October 2017

Hey, everybody! Antoni, here, with another fan fiction recommendation. And this time, we’re taking a look at Encounter, a soul calibur fanfic written by vhorizon. It’s rated T. It’s in English and the main characters of this fanfic are Mitsurugi and Maxi. Now, if you know me, I love it when Mitsurugi and Maxi get paired up together either as friendly rivals, really good friends, or just a couple of guys willing to knock each other out, yet still have a good time. That’s mostly because their characters were famously voiced by veteran Seiyuu, Toshiyuki Morikawa and Nobutoshi Canna, whose collaborations in Bleach, Slam Dunk, Naruto, and Berserk are pure evidence that these two have amazing chemistry voicing friends, rivals, allies, and friendly rivals. Plus, these two seem to be pretty good friends in real life, if the list of collaborations weren’t evident enough. The basic plot revolves around Mitsurugi encountering an old enemy of his who has come back for vengeance after his arm was lost. Meanwhile, Maxi has gotten himself in a pickle with an assassin who seems to be Astaroth’s minion. After all that, the two then meet each other and it’s an all-out battle between Mitsurugi and Maxi against the police who are going to arrest them. This story is quite well-done in terms of establishing the epic feel of the Soul series. I like how the fight scenes are described being quite vivid without being too wordy. However, the biggest highlight has to be Mitsurugi and Maxi in this story. The way they formed an alliance with each other was really well-done and I wish there were more stories, which have them as best friends almost like brothers and just go around kicking butt. Their newfound friendship is established well and the fact that they are still in character, with Mitsurugi’s stoic, single-minded nature and Maxi’s cool sarcasm and laid-back attitude, is great as their personalities mesh well. The negatives mostly come from the wrong wording, i.e. “were” instead of “we’re”, missing apostrophes before the s, and even when it’s only one person the apostrophe ended up after the s when it should have been before it, and some of the paragraph spacing could’ve been improved. I’m sure that should vhorizon come back to this fanfic to polish it up, it would be great. On top of that, in terms of the title of the story, Soul Calibur should’ve been capitalized because that is the franchise the story is based on. There was also the issue of if the female assassin came on her own volition or as a command by Astaroth, but I digress. Overall, despite some technical issues, this is a fanfic I can safely recommend if you are a fan of Mitsurugi and Maxi from the Soul series and if you like video-game based fanfics altogether. With that said, I give this a grade of B+. Yes, some of the technical issues did bog this down, but the story was well-done, to say the least, and I would love to see more stories of Mitsurugi and Maxi being allies because these two are awesome when they work together. I know I’m going to hate sounding like a broken record, but the possibilities between these two are numberless. Whether they beat the crap out of their foes or each other, they have a sort of strong, masculine, and overall great presence, which makes them stand out among all the other Soul series characters, but that’s just me. Well, that’s all for now, I’m sorry if I haven’t been doing more video blog style opera reviews as I should, but you know how it is. Fulfilling academic expectations and the upcoming Werther play and many other things certainly make it rather impossible to find enough time. However, don’t despair. There are a lot of fanfics out there, that I would love to recommend, so stay tuned for those. Until then, have a great autumn season. https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2689777/1/Encounter