Angel's Anime Rating Guide

Not long ago, I began watching The Owl House on the Disney Channel ... Self-assured teenager Luz stumbles upon a portal to a magical realm where she befriends a rebellious witch, Eda, and a tiny warrior, King; despite not having magical abilities, Luz pursues her dream of becoming a witch by serving as Eda's apprentice. The Owl House follows the exploits of Luz, as she studies to be a witch in the land of the Boiling Isles under the instruction of Eda, a witch and a free spirit who makes a living selling oddities collected from the Human world. Early in the series, we find that Luz is somewhat of a free spirit herself who has a fascination with fantasy stories and her dream is to become a witch. When Luz stumbles into the demon realm, she's offered the opportunity to return home and be "safe", but, of course, then there wouldn't be a need for more episodes of the series, so, naturally, Luz is going to run away from home into the demon realm. Meanwhile, bac...

Over the weekend, Mom and I saw the theatrical release of Frozen 2 ... Why was Elsa born with magical powers? The answer is calling her and threatening her kingdom. Together with Anna, Kristoff, Olaf and Sven, she'll set out on a dangerous but remarkable journey. In Frozen, Elsa feared her powers were too much for the world. In Frozen 2, she must hope they are enough. We arrived at the theater a bit early and had our usual seats. Mom tried out the hot dogs and they are much better than they used to be. Previously, the theater offered hot dog infused with a spice like sage and had a rather odd aftertaste. Now, the theater is offering Nathans brand hot dogs. We had nachos and pretzel bites and the usual overpriced soda and settled into our seats for the pre-show commercials and trailers. Frozen 2 picks up sometime after the events of the last movie and introduces flashbacks with Elsa and Anna's parents as they tell the tale of a magical forest shrouded in a perpetual mist...

Recently, I started watching Amphibia ... Inspired by creator and executive producer Matt Braly's heritage, family and childhood trips to Bangkok, Thailand, Disney's animated series chronicles the adventures of independent and fearless teen Anne Boonchuy after she is magically transported to a rural marshland full of frog people. There, Anne meets the excitable young frog Sprig Plantar; unpredictable pollywog Polly Plantar, the youngest member of the Plantar family; and overprotective and traditional grandfather Hop Pop. Stuck in this fantastical world of amphibians, Anne quickly bonds with the adventurous Sprig and discovers the true meaning of friendship. Amphibia starts out with Anne being mistaken for the local monster, but, after Anne demonstrates that she is not a monster by intervening on behalf of both Sprig and the townspeople against a real monster, she is welcomed into the home of the Planter family where she becomes the monster that lives in their basement. Duri...

After many years away, my brother, Sammy, recently came home from away and offered some fascinating insights into the peculiarities of censorship in the modern era. Sammy wanted to see an R-Rated movie. As he was looking for a suitable candidate --  Deadpool  --, he happened to notice a pile of  Tinker Bell  movies and mentioned that he had never seen any of them as they were unrated and as such, were banned. He also noted that  Big , the Tom Hanks movie where Tom plays a child who has suddenly grown big, was censored for objectionable content. As for Tinker Bell, from what I understand, in the original text of Peter Pan , fairies are described as being only able to hold only one emotion at a time, so, when Tinker Bell is angry, she is psycho-crazy angry. And, some of Tinker Bell's anger management issues even make their way into the animated Peter Pan movie as noted in a Buzzfeed article. Of course, the more recent Tinker Bell movies are toned down quite a...

Today, I saw the live-action version of Beauty And The Beast in my local theater... Bill Condon (Dreamgirls) directed this live-action retelling of the Disney animated classic from 1991. As before, this fairy tale centers on a young woman named Belle (Emma Watson), who is forced to live in an enchanted castle with a prince who is cursed to look like a hideous Beast (Dan Stevens). In time, the pair fall in love as Belle learns to see the good man hiding behind the Beast's monstrous exterior. The film co-stars Luke Evans as Gaston, Ewan McGregor as Lumière, Emma Thompson as Mrs. Potts, Ian McKellen as Cosgworth, Kevin Kline as Belle's father, and Josh Gad as Gaston's sidekick LeFou. I went to an early afternoon showing of Beauty And The Beast . This feature is essentially the same story as the cartoon with some extra scenes and even more singing. That being said, the live-action version is a bit more intense in some spots, than the cartoon version, so, the youngest Disney...

Over the weekend, Mom and I saw Zootopia ... In a city of anthropomorphic animals, a rookie bunny cop and a cynical con artist fox must work together to uncover a conspiracy. We saw previews for Zootopia a few months ago and it looked like something we would want to see on the big screen. We picked out a reasonably quiet weekend and got to the theater early. But, much to our dismay, our favorite seats had already been snatched by another family that came even earlier than us. Even with this setback, we still had a good time. Judy Hopps really stole Mom's heart and the rapport between her and Nick Wilde was just fantastic. Zootopia does have a twist in the story that we didn't expect, but, we were very pleased with the end result. Overall, even though we didn't have our usual seats, we still had a really good time. I would give Zootopia a 4 our of 5. The Zootopia soundtrack CD has 22 tracks and I liked just the one track, Try Everything with Shakira  for a total o...

Over the weekend, I saw Inside Out ... Emotions run wild in the mind of a little girl who is uprooted from her peaceful life in the Midwest and forced to move to San Francisco in this Pixar adventure from director Pete Docter (Up, Monsters Inc.). Young Riley was perfectly content with her life when her father landed a new job in San Francisco, and the family moved across the country. Now, as Riley prepares to navigate a new city and attend a new school, her emotional headquarters becomes a hot bed of activity. As Joy (voice of Amy Poehler) attempts to keep Riley feeling happy and positive about the move, other emotions like Fear (voice of Bill Hader), Anger (voice of Lewis Black), Disgust (voice of Mindy Kaling) and Sadness (Phyllis Smith) make the transition a bit more complicated. I've been looking forward to seeing Inside Out for a while, so, this weekend, Mom and I went to see it in the theater. We left over an hour early, but, there was a lot of traffic on Columbus Bouleva...

Mom and I went to see Pixar's latest movie, Brave , over the weekend... An impetuous princess discovers that her reckless choice has put both her family and her father's kingdom in peril in this animated adventure from Pixar films. As a toddler, Merida (voice of Kelly MacDonald) saw her father, King Fergus (Billy Connolly), do battle with one of the fiercest animals in the kingdom -- a horribly scarred hulk of a bear named Mordu. Though Fergus lost his leg defending his family, Merida and her mother, Queen Elinor (Emma Thompson), managed to escape the beast before it vanished back into the forest. Years later, Merida has grown up to become not just a skilled archer, but also a beautiful princess who inspires a competition among the eligible bachelors in the land. But Merida has little interest in getting married, and the harder her mother pushes the issue, the more fiercely she resists it. When the tournament for her hand gets under way and a deep divide opens between mother ...

Recently, I had a chance to see Mars Needs Moms ... Mars Needs Moms is a comic animated adventure about moms, Martians, and mutiny. Martian hatchlings are springing up out of the ground up on Mars, and there's a desperate need for a good mom to raise the babies. Mars matriarch "The Supervisor" (Mindy Sterling) sets her sights on Milo's mom (Joan Cusack) because she's doing such a good job raising Milo (Seth Green) down on Earth, and she quickly abducts her. As luck would have it, Milo's just said something to his mother that he's come to regret, goes into her room to apologize right as she's being abducted, and winds up getting caught in the spaceship that's transporting her to Mars. On Mars, Milo meets a strangely childlike human named Gribble (Dan Fogler), and the two quickly become friends and set out on a bumbling mission to rescue Milo's mom. Along the way, they get a little help from Martian Ki (Elisabeth Harnois), who sees things a li...

Over the weekend, I went to see Tangled  -- the Disney-fied retelling of the classic story of Rapunzel . When the kingdom’s most wanted -- and most charming -- bandit Flynn Rider (voice of Zachary Levi) hides out in a mysterious tower, he’s taken hostage by Rapunzel (voice of Mandy Moore), a beautiful and feisty towerbound teen with 70 feet of magical, golden hair. Flynn’s curious captor, who’s looking for her ticket out of the tower where she’s been locked away for years, strikes a deal with the handsome thief and the unlikely duo sets off on an action-packed escapade, complete with a super-cop horse, an over-protective chameleon and a gruff gang of pub thugs. In theaters this holiday season, Tangled is a story of adventure, heart, humor and hair -- lots of hair. According to Wikipedia ... The movie's visual style is based on the painting The Swing, by the French Rococo artist Jean-Honoré Fragonard. Because (former) director Glen Keane wanted this to be an animated movie that...

In the aftermath of the Ultimate Otaku Fall Cleanup , a number of gems of classic TV were unceremoniously placed in trash bags and set out by the curb or given away. Among the dearly departed was an episode of Disney's Gummi Bears cartoon called " Girl's Knight Out ". In Girl's Knight Out , King Gregor proposes a series of tests for Unwin and the other squires to become Princess Calla's bodyguard, which includes stealing a golden apple from the strong and mysterious Black Knight. Calla conceals her appearance in a suit of armor and competes as well to prove she is capable of her own self defense. I wasn't greatly concerned at the time because I had a DVD collection from the series and although the collection didn't actually contain that episode, I was hoping that Disney might release a second volume at some point in time in the future. My recent discovery of the classic Cosmic Christmas cartoon, inspired me to poke around for this lost episode of G...