I'm so sorry!!!!

So I'm here to apologise for my lack of posting. I do have an explanation though!!!! So here's wha ha-happen, wha ha-happen was...

So I had a LONG post ALMOST ENTIRELY WRITTEN and I was working on it, planning to post it that day. But when I wrote a sentence that I didn't like, and pressed ctrl+z to delete it, it didn't just delete that one sentence.

IT DELETED THE ENTIRE POST!!!!!!!!!!! THE ENTIRE POST THAT WAS ALMOST DONE!!!!!!

So, yea. That's why I haven't posted lately. I was taking a break because that was a very RAGE inducing experience.

However, I am working on something different for you. Something special. I'm working on a different piece of media. It should be done later tonight.

Again, I'M SO SORRY!!!!!

Love to you all, Kitty Kat.

A hard subject to talk about.

Gun Violence

I'm going to be diverging from what this blog is supposed to be about for a subject that is more dire. Something that needs to be heard. Something that needs to be changed. In this post, I'm going to share my experiences with gun violence to raise awareness and let you know that gun violence is a crime more common than anyone can ever imagine. It can happen to anyone.

I've decided to write this post on this day, April twentieth, because it is the anniversary of the Collumbine Massacre, and we are talking about it at school. Every period, we name two students, and eventually the one teacher who was shot in this tragedy. We then have a moment of silence as remembrance of this terrible day.

In this post, I will write about my experiences with gun violence, and my opinions on what we can do to change the terrible goings on with guns in schools and in the community.

I had a very good friend, who is going to remain unnamed out of respect. This friend was trans. She was originally a male, who was transitioning into a female. She worked at a bar in Deep Ellum, and one night, after she got off of work, she took the employee exit, which led into the alleyway behind the bar, out of the building.

And someone was waiting for her. She was cornered in the alley, and shot because she was trans. Her killer was never found. Whoever her killer was could still be walking free today, despite this terrible crime committed.

It affected me greatly. I mourned for days after I found out. But I tried my hardest to keep my mourning a secret so no one would know the terrible thing I was going through, and the horrors that she suffered with.

It hurt so much, and whenever I see a gun walk, or a walk out at school, or see something like this on the news, I think about her. It still hurts today, and I know it will never stop hurting. It will get easier, eventually. But it will never stop hurting.

I lost someone precious that day, and suddenly the issue of gun violence became a terrible reality for me. Suddenly, realisation struck me, and I knew how serious this issue is today. And how sensitive this topic is for so many people.

My friend one day texted me saying "A boy was shot at school in a hate crime." I don't know if he was gay, trans, black, whatever. All I know was that it was a hate crime. His killer, however, was caught, and that brought me some clarity. However, this was before my friend was shot, and the topic wasn't as sensitive. I understood that someone had been shot in a hate crime, but I didn't understand. I knew, but it didn't quite register in my brain, ya know? Things like that, they're hard to understand. It's easy to sympathise, but it's hard to empathise until it's happened to you. It's easy to say "I'm sorry," but, unless it's happened to you, you can't really say "I understand."

I'm not an obsessive gun control girl. I don't think guns should be banned all across America. Sometimes you need a gun. What if there's an armed robbery at your house? What are you supposed to do? Just sit back and let the robber kill you and loot your house? You need to protect yourself. You need to protect you, your husband or wife if you have one, your children if you have any.

As for gun laws? I think we need better ones. I live in Texas, so these are the gun laws here. As for gun laws in other states, I do not know what they are, and how strict they are. So the gun laws I will be speaking for are those in Texas. "Generally speaking, in Texas, as long as you're of age [eighteen] and can pass the background check, you can buy a gun." This is a quote from Justin Sparks, said to Fox News the Monday after the shooting at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Spring, Texas.

A link to an article on gun laws and gun violence in Texas

Additionally, a felon cannot own a gun. However, five years after they've served, as long as they have a clean record afterwards, they are allowed to once again own a gun.

As for those considered 'Mentally Ill,' they are not allowed to buy a gun. But how they decide whether or not someone is mentally stable enough to hold a gun, I do not know. As of this current moment, there is no disclosure of mental health records, so there is no way to know if someone is stable or not. How do they decide it? A psych eval? That's not very reliable. People can easily lie about their mental health. Someone can easily give false answers in a psych evaluation. Someone can easily cover up any self-harm wounds with makeup, if those even have any bearing on whether or not you can buy a gun.

If you get a dishonourable discharge in the army, you are also prohibited from buying a gun of any kind. However, being discharged on bad conduct does not trigger the law, and you can still buy a gun.

In light of my research on all of Texas' gun laws, I do believe our laws are somewhat...lacking. I believe that if you're convicted of a felony, you should not be allowed to own a gun at all no matter how long you're out of prison with a clean record. If you're a felon, you should not be able to have a gun. Period. No ands, buts, and ors. If you are a felon, owning a gun should be illegal. Period.

As for mental stability, I believe that psychiatrists should have to disclose your hospital records, your mental health records, and the medications you take. I also believe that counselors should have to release information about their patient if they're looking to buy a gun. There should be more gun laws regarding mental illness. If you are mentally ill, you should not be able to own a gun.

Now let's talk about the military discharges. I agree that if you were dishonourably discharged, owning a gun should be illegal. However, I also believe that being discharged on bad conduct should also have some limits to owning a gun. Perhaps not illegal for all those who were discharged on bad conduct. Bad conduct can be something as simple as disobeying someone of a higher position too often or starting a riot. I think that if you were discharged on bad conduct, it should be illegal to own a gun, but only if you were discharged for violence.

Texas gun laws are, in my opinion, seriously lacking. I don't believe in making guns illegal for everyone. I just think we need to tweak them. A lot. Maybe then we wouldn't have so much gun violence. I don't think guns should be illegal altogether. I just believe we should have stricter gun laws.

I know how terrible it is to lose someone you love to gun violence. I want everyone to know that if you've lost someone, my heart goes out to you, and anyone who has lost someone by gun violence. This was truly a hard post to type. It took hours to write.

I want everyone reading this post to understand that gun violence is a crime so much more common than one would like to believe. It can happen to anyone. One moment, you can be going about your day, and nothing is wrong. And just a couple hours later, you're mourning the loss of someone involved in gun violence. Whether it's a hate crime, a school shooting, or any other type of crime involving firearms, just know that my heart goes out to you and your family.

I know it's hard to think about this topic, and it was even harder to write about it. But this has to be said. Things like this, issues that are impacting our entire country, have to be addressed. There was a walk out at school today. Several people left. Only about three people made it past the teachers bombarding every student who stepped foot outside of their classroom. I don't know how else to raise awareness about this awful issue. But it needs to be said, so I'm saying it here.

I love you all, my sweeties. Thank you for reading this post. I hope it did at least something for you. I'm not sure how to wrap this post up, so I'll just end it here, with one more I love you.

Soul Eater

Soul Eater: Definitely a Good One!

Soul Eater was one of my very first anime, and to this day, it remains to be one of my favourites. Not only because it gave me someone very special to me, but also because it is a very interesting and entertaining anime. One of the complaints I've heard about this anime is the characters. They're all so over-the-top and annoying that they made it hard to watch. Another criticism is the art style. A lot of people don't like it, and say they tried watching it, but couldn't get past the first episode because they didn't like the way it was drawn. Some people say they didn't like the story. They thought it jumped around too much to focus on the three main duos of the anime. I've even heard people say they didn't like it because it's just plain dumb. The complaint I've heard the most is how it ended.

I'll warn you now, since the biggest complaint I've heard about this anime is the end, there will be spoilers as I critique the way the anime ended.

Next step? A summary of the anime without giving too many spoilers!

The Soul Eater is about three duos of teenagers who go to the DWMA - Death Weapon Meister Academy. The goal of the school is to turn ordinary weapons into a Death Scythe. Now these 'weapons' aren't your normal every day weapon to swing around. Nope. These are humans who can turn into weapons. And these weapons can't just be wielded by any normal human. They must be wielded by a meister. A meister is a human who can wield these weapons, as not just anyone can use them. But not just any normal meister can brandish a weapon, either. Their soul wavelengths have to be in sync with their partners.

The first three episodes of the anime are introducing the seven main characters; four weapons and three meisters. Soul (weapon) and Maka (meister), Black*Star (meister) and Tsubaki (weapon), and Kid (meister), Liz (weapon) and Patty (weapon). The goal of the teams is to collect the souls of ninety nine kishin - which are monsters that are created when a human eats the souls of other humans - and one witch soul. If they succeed in doing so, they become a Death Weapon; a weapon of Lord Death himself.

Episode one introduces Maka and Soul, starting with them killing the kishin Jack the Ripper. This impressive team already has ninety nine kishin souls, and is but one witch soul away from creating the newest Death Weapon. The episode follows them as they attempt to beat the witch Blair. However, it doesn't go the way they expected, and they do not succeed in making Soul a Death Weapon. As it so happens, Blair was not, in fact, a witch, but only a "Cat with a ridiculous amount of magical powers." After eating the soul of this cat, Soul loses every single kishin soul he had eaten, and has to start all over again, and eat ninety nine more kishin souls, and one real witch soul.

Episode two follows Black*Star and Tsubaki, who have not collected a single kishin soul due to how eccentric Black*Star is. Although he claims to be an assassin, all he ever does is yell about being the star of the show and bring attention to himself. While an assassin is supposed to be silent and lurk in the shadows, Black*Star is always loud and constantly makes himself the center of attention. Due to this behaviour, they have not collected a single soul. Contrasting Black*Star's loud and flamboyant nature, his weapon, Tsubaki, is quiet and shy, only speaking when absolutely necessary, to calm her partner down when he's being too loud or hush him when he's frustrated, or to praise Black*Star when he does something he finds to be exceptional.

During this episode, Black*Star's mission is to kill a group of kishin in the Mafia, one of which is Al Capone. Black*Star promises Tsubaki he'll get it right this time, but ends up screwing up the mission by pulling his normal trick and crashing down through the roof, yelling "YAHOOOOO!!!!! I'M THE STAR OF THE SHOW AND I'M GOING TO KILL YOU ALL, EAT YOUR SOULS, AND MAKE MY WEAPON INTO THE NEXT DEATH SCYTHE!!!!!!" Or, something along those lines. Obviously, it does not go as planned, and he does not get the kishin souls.

Episode three follows Death the Kid, who is Lord Death's son, and his two twin pistols, Liz and Patty. While he is amazing in combat, he has a fatal flaw that has prevented him from getting a single kishin soul: he has terrible OCD. He's obsessed with symmetry. Everything has to be symmetrical and if it's not, he will either throw himself on the ground, wailing about how he is a failure as a human being and doesn't deserve to be alive, or gets mad at whoever it is who is causing the asymmetry. His victims of long lectures are, more often than not, his weapons; older sister Liz, and younger sister Patty. While he is busy lecturing Patty for her stance being off before her and her sisters transformations into pistols, the kishin that was the target of their mission escapes, and the three once again leave empty handed.

With all three of these episodes, and throughout the entire anime, there is a lot of humour, often making you laugh at the characters hysterically overdone antics. But despite all this humour, there are serious moments in which you can sympathise with the characters, as well as action packed scenes.

As you get further into the series, you meet several different antagonists; Medusa, a witch who has the ability to create shadows of snakes, as well as use her vector arrows to attack her victims, on top of her amazing hand-to-hand combat skills; Eruka, a frog witch who blindly follows Medusa in everything she does, more out of fear than respect; Free, The Wolf Man with the Demon Eye, Crona, a young, timid character who (whose gender is very debatable) who doesn't know how to deal with anything and is bullied by their weapon that Medusa fused into their back.

And then there's the main antagonist: Kishin Asura, The Great Old One. He is the oldest Kishin there is, and the most powerful. Eight hundred years ago, he terrorised Death City, the great city where the DWMA resides. He was a meister, but he was a very scared person. Scared of being betrayed, of being hurt, of every little thing there is. He was so afraid that his weapon would leave him that he ate her, and now he can use her at his own will.

Lord Death overpowered and defeated Asura, wrapping his body in a bag of his own skin, securing it with several heavy chains, hiding him deep underneath the DWMA.

As Eruka, Free, Medusa, and Crona try to release Asura, Soul and Maka, Blast*Star and Tsubaki, Kid, Liz and Patty, along with scientist and school professor Frank N. Stein and his Death Weapon Spirit Albarn, Maka's father, attempt to stop the release of Asura, but do not succeed.

The rest of the anime revolves around the students and teachers trying to stop Asura from creating chaos around the world, and in the end, the final fight between Asura and his opponents (No spoilers! (At least not right now.)) have an epic fight, and the single victor is unexpected.

So let's get on with the critiquing!

So to start, we'll talk about the characters.

Yes, the characters are a little bit over the top. But in all honesty, that was one of my favourite things about the anime. While I do love a good horror show (obviously, with my first two critiques were of this genre), a comedy is a breath of fresh air. And the characters in this show are refreshingly hilarious, and amazingly less complex than your typical horror character. While I do love a good horror to make me think, sometimes I want something easier and more light-hearted to enjoy my time. And the quirky characters in this anime do just that. With their funny lines, hilarious actions, and even more riotous interactions with the other characters, they provide the perfect comedic relief when switching from a heavier show to this.

And on top of their interactions, lines and quirkiness, let's talk about their design. A lot of people don't like the design of the anime, although I truthfully can't see any reason why. I've closely inspected the animation of several characters, and the scenery, and I see nothing wrong. The animation fits perfectly with the anime. Every anime has a different animating style that fits in with the story, and genre. While, yes in some cases, the animation can be horrible to the point where I can't finish it (Berserk is a prime example of this, in my opinion. I tried. I really did. But god it was ugly. Sorry if you don't share my opinion, but that was one of the ugliest anime I've ever seen.), the design for this anime fits it perfectly, and is very well drawn. The curves and angles on the face are fine, the eyes look good, and the shadowing is excellent, too. All in all, there's nothing wrong with the animation, at least in my opinion.

Now I'll talk about the story. The complaint I hear about the story the most is that it jumps between characters too much. I agree, it does jump between the characters. But it does it in a way that helps the plot progress. It doesn't just jump around the way most media with different plot points do. "Oh, hey, look! Soul and Maka are doing this! They help the plot progress? Well, damn! Let's cut over to Kid, Liz and Patty!" That's how most media with multiple focal points go. However, Soul Eater handles the multiple stories well, and interlaces them all together somehow. Instead of "Let's switch stories right as it gets good!" it's more along the line of "It's getting good and the story is progressing? Awesome! Let's wrap this sequence up quickly, efficiently, and with a good note to leave off on." A lot of media that has multiple main characters each with their own stories don't handle it very well, and it jumps around, making it hard to keep track of and even more difficult to stay on board for the whole show, book, movie, whatever. But Soul Eater does very well with this, and the show kept me interested the entire time.

As for the "just plain dumb..." I have no comment on that. We'll just...leave that there.

And last, but most certainly not least, the end of the anime. Well...I'll admit, the end of the anime could have been a lot better. A lot better.

WARNING!!!!!!!! SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!! IF YOU DON'T WANT SPOILERS, SWITCH TO THE NEXT PART IN CAPS!!!!!!!!!!

The last few episodes are the "Final Boss," where the three teams fight against Kishin Asura inside of an impenetrable protective bubble that Asura formed around himself to safeguard himself from the outside world while he regains all of his strength and change into his "Final Form," which was his kishin form, and not his weak, thin, frail human body. As he was forming it, the seven headstrong students snuck their ways inside of this protective barrier.

As they fought, they were all beaten after fighting hard. However, in his true form, the attacks the students made on Kishin Asura were minuscule, doing no significant damage. Nevertheless, Kid, after being knocked out, went into a trance and charged up his soul resonance - which is his soul's power charging up a stronger for of his weapon's attack, or in this case, attacks - and the damage he did to Asura did enough damage to him, along with the efforts of the other students, and was able to reduce him back to his human form, leaving him more vulnerable. But despite this, he is still too powerful for them, and they're all left unconscious.

Except for Maka, who is still awake, but then forces herself unconscious, and transforms into a weapon, revealing to the audience, and Maka herself, that she is a weapon/meister hybrid. And although she is not awake to see it, she fights Asura with scythe blades coming out of her body in different places.

The weapon/meister combination is kind of a cheap move, in my opinion. But other than that, I don't really have anything to say about it.

But Asura eventually wakes her up by crushing her ribs. This is where my first problem with this scene arises. He crushes her ribs, but she gets up and keeps fighting as though nothing is wrong. Now that's a problem. If your ribs were crushed, it would be very difficult to breathe, and it's a possibility that your ribs could even puncture your lungs. But despite the clear and present danger that crushing your ribs wold cause, Maka is not hindered in her abilities at all.

I expected Asura's death to be big and epic, with a cool attack that you never saw coming, and didn't know the character who kills him, in this case Maka, could do. But the way Asura died was......kind of super lame. Like, seriously? No death could be more lame. Maka gave him this big speech about how everyone has bravery, bla bla bla. And then, she punches him. That's it. Just a good slug to the face. And of course, nothing happens and he's laughing at her. But then his entire face shatters like glass, and he starts freaking the absolute frick out. And Maka goes on to tell him that bravery is nothing special and that everyone has it. Asura's last words before he explodes are "Everyone, huh? Then it's just like madness." And then boom. He's dead.

Now I don't know about you, but I was expecting something way cooler than just a punch in the face. Really, Soul Eater? That's your big ending? I mean, I know it couldn't have ended like the manga because it's one of those anime that updated too fast for the manga to keep up and they had to diverge from the path and go their own way, but really? That's how you decide to end it? That's...kind of disappointing. I feel like the creators of the anime got bored and lazy with it and just threw together a random end. But, hey. Most good things have at least one thing wrong with them.

SPOILERS OVER!!!!!!!! YOU CAN CONTINUE READING NOW!!!!!!!!!!!

So, what do I have to say about the overall anime? It's definitely a good anime, and absolutely worth the watch. While, yes, the final boss fight ends in a really lame way with not a lot of thought or effort, the rest of the anime is phenomenal. It was one of my very first anime, and it was definitely a good one to start with. If you're new to anime, I suggest watching Soul Eater. If you've already seen a few anime but not this one, go ahead and watch it. If you're an anime veteran in search of a new anime and haven't seen this anime, check this one out. All in all, despite the way they wrapped it up in the end, Soul Eater is an amazing anime, and I highly recommend you watch it.

Goodbye, my lovelies! I hope you enjoyed your time on my blog! And don't forget! If you have a request, send me an email at kitty.kat.kritiques@gmail.com. Now go and do wonderful things!

Critiquing The Devil Complex

The Devil Complex is a horror movie that takes place in Transylvania, Romania, home of Vlad the Impaler, or Dracula. However, this movie is not about Dracula. It's about something far more frightening, and far more real.

The Hoia Baciu Forest, the most haunted forest in the world, also known as The Bermuda Triangle of Transylvania, is a 55,000 year old forest where every year, people go in, and never come back out. This haunted forest is said to be a Hot Spot for paranormal activity. People will go in, and never come back out. Some people have said they went in, only to come out with unexplainable burns or rashes. Most people who go in say they feel a deep sense of dread and anxiety. Sometimes someone will get a terrible headache or feel nauseous. A lot of people who go in say that the second they feel a million invisible eyes on them, watching them intently.

There's the mysterious Center of the forest that is known for being a total dead zone where nothing grows. Scientists have conducted tests on the soil to see if there's any specific reason why nothing grows, but none of the tests showed anything to be out of the ordinary, and there's no known reason why nothing grows. The Center is said to be where most of the paranormal activity happens, and is thought to be a portal to another dimension. An alternate universe, so to speak.

The Hoia Baciu Forest is said to be known for over one thousand disappearances. However, despite all of my five days of research on Google, I found not one name, not one article, not one hint of anyone who went missing, except for three stories that have made this haunted forest infamous.

One of the disappearances, supposedly the first, and the one the forest got its name for, was a sheep herder who went in the forest with one hundred sheep. Neither him, nor any of his sheep were ever seen again. Bacu is the Romanian word for sheep herder, and thus The Hoia Baciu Forest got its name.

Another very famous disappearance that was talked about in every article on this forest that I read was a young girl who entered the forest and went missing, only to show up five years later in the exact same shape she was in. She hadn't aged a day, she was wearing the same clothes, and was in almost perfect condition.

The last disappearance I found, which was less talked about, was a girl simply known as The Bride-To-Be. She was, as the name suggests, a bride-to-be, who went into the forest with her fiance. They were walking together, only for the soon to be bride to fall behind. The groom didn't notice right away, but when he did, she was gone. He searched for her for days, but never found her. It's said that The Bride-To-Be can be seen wandering around the forest in a wedding dress. However, unlike the other malicious entities there, she is friendly. She's seen waving and smiling at children who enter the forest, and if she sees you as she walks along the edge of the forest, she'll smile at you, too.

However, despite this kind spirit, The Hoia Baciu Forest is not a force to be reckoned with. The natives say that this forest can see into your soul and see your past, your present, your needs, your wants. It can hear every thought that runs through your mind. It sees into your soul, and it judges you. Once it judges you, this forest decides whether you live or die. It begins with showing you why it's killing you, and then it slaughters you deep in the forest, and you're never seen again.

The Hoia Baciu Forest is the most haunted forest in the entire world and, I don't know about you, but I wouldn't be jumping at the opportunity to go there.

Now that you know everything there is to know about the Hoia Baciu Forest, let's get to the critiquing!

The movie starts out with a college professor recording himself explaining everything that led up to all the horrifying events that happened in the movie. His student, Rachel Kusza, was fascinated with the Hoia Baciu Forest, and was making a film for her college course with the professor about it.

However, she never came back from Transylvania. In fact, she was never seen or heard from again. Feeling responsible for her disappearance, her professor went looking for her in the Hoia Baciu Forest. He explained that the forest could see in your soul and judges you. He called that The Devil Complex. He then proceeds to say he didn't know why it let him live.

He says he didn't find Rachel Kusza while desperately searching for her, but instead found the film she had left behind when she disappeared. He then went on to elaborate on what he saw on the film. He saw exactly what happened to her.

He saw her die.

After he finishes with everything he wanted to say for the world to hear, he shoots himself in the head.

This gives the movie a very ominous, horrorish start, and definitely sets the tone for the rest of the movie, giving you a sense of dread from the very beginning. This detail of the movie was what initially had me hooked, and was what kept me intruiged throughout the rest of the movie, despite the slowness of the movies plot progression.

The movie then cuts to the camera and sound men that Rachel hired to film the events that transpired. While they sit in the car and wait, they talk about things too pointless to remember, until Rachel pops up in their window, knocking on it and scaring them half to death. When they open the window for her, she tells them to meet her in the village at the bottom of the hill.

Once at the bottom of the hill, they start interviewing the locals, asking them what they believe about the forest that lies just a few kilometers away from them.

The first girl they talk to tells them that she herself has never been to the forest, but her sister has. She returned with rashes and burns all over her, and has never been the same since. Throughout the entire time she was talking, you could see the sense of dread on her face, and you could tell that she really didn't want to be answering Rachel's question.

This detail in the movie is another great tone-setter, and the acting made it so believable, and it seemed so real that I almost forgot I was watching a reenactment and not the actual films that were found. There are little things in the movie that set the mood, and make the movie worth watching until the end. While the movie is agonizingly slow, there are particular things in the movie that make it interesting enough to keep watching, waiting for the action to start.

The rest of the time interviewing the locals is boring, and not really worth mentioning. It's a part of the movie that I wanted to skip past to get to the 'Good Part' of it. In this sequence of the movie, you don't learn any other important details of the forest, and all you really get is whether or not people believe the stories are real. It was boring and hard to watch, but I was still intrigued after the professors scene, and the girl whose sister came back from the forest alive. Even though this specific part of the film was boring, I still wanted to know what happened next.

Once the (agonizingly long) interviews with the locals were over, the team of three finally went to the forest, waiting for their guide to arrive. However, before he arrives, Rachel tells another native who their guide is, and you learn something more on the disturbing side about him.

Supposedly, their guide was known around town as a wife-beater, and for essentially murdering his wife. While he did not actually murder his wife, he was responsible for it happening. He beat his wife, and after he did, she went into the Hoia Baciu Forest and never returned. One can only assume from the stories that she died.

Once they enter the forest, it's nothing but fighting and bickering. I truthfully think that a lot of this movie could have been left out, but if it was, it wouldn't be a full length movie. However, this part of the movie was so painfully boring, that I was debating just turning it off and finding something else.  But, I still wanted to know what happened to them, and knew that something big was going to happen at some point in time. Just...not at that specific time...

About thirty, thirty five minutes into the movie, it starts to get interesting. Their guide sees a hole in the ground next to a tree, and he runs to it and starts bawling and praying. This definitely got me interested in what was going to happen next. Even though not much of the movie had any redeeming qualities at the beginning of it, it was finally starting to get good, and I was, once again, hooked.

But let's talk about why that part got me hooked. Was it because of the seemingly randomness of it? Was it creepy? Was it disturbing? Yes, yes, and yes. The randomness of the sudden panic was enough to get me interested again because, up to that point, nothing had happened. But then, all of a sudden, the guide started to freak out, running to a random hole, fell to his hands and knees, and started praying. And this guy didn't really seem like the religious type. So the fact that it was so random and sudden certainly got me interested again.

As for the creepy factor? Let's go to the scale. And the scale says......TEN! That part of the movie was extremely creepy. Not only because of what he was doing, but also because he was completely catatonic, not responding to anything they said. Why? Why would he be that way? I'll get to my assumption on that in a second.

Disturbing? That's where my take on why he was doing all this creepy behaviour comes in. This man, who had previously been so stoic and silent unless spoken to, had a complete breakdown, and no one knows why. But here's why I think it happened. Remember earlier when I talked about the whole wife beating thing? Remember earlier when I said his wife went into the Hoia Baciu Forest herself? Remember what I said about her never coming back? Well here's what I think his freak-out moment was all about. His wife. She went missing, right? Everyone thinks she died, right? Well what if she did? What if she died in that exact spot? The Hoia Baciu Forest judges you. It shows you why it's going to kill you before it does. So maybe this forest was showing him his dead wife's grotesque body. Maybe the forest was showing him why he was going to die, and that reason why was because of his wife.

But if that was the case, then why couldn't the others see her body? Well, she was already dead. What would you do if you saw a dead body in a haunted forest? You would book it outta there so fast. At least, I would. So maybe the forest wanted only their guide to see his wife so the others weren't scared away. It wanted to keep them there, so it only showed him the dead body.

Of course, this is only a theory, and it's not based on facts. However, it's the only somewhat logical explanation I could come up with as to why he would freak out, pray hysterically and, oh yea, run away screaming and stumbling over his own feet. There's not a lot of logic in this movie, as there is no 'logical' explanation for the stories of the forest, but it would make sense that that might be what happened. Creepy much?

So then after their guide disappears, the three are left wandering, alone and lost, in the middle of the most haunted forest in the world. Well, crap. Nothing really remarkable happens until they find their guide......

......Dead, with his neck split open, with a heart with an 'X' over it painted in blood on the tree above his body. And that's where things start to get really interesting.

I don't want to spoil the rest of the movie for you, so I'll end with a little rundown of what I thought of the movie.

So, all in all, it's not necessarily a bad movie, but it's also not really that good. Truth be told, it could have been much better. It was slow, and for the first half, very boring. I was hooked on it for a while, but as it progressed, it became hard to watch. Even after interesting things started to happen, it still didn't get to be actually interesting until the very end of the movie.

I don't really have much to say in the way of interpretation of the movie because as far as it goes, with the exception of the one scene with the guide, it's a pretty straightforward movie. It doesn't make you think the way I like my horror movies to do. It doesn't really have many redeeming qualities, and it's not really an astounding movie.

So, if I were to recommend this movie, it would be only as a last resort horror movie. The only thing this movie really did for me was get me to be obsessively interested in the Hoia Baciu Forest itself, which ended up in a lot of paranoia at some of the things I found. Other than my interest in not the movie itself, but the location the movie took place in, I don't really have a lot of positive feedback on this story. It wasn't very good, and only got actually intriguing in the last fifteen, twenty minutes.

So would I recommend this movie? No. If you want to watch a horror movie, I would strongly suggest finding a different one with more plot, more character development, and one that's more interesting.

That's all for this critique! Goodbye, my lovelies! Remember, if you have a request on something you want me to make a post about, you can email me at kitty.kat.kritiques@gmail.com.

I love you all!

Shiki: Why I Think it's Worth the Watch

A lot of people I know who have watched the anime Shiki have said that it's boring and too slow. They say the characters are underdeveloped and it didn't keep them hitched. Several people have said they didn't even bother to finish watching the anime. I honestly loved the show. It's by far my favourite anime. And I'll tell you all the reasons why.

Shiki is a horror genre anime that takes place in a tiny town called Sotoba. Oh, great. There's that stereotypical tiny horror movie town. But don't worry: I'll touch on that later. Sotoba is a small town where nothing extraordinary or out of the ordinary ever happens. So when everyone starts dying off from an epidemic, the town starts to worry.

Soon after the first person is found dead, a strange family known as the Kirishiki family moves into the new European style mansion built just outside of the town's city limits. After they move in, people start dropping like flies.

The doctor at the clinic, Toshio Ozaki, is losing his mind trying to figure out what this epidemic, that starts off as just a common cold that turns deadly in just a few days, really is. He never even suspects that the epidemic is really vampires - or as the town calls them, Okiagari, and later in the series, Shiki. If you think this is a spoiler...well obviously you didn't get past the third or fourth episode when Megumi Shimizu, a girl who wants to go live in the city and is made fun of constantly for the way she dresses who died, comes back to life.

It takes a while for the humans to figure out that vampires are killing off the town, but when they do, your mind is plagued with several questions that there really is no right or wrong answer to. And the long amount of time that it takes seems to be what everyone complains about. They whine that the anime took too long to get interesting, and it's really slow, and the characters are stupid for not figuring out sooner why everyone is dying.

And now let's get to the critiquing.

To start, the slowness of the anime in the beginning is realistic. Would you believe that vampires are killing the town? I think not. If your town started dying down, would supernatural creatures be your first thought? Most likely not. I don't know about you, but I know I wouldn't believe that creatures that were supposedly made up were killing my entire town.

A lot of people also complain about the fact that the anime brought up too many questions by the time you finished it, and they didn't like how much you thought about them. And what I have to say about that is that the entire point of the anime is to make you think. The entire point of the anime is to make you ask the questions "What is good? What is evil? Do we all have evil in us? What would it take for me to lose my humanity the way the humans did at the end of the anime?" Another question it's supposed to make you ask, and my favourite one that I certainly spent a lot of time thinking on once I finished the anime is "Who here is in the wrong? Were the humans the bad guys for massacring the Shiki and saving their town? Or were the Shiki in the wrong for killing people and doing what they had to to survive?"

And by the way, on the part of the tiny town, the Shiki, more specifically, Sunako, elaborates on why they moved to such a small town. It's not just your stereotypical horror show where it's in a small town just for the hell of it. They chose a small town to live in on purpose because they were looking for a safe haven. They were looking for a small town where they would be safe. A small town that would do a minimal amount of damage if they were to completely kill it off, and turn people into Shiki while they did so. A town that no one would notice is gone. They also chose that town so that, if they were discovered, there would be so little people by the time they were that they would have no trouble killing them off. This little detail is not mentioned in the anime, but you can assume by some of the things Sunako does and says that it is, in fact, a reasoning for choosing this town.

Now let's discuss the character growth. A lot of people compare Megumi Shimizu to Gasai Yuno and bash on Megumi for copying Yuno. First of all, I'd like to point out that the anime came out in 1999, and the manga adaptation came out in 2009. Mirai Nikki, where Gasai Yuno came from, didn't come out until 2013. That's LONG after Megumi Shimizu was originally created. So Megumi was the ORIGINAL pink haired ponytail wearing yandere. I'd be willing to bet that Gasai Yuno probably had a lot of features about her that were based off of Megumi because, if you really analyze the characters, they're quite similar.

As for character development? I think they did an amazing job with it. Especially Toshio. While Megumi was my favourite character, and I don't know why, Toshio had the most development. SPOILER ALERT!!! SPOILERS AHEAD!!!! IF YOU HAVEN'T FINISHED THE ANIME AND DON'T WANT SPOILERS, SKIP OVER THIS PART AND LOOK FOR THE NEXT PART THAT'S ALL IN CAPS!!!!

Toshio is portrayed as a doctor who cares a lot about his patients, and is very dedicated to his work. However, when his wife comes to town, you learn that Toshio is a little TOO obsessed with his work, and that's why she left in the first place. He also has a terrible morbid curiosity that leads him to do terrible things. This is shown when his wife Kyoko dies. He keeps her dead body in a patient's room because, at the time, he was already suspecting Okiagari which is the town's name for Shiki, was behind all the death. So he keeps her in a room in the clinic hooked up to a heart monitor and a machine to track brain activity, waiting for her to rise up. While he is waiting, he shows affection for her by caressing her face, and even resting his forehead on hers as an act of love. But then when she finally does rise up, his morbid curiosity gets the better of him, and he experiments on her to the point where it is most definitely considered torture.

Right before he kills her, Toshio is seen with the black and red eyes that are used to symbolize the Shiki's inhumanity. In doing this, it in turn symbolizes the loss of Toshio's humanity. (Here's a link to a picture of that moment if you want proof, or just didn't notice it.  Doctor Ozaki's Shiki eyes)

SPOILERS OVER!!!!!!!!!! YOU CAN START READING AGAIN!!!!!!!!

As for the other characters, the characterization is truly amazing. There's a scene where Sunako tells her backstory and how she became a Shiki. In this scene, you can truly sympathise with her, because she didn't choose that life for herself: it was thrust upon her. And this is where you really start to think, or at least where I did. It makes you think about all those other people that Sunako and her family are killing. They don't CHOOSE to rise up and become a Shiki. It's FORCED upon them. And they're only doing what they have to in order to survive. They're not killing people because they want to. This is clearly seen with one character, as he refuses to kill people for quite some time. Another Shiki refuses to kill people at all, and eventually starves to death because she can't bear the thought of killing a human or even doing so much as to drink their blood. And when she dies, you realise that the Shiki are only doing what they have to in order to live. It's kind of like Tokyo Ghoul, where the ghouls have to eat people in order to live. However, in Tokyo Ghoul, the ghouls are ALWAYS the protagonists, and the human's killing them shamelessly are the antagonists. It's the same idea with Shiki. They're only doing what they have to in order to survive.

With all of this said, I believe Shiki to be a very well-made, in-depth, mesmorising anime. It's got all the factors a horror anime needs: suspense, a sense of anxiety, not knowing what's coming next, gore, and most of all, it makes you really think about things. This anime was extremely exciting to watch, and I loved analysing it and picking it apart to the very depths of what this anime is about.
To wrap this up, I very strongly suggest watching this anime. While it is a little slow at the beginning (even though while, yes, it is slow, it's still extremely interesting), it gets to be so intense that you can't help but be sucked in and need to know what's next. 

I would absolutely love to hear your feedback and tell me what you thought of this anime, and how you interpreted it. So drop a comment and tell me what you think about it. I'd love to hear from you! And don't forget, if you want me to critique something you like, shoot me an email at kitty.kat.kritiques@gmail.com.

I love you all! Now go out into the world and be productive!

Welcome One, Welcome All!

This is a blog all about critiquing mine and your favourite things! I'll be reviewing books, movies, shows, and anime! I'll tell you all about things I've seen, and my opinion on if they're worth the watch or read. And if you want me to critique one of your favourite things, send me an email at kitty.kat.kritiques@gmail.com.

While you're all here, allow me to tell you a little bit about myself. My name is Tatiana Martin, but I prefer Rowan. Just Rowan. Nothing special. At this current date, I'm eighteen years old (So young!). I am someone who is very passionate about the things I love, and I love to analyse every little detail of every little thing. 

That's where this blog comes in! This blog will be for just that: analysing every little detail. I'm going to be watching or reading something, and I'll tell you what I think about it, and whether or not it's worth your time. Some things might be great! Some things might be amazing! Other things? Maybe not. But whether it's good or not, I'll let all of you know what I thought about it, and if it's worth your time, or an idea to scrap.

So with all that said, welcome to Critique Corner! Enjoy your time here!