Indie films-games and something anything else inbetween! At IndyFilm Oneblaze we try to highlight Indy creative projects.

CANNON BUSTER GOT GREEN LIT WOOOOOOTTT. Yes, I was finally able to catch the Cannon Buster twelve-part first season this past weekend being 8.17.19. This was a bittersweet watch as this was one of those many Kickstarter’s I threw money at and only hoped that it was greenlit past the pilot. I will get more into the Kickstarter at the end of the review as that is another story reserved for later in the review. Aside from the animation, I have the comic in a plastic seal somewhere at my folks home, yup a real fan here. Now on to the review.

Cannon buster is a Netflix series created by Lesean Thomas based on his comic of the same name. Lesean is an artist, animator and animation director from New York who has put in work and earned the title Grandmaster Thomas of animation. Lesean was able to make a name for himself in Korea and Japan due to his work and efforts in the animation circle. Side note he has worked on the Boondocks, the Black Dynamite animated series and Avatar the Last Airbender, he also worked on the rug rats back in the day. Cannon Buster, the animated series is an animation much in the veins of Outlaw star, Gurren Lagaan, Cowboy Bebop and Trigun adventure type stories. The story revolves around the protagonist Philly the kid who you find out in the first episode is an immortal, Sam an android and Casey a maintenance robot with a consciousness. The series is mostly episodic with one or two solo episodes. With only twelve episodes and a cliffhanger at the end of the 12th episode, there is still a lot to explain and conclude. Mostly the if’s, whys and what the hecks of the series.

The artwork and character designs are similar to the original comic models with a few variations and changes to make the series tv worthy. Aside from Bessie the VERITech vehicle which is well designed, I felt the other mechs/robots design were underwhelming and quite boring to admire, I am not quite sure what occurred there. There was one point where a new mech was introduced and I immediately thought… Rahexephon which is another anime I watched years ago. I do have to give it to them for their scenes or locations which adds to the atmosphere of each environment and staging, that is a department I truly hate creating, sadly I cannot get speak too much about these locations as that may spoil the series. As a consumer I am truly looking forward to the expansion of the story and where it will take these budding characters. As an original animated series, Cannon Buster may have lady fortune on their side, unlike the Voltron series which had to deal with fan of the original series, actual had a great run might I add but sadly ended late last year or SHera which is currently ongoing.

Cannon Buster story, is an animation which adults fail to forget may have been created with a child demographics as the core audience, hence why some things may have changed especially from the comic standpoint. As an adult, we sometimes lack the imagination of a child and the curious nature that follows. From my view point the story suffers from feeling rushed and not having the time to fully flush out the characters. Some of the dialogue also seemed muted, mundane and useless but we have to remember this may not be a show with adults as its core demographics much like the cartoons we grew up on which in my era was the 80’s. I watched the anime in both Japanese and english both have it’s pros and cons. As an english speaker I was able to simply listen to the dialogue and follow along, with sub titles I had to follow along with the action and catch some dialogue that popped up.

On a totally separate note, it was a delight seeing a sci-fi, action, adventure featuring people of colour as the main story drivers. There are not many series out there such as this. I cannot pretend to understand the inner working of Lesean’s mind who is an African America, living in Korean and Japan who is the showrunner, creator/artist, director and producer of his own anime, yes we can call this an anime as it was all created on the land of the rising sun. Much like many who are extremely proud of this series getting greenlit I will watch it through its conclusion whichever length that may be.

So before I get into the backstory of the Kickstarter. I have to point out I have been a fan of Lesean work way before he contributed to the many animated series and creation many now know him for being the Boondocks, Black Dynamite and Avatar the Last Airbender. Even his other comic side quest when he worked for dreamwave (Arkanium and ninja Turtles) I been a fan since his webcomic BattleSeed which like many greenlit my interest in drawing and animating with the application Flash and later in 2012 I was able to meet up with this animator due to some odd defacto at Titmouse studio and got a great verbal coaching lesson from the man, which changed my outlook on many things and people we idolize, his words were important as he was honest in what he pointed out in what I seemed to forgot and lacked and I needed those words to grow. In short, getting crushed by an idol will either break you or build you. I grew from that encounter.

So on to the interesting part which is the Kickstarter campaign of 2015. This will be quick and painless. There are many supporters of the campaign who felt betrayed and abandoned and left outside of the communication loop. When the anime premiered, merchandise such as t-shirts was announced which are part of the Kickstarter campaign which was a shocking revelation for the campaign supporters who has those as their rewards.

I am unsure how things will be handled by the Cannon-Buster camp but I am hopeful, this will end well. On another note as a creator, it is dishearting because I feel this has created a rift between supporters and campaign creators. As a supporter, I am hard-pressed against supporting any crowdfunding campaign after this last stint. Going forward I will only support a campaign if I see a positive track record if your track record is a failure after completing a goal, It is highly unlikely I will not support you… I have supported over 25+ campaigns that hit the mark and maybe 10% that failed even after crushing their goal. Ok enough of that sad back story.

To conclude give the show a view, it’s an interesting side quest and worth a watch even with its particular backstory.

Hollow Knight: Silksong where do I start… HOLLLLLLLLYYYY SHIT this was the best news I heard about a game in ages. I waited for the reveal to drop 3am Pacific time in Cali and watch the reveal and was totally blown away. I am an art junkie and when I see a game or simply anything with beautiful art I oooze over it. I was sooooo upset I missed out on the kickstarter of the original game as they had so many amazing things that was packaged with that event. The reveal had everything a fan would want to see to say TAKE MY DAMN MONEY. The animation, the character designs, the world building everything just looked top notch and full of atmosphere. I am extreme glad that they decided to make a separate game and not try to force the build onto the existing game. It allowed them to create fresh new content and a whole new world and boss mechanics. NOICE.

So lets say that I loved this reveal, I will talk more about the previous game later. This reveal told me that small teams are kicking ass. There are some amazing indie game teams that are finally getting the shine they need to keep making awesome games. The only top terr game I have been playing these days is Destiny2 beyond that I have been jumping in on Hollow Knight, prior to that was Hyperlight drifter and prior to that I can’t recollect but I have tried to support the indie devs as I am one myself. The bottom line for me when supporting other devs is that I have to see that you are giving your all to a project and really give us something that is truly awesome and from your heart. Hollow Knight SilkSong looks to be that game which I will wait for and I may purchase a switch later in the year maybe November 2019. The switch at present has alot of indie titles coming their way and that is a great thing for people like myself who love to support these devs.

One thing I am getting tired of is the lazy genre naming of calling games Metroidvania, we don’t hear anyone calling anything else mariomania or zeldamania. Yes the game echos that metroid adventure like style but this game in many way far exceeds what metroid did in many ways considering that metroid was and still is created by a big team compared to some of the small devs that are putting out awesome content. They need to step it up. The last metroid game released for the 3ds was actually pretty good but it was a remake of metroid 2 with some rather fine graphics and gameplay.

Lets back track a bit to the original Hollow Knight which received three dlc or patch fixes as the creators stated they did not understand how to do dlcs. I think what they meant to say they were not sure how to price those dlcs so they just did them as patches and ending up creating a marvelous game in the long run which won them alot of praise. Hands down I loved Hollow knight, not simply because it was a beautiful game but more so because there was no hand holding, the controls worked damn well, the music scoring was top notch and it was developed by a small team comprised of Ari Gibson, William Pellen, Jack Vine and lets not forget the composer Christopher Larkin. I bought the game for both the pc and my current console the xboxone. I will probably get a switch one day simply for this release but with the pc version I might be able to hold out for the xboxone version we shall see.

Check out their website for more details.
Hollow Knight SilkSong