'Puella Magi Madoka Magica'

...

This is one of the worst anime I have ever seen.

SPOILERS.

BEWARE! The Hate of Sonic 06's Soundtrack Is Over 9,000!!

Sonic 06, wake the **** up. You are NOT Final Fantasy.

Very well. I may not have played Sonic 06 since I currently don't own a XBox or a PS3, but I can still take this thing on. I watched at least four walkthroughs of this game and I listened to this soundtrack for months. I think I have enough room to toss my few cents into the opinion cup.

So here it goes.

This soundtrack is considered to be one of the best of this franchise.

... ... ... ... ...

BULLSHIT

Believe me, it gets much worse from here.

I apologize if any Sonic fan is reading this and loves this soundtrack. I am shooting bullets at this cocky piece of junk, not you. Please don't take this as a personal insult.

As for the rest of you... I'm sorry if my rage overwhelms anyone.

1:43 - What is THIS?! Is someone getting MARRIED?! *flashback to game*

OH GOD NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! TT-TT

I'm serious... what the fudge was Sonic Team AND Sega on in 2006?! Why did they release a half-assed game with sloppy gameplay, inconsistent graphics, and a generally insultingly overrated and unexciting soundtrack?! Most of all, why has no one apologized for this train wreck?!

*storms away from computer, sits on bed, and meditates for seven years*

Okay, I'm cool... ish.

Pointless 28 second song is pointless!

I know making claims of what defines a "Sonic soundtrack" is shallow and stupid, but hear me out. Music in pretty much every Sonic game released was energetic, upbeat, or catchy. Even in the SEGA Genesis days, restricted by electronic bleeps, the music was still memorable! So what happened here? Electronic and rock still exist, except watered-down and lifeless. Other than an orchestra, keyboards, the occasional guitar, and woodwinds, no other instrument exists. They replaced actual drums with machines repeating the same damn noise over and over again. This is not fun, musical perfection, this is repetitive laziness. "Wave Ocean" is the prime example of such sloth!

*sigh* This ain't the Gerudo desert of the Zelda series... wake me up when it...

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

This soundtrack is just as long as Shadow the Hedgehog's with over 90 songs, and YET Shadow's music was far more dynamic and energizing. Sure, not everyone can tolerate the sound that appeals more to rock and metal fans, but barely anything sounds exactly the same! Sonic 06, however, decides to have five songs sound 95% identical. This is mostly cutscene music too.

Yep an official Shadow recolor. Didn't see that one coming...

No seriously. That's the villain.

I kid you not, the tunes that play whenever Mephiles appears sound no different from each other, except that one during the cutscene with the pseudo-Jesus imagery. (That's a rage for another day...) There's "Resurrection of Mephiles", "The Black Shadow", "Mephiles' Whisper", "Mephiles' Temptation", and "Showdown with Mephiles". There was a cool theme that was duplicated and raped for no reason.

Silver, why did you debut in one of the worst games ever?!

WAAAAHHHH!!! 

And for character themes? "Dreams of an Absolution" - as I repeated for months - is the only track that deserves your serious attention. The in-game version of "His World" - not to be confused with the superior "Theme of Sonic the Hedgehog ~ E3 Version" - is hilariously awful. I'm sorry, Mr. Ali Tabatabaee, but in this song you are a lazy rapper. Just listen to the Crush 40 version, which the gods have blessed in their infinite wisdom... ...only to curse them. Crush 40's remake of "All Hail Shadow" is absolutely unnecessary. Magna-Fi made it glorious before, so why elongate and weaken what was concise and full of life?

Look, I have no issue with orchestral music. Symphonic metal is plagued with it. Nightwish dives head-first into the orchestration so much that it can be nauseating. But for them, it works because that was their style, their technique from day one. The fact that they continue it may prove that they are satisfied or that people want them to continue it until they die. Here, in a Sonic game it seems to work in small doses, otherwise it will look like everyone is trying too hard.

"The Past", "Chaos Control", "Revival", "Theme of Sonic Colors", "Theme of Sonic Unleashed", "To the World of the Memory", and "Metal Madness" are some examples of orchestration done well. They fit the tone and mood of the games they appear in while retaining a reasonable bit of memorability. Part of this is because we will hear these songs several times throughout the course of the game's story at the most appropriate moments. AND the games and their soundtracks don't drown themselves in such music.

Oh no! The tears that will release the Nine Tailed Fox from its' host!

It's the apocalypse! Cue the organ!

Yet Sonic 06 flips the bird at conservatively using what could be beautiful music and decides to fling new "impressive" and "elegant" crap at you to the point you forget what the fudge you're listening to! There are 48 event songs out of 94 tracks. 48 EVENT SONGS!!! That compares to 10 in Sonic Adventure 2, 17 in Sonic Colors, 10 in Sonic Generations, 11 in Sonic Heroes, and 6 in Sonic Adventure! 48 songs make up MORE THAN HALF OF THIS SOUNDTRACK! And most of the songs ARE REPEATS!!!!!

Fine, Shadow the Hedgehog has 49 event tracks. HOWEVER! Most of them STAND APART VERY CLEARLY!!! And many were re-used throughout the game WITHOUT DUPLICATE EDITS on the soundtrack! For crying out loud, Sonic Team!!!! Did you make Sonic 06 suck on purpose?! This is overkill!!!!

*walks away from computer and screams off the foulest curses ever conceived by mankind*

I have a headache. Seriously, I don't know if this or A Thousand Suns is the worst excuse of "great" albums I have ever heard. It's hard... man, is it hard... I could not finish listening to both in their entirety.

Yes, I gave up once we got to the Town Mission tunes. ...And I skipped the "Accordion Song". I wish that was a joke.

The only good action stage song that stuck the first time I listened.

Before I get a load of grief for my immaturity, I will admit that not every song was a colossal failure. Other than "Dreams of an Absolution", I found comfort in "Kingdom Valley", "Aquatic Base ~ Level 1", "Boss Fight Vs. Character", and "Theme of Dr. Eggman." These are five gems that I have found in a sea of oil and sludge.

And I refuse to comment in detail on "Sweet Dreams" and "My Destiny". They made me sick. Thankfully the developers didn't want me to puke excessively as the former never appeared on the soundtrack.

This could easily fit with the ARK stages in Shadow the Hedgehog...

Here's the greatest problem. Sonic 06 tried to impress everyone with its "realism" in graphics, story, and soundtrack. It's like Sonic would be deemed childish with the presence of epic, in-your-face music borrowing elements of rock, rap, jazz, techno, electronic, and orchestral. And what was released was a horrible disaster. They tried too damn hard and this ends up looking like a wanna-be Final Fantasy epic tale with snobbishly pretentious and "I'm superior to you all" music that should NEVER be in a Sonic game!

So what if I got into the games via the GameCube? I still have a tiny idea of what makes the blue blur awesome in the eyes of his fans. If you could stomach this more than me, fine. Enjoy it because I can't change your mind. But as you continue to praise it, I will continue to condemn it for failing to be the best damn thing it thinks it is.

Oh, Crush 40... we miss you dearly, even if you fumbled "All Hail Shadow"...

The good news about this? Sonic Team never attempted to overkill us with this pretentious, pseudo-elegent bullshit ever again! ... at least after Sonic Unleashed. *weeps*

0.5 out of 5

Because even this is the Mona Lisa next to the Twilight "saga".

I need to go brainwash myself with far better thoughts... A part of me has died...

'Rabbit Doubt'

The Birthday Massacre should totally sponsor this!

Rabbit Doubt is a game where among a group of "rabbits" hides one "wolf," who deceives and "eats" everyone until someone can identify and stop him/her. Six people, Yuu, Mitsuki, Rei, Eiji, Haruka, and Haijime, decide to play the game for fun until they are abducted and the game comes to life. There is a wolf among them killing everyone off one by one...

Man! That sounds like great fun! So, who wants to play Rabbit Doubt?

Too bad the experience of reading it was nowhere near as fun as it should have been.

Hope y'all got your rabies shots!

As far as psychological horror goes, this sure hits rock bottom. Maybe the manga is only twenty chapters long and not much content can be covered in four volumes, but there are short stories that can be described as epic poems of old compared to this. The characters are pictures of stereotypes plastered on some cardboard: it may be thicker than before, but it's still flat. And as I mentioned with Paranoia Agent: if your characters are dull as crap, why should we care about their problems? Why care if they are dancing on the razor's edge and at the point of falling into the abyss of death? If a pile of roses can't make a pile of feces look nice, then no intellectual theory from a college psychology textbook can make Mr. John McBland Smith likable.

Smart. Peppy. Normal. Spoiled. Jerk. Slut.
Name all the horror films of late that have such characters.

Let's see... Yuu is the normal and kind young man. Mitsuki is the cheerful straight-laced good girl seen in far too many anime. Eiji is a delinquent asshole. Haruka is a slut. Rei is the lolita with a sweet, sad soul asking for love and attention. Haijime is the smart one with black hair and glasses. I'm sorry, did I spoil too much? Guess which one is a hypnotist and how relevant they will be. Now THAT is a spoiler!

That's the problem with most horror stories and films to date. The characters and plot are absolute crap.

On a less cynical note, the art style is really good. The character designs are nothing too noteworthy, but their clothes and hair are fairly realistic and nicely drawn. The environment of the abandoned building is very detailed, dark, and eerie. The rabbit masks are especially creepy, often seen worn, torn, or bloody. At the very least the manga does have an okay atmosphere with several relatively creepy images of the murders that occur.

Pretty darn detailed. Mangaka earns a cookie.

Despite the premise sounding interesting, it is definitely not a slasher or torture porn unlike some films. *cSoAuWgShEcRoIuEgSh* Rabbit Doubt is bloody, but not gory (the most graphic is a severed hand holding a cellphone.) That being said however, the horror is handled very weakly. There is an amazing lack of suspense from start to finish. No "scare" is built up in any way and the end result might look good, but only out of context. The scariest panel will be so bland that you can go to bed and sleep like a baby. I did.

Predictable plot with a bullshit twist ending. Boring characters with no likability. Terrible executions of horror. This manga is pretty darn pretentious to have the "psychological" label slapped on its bloody head. At least the art is pretty.

You're better off with Higurashi or Paranoia Agent, both of which are far more intriguing and not as predictable. Yes, Satoshi Kon's "masterpiece" is better than this premature shonen one shot. Avoid unless you have nothing else to read.

Final Verdict: 0.8 out of 5

The 'Twilight' Series

Being Vampire Month, you all saw this coming...

(CREDIT: why would I make such a series?!?!)

Rank: 0.01 out of 5 <- no words can describe my despair...

The very thing I fear in life is any kind of extremist. And I hate to turn into such a person if I say that this series is a piece of crap that should have never been blown up in epic proportions and that must be avoided by all who are vampire enthusiasts.

To be honest, every living person in this universe has already stated why this series is of awful quality as a "saga" or any piece of literature. In a way it is pointless to regurgitate the same excuses over and over again as to why this whole concept fills my heart with blood clots and my head with aches. But I will say that this series embarrasses me to death about liking vampires. It's so bad that even I fear that all the human-vampire romances I like are all just as shallow and stupid as Bella and Edward's! I even cry about it when watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer...

But it wasn't like this at first. I used to really like Twilight, or at least the first book. Sure, there are loads of bad things about it (Bella's Mary Sue Syndrome, Edward's perfection, the "vampires'" traits, the weak attempt of adding bad guys at the end, etc.) but the amount of awfulness isn't terribly overwhelming. There was something small in that book that kept telling me to read it, or maybe it's my subconscious reminding me that maybe I can find a guy whom I can love so much. Being a teenage girl with such thoughts is such a fun experience; no wonder we go through losing weight, looking pretty, and dressing nice just to find the perfect guy. "Bella gets a guy with no problem?! WHAT ABOUT ME??"

Regardless, the first book was readable... and had one great comment Bella made that my friends and I cite all the time: "Stupid, shiny Volvo owner."

Though I really liked the series back then, I remember almost nothing about New Moon and Eclipse. The former dragged on very slowly, especially with Bella being more pessimistic and depressive than I have ever been, and the latter overwhelmed me by its length and lack of action. Furthermore, the characters were never worth remembering, those in Vampire Knight were crafted in finest quality in comparison.

So what yanked me away from the series and discard it forever? Breaking Dawn.

Reading Jacob's point of view really showed me how ridiculously silly Bella dealt with her love for Edward as well as her pregnancy (another longwinded debate I refuse to comment on.) Without him, I would not have seen how annoying the storyline was getting. But what finally made me wish the series ill will was quite simple: Alice had a vision that the Volturi were coming. The whole "OMG! We're going to die!" melodrama forced me to close the book and never pick it up again. That's right: I could sit through the awful sex, the grotesque birth, the absurd concept behind Renesmee even existing, and Bella's stupidly unrealistic high hopes for a good pregnancy that only a delusional person could have. But that vision scene KILLED ME.

But the best part of this whole fad is the fact that it's considered a "saga" (JRR Tolkien must be weeping in his grave...) and is [or was] on every cashier, every store window, every "alternative scene" store, every item imaginable from candy to graphic novels... and EVEN THIS!

THIS. IS. AN. ASSAULT. AGAINST. LITERATURE.

I have never seen such absurd marketing in my short life, and I hope I never see such extreme measures ever again for the next ten years. At least things have quieted down since New Moon: it seemed odd that the fangirls didn't go batcrazy when Eclipse came out.

Without a shadow of a doubt, this series receives a grade far lower than Linkin Park's pathetic A Thousand Suns, which compared to this needs a 3. If only that Volvo quote never existed, I would without hesitation give this series a solid 0 in all fields: plot, characters, originality, research, and vampire interpretation.

Now if you'll excuse me, I will enter my insecurity corner where I will continue to be embarrassed of the fate of human-vampire romances. Weeping and listening to some doom metal might be a good idea...

'A Thousand Suns'

(CREDIT: to owner, who is not me.)

My Rank = 0.5/5
Shamefully, Horribly, Irritatingly Terrible

Beware of my wrath. This review is much more immature than I ever have been here. How can I begin to review the quality of an album that I have SEVERELY miscalculated? How could it be far worse than I predicted?

I am sorry to everyone who likes Linkin Park and this album. I am sorry to my one good friend who is probably tired of me complaining about this. But to be blunt, for Linkin Park... THIS ALBUM SUCKS. Don't get me wrong, the messages in the lyrics aren't bad, so I refuse to bash their meanings. Even some of the recordings in the tracks are decent. HOWEVER. The sound is still horribly slow and boring.

Because I am too lazy to write an entire paragraph on this, here are the cons:

- Every song has the same piano riff used over and over again...

- Every song is so damn repetitive, this makes Lady GaGa sound versatile.

- You have no clue where the verse ends and the chorus begins ("Robot Boy" and "Burning in the Skies" are perfect examples.)

- What kind of album has TWO INSTRUMENTAL TRACKS to start off?!

- "The Catalyst" still bores the hell out of me. The second single, "Waiting for the End," is much stronger, but still mediocre; however, it should have been the first single.

- This album makes me take back insults I had for Minutes to Midnight

- There is just a total lack of motivation. They clearly have a message to give us, but they fail to execute it enough to make one care enough to listen.

To add something else, in "Blackout" Chester screams and raps... my feelings of happiness and disgust have canceled each other out. And again, the whole thing sounds very sloppy. Because I know nothing about music, I'm not sure if the producer or mixer should have been fired for performing such a sloppy job. Or maybe it's the band to blame.

However, there are a few pros. "Wretches and Kings" sounds like the Linkin Park I used to know and love: fairly intense instrumentals, Mike's rapping, Chester's screaming, and Joe Hahn's turntables. Also, if I could use the MP3 Trimmer application on my computer, I would reedit one decent song on this album: "When They Come for Me." FINALLY MIKE SHINODA IS RAPPING AGAIN!!!! But the song is far too long with the too lengthy outro after the final chorus.

The first time I heard this album, I had to stop in the middle of "Robot Boy" and walk away from my computer. I refused to give the album another try until now to review it. That was a two month time gap. But wow. I can't say I wasn't expecting the album to bring my view of Linkin Park to fall, but I wasn't expecting it to go down so fast in less than fifty minutes. This does not sound like a rock act anymore; it sounds like a psudo-electronic pop-rap-rock album. What a scattered mess.

As of now, I still love Meteora and Hybrid Theory, but this album shatters my hopes for this band. I have grabbed a lifeboat and left the ship that is continuing to sink. I wish Linkin Park and their fans the best, but I can't join them on the journey anymore. This is embarrassing...