Zerpha's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Ash finds a Pinsir!]

It was pretty obvious what was going to happen when he said he has no pokemon.
But although I waited in vain for a punchline, this was an entertaining short animation.
I can see now why Professor Oak did not let Red enter the tall grass without any Pokémon :D

Was it intentional to use the Route 1 theme to indicate that Ash is at the very beginning of his journey?
Or did this even occur before he got his Pikachu?
Or did you simply take it because most people recognize it? (Then again, that's true for pretty much any soundtrack from generation 1.)

Everybody knows Pikachu is Ash's always present sidekick, so - unless my above theory is correct :P - it was weird to not have him around.
For that reason i would probably have replaced him for another trainer in your animation - even though there's basically no Pokémon trainer out there without Pokémon in the first place.
Or maybe you could have chosen a character that's not a trainer (that for some reason still felt like catching a Pinsir)?
This probably would have resulted in a less mainstream-appealing title, though...

Now let's put the story and its interpretations aside and get to the movie quality:
Both voice acting and animation were really good, and the sound effects (using both known ones from the movie and the games) were nice, too!

So overall, good job!

hbrunav responds:

Thanks dude, just saying, your third poing is right. Ash is a global figure and thats why I used him, I feel must related to him because I started the whole pokemon thing with the first seasons, I never continued with more than 151 pokemons btw. Thanks!

[Bronies]

A panorama of MLP audiences and sexual preferences

This felt both funny and creepy to me at the same time.
Cannot. Unsee. perverted ugly nerds beating up a little girl for pony toys O_o

I don't know if some of these persons in the flash were meant to be allusions to certain real persons. (I guess not? If yes, they probably are pretty traumatized now for a couple of days after seeing this interpretation of themselves.)

I think this was intended to be a parody using the old cliché of over-the-top variants of D&D/Manga nerds, applied to bronies (which are the latest cult of nerd fandom you could say) - The animesque style suits quite well to the Otaku weirdness, and 'Magic the Gathering' was probably just used as a play on words with the show's title to emphasize the nerdom (seeing that MtG is comparable to D&D's nature of a basement-dweller's tabletop game with a ruling system that could almost become a course of studies)
If there's a deeper meaning (e.g. because Magic is a hobby from one of the assumed real persons this flash is based on), i didn't catch that.
It's also interesting that D&D, MtG and MLP are all products from Hasbro.

But what the heck, i am probably overinterpreting this piece of flash that was simply meant to be some brony-trolling animation made for the lulz in the first place^^

I'm normally not creeped out that easily (seeing how you get used to the disgusting over time on the internet anyways.)
In this case it was probably induced by the fact that i like both Magic the Gathering and My Little Pony G4 myself (which in my opinion is, while not something you should boast with in public, nothing to be ashamed of), so i felt somewhat adressed - although i (fortunately!) can't identify myself with these sick twisted pony ass admirers.

So if anyone of you feels insulted by this, remember that it's very probably not the case that you look, let alone act like that. It's called exaggeration, a famous device that you find everywhere on Newgrounds.
There's no reason to be afraid this could stain the image of bronies either. It was never entirely clean in the first place, but nobody with half a brain will think only furries watch that show either after watching this.

The image of our average Newgrounder depicted in most flash videos seen here is a retarded obese failure; you know that (well, at least) not everyone looks like that.
There are also people telling your that every atheist is a pontential antichrist or that every Muslim is a terrorist; you don't believe that crap either, do you?
Just as with users on Newgrounds, Muslims and atheists, the prejudices against bronies only apply to a lesser part.
And who doesn't get this isn't worth the regret.

While it admittedly can be a bog that attracts some sickos, you can watch MLP:FiM normally like any other show (that by the way also always comes with a Rule 34). It's a well-made series (although i don't want to go into detail; the idolizing of MLP got parodied as well - at least regarding the actual merchandise, where i gladly agree with anyways) with top-notch (flash) animation and voice acting, and while it might have some dubious pony ass fan service, you don't have to feel offended by this little piece of artistic flash parody if you don't care about that furry aspect, do you?

Also i find it hilarious how because of all that flaming about brony hate and brony hater hate (never forget, haters gonna hate, don't let that distract yourself), nobody apparently mentioned yet that the father sticks the vibrator on his wife's genitals in front of the child as if it was the most mundane thing to do :D

That's actually pretty important (why yes, vibrators are important in this video) because i'm pretty sure i think that's the hidden message from Spazkid:

Don't fap to ponies, fap to real women. (Or score with them, duh!)
Because you don't want to end up like these jerks in the video ;)

So remember my fellow bronies: Ponies are there to love and tolerate them - but in a platonic way.
This flash kindly wants to remind you of that.

...Well, not that kindly to be honest. But afterall we're on Newgrounds, remember?

[Decision]

Pretty good for the first try

The animation was really ok, one could make out everything. I guess my first animation wouldn't look that smooth.
I don't like shading with hachures that much, but that's just my personal opinion and does not mean that it's necessarily worse that just using darker colors on accordant areas. In fact, it gives the whole a drearier impression.

I don't know how you made the music, but it's pretty good and suits nice, respect for that :)

As for the actual content and message of the flash:
It tries to say the right thing, but it's kind of unrealistic.

I'm non-smoker too and don't like it, and i also think that one shouldn't let oneself get persuaded to do it, cause it's not.
But smoking is not that kind of drug that actually allows oneself to escape reality, nor does it affect the personal career in any way. In fact, most stereotypical wealthy businessmen are seen smoking either a cigar or a cigarette.
Another thing that is rather unrealistic is the fact that the boy gets offered the cigarette yet does not smoke it in presence of the other guy. I can't remember anyone ever having offered cigarettes to a (so far) non-smoker without smoking it with him/her. Normally you have to make the decision while around the others. Therfore you will normally have to reject the cigarette right away, by the time you take it this normally also means that you're going to smoke it.

As for the alcohol, it's of course something different - in that point i agree with you. Yet it was strangely put on a level with cigarettes. You can see an empty bottle at the beginning of the movie under his bed, but aside from that the protagonist does not show any connection to alcohol, yet is afraid of becoming a dosser because of the cigarette.

But overall i liked it nonetheless.

flamereaver responds:

Thanks for the review and I'll admit that the message is not very realistic :), but Didn't have time to make a new flash so I had to finish this old one and you may notice that the character becomes better drawn near the end, that's because I merely made an ending scene and new backgrounds to the flash. I would have liked to make it more alcohol related, but i didn't have time :(.

P.S. Thanks for the in-depth review and i appreciate the positive feedback.

[School 13 - TongueTied]

Great improvement!

I always liked your flash movies, and this one really shows that you have improved regarding lights and shading, it looks pretty clean here.
maybe you were able to do so already before and simply tried harder in this short, possibly since it has another genre as your usual humorous stories.
but i like this one just as your other flash movies, it also keeps a somewhat funny spirit yet is kept more serious overall.
since i'm not russian i wasn't able to read what's written on the note, possibly you intensively refrained from using subtitles, but i won't let this bother me since you explained it in the author's comments anyways.
keep up the good work :)

[-Last Resort-]

Terrifying and repulsive.

That sort of drawing style already gives me the creeps if there's not an overly horrific action, but coupled with this freaking strange and eerie plot it's even more creepy.

despite the fact that it wasn't intended for the halloween collection in the first place, this is one of the more horrifying ones.

i was almost glad about the tension-breaking shoop-da-whoop part.

[Death Note Char Intro]

Nicely done

The flash itself was done smoothly, and i can't greatly complain.

Yet there were two noticeable mistakes nonetheless:
- Yagami Light / Amane Misa weren't the first humans to get a death note - Ryuk mentioned that there had been severous Death Notes in the human world before, yet other human hesitated using it, while they were the first ones excessively / notably using it.
- Rem is a female Shinigami! O.O

Aside from that, nice work!

[Bad Luck Aladin!]

Short gag, but yeah...

The animation is not that bad and the sound was ok, although the models you used were extremely pixelated.

On a side note, you've got a spelling error in the title:
"Aladdin" is written with two "d"s.

["A Slice of the Action"]

Are you thinkin' what i am thinking?!

Not quite! xD

[Metal Gear Awesome]

Great work.

Hilarious satirical insight into this stealth-shooter.
One joke after one another - this movie doesn't get boring.

[Metal Gear Awesome 2]

Genious!

The sequel is even better than the first part, and topping such an already hilarious movie is not easy.
it's indeed a movie you can watch more than once and it will still be funny!
on top of this, i never played metal gear solid O.o
nobody else will likely get me laughing about a video game i don't even know in detail.