geromeblingaillard Reviews

Le petit Spirou (2013– )

One of my favourite childhood show

[9/10 · 25 June 2023]

I know, a 9/10 might be a bit to much for this show, it's probably worth a 7,5/10, but by golly first of all this show is my childhood and second of all, as I've seen for a lot of children shows that doesn't specifically target an adult audience, the overall rating of the show is way too low.

For a background, The Little Spirou is the adaptation of the comic book series by the same name from Tome and Janry, which started in 1987 and is still getting released today, compared to the show that lasted one season released in 2012, with 78 5-minutes episodes.

One thing that is noteworthy though is that the comic book is leaning way more towards the "all-audience" than the show, which is mainly educational for 7-12 years old, since the comic book tackles mature subject like sexuality, puberty etc, a path the TV show didn't choose to follow.

Instead each episode centers around a problem met by the main character, Little Spirou, and his friends Vert, Cassius and Masseur during their everyday life as primary schoolers. Each episode (most of the time) ends up having a morale: if Spirou tries to solve his problem doing something bad, he's gonna get punished, but if he gather up courage, kindness and/or honesty to solve them, he's getting rewarded, wether by his mom, teachers, or his girlfriend Suzette giving him a kiss on the cheek.

It was one of the show I watched the most growing up, definitely taught me a lot of stuff, and I re-watched the whole series as an 18-years old, and enjoyed it a lot! Because despite it being, once again, a show leaning towards the educational category, the characters are very well-written and enjoyable to follow. This would give anyone a feeling of nostalgia seeing these kids imagine that their school is invaded by aliens or that if they grow a hair they're gonna be laughed at by everyone.

Because yes, it's part of this shows charm: a lot of it is scenarios imagined by Little Spirou if he did on thing or the other to solve his problem. Just like his adult counterpart, he's all and all quite intelligent, and a very good friend overall (for many reasons, but let's just say he's never letting a friend down, which is not always the case the other way around).

Overall, it's not a flawless show, and I understand if adults don't want to spend their time watching 78 episodes of an educational show (there's only 20 episodes or a bit more in English anyway), but if you want to show your kid, it's available on YouTube for free, in French and English, so you have no reason to at least not take a look! I promise it's worth it.

(PS: I just find the fact he's wearing a full-as groom costume all the time and cares more about his hat than anything else super cute)

Shuriken School (2006–2007)

I'm shocked of the overall rating of this cartoon

[9/10 · 30 May 2023]

This series is beautifully animated, very charmful, surprisingly good for everyone to watch (doesn't take the viewer for an idiot like Dora 4 exemple), has a lot of funny and creative visual gags, and most importantly has insanely loveable characters (including the main three, the literal entirety of the first year class, most of the teachers, and even the heroes rivals are very entertaining when onscreen). I watched it as a kid, re-watched it recently (available for free on YouTube) and I love it even more than in the past. It's a shame that it only got one season and that I can't find the movie, I would have watched 10 more seasons of this stuff. One of Xilam's best work in my humble opinion. Give it a watch, it's great.

Ghost Stories (2000–2001)

The funniest dub ever made

[8/10 · 2 March 2022]

First off: WATCH. THE. DUB. I'm serious. The subbed versus dubbed versions is probably the biggest difference from the two I've ever seen from any piece of fiction ever made. It changes the characters personality, the plot, and even the whole genre, but we'll get to that.

Let's start off with the subbed version. Uuuuh. How do I put it? Boring, generic, cliché, barely bearable characters, uninspired plot... For me, it would be a low 5/10 tends to 4. It's made to be ooooooo scary, but it's barely spoopy. It also has some creatures literally ported from other movies and horror stories (I recall seeing something similar to the ring), and yeah. I think you get the idea. If it doesn't get a one, it's solely because it didn't "hurt" watching this, or it wasn't really obnoxious, dreadful, terrible. Just awfully unpleasant.

Now let's get to why my rating is so high from what I've said so far. The dubbed version. This is the most hilarious tv animated series I've ever seen. Hands down. For some reasons the Japanese studio behind the og anime didn't really care about it anymore so the english dubbing studio could basically do whatever they want. They went ballistic. Incredibly, crazily ballistic. We went from Horror/Action anime to a ridiculously funny one. The jokes' timing is perfect, the references are on point, the 4th wall breaking is constant and hilarious, and the characters went from hateable to hateable because of how funny they are (if that makes sense).

This dub is, to my knowledge, considered as the founder of the "abridged" concept, when basically voice actors actually says funny things over the images even tho the original voice acting is serious, so it could be considered as a parody. But we reach genius level with Ghost Stories, cuz this dub is very much not a parody, and moreso very much official. Sure, you reeeeally have to be someone that has a free mind and that isn't easily offended, because dark humor is the main type of humor in Ghost Stories, and the cursing is also very much present, so definitely not kid-friendly humor, but that's my favourite kind of humor so that's probably why it hit the spot for me.

Overall, I rate this a 8/10, because, as much as I want to rate it a 10/10, we can't really forget that the original anime also count in the notation, and that it's only fair that this fact alone drags the score down a bit, but yeah, really really funny, very entertaining, this dub is the best/funniest dub from an anime ever.

Unedited Footage of a Bear (2014 TV Short)

One of Adult Swim Infomercials' best short

[9/10 · 20 February 2022]

This short is absolutely incredible, but let me explain myself.

I discovered this thanks to a french YouTuber who analyzed this short in depths and invited people beforehand to watch it for themselves, which is what I did. And oh boy was my first viewing experience unsettling. Like this short was really me being utterly confused and semi-terrified as to what was going on onscreen. But I was mostly confused as to what just happened, I felt like random scenes were put against each other with no real meaning. What an utter fool I was thinking that.

The analysis of this short made me realize one thing: every single detail, object, background... Everything was calculated and put there for a specific reason. Nothing was there randomly. And oh boy with every element there was, it is pretty hard to understand what's going on. But when everything is coming together, you can fully understand how genius all of this is.

I won't explain much since it would ruin the whole point of watching this for yourself, which you should definitely do because it is quite the experience. While I got help in understanding all of this from the video of the YouTuber I've mentioned earlier, I got some parts together myself and it felt quite good aha. This short is a critic of something that is not quite mentioned or talked about in artistic projects, which is the medication and health system in the US, as well as addiction problems.

The rabbit hole goes so far down there is (or was, I don't think it exist anymore) a hidden website with some sort of exploring map of a house (house that is the main location of the short) that kinda remind us of Google Maps or point and click games from the 90s. Either way, the whole "lore" around Unedited Footage of a Bear, and all the details you begin to understand as time goes on make the whole experience really worth it. The only reason it's not a 10/10 is simply because not everybody has the time and will to do all of this research and exploring for simply one short, yet I'd still recommend doing so or just watching the short. It's simply terrifying aha.

Overall, absolutely incredible. I wish to see more infomercials like this in the future!

Super Mario Bros. (1985 Video Game)

Super Mario Bros. is quite the game

[8/10 · 18 February 2022]

First off, I must start by saying I am a pure hardcore Mario games fans, whether the retro ones, the newer ones, the 2D games, the 3D games, platformers, sports, RPGs... I love it all. I've had the luck of being able to play Super Mario Bros. Both on the Nintendo Switch virtual console and on a real NES I own since Christmas 2020. And I have some thoughts on this game, popular opinions, and hot takes.

First of, let's settle the obvious, this game is legendary, spawned a mind blowingly successful franchise and launched Nintendo to the very top. Its musics are legendary and are still being remixed in newer games as of today, its revolutionary level design that has been kept as a perfect exemple for many more of the other NES platformers, and its elements, enemies, sprites, characters, and many more became iconic.

I have some problems with it though.

As revolutionary as it was back in the days, I feel like the game hasn't aged that well. With all the saves, checkpoints and other stuff like that placed in almost every games from my generation, it is hard for me to not get absolutely frustrated by having to restart the whole game over if I ever get a game over. Yes, there are saves available for the Switch version, but this version has one big default: its terrible controls. Both versions has in general very unusual physics, and anyone who play Super Mario World/SMW rom hacks on a regular basis then try to play Super Mario Bros. Afterwards know what I mean.

Some level design choices also weren't spared by time. I get that, again, the 80s was another time, and that critics and players and stuff were far less severe when it comes to level design, as video games were still kind of a fresh new thing, but now, things like some castle levels that are literal labyrinths that makes you go on a loom if you dare cross the top path instead of the bottom one... It's incredibly annoying.

Another thing: the water levels. These. Are. Absolutely. Terrible.

They're not that much liked in general anyway, but the ones in SMB are a joke. First off, if you don't have a fire flower power up, you basically can't kill any enemy, and therefore you're doomed to duck and make thight precise swimming in between the enemies. And the swimming physics... Basically Mario is an anvil, and if you're a tad bit too close from the bottom of the sea, it immediately sucks you in. Swimming in this game compared to SMB3, SMW etc is basically little jumps, and oh god everytime I'd be like "please make it stop...".

Hammer bros also suck but everyone knows that.

So, with all that, you'd expect my rating to be 3, maybe 4 outta 10, yet it's 8. So why that high up? The most important part is that... This game is actually fun!

Aside from water and labyrinthic castle levels, other levels are very fun! And honestly that's the n°1 priority for a good Mario game, and the first one does not miss out on that! The pacing of most levels is great, the power-ups and enemies placement is smart, and everything is here to just make it a fun experience! My main issues are definitely the lack of save and or cranky physics/controls. But the rest is very intelligent, and some things that sound so basic today like for exemple the invicincibility frames, originated from that game, and for that Super Mario Bros., you got my most sincere respect.

The Mandela Catalogue (2021– )

Best horror webseries of 2021

[9/10 · 14 January 2022]

First ever IMDb review here. But I had to give The Mandela Catalogue some credit.

This webseries is one of the newest from the analog horror genre. In case someone doesn't what is analog horror, it's basically a web only (as of today at least) genre of horror. Its presentation is mostly something that look like lost VHS tapes, a tv broadcast, or other things in that type of thing, and we haven't seen much about it in 2021.

That is until the arrival of The Mandela Catalogue in June and its immense peak of popularity in November/December, and damn is this popularity well deserved.

This series flows in great ideas, incredible spooky ambiences and amazing horrific timing, while still restraining from using cheap screamers 24/7. The overall concept and the risks took by this series is what makes me believe the creator of this is a genius. He understood almost every tools of what makes web horror an underrated subgenre and the fact that you can watch this great series on YouTube for free feels awesome. One of the downside for me though is that the first video can leave the viewer confused, as he doesn't know the importance of it in the future, but I'll restrain myself from going into details, as you need to experience it to know what I'm talking about. Although I do think I'm just quibbling right now, the whole thing is just simply thrilling.

The Mandela Catalogue is also full of secrets, Easter eggs, and watching some fan theories and explanation videos of what it is also has been a blast in all honesty. The fact that this all project has been made with seemingly barely any budget gets me eager to see what the future of analog horror is, as anybody with the ideas could make one of these and leave the community amazed.

Oh, and of course I didn't mention it until now, but it is surprisingly scary, like, reaaaally scary, so hey, here goes your discretion advisement, viewer.

Anyway, great project, amazingly scary, can't wait for Volume 2!