Today was one of those days when I just wanted to take my family out for a long drive without a specific destination and just wing it. Fill up the gas tank, lower the door windows, open the sun roof, turn the volume and just enjoy the ride; so that's what we did! We drove for a while and my wife spotted a dance studio (she's a professional dancer) and asked me if we could stop real quick, to which I replied: "Sure". Of course, I immediately spotted a book store right next to the dance studio and I told her I wanted to check it out afterwards. The books store was independently owned and it looked inviting. 

   There were tow male clerks who immediately acknowledge me and my family and were very courteous, something that employees from every field are missing more and more these days! I looked around for a few minutes and they asked me if I needed help, but before I could ask them, I noticed that one of the clerks had a pile of at least 50 comics in front of him! All I could say was "Yes you do!" He looked at me funny and I said "Comics, do you guys carry comic books?" And he said "Yes we do!" He showed me three aisles full of comics ranging from Batman to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to The Mighty Thor to Wildcats! It was a beautiful thing!!!

   As soon as  I turned that corner where the clerk told me to, I was suddenly in front of what can only be described as a comic book hidden treasure! Even more so when it's located in Virginia Beach, so to me it felt like I was a pirate, and I discovered an abandoned treasure chest full of comic book gold! I'm talking about hundreds, if not thousands of comic books, and at great prices too! It's too bad that I had just went to my local comic shop and spent a pretty penny there, because I only had so much extra cash to spare. But rest assure, I'll be stopping by this book  store on a more regular basis and I'll be getting a bunch of those comics they had in their store. 

   So, next time you're in Virginia Beach and get the mood to buy some comic books, visit AFK Books, Music and Movies. 
They're located at: 
4801 Shore Drive, Suite D
Virginia Beach, VA 23455 
 (757) 962-1996. 

DRACULA 

Vlad Tempe, lord of the undead. 

   The man the world knows as DRACULA, is now the keeper of The Skull of Righteousness.  With this skull, God personally chose him to lead Heaven's army against the League of Devils.  With this this skull, Dracula's soul was restored, and his special abilities enhanced. As the general in Heaven's Brigade, he also wields the heavenly sword of generals, La'Galma.  
   
   In the final confrontation between Abraham Van Helsing and Count Dracula, it was documented that the Count had fallen at the hands of the legendary vampire slayer. In reality, the final confrontation was Van Helsing's true destiny. He would indeed slay the monster Dracula, but not with traditional means of vampire slaying.  He presented the vampire with The Skull of Righteousness.  It was with this skull, that Count Dracula had paid for his sins on earth, and was fully redeemed to fight for humankind and the kingdom  of heaven. God fully restored the vampire's soul and removed his weaknesses, but left his thirst as a reminder of his past life.

FRANKENSTEIN
  
   Upon his attempted suicide in the arctic, the monster, Frankenstein's life was spared after discovering The Skull of Wisdom frozen in a block of ice.  The skull unlocked the monster's true destiny as a soldier in the ShadowClub army.  
   
   After unlocking the skull's secrets on the knowledge of mankind, Frankenstein was instructed to head for the mountains of Russia, where he would be reunited  with his bride. The skull has enhanced Frankenstein's strength and intelligence, and has given him the  ability to manipulate electricity in various forms. 

THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN

   The god of fate gave the immortal, Imhotep, his first mission. Find the last to die at the hands of the monster, Frankenstein and resurrect them.  That being the female creature that was created to become the monster's bride. 

   Upon her resurrection, she was given the Skull of Magic. As the skull's keeper, she would master the art of witchcraft, and would use the powers of the skull to locate her soulmate, the keeper of The Skull of Wisdom, Frankenstein. 

THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON

   The last son of Atlantis, Char'ok, was warned of the coming war between his fellow Atlanteans and the Egyptians. The two most technologically advanced civilizations on the planet built on ancient alien design. The god of fate was sent to inform Char'ok of the war's outcome. That the Egyptians would deploy, “The Weapon!” A device so powerful, that it's use would destroy the planet. 


   Char'ok agreed to become the keeper of The Skull of Space and Time. His first mission, destroy The Weapon! The price, the fall of Atlantis.  Upon Char'ok's return after the fall of Atlantis, he was informed to go into hiding. So Char'ok would find his exile along with the surviving Mayans in the Amazon jungle.

THE MUMMY
  
   The resurrected ruler, Imhotep, was a man of great power in his lifetime. But it was in death, he found his true calling. Upon his resurrection, he noticed that a very valuable piece of his fortune had been stolen, The Skull of Immortality.  

    Eshu, the god of fate, returned the skull to Imhotep, informing him that his destiny was to seek out the Shadow Club army to protect mankind.  His refusal would result in him remaining a slave to the underworld. Imhotep agreed, and was released from the zombified curse that had turned him into the mindless monster upon his resurrection. 

THE WOLF-MAN

   Larry Talbot searched the world for a cure to his Lycanthrop, the werewolf transformation. Upon finding this cure, he got married with plans on living a normal life.  A few year later, his wife was killed.  From that point on his life had no meaning or purpose.  After hearing of the 13 mystical skulls, he set out to find them in hopes of 
bringing back his slain bride.  

   He finds Eshu, the god of fate and director of the skulls.  He tells Talbot that he can indeed use the skull of space and time to bring back his wife, but at a cost. He will revert to his Wolf-Man appearance for good, and use this to fight along-side the Shadow Club Army.  Talbot agrees.  His wife's life was then restored, but Talbot, too ashamed to have her see him as a monster, left his true love behind. Now bitter, and enraged, The Wolf-Man uses his inner turmoil as a weapon, as the keeper of the skull of War.

Hello everybody! And now for something a little different =)

Two years ago I had done a brief video review of a Puerto Rican comic named "Dokyo" as part of a "coverage" if you will of the Manga Criolla comics/anime/manga/cosplay convention in 2010.  I had filmed a brief chat with the studio behind the comic but for some reason the file was corrupted, so I did a spur of the moment review once I was done editing the videos back home. If you're curious to check out the review it's somewhat near the end of this vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqTTQsrD5Y8 People really seemed to like it. That leads me to this blog right here.

Some of you might not know, but in December 2010 I was involved in a near fatal car accident. I was seeing double for months and having batteries of test by neurologists I had to stay at home for a long while to a road of recovery that lead to months of having double vision, especially from my right eye. So at some point while I was at home I re-watched that video and remembered quite a few people wanted me to do more reviews. So I did this written review of a movie I had bought months previously and had not watched it yet. So, here it is, with a few minor edits here and there because I still had that double vision when I originally wrote this, the written review of the live-action "Blood The Last Vampire" flick. And as mentioned at the bottom, if you like what you read and want me to wrote or make vids of other reviews let me know. Or if you have a different opinion by all means let the world know =)

Here we go:
Finally saw the live action "Blood, The Last Vampire" the other night. It was ok for what it was, but, it felt like I wasn't watching a movie about Blood. I mean, I had zero expectations heading into watching it, because I have the original anime movie in such high regard I didn't want to create too high of an expectation for the movie. It wasn't bad, but not great either, it was....ok

It started good enough, very similar to the original source, but then, it went into this mind-trip, seizure inducing fight scenes that sometimes I had to rewind just to see what exactly happened! Literally there were times where I was like "WHAT just happened?!" And when you still are seeing double at random times from your right eye, and some of the action scenes were so frantic, it's not pretty. And I love a good fight scene as much as anybody. But.....damn....There was this one scene in a bar type thing, that the fighting went on....and on...and on....and on....It was long like in "Matrix Reloaded" Neo vs a million Agent Smiths long, and again, it was so frantic, I couldn't tell at all at some points what happened where.

I feel like the movie should've been called something else rather than like the original anime. Like "Blood: Quest for Onigen" or "Blood, Origins", or "I can't believe it's not Blood!". You know what what it actually reminded me in a way? Ninja Scroll and Ninja Resurrection.

Back in the early to mid 90s, there wasn't THAT much people connected to the internet, and there wasn't as much information as there is now. Especially when it came to anime and the such. So, when Ninja Scroll arrived to the States and became this huge hit here, bigger than in Japan itself, it was a BLAST! So, when Manga Entertainment, the american distribuitor of Ninja Scroll showed the trailer for Ninja Resurrection, all my friends and I were like "HOLY SH*T!!!!! A sequel to Ninja Scroll!!!!!" Oh, how we were fooled.....

You see, Ninja Ressurection, was in fact, NOT a sequel to Ninja Scroll. It was an ENTIRLEY DIFFERENT MOVIE!!!! The name Jubei is a very common name in Japan, especially for like hero type characters. And the main character in Ninja Ressurection was named Jubei, and looked a lot like the Jubei of Ninja Scroll. So, Manga Entertainment, knowing the goldmine Ninja Scroll was, renamed the other movie and designed the logo to look like the Ninja Scroll movie, and everybody and their mother in the US fell for it!!!!! Ninja Resurection was NOT in any way related to Ninja Scroll, and at that time, like sheep, we flocked to it to our surprise and utter disappointment

That's in a way how I felt with the live action Blood, I felt like somebody had made a different movie, and later was relased and marketed as Blood. But anyway, not the best movie I've seen, but not the worse either (that dubious honor goes to a dvd Spanish dubbed version of "Laser Mission", one of Brandon Lee's first flicks). It had it's cool moments. Jun Ji-Hyun actually did a great job acting as Saya and the father of the american girl acted so bad, it was fun! *SPOILER ALERT*Especially his face when he died....I couldn't stop laughing at his face.....and some of the fight scenes when they weren't frenetic messes, were actually quite well done.

So, an in all, in a Dangerscale!~ of 1-5, 1 being the weakest, 5 being the strongest, I give "Blood, the last Vampire" live-action flick 3 epileptic inducing fight scenes (originally I had given 2 out of 5, but remembering the american girl's father's death face again gave it an extra point for ridiculousity)!

There it was, hope you all liked it, if you wanna read or see more vids of reviews or something, just lemme know and I might just think of something. In the meantime, peace out =)