Eugene Alejandro

Disclaimer: For this review, I am only going to be reviewing the English Dub because that is the version I watched before making this review.

Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy 15 is a feature-length computer animated major motion picture that serves as both a direct prequel and midquel to the video game from Square Enix; Final Fantasy 15 (which I am currently still playing at the time of me writing this review).

The story in this film is that in the world of Eos, two nations are at war with each other over the planet’s crystal because said crystal grants whoever uses ultimate power (which the kingdom of Lucis has, and the other wants to take). The two nations are Lucis, and Niflheim. The Kingsglaive are a group of elite soliders tasked in protecting Lucis from Niflheim’s invasions. I could go into more detail about this movie’s plot, but I prefer not to because I don’t wanna go into any spoiler territory regarding this movie’s story at all in this review.

For a movie that is meant to be a companion piece to the Final Fantasy 15 universe, I have to say that I found this movie to be spectacularly awesome to watch as not only does it work at benefiting Final Fantasy 15’s overall story, but it also turned out to be a very entertaining movie to watch as far as my opinion is concerned.

The most notable aspect in Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy 15 is the computer animation which is meant to have a very photo-realistic look to it. For how it looks, the animation is simply breath-taking and beautiful to look at. The character’s movements regarding facial expressions, lip-syncing, and walking, jumping, etc, are all done very well in order to help all the characters feel alive. The visuals, background animation, and creature designs are also very nice to look at. All of this really shows how talented Square Enix is at making good photo-realistic computer animation.

The English Dub voice acting in Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy 15 is another good quality/aspect of the film as each voice actor delivers their lines perfectly, and each voice fits the characters very well. The lip-syncing also helps with the movie’s English Dub because it makes the character’s mouth movements believable.

The soundtrack in this movie awesome. While I should go into more elaboration and detail on as to why I think the music for this film is good, all I can honestly say is that for what it is, its great to listen to while watching the whole movie.

The only nitpicks that I have regarding my experience of watching Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy 15 are that while I was completely entertained by the whole movie, I still felt the movie went on for way too long to where I was worried the film would never end. But even then despite that, the movie is still worth sitting through in order to get the full Final Fantasy 15 story experience (at least in my honest opinion anyways). Another nitpick that I have is that while this film works very well as a companion piece to the Final Fantasy 15 universe, I personally think it would have been even better had it been its own stand-alone movie with the Final Fantasy name and some of the themes and elements from the franchise added to it. Now I shouldn’t fault the movie for being part of Final Fantasy 15 as that is what Square Enix made it out to be,but I still would’ve preferred it being its own movie rather than a prequel and midquel to the game.

Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy 15 is a sci fi and fantasy action movie that I can easily recommend to Final Fantasy fans, as it works very well as both a companion piece, and as an overall movie.

I give Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy 15 Two Thumbs Up, and 5/5 Stars.

Bright Review by Eugene Alejandro

Bright is a Netflix-Original movie directed and produced by David Ayer, and written by Max Landis. It (primarily) stars Will Smith, Joel Edgerton, and Noomi Rapace.

Bright takes place in an alternate version of the planet Earth where Humans, Elves, and Orcs all exist together, but are separated from each other by how they live. Elves are upper-class, humans are middle-class, and orcs are lower-class.

The main plot in Bright is that two police officers named Daryl Ward, and Nick Jakoby end up getting involved with a plot by a group evil Elves who want to bring back the “Dark Lord” because a female who betrayed has a powerful wand that the evil Elves want to use in order to achieve their goal.

When this movie first got released on Netflix, it was met with a lot of negative reviews from critics. Because of this, I’ll admit that I was somewhat hesitant to give this movie a watch, but after seeing it, I am honestly surprised at how good it actually turned out to be in my opinion.

Now I want to quickly clarify that in no way am I saying that this is an amazing and/or spectacular movie in this review. All I’m saying is that in my own opinion, I found this movie to be enjoyable. Also, this review is NOT meant to be a personal attack on the critics who gave this film negative reviews.

The biggest aspect in Bright that I really liked was the unique and fascinating premise which involved combining fantasy with the real world. And in my opinion, it was executed very well.

Bright doesn’t use too much CGI as a majority of the special effects are made using practical makeup, and they actually look amazing enough to help the Elves and Orcs look real enough to actually exist in the real world.

The acting in this film is pretty solid with Will Smith in particular delivering a fun and entertaining performance that fits his character for all the right reasons.

The two biggest nitpicks that I have with Bright are that (in my opinion) the story was nothing too very special at all. It wasn’t bad, but I only wish that it was something much better because of its premise. The second nitpick of mine with this film is that I felt that the F-word was said way too much in an attempt to prove that this movie is rated-R. I honestly don’t have an issue with foul language just as long as it fits, but this movie I felt used the F-word more than it had to.

So while I can understand why Bright isn’t for everybody, I still found the movie entertaining for what it was, and I am glad that I saw it.

Overall, Bright gets a 4/5 stars, and a two thumbs up by me.

Trollhunters Part 2 Review by Eugene Alejandro

In memory of Anton Yelchin (1989-2016)

Trollhunters Part 2 is the second season in the Trollhunters animated series which is created by Guillermo del Toro, made by Dreamworks Animation, and officially streamed on Netflix.

As with how I reviewed Trollhunters Part 1, I will only be reviewing Trollhunters Part 2 as only a show because I have not read any of the books it is adapted from. Also, unlike the first season which consisted of 26 episodes, the second season (which I am reviewing right now) only has 13 episodes. I only wanted to mention that last part because in case anybody who is subscribed to Netflix and has this show on their list should be aware of that fact.

Without going into any spoilers for this review, Trollhunters Part 2 does a very good job at being a solid continuation of Trollhunters Part 1, but what I think (in my opinion) makes this second season even better in terms of how its written is how it handles plot twists, and character development. The plot twists in particular caught me off guard as I never expected or predicated them in the slightest.

As with the Trollhunters Part 1, the animation continues to still be amazing in Trollhunters Part 2. While there isn’t much of a difference in regards to how the animation looks for this season compared to the previous one, the animation is still made very well and shows how much money and effort went into it.

The voice acting is also still very good with each voice actor perfectly fitting their characters and delivering the lines very well. I was most surprised by how Anton’s Yelchin’s voice was still kept for this season, but I overall, found his voice acting performance to still be very good like it was in Trollhunters Part 1.

If you are somebody who really enjoys Trollhunters like I do, I can most certainly recommend watching this second season as it is a excellent continuation of the previous season, and show as a whole works very well at entertaining both children, and adults.

I give Trollhunters Part 2 Two Thumbs Up, and 5/5 Stars.