Mushiking: The King of Beetles the movie "The Road to the Greatest Champion"

Similar to other Mushiking anime/movie titles, they have the same purpose of selling game cards. However, unlike The Inhabitants of the Forest, this one is an outright beetle card fight containing some sort of training elements. Story: 6 out of 10 The story is a basic "I won a battle, but later i got curbstomped by someone much stronger, I go train and beat him (in this case, a her) and we became good friends" type of Shonen story. Do not even expect some really deep character development because of the purpose of this movie and its background story really doesn't warrant that at all (and giventhe movie isn't much longer than 1 hour, anyway...) This story is almost a direct remake of the GBA game with the same title, have the same characters except the art style is slightly tweaked except with updated beetles (at that time). Because it is a movie, in order to make it more enjoyable to watch with, get over with the fact that nothing is sensible in both reality and gameplay-wise. Art: 9 out of 10 Because this is a movie, the animation is fluid and natural, and due to the excessive amount of 3D animation used (mainly for beetle fights), unlike Forest where the beetles are totally out of place, the 3D beetles felt more natural in a gaming based story background. Sound: 8 out of 10 Nothing felt super good that warrants a 10 out of 10, but it worked well with the hot-blooded theme of the movie. Character: 6 out of 10 Due to the hot-blooded shonen background story of the movie (plus the fact that this is made for children, of all things), the characters are typical, bland and doesn't stand out from other movies. But again, this can't really be helped because it's a kid's move that lasted not a lot more than 1 hour. Enjoyment: 10 out of 10 Story and characters aside, the battles are extremely well done (disregard the disregard of physics, of course, cuz who cares about physics?), and everything extremely detailed. That's japanese animation for you. Overall: 7 out of 10 Recommended? -Not really This Anime is made to promote Mushiking which is pretty much a dead game (although the Japanese happened to reboot the game in the form of Shin Mushiking with very different mechanics and regards even less to reality while resembles more of Dinosaur King). Because it doesn't have a fascinating storyboard unlike the Inhabitants of the Forest, unless you were once a big fan of Mushiking, there isn't much point of watching this movie anymore.