#Isn’t it neat how pretty much ALL the male characters in the main cast can knit and show absolutely NO shame about it?
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✨🧶SPONGEBOB CHARACTERS + KNITTING🧶✨
#🌟#SBSP#Screencaps#SpongeBob SquarePants#Patrick Star#Squidward Tentacles#Eugene Krabs#Pearl Krabs#Sheldon Plankton#Isn’t it neat how pretty much ALL the male characters in the main cast can knit and show absolutely NO shame about it?#You know we love to see it!!!🌟🌟🌟
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Episode 1-The Strange Stranger from China/Enter Ranma
Alright, time to really start this thing off with the first episode, “The Strange Stranger from China”. I...don’t remember that being the name of the episode, but it has been about a decade since I last saw the series.
I feel like I remember what happens in this episode pretty well, it should just be an introduction to (some) of the main cast and kick of the dynamic between the two leads, but I could be wrong. Let’s see after the break, once I have rewatched the episode!
Okay first things first, the Opening. Musically, this song has always sat in a weird spot for me. It’s really freaking catchy and memorable, but it’s also kind of annoying? Like, there is a fine line between a great ear worm and a song you actually want out of your head, and “Don’t Make Me Wild Like You” by Etsuki Nishio is like right on that line. There are parts of it I think are adorably entertaining, like the whistle, and other parts where I kind of cringe. It’s not my favorite opening song of the series, but it’s not bad either.
Visually, it is Okay with a capital O. There is a reason Mother’s Basement has never done a feature on it. It is mostly just the cast running in place over pastel backgrounds, and some of them have the coloring that’s very different from what would end up being used later on once they appeared. That said, I have to give infinite props to Akane’s little snapping dance, because it is freaking adorable and I love ever frame of it.
Also, the title. What I said it was earlier, “The Strange Stranger from China”, was what Hulu has it listed as, and from what I can tell that was what it was listed as on DVD. From what I can tell from my expert translator, Mr. Google Translate, it’s kind of similar to the Japanese title, which says it is “He's from China!! A little weird!!”. But in the episode, the dub says the episode is “Here’s Ranma” which is what I remember it being. So...yeah. Apparently at some point they wanted to retcon the english title of the episode, but never changed the dub track to match.
So, what’s the episode about? Hell, what is this show even about? Well, the episode starts with a feminine person with red hair fighting a panda in the street, arguing about being betrothed to someone against their will, while onlookers watch in confusion. Then the panda knocks them out, and carries them away. Cut to the Tendo family estate, where Soun Tendo has received news that Ranma Saotome and his father Genma will soon be coming, and gathers his three daughters to explain the situation.
You see, in addition to being fairly well off in general, Soun is the owner of a dojo for the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts, and his best friend and fellow practitioner of the same art, Genma, made an agreement years ago to bind their families in marriage. Thus, Ranma will marry one of Soun’s three daughters. From oldest to youngest, they’re Kasumi, Nabiki, and Akane, who is the only one of the three to practice martial arts herself. When Soun reveals he has never met Ranma and has no idea what he’s like, his daughters are kind of pissed that their dad promised one of them would have to marry him, which is pretty fair.
Instead of the middle-aged man and teenage boy they expected, the red-head from before is dragged in by the panda, and they explain they are Ranma Saotome, to everyone’s confusion. Based on their body, everyone assumes Ranma is a girl, and Ranma and Akane actually become fast friends, sparring in the dojo. But after Akane has a surprise bathroom encounter with a very masculine Ranma that involves him seeing her naked, and vice versa, they learn the truth.
See, Ranma and his dad were in China training when they visited Jusenkyo, a seeming hot spring tourist trap, only to each fall in a different spring while practicing fighting there. Turns out all the water there is cursed because things kept drowning in the springs a long time ago. Now they’re both cursed. They each transform when cold water is poured on their heads, into a feminine body for Ranma and a panda’s body for Genma, and turned back with hot water.
Once that’s all out in the open, everyone except Ranma and Akane thinks that, since Akane doesn’t like guys, she would be the perfect fiance for Ranma since he is ‘half girl’. Akane is still upset with Ranma, both because she has a lot of issues with men and feels betrayed that Ranma never said he was really a guy, and also because he saw her naked. Ranma claims it isn’t a problem because he can look at himself anytime and he’s more stacked, and the dynamic of Akane hitting Ranma for the asshole-ish things he says is born.
So, lots of stuff to talk about for an analysis. I think I’ll go with a compliment sandwich, bundling up what was rough for me around what I liked or thought was particularly interesting. To start with, aside from a few places where there was clear corner-cutting of reusing animation and kind of needless flashbacks, I liked the animation. The original mangka, Rumiko Takahashi, has really great character designs, and I love seeing her personal art style brought to life by the animation of Studio DEEN, a group I am not super used to complimenting.
In terms of plot, I think it’s a pretty strong opener. It introduces a lot of the main cast, even if some of them are depicted fairly broadly and not shown as the characters they’d one day become. This might sound odd, but I also really appreciate how female nudity is handled. Maybe it’s just because, if anything, the way most anime handle ‘fanservice’ has just gotten more and more over-the-top as the years go by, but the way Ranma 1/2 handled it feels like a breath of breath air.
See, in most modern anime, full blown nudity of either sex is never shown. Instead, feminine characters’ bodies are incredibly sexualized, with lots of emphasis put on the breasts and other body parts, without ever giving the full game away. By contrast, this episode contained several example of the feminine form shown completely nude, but it wasn’t treated like some mind-blowingly sexy thing, it was just kinda shown without much fanfare. I’ve currently watching the original Mobile Suit Gundam, which came out around the same time, and it actually does the same thing a few times. It feels more similar to how nudity is treated in, say, paintings or sculpture, more tasteful, and I just kind of think it’s neat.
What is definitely less neat...is the music. If I had to throw out right away my biggest gripe with the show, it is the OST. Not all of it, there are a few bits near the end of the episode that are actually really good, they’re the kind of music I remember being in the show. But the more silly, goofy tracks more common in the first half of the episode really don’t work for me. They remind me of the generic ‘Silly Person’ theme songs from the Ace Attorney games, and maybe it’s just me, but those kind of background music always take me out of the experience and grate on my nerves. That’s actually my only big issue so far, but it did make both times watching this episode genuinely hard to get through at points, it annoys me that much.
Now, I will say right now that I will be referring to Ranma using male pronouns regardless of whether he’s in his cursed form or not, and I won’t call him a ‘girl’ or a ‘woman’. If you didn’t know, sex and gender are not actually the same thing, so even if his physical sex is changed to fit someone who would be Assigned Female at Birth, his internal gender doesn’t change. No matter how Ranma looks, he thinks of himself as a man.
Corollary to that, it was this time going through this episode that I realized something that I’d never thought of before: Ranma’s experience in this episode, and in some ways throughout the series, is actually a lot like that of a transgender man’s. Ranma shows up at the Tendo’s estate and they all see him as a girl because of how he looks, only for him to reveal his actual gender. When he’s hanging out with Akane, and she thinks he is actually a girl, and they’re getting along, there’s a part where she tells Ranma that she’s so happy he turned out not to be a boy, and you can see Ranma’s facial expression, he doesn’t want to hear that. Clearly, yes, you can read that as Ranma wincing at the fact that she’s in for a rude awakening later on, but it also gives off the same kind of vibes closeted trans people experience when they’re misgendered by people they know.
In fact, when you think about how his curse really affects Ranma, when he’s in his cursed form, he effectively is a trans man. He still identifies as a guy, but his body has been changed so that it no longer represents who he sees himself as inside. It just felt like an interesting real life parallel in this episode, and I’m interested to see if I feel it shows up more later on. But for now, let’s move on to character spotlight.
For the first spotlight, I thought I should center on the titular Ranma Saotome. Obviously this won’t be the only time I focus on him, he’ll get more spotlight pieces as the series develops, so right now I’ll try to focus on the Ranma we see in just this one episode.
To start with, who plays him? Well, that’s a funny story, actually. Not only does Ranma, due to his curse, have different voice actors in each language for his cursed and non-cursed forms, but in the English Dub they recast his masculine body’s voice actor after three seasons. I’ll talk about that voice actor, Richard Ian Cox, once we get to when he actually becomes Ranma’s voice actor, so let’s start with the masculine form’s VA’s.
Now, the Ranma I first met when I was a teenager was Sarah Strange, a Canadian Voice Actress who is not known for much else. Her Ranma has mostly been the one I think of in my head when I think of the character. A little nasaly, her take on the character is very average joe, very ordinary high schooler. There’s some brashness to it, sure, but it’s actually kind of a subdued version of Ranma. Looking at it now, I actually feel like both of Ranma’s masculine form’s voice actors don’t quite fit the character, but for opposite reasons. Sarah Strange’s voice is so normal sounding that it dampens the more extreme parts of his character, Ranma at his most arrogant and egotistical. Like I said, I’ll cover Richard Ian Cox when he takes over the role, but I’ll say in brief here that his version of Ranma is the polar opposite, too over-the-top and aggressive.
In contrast, his original Japanese voice actor, Kappei Yamaguchi, feels a lot better to me, at least so far. Again, this is basically my first time seeing the series subbed, so I’ve only heard him for one episode as opposed to the 3 seasons I had with Sarah Strange. Still, Kappei’s take on Ranma is just as normal sounding as Sarah’s, but I felt like I could already hear a little more of the more emotional side of the character I felt Sarah never quite managed to capture properly.
As for Ranma’s cursed form, I was kind of confused, because the voice I was hearing in the episode wasn’t the one I remembered. For a while, I thought she must have just grown into the role over time, but it turns out that is not the case. For the first six episodes of the show, he was played by Brigitta Dau, who was then replaced with Venus Terzo. Now, I did not know this until literally right now, as I am typing this, so I feel like I don’t actually have much to say about Brigitta. Her performance felt a little off to me, but not bad. Venus, though, really owns the role once she takes over. Her performance as red-headed Ranma has always felt perfect for me, selling the idea that this is a teenage guy in a feminine body, and she’s really good at selling Ranma at his most dickish.
In Japanese, this form of Ranma is played by Megumi Hayashibara. Now, I would never ever say she did a bad job, but from what I saw of her in this episode, I don’t know how much I actually like her as Ranma. Maybe it’s just the pitch of her voice, but she doesn’t sound quite to me like a guy in a feminine body, but just like a very emotional teenage girl. Of course, I do not speak Japanese and it’s a lot harder to really judge acting in a language you don’t understand, so I could be spouting utter nonsense, but that’s my thoughts on her as of this episode.
In terms of Ranma’s character, they don’t really give much away with this first episode. We know he’s a good fighter, has a difficult relationship with his father, doesn’t like his curse and wants to get rid of it, and has enough stubbornness to butt heads with Akane and stand his ground. I also felt like they did a good job telegraphing Ranma’s general fighting style during his sparring match with Akane. He spent the entire time dodging her attacks with incredible ease, which emphasizes his speed. Generally speaking, I’d describe Ranma as a very agile, thinking-on-his feet kind of fighter, but that’s something we’ll see more of in later episodes. I was going to do a big thing about his personality, but I feel like anything more than what I’ve said hasn’t really borne out in what we have, so I’ll wait for another time to do that.
Like I said in my Introduction post, I will be ranking each episode as they appear, and as this is the only one I’ve seen in the rewatch, it is both the best one and the worst one so far. The real question is how it will stand up next time, when I’ll be able to compare it to the second episode, “School is No Place for Horsing Around”. See you then!
#episode 1#here's ranma#the strange stranger from china#ranma 1/2#ranma saotome#akane tendo#lgbtq#anime analysis#anime rewatch
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Marchen Witches
Title: Marchen Witches
Media: Webtoons, written by Verbin
Yandere(s): Carness
Yandere Scale: 4/5
Criticism written by: Kai
Editor: Julie
The Review:
Hey everyone! Kai here back with another review! I’m sure that this is a bit of a surprise. Hell, I’m surprised that I’m doing yet another review. While waiting for yesterday’s livestream to finish rendering (which I’ll be posting here), I stumbled upon this webtoon. I decided to read it on a whim as I wait for the video to finish up and boy, I did not expect there to be a yandere here… Let me explain
Marchen Witches is a webtoon about a romance between a witch and a knight. About 300 years ago, there was a racial war between magic users and non-magic users. The witch and the knight tried to fight for equal rights but ended up dying in the fight. Unable to recognize their love for each other, the witch cast a spell so that her and the knight can be reincarnated together. Now, a 300 years later, the witch was reincarnated… as a male scientist named Schwann Owen. Present day, Owen contains all his past life memories and now researching the reincarnation spell from a scientific point of view. But he was soon attacked by a wizard terrorist group called the Black Pearl. But! He was saved by a female war mage named Jessica; who very much looks like the knight in the past life (you see a trend here?). But surprise surprise, Jessica has a twin brother who also looks like the knight. Now Owen is all messed up on who’s the real knight. But that isn’t important. The Black Pearl kidnap Owen for his research but surprise! It was actually Carness’s, the yandere, long con to capture Jessica to commit couple suicide and reincarnate into the next life together <3 But Carness got his ass beat by Owen and everyone lives happily ever after :)
Anyways, you guys might think I just rushed typing the summary and skipping over details but, nope! The webtoons was just that rushed! It was a neat story and was an enjoyable read but it was rather… underwhelming and very unsatisfying. There were many points in the story where the author could have paused and expanded on a plot detail or character interaction or character background. The only one who got major screen time was just some side character called Zeke, for some reason… Like, Owen’s dilemma with figuring out which twin was the knight was barely touched on and was kinda… glossed over. His relationship with them was extremely superficial and I couldn’t believe that Owen and Jessica got together out of true love. Jessica was just awfully written. She was bland and boring. The minute there was an inch of personality or possible character history from her, it was immediately skipped over for #plot. The same goes for her twin brother. There was a really big point that was brought up in the story but pretty much was destroyed after it was out the gate. It was the idea that maybe… these people in the present AREN’T actually the people from the past anymore. Very good plot point that should have been focused for the entire damn story but it was only use for convenience against Zeke and the yandere, Carness (who I’ll talk about soon. I swear). That point was immediately tossed out the window once Jessica remember her past life and automatically went “I love you, Owen :)”. Lmao what??? Literally a panel ago, everyone was agreeing to let the past be the past. From what I saw, the two main characters just love each other because of who they were in the past, not who they are right now. Y’all realized how fuck that is, right? Right???? It’s an alright story… it fits the bare minimum of what a story requires. But don’t expect anything particularly amazing.
Anyways, enough rambling about the mediocre story. Let’s talk yandere. So Carness was a surprise yandere. When I first saw him appear, my first thought was: “The author has no reason to make him this hot” lmao. Carness is the main antagonist of the entire webcomic and pretty much the reason why there was that whole racism war to begin with…. Apparently. But before I talk about him, I should mention that Carness is canon fodder yandere. What does that mean? Carness’s whole point in the story is just to bring the two main characters together before getting his ass beat. So don’t expect anything amazing from him besides going “muahahaha”.
Now then… why is Carness a yandere? Well, we first have to go back into time for Carness original incarnation: Countess Iris. Yes, before Carness was a male yandere, he was a female yandere :) We’re checking off all boxes here folks. Well, Countess Iris was the knight’s OG fiance. She fell in love with him at first sight when they were children and was groomed to be his perfect wife, since that’s what is expected of a woman. Hinted that she was most likely neglected as a child too. Basically, she was raised to be devoted only to the knight. To keep him only to herself, she chased off women and disfigured some who tried to get close to the knight. But without her realizing, the knight and the witch fell in love with each other. Mad with jealousy, she flamed the already tense racial divide between the witches and humans so that the witch would “accidentally” die in the fighting. But she never expected the knight to go out with the witch. Wrecked with grief, anger, possessiveness, ect. Countess Iris decided to follow after the knight into the next life. She preserved his body and “recruited” (forced) many witches to copy the reincarnation spell. The spell worked and she turned into a he then went out to hunt for the reincarnated knight. Carness found Jessica and… idk what happened between that and the meeting of Owen. This story gloss over more plot details than a high school girl using lip gloss. Anyways, Carness decides to permanently get rid of Owen for good and do a lovers suicide for the next life. To do that, he puppeteer an entire terrorist group and did mind using people for his own agenda. But of course, he lost after have a yandere snap and get locked up in jail. The end.
As you can see, Carness is a yandere but due to having a shallow background (shit everyone has a shallow background), we have to take away a point because there’s not much about Carness (I mean, that paragraph seems like a lot but really, compared to the webtoon, the paragraph is really nothing). Anyways, Carness is solid. Story is wack but readable.
Overall score: 6/10
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Toy Story 4 Thoughts
It’s good.
No, it’s damn near GREAT!
I’ve gotta be honest, you know what I feel right now?
For YEARS I defended this movie! I KNEW Pixar wouldn’t just greenlight a fourth Toy Story film without a damn good idea! They KNEW what audiences would say at the idea of a fourth movie after the masterpiece of Toy Story 3 and the folks at Pixar were careful about that!
And for YEARS, I said that this would be just an extended version of those awesome Toy Story TV specials we’ve seen lately, and it really was! Look, now that Toy Story Land is a thing, they’re gonna keep up the franchise and as long as the films are fun, I’m cool with that. I think the “it’s unnecessary” argument is BS because no film is necessary.
Okay, bragging out of the way, meet me under the cut for my thoughts and prepare for SPOILERS!
SPOILERS
SPOILERS
SPOILERS
Yeah, I just like doing that for absentminded people like myself. Anyway, onto the thoughts!
-I’ll be honest, I was afraid about Woody going off and leaving the other toys. I had a feeling it was gonna happen since the first real trailer and given how the theme of TS3 was staying together, I really didn’t want it to be the case. However, I will say that the execution of this idea was well done, about as well done as it could’ve been. Bonnie loves him, but is largely moving onto other toys, making it pretty clear that Woody’s job with Bonnie is finished and that he does have other options for how he can live his life. While I’m sad to see Woody not be part of the main cast anymore, he’s with the toy he loves using his skills and teamwork with Bo to save other toys.
-The goodbyes killed me. Everyone got not only great reunions (The other toys and Bo), but great goodbyes too. Woody and Buzz hugged and I didn’t realize that I needed that until I got it and now! Woody giving Jessie the Sheriff’s Badge and the subsequent group hug was heartwarming beyond belief!
-I love that the villain twist was that there wasn’t a villain. Like, we had an antagonist and she did do some bad stuff (Though not relative to the past three antagonists), but she wasn’t exactly a villain. Like, she’s the sympathetic version of Lotso -- just someone who wanted playtime after being a lost toy for so long. It’s supposed to be the best thing in the world for a toy, but she never got a chance at it. She never betrays anyone once she’s offered the hand of redemption, she’s never cruel to Forky, and despite how messed up it is, Woody does give her permission to take Woody voice box in return for Forky.
-I also love Bo! Bo is a BADASS and more importantly, a character! We get some subtle yet detailed accounts as to how she spent her years not only through exposition, but also through her friendships. Like, she has a whole career, a Skunk-mobile, her sheep, Giggles, and Duke Kaboom! She’s up there with Jessie in terms of all of her development!
-I also love how well the story shows Woody and Bo as a unit, even during the flashback. They can basically read each other’s minds and know just how to spring into action and/or support the other. Like, their relationship isn’t even just a big strong man and a little lady before Bo gets taken away -- she’s part of the team to and helps manage the other members when more actions need to be taken (Ex. getting the barrel of monkeys to support Woody and Slinky). It may be a bit retroactive, but that was a really refreshing change of pace!
-Forky is so much more charming than the ads made him out to be and I love him! Like, he kind of has a crisis of identity, but it’s not THAT long, so it’s cool! So, how much you want to be that at Toy Story Land, they’re gonna set up a “make your own toy” station?
-I love Forky and Woody’s friendship! I love how Woody makes no effort to overpower Forky as the favorite toy and while his motives are skewed, it’s also clear that he genuinely wants to help Forky just as much as Bonnie. And I adore the way Woody helps Forky realize how important he is to Bonnie by comparing her to trash (WOW that will not make sense if you don’t see this movie!). It shows how Woody has gotten to really know Forky over these past few days and thus knows what makes Forky tick!
-I like Key and Peele as the stuffed animals! I’m glad that they had two male friend toys who are holding hands throughout the film and they’re never made fun of for that. Like, I didn’t realize that during the ads, but that was just really neat! And they had some pretty funny moments! I’ll be honest -- I expected them to go with Bonnie since they wanted a kid so badly, but I’m okay with them staying on Team Bo!
Headcanon time!!!
-Woody and Bo either steal a laptop/cellphone to email the gang or send postcards to them from wherever they are!
-Once Bonnie’s grown up, the other toys manage to get “lost” as well and soon reunite with Woody and Bo.
-...Look, I love friends being together, okay?! Wreck It Ralph destroyed me! I DON’T NEED MY SOUL RIPPED OUT FOR GOOD TWICE, OKAY?!?!
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Samurai Love Ballad Party is Pretty Great
For someone with not one but two sideblogs devoted to Samurai Love Ballad Party, I sure do rag on Voltage a lot. So, in the spirit of the holiday (and definitely not because I’m procrastinating real work), a list of reasons why I’m still playing this game eight months in.
Realistic characters
No, they’re not realistic in terms of power levels or historical fact, but nearly all of the characters in SLBP feel like real, actual people. Both virtues and faults can be found in abundance. Furthermore, whether a given trait is a virtue or fault can switch depending on the context. This is key to making a character seem real instead of just a list of traits on a spreadsheet.
For example, Mitsuhide is meant to be a perfect samurai. That’s great - until his devotion to duty and people means he might be separated from MC forever. Yukimura’s innocence and faith in people leads to both good things (hooking up with MC, being friends with Saizo) and bad (leaving himself wide open to being taken advantage of).
Distinct characters
Despite a sprawling cast, each character is very different from each other and easy to tell apart at a glance.* That's pretty hard to do! SLBP also adheres to a philosophy espoused by OKCupid** back when they did interesting dating math about how some people thinking a person isn't hot only makes that person more attractive to other people.
*Except for their chins. I swear every male character in this game has the exact same jawline.
**Seriously, if you have any interest in otome games and why controversial characters make the most money read that post. OKC used to have the most amazing blog back when it was run by two statisticians.
Historical setting
SLBP massages history a lot, but there’s quite a lot that’s actually pretty accurate (or close enough that you can at least recognize the key events when you read a wikipedia article). I like that. I also like that it gives a very interesting canvas for the writers to play with.
If you’ve ever seen Project Runway or a similar competition, you've probably noticed people do their best work when they’ve got a limitation or two stymieing them because it makes them think more creatively. In the case of SLBP, how will they handle Shingen’s well-known end? Nobunaga is the first unifier - what was it like for the people working for and against him at that time? There were more guns in Japan than Europe in the late 1500s - how did that play out on the battlefield? Restaurant workers from Kyoto weren’t likely to meet multiple samurai lords - how do you get around that believably? There’s a lot of neat stuff to delve into.
Complementary relationships
If you like one member of the Date clan, you'll probably like the others. Same goes for Kai. Nobunaga's followers are a more mixed bunch, but that's only fitting because he's got the "big tent" strategy going on as the lord with the most territory. This further contributes to the believability of the stories and makes reading them more engaging. Maybe you like Inuchiyo the best, so you normally wouldn't care so much about a ninja event, but Sakuya's good friends with him so you've got a story to look forward to after all.
Many events
There's almost always something to do in SLBP. You're not just limited to five free chapters of the main story per day, even if you're free-to-play. Right now we've got ninja event stories and a samurai fair, we just wrapped up Lord of the Draw with extra side stories and items to get, and there's sure to be another battle on the horizon soon. On the very rare occasions when there’s no event, I realize how much I’ve come to rely on that steady flow of extra content.
Engaged marketing team
Voltage is very active on multiple social media platforms and, whether or not they can respond, they do see and pay attention to what fans are saying. They're very encouraging of fanworks and are supportive of their player base. Should be par for the course, but shockingly not as common as you would think.
Pretty good writing
I am very critical when it comes to writing. I don't like to see typos, I don't want to have to pause and figure out what's going on because the description was confusing, I do want to each character to have their own individual voice, and I want good pacing and storytelling in general. For the most part, SLBP does a good job and I can largely turn off the editor in my brain and enjoy the stories.
(That's why I get so upset when certain stories don't live up to SLBP's usual standard. I go back into editing mode and can't just enjoy Genya flirting with MC.)
Cute side games
I like dressing up my avatar and decorating my castle. I like accumulating a bunch of onigiri to get rewards in the tea garden. I like playing the lotteries to see what I get (need those pearls!). They're all nice little distractions that complement the main game but don't need to be played if you don't want to.
Limited player interaction
I can do everything I want in the game without interacting with anyone if I want, or I can make a bunch of allies, compete for a fancy dress, and chat up a storm with someone after complimenting their castle. Block options are available for the rare occasion you need to use them. For me, it's just the right amount of interaction with other players.
Unapologetic fanservice
Voltage knows what the fans want and is happy to give it to us (...in exchange for pearls). No need to feel embarrassed for wanting to see Shingen with his shirt off. The stories have also gotten noticeably sexier as I've played, which is nice. Well, sex is an important part of most romantic relationships. It's good to know MC is having her needs met, and it's good to know I can re-read certain epilogues whenever I want in my album.
Autism representation
This is pretty niche and may not have even been intended, but Mitsunari is almost certainly on the spectrum. But! He's not portrayed as an asshole who thinks he's always right and justifies being a jerk with a (at the time, non-existent) diagnosis. No, he, like most autistic people, is struggling to do better and learn more about how to interact with others. (Also he thinks he’s almost always right.) And his special interests and ability to retain information come in handy a lot, and he has people who understand him and treasure him for who he is, not in spite of it. That's really great.
Anyway, that's my non-exhaustive list of reasons why I actually really love this game. My complaints are only because I want it to be as good as I know it can be. If I really hated it, I'd stop playing and I'd definitely stop buying pearls. XD
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DCOM Rankings #111: Under Wraps (2021)
Like I said in my last review, we are going full circle now!
I think this movie was one of, if not, the main reason why the original is not on Disney +. I think the other reason was because it was pretty mature for a DCOM. Like, it didn’t feel like a movie that would ever air on the network, or even be released by a different studio nowadays. It was very unique in that regard.
It’s now been well over a year since I’ve seen the original. So unfortunately I don’t remember every detail but I’ll be doing some general comparisons.
But what did I think of the movie as a standalone? Cute, a little bit boring/unecessary in the middle but cute. I think it hits on most of the things I look for in a Halloween DCOM. It’s got it’s flaws though.
Okay let’s start the comparisons!
One improvement I noticed right away: the mummy’s voice. It DOESNT sound like Patrick star so it didn’t bother me at all!! (Again, it’s not the actors fault but I can’t deny that it took me out of the original movie). I also like the much needed add in diversity, having black/mixed race actors as part of the main cast is very refreshing, as well as making one character female instead of male for one of the supporting roles. There’s the overall story as well, it’s a little simpler and easier to follow compared to the original, while still having the same plot.
As far as improvements go, that’s pretty much it though. While they kept most things the same, the biggest change is what takes place during the middle of the movie. In the original the mummy just goes missing and you see all the mummy’s hijinks as he tries to navigate the real world, like he goes into some office buildings and a hospital (and maybe another place I don’t remember) but you see all the people’s reactions and some are terrified and others think he’s their friend in a costume.
In this movie the mummy stays with the kids while they make a mummy movie for their class project. And while yes in some ways that might be better because the kids got to spend more time with the mummy, but it was also just eh to watch. Like I guess when the action isn’t happening the movie just gets boring because the characters are kind of one dimensional (again just like the original). And nothing seems to be at stake at the moment. I mean I know that there are moments where you just need to have fun with the characters but gahhh. I was just bored that’s all. And no one can make sets look that good for a 15-minute movie.
Onto other differences, obviously they kept the violence and language to basically non-existent. they gender-flipped the monster-expert guy, which to me was actually really cool. And they changed the races of some of the other leads. Again, much needed. Now I have 0 clue if they kept the names the same. But I’m too lazy to check. It doesn’t matter for this review anyway.
As far as the lesson goes, each of the characters gains something from their adventure, which I think is neat. I’m glad they actually gave the girl lead something to do. Cuz I think in the original she was the new girl that didn’t have many friends and that was it. I’m glad they added some more depth to her character. The character who’s name begins with a G, he learned how to face his fears, and the main kid learned how to come around to her mom’s bf. I mean for a kids movie in the 90’s that was probably a good relatability move, but that this point there are TONS of movies about these two topics. And it really does get old after a while…
Also when G leaves during the third act and then convinces himself to go back…that pep talk could have been done a lot better. It just seemed like he was complaining and then suddenly he was like “they’re my friends, I need to face my fears!” And I’m like what??? There was almost no talk through with that. I kind of wish that scene wasn’t shown to us because that could have been a surprise twist at the end for him to show up and start setting off booby traps with his friends. I know that’s a cliche in movies like this but I don’t care haha.
One small improvement that I did notice was there was no forced relationship between the main male/female leads. I always found that to be super cliche and also a little creepy. How old are these kids supposed to be? They don’t look much older than 12 or 13. Like stop forcing people together. And that’s why I’m pulling back on what I said about the kissing in DCOMS. Not that it happened in the original movie, but im starting to realize that many of these kids have not had their first kiss yet, or don’t feel comfortable kissing someone they work with, even if it’s just acting. And they’re KIDS! I get it if they are like college kids than I would be like “Y NO KISS” but if they were in junior high or maybe even beginning of high school, i shouldn’t expect a kiss. And neither should anyone else. Maybe Disney Channel was a part of why kissing isn’t really shown anymore . Like now kissing is shown from behind or from an angle where you can’t see the lips actually touching. And that’s if there’s even a kiss in the movie/show! I don’t know, but I’m just saying it’s time we realized that kids should just be left alone with that kind of stuff.
Rant over. Back to the review!
As said previously, most things were actually the same. The dance scene at the end, the premise, the overal story, the characters (maybe not the names idk). So I’m really not sure what else there is to say. The movie LOOKS better just because it was done over 20 years ago. I guess the only question I should ask is whether this movie is better than the previous one.
Welp. The original is so classic. Like Disney Channel will never make a movie like this again. It’s just not happening. It’s really goofy with the sound effects, but it has its charm and good heart. The new one is a fresh and updated take that is definitely less goofy but also less mature. I honestly don’t know which one is better…neither of them are my absolute favorite Halloween DCOM so it’s like picking the one I tolerate the best, and in this case I actually might go for the newer one. GASP!!!!
Honestly these movies are not my fave. I think I rated the original a C, and I personally think this movie overall had some improvement over the original. But I still may rate it a C. Under Wraps is a cute fun movie but it never really resonated with me like Halloweentown or other Halloween DCOMS. So honestly no matter which one I pick, neither of them are going to be in my top 10 or even top 50. So I guess there’s that!
Oh my gosh is this true….this next one is the LAST DCOM I will be watching!! And then I FINALLY get to share my final ranking!!! Wow I am so excited!! Let’s fucking go!!!!
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Star Trek Into Darkness quickie review
Disclaimer: I know that the tone of modern Star Trek is a contentious issue, but I came to the franchise late enough that I can take each installment on its own merits. So let's say no more about that.
Highlights:
- In general I think the Kelvin timeline main cast are excellent, with Karl Urban and Simon Pegg as particular highlights here.
- Some of the visual effects are spectacular, specifically the Enterprise looks beautiful as always, and I do enjoy the warp sparkles.
- "Test me and you will fail.", the line itself isn't really anything special, but John Cho really sells it. Chalk up another for my cast highlights.
- The score is solid, with the opening theme being a highlight.
- I know she's already listed under visual effects, but the Enterprise deserves another listing for her design.
- I just think the models in Marcus's office are neat.
- Yeah, Scotty running across that hanger was a decent gag.
-Spock's plan to destroy the Vengeance was a nice wee plot point
-Cho comes through again. I do like a bit of bridge crew loyalty in the face of disaster.
-The Kirk/Spock goodbye gets me in any timeline. "How do you choose not to feel?" "I do not know."
-Y'know, I'm a fan of speculative fashion, and the various Starfleet uniforms are pretty cool.
-The end credits reprise of the original series theme is a nice enough touch that I'm giving it it's own listing outside of the score in general.
Lowlights:
- The sound mixing is an absolute mess. The sfx being turned up to 11 while dialogue is at about a 4 might work as a metaphor for common criticisms of the film, but that's the only way it works.
- Kronos pt. 1: as Uhura approaches the Klingons, we get the first of the film's gratuitous male gaze fanservice shots (I think we all know the second)
-Kronos pt. 2: While I accept that heroes killing tertiary villains is gonna happen is these sorts of films, a part of me is naturally skeptical of crotch stabs. I just feel there's too much potential symbolism for what I imagine to be one of the less efficient stabs going, and it didn't really feel motivated here.
-Kronos pt. 3: Now I've never been part of any government organisation, but "I accept your surrender." *punch* seems unheroic.
-The original Khan was a rounded character defeated by exploiting established flaws, new Khan is a bit of a Mary Sue who was defeated... cos he got punched a bit.
- The whitewashing. I'm aware that the writers have said that they thought that having an Indian villain who's introduced with an act of terrorism fighting a mostly white group of heroes, and that's a reasonable point. On the other hand, they could have just not used Khan, most would concede that we've already seen the definitive interpretation of the character, and both of the other Kelvin timeline films used original villains. If you're in a no-win scenario, change the parameters.
- Well we killed off the only non-evil starfleet admiral. Those guys seriously need to work on their interview process
- I'm usually fairly forgiving of plot holes and contrivances, but the implications of transwarp technology are just too storybreaking for even me to overlook.
- I wasn't going to mention it but the lens flare really does get distracting at times
-Y'know, I'm a fan of speculative fashion, and what little we saw of people in street clothes looked disappointingly early 21st century (Scotty's shirt gets a pass though, I love that thing).
Conclusion: probably worth a watch if you're going through the Kelvin series, but probably just the one watch
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A Review on Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion
Note: This review is not mine.I have posted this review here because I feel it summarizes the anime Code Geass very well.
However I will be posting my reviews in the future once I get more experience.
This review is taken myanimelist from the reviewer kiriska.
Overall Rating 9
I was incredibly skeptical about Code Geass at first, but I'm very pleased to say that I was greatly surprised.
STORY - Before I saw this series, it was described to me on multiple occasions as "Death Note with mechas." After seeing it, however, I am inclined to disagree. The similarities between the two series are superficial at best, and though I can see why people would draw the comparison, I don't really think that dis/liking one means that you'll dis/like the other. But anyway, unlike Death Note, I wouldn't say that the story in Code Geass is particularly notable or unique. It's actually rather straightforward and even a little cliche, but that's exactly why this is such a well done series -- the barebones storyline is handled in a refreshing and new way that grabs the viewer's attention. There are enough twists and turns involved to keep you on the edge of your seat. The pacing is excellent and nothing feels rushed or drawn out. Indeed, the progression up to the conclusion is especially brilliant. (It's a cliffhanger "ending," but oh, it's just a fantastic cliffhanger.)
The series is also appealing in its uncanny ability to mix genres. Yes, this is a mecha series, but it really doesn't have to be. Yes, CLAMP did the character designs and there are some very shoujo elements (read: homolust), but there are very shounen rivalries and some pretty epic battle scenes too. Everybody wins! Additionally, because of the number of characters, the story allows for a number of small subplots. I was very happy with how this was handled in particular because all of the subplots relate and affect the main plot directly, whether by revealing some bit of information to both the characters and the viewer or by pushing forward interesting character development. Everything is well thought out and wonderfully executed, so despite the fact that "strong-willed person with plans to change the world receives mysterious power that helps facilitate his goals" isn't a very unique storyline... Code Geass makes it work.
Also. Code Geass utilizes the "best friends trying to kill each other" plotline, and I'm a sucker for that plotline.
CHARACTER - The characters in this series are rather varied. Some are very plain and one-dimensional, while others have an amazing complexity to them that makes them very life-like. I'll be honest. I've become somewhat infatuated with Lelouch as a character (and am rather biased as a result). To me, he is very much a human character -- he has emotions, opinions, a unique point of view, and some very serious flaws, all of which make him incredibly easy to relate to and to sympathize with. He is easily the most complex character in the series, and he feels real to me, even with his supernatural powers and his genius-level intellect. This ability to make the audience relate to him is also probably the series' greatest strength and the main reason why the story is able to remain relevant and interesting despite the fact that there aren't too many new ideas plotwise.
Suzaku would probably be second in line for complexity after Lelouch, though his sense of justice might be called cliche at first (along with Nunnally's and Euphemia's), and his hax-level physical prowess is somehow harder to accept than Lelouch's genius-level intelligence. It's harder to appreciate Suzaku's depth at first, partially because he is presented as Lelouch's main obstacle and the audience's sympathies are with Lelouch, but a great deal is revealed about his character throughout the course of the series, and he becomes an amazing foil to his rival. Their conflicting ideologies and philosophies are fascinating if you really look into it, and gay as it sounds, they really do compliment each other very well.
Much of the rest of the cast seems to fall into typical archetypes -- there's your adorable little sister, your mad scientist and his assistant, your cheerful schoolgirls, your best friend, your most loyal soldier, your second-in-command, your village idiot, your... really creepy lesbian girl? Despite the generic-sounding descriptions, most of the characters are actually pretty fun, or at the very least, interesting. C.C. provides snarky commentary. Shirley spreads innocent schoolgirl love. Nunnally is so moe you'll die. Jeremiah is a good butt of all jokes. Little bits of backstory are tossed in here and there to separate them from the crowd, but it's never enough to actually intrude, and the wide range of characters lets you settle into the world pretty well too; after all, what universe is complete without an animal mascot that shows up now and again?
ARTWORK & ANIMATION - I wasn't too impressed with CLAMP's character designs at first (noodleboys!), but as always seems to be the case, they gradually grew on me, and I remembered just how pretty X was. CLAMP just knows how to make everyone look amazingly sexy, male or female. I really loved how they did all of the facial expressions in the series though, especially for Lelouch. Seriously, that guy had some of the most awesome crazy expressions, some of the most amazingly touching sadface expressions, and of course, some of the most amusing WTF expressions. The mecha designs for the Knightmare Frames were also pretty awesome. I dig the whole rollar blade thing, and some of the technologies they come up with are neat, if a little over-the-top. The animation is fluid and smooth for the most part and very few things stood out as being bad.
MUSIC - Initially, I wasn't particularly fond of any of the OP/EDs for Code Geass except the first ending by ALI PROJECT because 1) they're awesome, and 2) Yuki Kajiura's style seemed to suit the series very well. The screaming violins both convey the high status of Britannia and the intensity of the emotions in the series. The rest of the themes seemed lackluster in comparison, but though I was never a huge fan of FLOW, "COLORS" kind of grew on me after a while. The final insert song, "Innocent Days" by Hitomi is pretty nice as well. Very thoughtful, very poignant, very fitting. The background music during the series was negligible for the most part; there is some pretty generic battle build-up type music and other appropriate, but rather typical, themes. Still, there's some neat classical/opera stuff, and the "All hail Brittania!" theme is definitely awesome.
VOICE ACTING - I've seen all of Code Geass subbed and most of it dubbed. Although I was incredibly turned off by Johnny Yong Bosch's role as Lelouch initially, it kind of grew on me, and now I think it fits well enough, though I do wish he'd change his voice a little more when Lelouch is Zero (make it a little deeper?). Suzaku's dub voice surprised me with how appropriate it was too. One of the things I really wish we could replicate in English though, is the subtle differences in manners between characters, between Lelouch and Suzaku at various stages of their lives, and between Lelouch and Zero. In Japanese, when Lelouch and Suzaku are children, they refer to themselves with "boku" and "ore" respectively. As teenagers, the pronouns are swapped, with Lelouch using "ore" (Zero uses "watashi") and Suzaku using "boku." Euphemia uses "watakushi." I'll skip the grammar lesson (go wiki "Japanese pronouns"), but suffice to say that these differences provide a lot of very interesting insight into each of the characters. It's really too bad English isn't nearly as interesting.
The rest of the voices in the dub are pretty average, perhaps the low end of average, with a stereotypically high-pitched girly voice for Nunnally that is amazingly annoying, and very forgettable voices for virtually all the female characters (Milly, Shirley, and Kallen all kind of sound the same). I was very impressed with Lloyd's dub voice though, even if nothing will ever amount to his amazing original voice, which is uh, amazing! Seriously. One of the most amusing voices I've ever heard. Jun Fukuyama's voice for Lelouch I found to be a bit too deep/old sounding initially, but that grew on me as well, and I really love the badassity of his voice for Zero. Suzaku's original voice sounds a little generic at first, but it grows with his character. There's a good bit of Engrish in the Japanese version as well, which is always fun. I don't think you can ever get tired of their "Yes, my lord(o)!" or their "All hail Britannia!"
Overall, I'd say the original is damn awesome, and the dub is pretty watchable -- always a plus, right?
OVERALL - I really love this series, and I definitely did not see that happening. Honestly, I found the first episode incredibly underwhelming: the opening sequence made it look like a series I wouldn't be interested in watching at all, and all of the expository really turned me off...but the second episode? That was so much more epic than I could have ever predicted, and I was pretty much won over after that. I'm just a sucker for chess analogies, I guess! Seriously though, good story, good characters, good animation, and good music! Mechas, politics, rivalry and comradery, strained friendships, love and hate, complex ideologies, and blowing shit up! What more could you want? :D
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The Maze Runner. By James Dashner. New York: Delacorte Press, 2009.
Rating: 2.5/5 stars
Genre: YA sci fi, dystopia
Part of a Series? No
Summary:
If you ain’t scared, you ain’t human.
When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his name. He’s surrounded by strangers—boys whose memories are also gone.
Nice to meet ya, shank. Welcome to the Glade.
Outside the towering stone walls that surround the Glade is a limitless, ever-changing maze. It’s the only way out—and no one’s ever made it through alive.
Everything is going to change.
Then a girl arrives. The first girl ever. And the message she delivers is terrifying.
Remember. Survive. Run.
***Full review under the cut.***
Date of Original Review: December 13, 2015.
The Maze Runner tells the story of a boy named Thomas, a teenage boy who has been wiped of his memories and placed in a community of “Gladers,” a group of similar boys living at the center of a giant maze. No one knows why they are there, but every day is the same: the doors slide open, and the “runners” try to solve the maze.
Dashner is very good at creating suspense. Some of the best parts of this book, in my opinion, are when we actually go with the characters into the maze and encounter the mechanical beasts that live there.
Second, Dashner builds his world very well. Everything is highly structured, from the terminology to the way the Glade is operated. For me personally, a highly-structured world is necessary or else I cannot follow the plot, and Dashner’s book thoroughly gives readers an idea of how the community of Gladers functions (to the point of the reader can understand and go along with the slang with ease).
But Despite the effective world-building, the ending of the book left me disappointed and having more questions than I felt was satisfactory. I won’t give away the ending, but I will say that I found it rather anti-climactic. Perhaps my burning questions will be answered in the next book (this is a series), but for me, the end was a strange combination of feeling too much closure for the Gladers but not enough for the world in which they live.
Second, I was not a fan of the telepathy. To my knowledge, this revelation isn’t a big spoiler, as it had almost no bearing on the plot and I found it very difficult to accept in my suspension of disbelief. Maybe these abilities will play a larger role in future books, but for the first installment in Dashner’s series, it seemed like more of a neat trick rather than a major part of the story.
Third, I was a bit disappointed that the Gladers were all boys and the one girl who shows up has nothing to do but offer convenient bits of information and vague memories. I would have liked to see Theresa (her name) as more instrumental to the plot, not just a cache of information that could have been obtained in any number of ways.
Fourth, I found many of his characters shallow. Too often, Dashner simply “tells” us what Thomas is feeling when we, as readers, could benefit from “showing.” We don’t get much of a sense of what the characters are like other than they are all very frustrated boys who live in a maze. What do they like? What are their hopes? Fears? Dreams? If we could have seen some more personality, I think this book would have been more effective.
Critical Analysis: This book received many positive reviews due to the fact that is was very action-packed and suspenseful; but my main problem with it was that it contained only one female character. Now, before anyone jumps on me, I’ll explain why it is a problem in the context of this book. If you don’t want to read potential spoilers, I suggest skipping down to the “Evaluation” and “Recommendation” sections below.
***************MAY BE SPOILERS*********************
When we first meet Theresa, she comes to the Glade bearing strange messages, but she immediately falls into a coma and remains unconscious for a large chunk of the book. Instead of portraying her as a strong, potentially fascinating character, Dashner instead casts her as the modern-day equivalent of “oracles” - pretty girls with deep knowledge that may or may not be useful, but otherwise, pretty useless themselves.
The second problem: later in the book, Dashner very explicitly explains through his main character, Thomas, that all of the Gladers are in the maze because they have above-average intelligence and their “Creators” are trying to find the “best of the best.” Given that the Gladers are all male, my question then is: why are only males considered to have these desirable properties? Can women not be intelligent or have superior problem-solving skills? Could they not form community in the way that the males have? Although we do see Theresa, a female character, inserted into this community, her function is not to test whether or not females can go toe-to-toe with the boys, it is simply to “trigger the ending.” She seems to only work as a support for Thomas, who takes her knowledge and fits together the puzzle pieces on his own. For me, this is a great loss.
Evaluation: Many critics love to recommend this book for fans of The Hunger Games (as I said before, this criteria is beginning to feel tired, but whatever), however, I cannot say it deserves to be placed in the same category for the very fact that it feels unbalanced. While I didn’t outright hate this book, I was very conscious of its drawbacks as I was reading it. Hopefully, the movie that is being released this year will fix some of the issues and create a story that is more engaging with its audience.
Recommendations: I would recommend this novel if you are a fan of/interested in: dystopian YA fiction, puzzles, male-centered stories, plot-driven stories (as opposed to character-driven), action-heavy stories, telepathy, questions about community, world-building, memory loss
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DS9: Tribunal to Prophet Motive
Overall S2 wasn’t really that much better than S1, though it did have a handful of eps that were genuinely “good” television. S3’s also spotty but slightly better. One S3 trend I don’t like is the SUPER heavy-handed selling of Kira/Odo from basically the first ep on, and how it comes entirely out of nowhere. Also, Keiko is royally and consistently shafted and ignored, which is frustrating as hell. They FINALLY give her something to do, and not only is it presented as a “gift” from her husband(which, Ick! Like she’s not following the going’s on in her own damn profession???), they use it to effectively write her off the show! Ridiculous >:(
Tribunal: Bad. What’s the point of doing a courtroom ep that isn’t a courtroom ep? Sure, I can understand the theoretical appeal of the irony of a trial episode about a show trial, but you really need to embrace the absurdity of the concept for it to work and they didn’t. Also, the Cardassians are one-note(like all the non-human species in ST), and their one-note is “Order”, so Cardassian law, even if entirely show-trials in practice, really ought to be procedurally meticulous. An ep about Odo, skilled in these procedures from his time as a Cardassian security chief, out bureaucrating a culture of military bureaucrats to stall for time while the DS9 crew finds dirt to blackmail the Cardassians with would have been great and probably darkly funny; this was just dull. Also, there’s no way the Fed would stand for a Starfleet officer being snatched out of a Fed shuttle in Fed space like that, smuggling weapons or no, or believe for one second the Cardassian claim weapons were on the shuttle in the first place, given their past experiences. This would have caused a major diplomatic incident, and the Fed embassy corps on Cardassia Prime would have been all over O’Brien like ants on a summer picnic.
The Jem’Hadar: Fun and Good. Trying to do something simple and succeeds. Quark’s rant to Sisko about Ferengi history is obvsl convenient writing rather than fact -in TNG they’re aggressive, needlessly violent cruel pirates who, I’m pretty sure, are explicitly slavers as well- but it SHOULD be right. They’d be more interesting as a culture built around a capitalism that never saw any profit in compulsion. Historically, while slavery pre-dated capitalism in Earthican societies, slavery as we think about it -dehumanization, brutality, murderous forced labor- has nigh-universally been associated with capitalism, and quite frequently with commerce(Greek, Roman, and American slavery were all basically built around ag production for commercial markets[though slave-artisans based in cities was a significant part of the Greek and Roman systems as well]). That internal contradiction, attached to a larger ethical distaste for direct, personal violence(and valorization of tattling that’d go along with the instinctive distress-cry DS9 gives to Ferengi), while still being the profit-driven thieves and schemers they are, would have been Compelling.
The Search is… OK. I mean, as television it’s fine. The plot doesn’t make any damn sense though. The Dominion makes it clear they don’t want the Fed entering their territory and the Fed’s response is… to infiltrate deep into their territory to find the Homeworld of their leaders and confront them with the only warship in the Fed fleet? This move is basically designed to start a war. Also, they seem to forget that they’ve had Odo come to the Gamma Quadrant before, so his whole “I feel drawn to this nebula” deal seems out of left-field. Also Also, they should have used The Defiant to add the Romulan liaison as a regular cast member, instead of bringing on Eddington and doing nothing with him. Having Sisko, who has had an excellent relationship with Odo until now, suddenly giving this speech about how he doesn’t like that Odo isn’t “a team player” is pretty ridiculous as well(and out of character. Sisko’s not a team player. His WHOLE CREW is made up of square pegs just like himself). Also Also Also, a Romulan security officer who spends a season or two building up relationships with the maincast, sashaying around being arrogant and cynical in Romulan kimonos during her off-time, gradually developing Maquis sympathies, becomes Sisko’s evil!Valjean and remains so until nearly the end of the series would have been a genuinely surprising character-arc requiring consistently good writing to sell, and kind of explain why, in later eps, the Romulans wouldn’t require one of their own to protect and operate the cloak. Or hey! Maybe her becoming a Maquis could begin as a plot to foment rebellion in the Fed, that’d be neat.
Equilibrium: Meh
Second Skin: Good in some parts, but that the journals would be what starts cracking Kira up isn’t believable and it just isn’t mindfucky enough. Also, Kira’s warmth towards her fake dad at the end of the ep didn’t feel earned. Maybe if they’d had her bond with him over having lost family in the Occupation.
The Abandoned: pretty offensively essentialist, really. Especially given the plotline later in the series(iirc) about a Jem’Hadar trying to break his people’s addiction to ketracel-White, which kinda undermines this eps whole “the Jem’Hadar have no will of their own and are genetically programmed soldiers that it’s useless to reason with” line.
Civil Defense: good. It remains unbelievable to me, though, that Starfleet wouldn’t have done a complete refit of the whole station the minute the Cardassians left, especially given the Star Trek obsession with hard-wired, analog computing.
Meridian: a noxious pile of garbage all round. The subplot is skeezy, but at least it’s in-character, well-written, and believable which the main plot certainly is not. I kinda wish that, if they were going to include such a scummy sub-plot in the ep, they’d at least made it a bit interesting by subverting expectations. At the end, have Tiron be at first taken aback, and then surprisingly pleased with Kira’s modifications to the program. He walks out, “deeply satisfied” with the program and pays 20% extra for it, compliments Quark on his “creativity” as a holodesigner with a slightly amorous look, Quark is clueless and confused yet pleased, Kira and Odo are absolutely mortified. Then maybe leave it around as a Chekov’s Gun; Quark makes a secret copy(of course), offering it to only his best customers, it leads to a small but noticeable increase in custom, then someday in a later season he checks it out and is Horrified to find he’s unknowingly made himself one of the most popular porn-performers in the sector :|
Defiant: fine as it is, except there should have been a bit about HOW the Maquis found out about the Defiant and knew about its cloak. This would be a good time to introduce the long-arc of the Romulan officer’s Maquis sympathies/attempts to use her position on DS9 to co-opt the Maquis and undermine the Federation.
Fascination: dumb and really Skeezy, Ferrell’s is the only entertaining performance in the ep, but, again, the smooch-directing of this series is uncommonly good. Also: Miles is not just a bad dad, but also a bad husband. Also Also: Bajor’s only 3 hours away in a runabout or shuttle for Frak’s sake? You can’t be bothered to go visit her?? People in Texas regularly make three hour drives every DAY.
Past Tense: One of my favorite eps of the series; heavily Nostalgic for me. Having now read To Say Nothing of the Dog, however, I do wish ST writers treated Time and Causality as more robust and stubborn than they tend to.
Life Support: The inevitable killing off of a past love-interest to free Kira up for Kirdo. Bareil was bland and boring anyway, even if his performances in S3 were much improved. Why the heck is the Kai negotiating treaties??? That the Kai and Vedeks plays a direct, institutional role in Bajoran politics needed to be established before jumping into a plotline about the Kai negotiating a secret peace pact with Cardassia. The subplot with Jake and Nog, which reduces the question of female personhood to a “cultural issue” in the context of Nog’s misogyny ruining Jake’s chances with a girl who never appears again(iirc), is repulsive in about a half-dozen ways.
Heart of Stone: Ho-hum. The Nog in Starfleet storyline is good, but they should have built up to it in previous eps. Wesley spends pretty much all his time before acceptance doing science experiments and apprenticing in various departments on Enterprise to build up his resume just to qualify to take the exams; having Nog accomplish the same task with a letter of rec is kinda |:T Also: wouldn’t Sisko have pointed out that, in the Fed and Starfleet, Nog’s “gift” would be interpreted as an attempted bribe and get him immediately arrested? Seems like an important cultural rule to point out to a Ferengi |:T |:T
Destiny: Good. Ulani and Gilora are obviously lesbians and I won’t hear another word on the matter u_u
Prophet Motive: Fun and Good, though the “evolved” talk re: social constructs and cultural modes was annoying.
Why are S3′s subplots so much better done than it’s main ones? I imagine the discipline of having limited time to complete them in has something to do with it. Some other observations:
A-plot B-plot structure is entirely standard in S2 and S3, probably because it’s an obvious way to include such a large cast, but then all the plots revolve around the same handful of characters, so the opportunity is wasted.
It’d have been nice if every species was given the same variety of clothing the Ferengi get to have. Having Caradassians wear mil uniforms IN THEIR OWN HOMES, and when they are scientists, is absurd.
DS9 continues the Trek tradition of having a real nebulous and unexplained relationship with money.
DS9 really needed more women writers and head-writers on staff. Why are male writers so bad at this???
I really need to get in the habit of taking notes while I watch so I can give more detailed reactions later -__-
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Mystic Messenger
Title: Mystic Messenger
Media: Game. Maker: Cheritz
Yandere(s): Jumin Han, Yoosung Kim, Ray (Real name: Saeran Choi)
Yandere Scale (In order as shown above): 1/5, 3/5, 4/5
Criticism written by: Kai
Editor: Julie
The Review:
Hey there everyone! Kai here and I’m coming back with another yandere review. This time around, I’ll be reviewing the incredibly popular otome game, Mystic Messenger. It’s one of my favorite otome games out there and I’m highly opinionated about this game. Cheritz is known to include at least one yandere in their games; Mystic Messenger being no exception to that rule. For Mystic Messenger, they have a whopping three yanderes and I thankfully played all their routes on my free time for fun. Now let’s check out their yanderes, hm?
(I’m just going to assume that everyone knows the story but if you don’t, you can read the summary here)
Jumin Han:
I’ll be upfront for everyone here: Jumin is my least favorite route out of all the guys in the game. I found it to be boring, too overhyped by the fans, and Jumin’s personality to be rather lame. That being said, take some of my opinions with a grain of salt.
Now then, is Jumin a yandere? Eeeeeeh, I guess?
I describe Jumin as “baby’s first yandere”. He’s very lowkey about it and anything to suggest he is a yandere is so vague that it just went over my head. I found myself having to scrutinize everything he does and say with a goddamn microscope. Spoiler alert: if your readers have to try really hard to look for evidence that he’s a yandere, then he’s not a very good yandere. Instead, I found the other characters having to tell me that Jumin, is in fact, a yandere. Every single chatroom that have the other characters talk about Jumin in his route all go: “Oh!!! You better watch out!!! Jumin is super possessive and obsessive about you MC!!!” or “Oh man!!! Jumin gives me the creep vibes!!! There’s something unsettling about him!!!”
I mean… I guess? Spoiler alert 2: If you have to have your side characters tell the MC that the male lead is a yandere (instead of just showing it), then he isn’t a good yandere. Like jesus Cheritz, what happened to you? You used to be pretty good in including yanderes in your games… Jumin is just… pathetic. It’s felt like they put up a bunch of neon signs around Jumin then forget to write him as a yandere. The only “yandere part” about Jumin was how he locked up the MC in his penthouse. But to be fair, the MC’s life was in danger and she willingly stays there. In fact, the whole “Locked up” part seemed rather half assed. Besides that, there wasn’t anything else about Jumin that makes him a yandere… well, besides the other characters telling me he is. Can you believe that Cheritz had the gall to compare Jumin to Jisoo from Dandelion (their other otome game)? That’s like comparing apples and oranges… just because they’re both fruits doesn’t make them the same thing.
Jumin’s route is so not worth to play if you’re hoping to “woo a yandere”. It’s honestly a waste of time and you’re better off googling Jumin’s bad end 2 CG if you want that yandere aesthetic. If you want to see some better yanderes, just check out the other two… Let’s talk about Yoosung.
Yoosung Kim:
It might come as a surprise by Yoosung was a far better and stronger yandere than Jumin. While the game was focusing so hard on portraying Jumin as a yandere, they never realize that they struck gold with Yoosung. Funny enough, I think the reason why Jumin was such a bad yandere was because cheritz concentrated on him so much that they fucked up and since they didn’t focus on Yoosung, that’s why he came out as a better yandere. But the only problem with Yoosung is that…
… He isn’t a yandere for you.
Yes, that’s right. Yoosung is a yandere but he is not a yandere for you. He is obsessed with his older cousin, Rika. Throughout his route, he won’t shut up about her. It’s “Rika this” and “Rika that”. Yoosung really tested my patients on how long I’ll stick to his route. Eventually though, Yoosung starts to the MC as his replacement for Rika. He sees Rika in the MC and start comparing the two… even thinking that they’re the same person. At some points, Yoosung really wants to turn MC into Rika. Yoosung likes you… but not THE you but the Rika version. Of course, for his good end he learns to differentiate between you two and learn how to love the MC as she is but it doesn’t change the fact that Yoosung was a yandere at certain points.
In the end, Yoosung is a yandere for his cousin. The only thing about him is A) he tries to end up with someone else by turning her into his cousin and B) he ends up loving someone else (the MC). Regardless on how you look at it, Yoosung broke our loyalty rule. I say go ahead and play his route if you want a yandere story and don’t mind being a cuck for 75% of his route. Yoosung got some pretty good yandere moments and bad endings.
Ray:
Oh my god. Ray was the best yandere I’ve seen throughout Cheritz’s games. He was damn near close to being the perfect yandere (well… my taste. But also he clicked off the ideal yandere check marks). Right off the bat, we see his clinginess to the MC, his mental instability, fear of losing the MC, and his jealousy to the other characters. He was such a sweetheart and to top it off he risked his life in saving the MC. Ray was *muah* the perfect recipe for an ideal yandere (my type). But unfortunately… Cheritz just had to ruin it.
Towards the middle Ray had a personality switch. Fearing that he wasn’t strong enough to protect the MC, Ray sort of… “killed” himself and created his alternative personality: edgy Saeran. I was absolutely heartbroken with Ray leaving for good and leaving behind that asshole. Immediately the new personality treated the MC sadistically. He starved her, spoke down to her, and was all round a piece of shit. BRING BACK MY BABY BOI CHERITZ, YOU FUCKING MONSTERS. COWARDS.
This was my last straw. I deleted Mystic Messengers right at that point and never opened it since. Ray was such a good yandere and they had to ruin it. Ray’s route is only good up to the point till his personality switch. After that it went down hill and he doesn’t even have any yandere bad endings. Fuck that.
Final thoughts:
Yoosung is the only route to play for completion if you want a yandere story. Ray was ideal but Cheritz ruined it and don’t even bother with Jumin’s route.
I have a love/hate relationship with Mystic Messenger. It was an interesting story and the concept was good in theory, but in the end the Cons out way the Pros. For one: the game is almost unplayable if you have a social life. The chatroom, phone calls, texts, and emails were a neat concept for interactive storytelling. But the issue lays in the fact you have to wait for these things to pop up. I don’t know about y’all but I have family, friends, a job, and school. Ain’t nobody got time to wait for that 2 PM phone call or that 1 AM chatroom. That’s fucking ridiculous. And don’t you tell me I can miss a couple of chatroom or phone calls. For one, it’s not like I’m missing one chatroom but multiple. I can have a pretty busy day and never have a chance to pick up my phone. Some of those chatrooms are pretty important if you want to get a good ending. There’s also the fact that I’m a completionist… I want to see ALL the content in the game. Not pick and choose what I have time for. And don’t bring up that it’s free or the hourglasses. I rather pay the game for the full price than do a microtransactions… and grinding for hourglasses is a bitch and you know it. I recalled I calculated how much it cause to complete all routes (The main cast. Not including V or Ray or the phone calls) by paying for all the missing chatroom or paying for the day… it was over $300 folks. $300 in microtransaction. Cheritz is fucking crazy. Thank god I fucking hacked this game.
There’s way more complaints about this game (like the emails. I’m tired of having three different walkthroughs up just to get through this god damn game) but I’m just talking about the main function for those interested in playing after read this review. Gameplay is really fucked and unfriendly for those with personal lives. Be ready to waste 7 days of your life to finish this game. All I’m say, Cheritz (even though I know they’re not reading), you guys should have two modes for Mystic Messenger: one where it’s like a standard otome game where the chatroom come one right after the other and you don’t get a penalty for missing chatrooms (the game actually pauses on where you stopped) for a flat rate price of what the entire game is worth… and then the free option where you play the game in the usual default state. That’s all I’m asking and it makes logical sense.
Anyways. That’s my gripe about the game and the yanderes. Play at your own discretion.
Overall Score: 7/10
(Side note: Honestly, I love the Mystic Messenger fandom but at the same time I wonder if we played the same game sometimes. The worst part is how some people won’t criticize Cheritz and their game. Like damn… some of y’all are more forgiving than Jesus Christ himself.)
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Atelier Meruru Plus Opinions
Meruru Plus is a game I feel very positively about, while also feeling like it was the most stressful game I played. On the one hand, it feels very much like Rorona, in that it's a game that's very fun and I would gladly pick up again to play. On the other, it's very difficult to get things done in time, and I don't think I've ever been as caught off-guard by some of the stuff that opens up when you think you’re done. It definitely makes it high on the replay value scale, but I also feel like getting everything I wanted done may as well have been impossible. Which...may be the point? But it’s still weird to me that I played through this game twice and still have less than half of all available characters outfitted properly. I don’t even think Gino has armor right now...
CHARACTERS
As a whole, characters are great, but Meruru is by far the lowest number of new entries to a game. Most of your playable cast is in returning characters, with only 4 (5 if you count Meruru herself) being complete new, and two of those are DLC in the base game. In a cast of 13 playable characters, the largest thus far, that's...a very small percentage. It's not bad, but it does kinda detract a bit from this being a separate kingdom. It's also tough for the newcomers, who can be fairly bland, to compete with the development that returning powerhouses bring.
Meruru - Meruru was my least favorite of the alchemists initially, but she's grown on me a lot. She's boisterous and loud, but is also presented as an alchemist who, more than the other two, is highly driven toward a goal with alchemy in mind. Totori arguably could've accomplished her goal just through physical training, and while Rorona's goals were entirely based in alchemy, it never really amounts to more than "keep the workshop." Meruru aims to develop her entire kingdom using alchemy, and I think it's a neat little parallel to the history we get at the start of Rorona Plus. More on that later, but Meruru just winds up being a really fun protagonist. Plus, as her alchemy skills develop, so does her personality. She shifts from seeming highly self-centered on just doing whatever she wants, to a character who is driven both for her own sake, but also for the sake of the people in her kingdom. It’s a really nice development path.
Keina - I like Keina. She's fine. But she is not very interesting. Her main character traits are being really lucky, and really devoted to Meruru. She doesn't really bring a lot to the table in terms of being interesting on her own, and serves more as an addition to Meruru. Her primary problem is just not standing out, which, again, is partly because of the returning characters.
Lias - Same issue. Lias has some fun stuff going on, in his own negative self-perceptions and having to overcome them, and his constant looking up to his brother as a role model. Like Keina, there are endearing traits, but he does feel entirely overshadowed.
Totori - TOTORI IS BACK! Totori is a delight, and honestly, I'm super glad she's back as Meruru's teacher. She does well as a foil to Rorona's teaching style, being very explicit and clear in her teachings, and a lot more hands-on than Rorona ever was. She's very involved in Meruru's learning, and the bond they have as teacher and student is really precious. Plus, her basic attack is a massive AoE, so she's fantastic in combat. And of course, there’s her interactions with...
Mimi - THE OTHER BEST GIRL RETURNS! And oh my god, what a return. I love adult Mimi's design, and she carries over the difficulties with expressing herself, but with her entire character arc this game being about trying to...okay, the game will say it's expressing her appreciation for Totori being her friend, but this is a love confession. These two are married now. Canon. The trophy is called “Friendship, Love” for god’s sake! Mimi's arc of trying to move past her resistance to being open and expressing her feelings for Totori is the most precious thing imaginable, and I love it.
Gino - Oh good, this guy. Gino returns, and has learned nothing. He's still the same knucklehead as before. I really have nothing good to say about Gino, so I guess it’s nice of him to make sure that not all returning characters were better than the new faces.
Esty - Esty shows up again, and her role as a sort of spy within Arls is...actually super cool. The entirety of the Arland group being here is interesting, really. For Esty, a lot of it is in how she examines others within the kingdom and brings Meruru along to get a closer look at her subjects to build that sense of commitment to her people. It's a nice little arc.
Sterk - Sterk is back again, and with the same knight complex as always. This time, though, he's within a kingdom with royalty left, and he once again pushes to become a true knight, only to be reminded that this kingdom is fading out too. He continues to struggle with moving past a dying dream, and it's a nice continuing story arc for Sterk.
Rorona - Okay, listen. Rorona's return is arguably the worst part of this game, not because of Rorona coming back, but how she does so. Why is she 8? Did we really need this plotline, Japan? Kid Rorona can be cute and all, but this is just...so bizarre to me. I really can't appreciate kid Rorona. At all.
Astrid - Astrid, being outside of the kingdom that she despises, should be more tolerable. The opposite happens. She demonstrates the same issues, where she's needlessly cruel to people who have done nothing to deserve this. It's just her nature to be awful to people, and it makes it really hard to appreciate her. It's worse this time because she tried to change Rorona back to her 14-year-old self and messed up, creating the awkward child Rorona piece. "Who wants a Rorona in her 30s?" ME, THAT'S WHO! WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS?
Rufus - Lias' older brother. I love this guy. The super-serious counter-point to almost everyone in the cast. Sterk winds up being an over-zealous crazy person compared to Rufus staying ever calm, and of course with Meruru he's a stern advisor who genuinely cares about his princess and wants her to succeed in her goals. He's a sweet and serious character, and I really appreciate that.
Pamela - WOO, PAMELA! Pamela's been in the other games as well, but only ever as a shopkeeper who is delightfully quirky. Now she's playable, and it's great. I wanted this so badly. Just a shame her basic attack is all elemental, so she's borderline useless against post-game bosses. At least, I’d imagine. I never really tried.
Hanna - Hanna has shades of Melvia, without being quite as bad. She's definitely the primary source of uncomfortable moments (most notably, the "someone's drunk" trophy from every game that's always super uncomfortable to get), but it doesn't feel like she's as...constant as Melvia. I'm still not a big fan of her, but there's at least some appreciation for her upbeat and energetic attitude.
Gio - This guy. The king of Arland shows up, and is basically a sort of advisor to Meruru, at times. Although, he's sort of far removed from a lot of the first run through the game. Only when you start NG+ do you start getting anything from him. Gio then gives his history as an adventurer with Meruru's father, and another alchemist named Sofra, and their ill-fated attempt to take down the demon of the volcano and how Sofra lost her life. It's a nice backstory, really, and is kind of Totori-esque in how it establishes Meruru as a successor to a legacy.
Hagel - This guy is back! That’s neat! He’s still great. No changes.
Homs - Male and Female Hom are both present here, and they can be interesting. They get a fun little sub-plot about their role as servants being completely invalidated by Keina’s maid expertise, and have some interesting conversations about the difficulties of rapid social change with the chims. Odd that the only characters that ever address this are the Homs...
Dessier - Did you know that Meruru’s dad was in this game? Because it’s real easy to forget, outside of the four scenes he shows up in and the Airshatter sidequest, the latter of which is solid, as it introduces him as a competent ruler who once had the same ambitions as Meruru, but lost that drive when Meruru’s aunt Sofra died trying to subdue the demon.
STORY
This is an odd one. Your story is that Meruru is a princess who hates being such, and wants to be an alchemist. Her father, the king, refuses, but she pursues it anyway, and with Rufus' help, an agreement is struck where she can use alchemy to develop the kingdom, but if she doesn't meet the goals that are set, she has to give up. The odd thing is, there's a simultaneous plot running where the kingdom of Arls is about to be integrated into the Republic of Arland. So Meruru won't even be royalty in a few years anyway, and developing the kingdom is...kind of a moot point, since the kingdom won't exist soon? It's really odd when you look at it from that angle, but I honestly think they’re going for something interesting on this one. The game focuses a lot on this theme of "the more things change, the more they stay the same." Meruru's entire arc with Keina is about how their changing roles won't matter in the grand scheme, since they're going to stay together regardless of what happens. That's a pretty good parallel to the game as a whole. The kingdom isn't going to be a kingdom anymore in a few years, but the development is for the individual people that make up the kingdom, not the stature of its royalty. It feels like it's an attempt to demonstrate what's important with Meruru's actions, and how the changes she makes will have a lasting impact for the people who won't change when the political climate does.
SETTING
I mentioned this in the Rorona breakdown, about how I feel like Meruru is a parallel to the bit of history we got at the start of Rorona. Part of this is because of Arls itself. It's...kind of a dump. All nearby locations tend to be overrun with plant life and untamed wilderness, and there are several areas that, just based on appearance, are run down and have little to offer even in the way of alchemy resources. Through development of the kingdom, things become better. Farmlands have actual crops, energy is harvested from the windiest areas, drinking water is diverted to the kingdom, and enemy threats are combated and removed. Meruru's actions turned a generally uninhabitable area into something that people would dwell in, and I feel like it's a good showing of how Arland came to be in its current state. Arls certainly doesn't feel any smaller in terms of locations you can go within its walls, but the safe locations outside of its walls has expanded dramatically, and I like to believe that this is exactly how Arland was developed back when their original alchemist began their work.
SYNTHESIS SYSTEM
Exactly like Rorona Plus. Like, almost exactly the same. There are a few things that are different, in terms of traits that can be inherited, but it's the same sort of Cost system with the combining of traits and everything. There are also development items that Meruru can equip that make certain actions easier. Rorona Plus also had these, though they were just kept in the Atelier and had their respective effects. For Meruru, they're equipment that you can put on or take off as needed to apply or remove the effects. Generally, you just put them on and leave them on forever, though there's maybe one time you might want a low quality Sage Herb for an Elixer that recovers MP.
BATTLE SYSTEM
Much like Rorona, it's very fast-paced, and your equipment is everything. You don't really need items at almost any point in the game, barring Elixers for end-game and maybe some good bombs. The biggest difference is the post-game bosses. In Rorona, post-game bosses required a good amount of items and planning. Things could still ultimately be completed with just attack skills of allies, but you needed items to cause debuffs and deal consistent damage, especially past bosses that would heal indefinitely. In Meruru? Just bring Gio. Bring Gio with Shadow Essence, skill cost reduction traits, and call it a day, because you do not even have to TRY anymore after that point. With Gio's Slash skill, which costs very little, you can potentially earn an extra turn. With Shadow Essence, you attack twice in one turn. So Gio will do a regular attack, then follow with Slash, an 99.9% of the time, gain another two turns, and can do this indefinitely. I beast most of the post-game bosses before they could attack. The only reason the Machina Domain final boss got a shot in was because I forgot which attack was which after getting distracted and Gio missed his turn. It was dead on his next action. There is zero challenge with these post-game bosses, and it's entirely because of Gio. I'd almost go so far as to say it's not fun because of it. The post-game bosses become a chore rather than a fight. You just have to keep up the pattern until they die, which isn't particularly engaging. Post-game superbosses are always hard to design, but these ones...I just don't feel like they're all that fun. Maybe if I replay and try to insist on beating bosses without using Gio there would be engagement, but with the amount of HP they have and the damage they deal, I kind of wonder if it's worth it.
OTHER MECHANICS
Development points replace license points from last game, and at set intervals your kingdom ranks up. The difference is, when you rank up a kingdom, you just get new requests for development, and maybe new characters showing up. Locations on the map can be accessed as soon as you move there. Your stopping points are because Meruru noted something interesting about the landscape, and you have to go back to Rufus to develop. Once you develop it the first time, you can progress through to the next area. This is a really cool system, and there's an area north of Arls that's really close by that opens up fairly early, but is SUPER hard to fight through because enemies are so strong. I honestly love that. I love when the game establishes boundaries not through arbitrary progression points, but by letting you go through and then brutally kicking your face into the dirt to say "Maybe come back when you are not baby weak."
The development points are also stockpiled and invested into different facilities. These facilities confer benefits, such as increasing experience for battle or synthesis, giving extra uses on items or reducing needed materials, and most importantly, giving you an allowance on certain days of the month, which is HYPER-VITAL, because money is tough to come by in this game, and you have a ton of characters to outfit. To give an idea: I have finished NG+, and still have only half my party fully outfitted. It's that rough.
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS
I think it's worth noting that endings are very, very different in this game. In the previous games, and even in subsequent games, endings are based entirely on character friendship levels. When you max a character's friendship and complete their events, you unlock that character's specific ending. Usually this is some manner of adventuring with that specific person, and that's it. With Meruru, endings are determined based on what you accomplish in the world. There's one ending for getting max friendship with all characters, and that one takes highest priority (barring the new Plus-exclusive ending), but the remainder are all based on what you accomplish. One is for meeting the population goals without anything else. Two are based on finishing the lizard army sidequest, one with beating Masked G and one while losing. Two are based on beating the volcano demon, one with Gio and one without. Three are based on creating the Potion of Youth again: one for completing it and nothing else; one for completing it once and reaching Alchemy level 50; and one for completing it twice, reaching alchemy level 50, and then creating a new type of potion that actually works. That last one takes FOREVER, and is, I believe, the highest-priority ending, which shows adult Rorona. And I gotta say...nice.
We also get a few of the uncomfortable fanservice moments in this game as well. They're less constant than Totori, but we still get the "Drunken Person" trophy, which has been in every Arland game and involves the main character getting molested by a drunk person. Oh, and there's a scene where you run into Hanna bathing naked. That was super necessary.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
Atelier Meruru is, much like Rorona, a very fun game. I think it has a bit more going for it in terms of an interesting story, but ultimately runs exactly the same. If there's any major faults, it's that the new characters are very few, and not all that interesting compared to previously introduced characters. Combat also tends to feel like a drag in the post-game, as the only real strategy needed to win is "Bring Gio, spam Slash." As a result, the game can really feel like it lacks teeth, especially when you get your best equipment set up. Still, all in all, it's a fun game that's definitely worth picking up.
If you enjoyed this (for some reason), consider checking out the write-ups for the other games in the series as well!
Atelier Rorona Plus
Atelier Totori Plus
Atelier Meruru Plus
Atelier Ayesha Plus
Atelier Escha and Logy Plus
Atelier Shallie Plus
Atelier Sophie
Atelier Firis
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New Post has been published on https://shovelnews.com/jonah-hill-joins-the-five-timers-club-on-a-uniformly-funny-saturday-night-live/
Jonah Hill joins the Five-Timers Club on a uniformly funny Saturday Night Live
Tina Fey, Jonah Hill, Candice Bergen, Drew BarrymoreScreenshot: Saturday Night Live
“I guess the worst part of the play was their confidence in it.”
“I’m not an actor, I’m a [movie, Netflix, directing] star!
It’s be nice to think that Jonah Hill has fully stepped out of his pigeonhole at this point. A couple of Oscar nominations, co-lead in an hit Netflix series, writer-director of a promising new coming-of-age movie, Hill has emerged from the Apatow star factory still straddling the line between serious artist and broad comedy movie star. (Sort of like James Franco, except that people actually seem to like Hill’s directorial debut and no one—as of this writing—has accused Hill of being a sex creep.)
That dichotomy showed up in Hill’s monologue, as SNL legend Tina Fey ushered new Five-Timers Club member Hill into the selective lounge set, where fellow FTC members Candice Bergen and Drew Barrymore celebrated his entry by showing an old sketch where Hill’s character admits to doing some serious damage to a toilet. Protesting that he does more than toilet humor now (“But that’s where you shined!,” enthuses Bergen), the disappointed Hill can only endure an all-ladies Five-Timers welcome, since, according to Fey, Bergen, and Barrymore, all the male members have turned out to be, well, sex creeps. (Steve Martin will just play his banjo “without consent.”)
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Saturday Night LiveSeason 44
Fitted with the coveted FTC smoking jacket, Hill is disappointed to find that the new female leadership has refashioned it into something like a kicky boldero number. It’s a neat little way to incorporate Hill’s evolving comic persona while still trading on the downtrodden victim vibe he carries with him, especially once Kenan pops in to remind everyone that his record-breaking seniority carries its own privileges. “This is my show. I let you in here sometimes,” he responds to Hill questioning his presence in the Five-Timers lounge.
Over at Vulture, AV Clubber Jesse Hassenger recently did a ranking of the relatively rare phenomenon of SNL hosts’ recurring characters, and placed Hill’s Borscht Belt six-year-old Adam Grossman near the top. I get it. For one, the field isn’t exactly littered with gold (glad I’m not the only one sick of the Omletteville guy), with most of the bits weathering even faster than those done by the actual cast. But Grossman keeps working as well as he does because of a character throughline, as the garrulous little guy keeps tossing out his inexplicable Catskills schtick to his unlikely Benihana co-diners alongside a series of guardians indicating the unstable family life that’s somehow spawned such a weird creature. Here it’s forbearing nanny Leslie Jones, sighing deeply as she weathers Adam’s insult comic “I’m just kidding” one-liners as Grossman attempts to puncture any tension his borderline racist material generates by proclaiming his age (complete with specific and funny awkward hand gestures). It’s never been my favorite sketch, but Hill (who created the bit alongside Bill Hader and Seth Meyers, based on a bafflingly tracksuited child diner Hader once sat with) is into it, and he suggests the merest hints of the defensive mechanisms that are powering Adam’s transformation into a hacky joke machine, which always lends just enough shadings to the idea. Leslie kept breaking, but, then again, so did I.
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Weekend Update update
There was a certain elegance to the way SNL kept weaving themes through its political material tonight, with jokes about Trump’s “caravan of scary brown people” terror tactics, and the importance of voting on Tuesday reinforcing each other throughout. Jost and Che were on, each landing their material confidently. On the caravan (of desperate asylum seekers that are a thousand miles away), Jost noted how Trump’s sweatily named “Operation Faithful Patriot” (where American troops are needlessly stringing barbed wire for a piece of election eve fear-mongering theater) sounds like a company that makes “reverse mortgages and catheters.” (Fox News commercial viewers get that.) Che followed up on the race-baiting scare tactics by urging that the old white people being hyped about the looming but nonexistent threat should be more worried about the less-easily-scapegoated specter of their grandkids stealing their pain pills.
On the election front, Che continued his role as Update’s resident “slow your roll” skeptic, confessing that, while he does intend to vote (on Tuesday, November 6, kids), he’s not going to buy into any “final notice for democracy” panic. Joking that, if final notices were actually final, his college debts would actually be paid, Che, as ever, positions himself for the long view, an edgy place to be in a time of national crisis (see, there’s that panic), but one consistent with his stance as a (black) guy who’s been living in a dangerous situation his entire life. For Jost (white guy), the jokes were less pointed, but not bad, as he noted that things are pretty dire when ice cream is taking a side, and that it has to be a complicated feeling when Oprah knocks on your door, only to present you with a pamphlet about Georgia governor candidate Stacey Abrams instead of a new car.
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Pete Davidson has become such a strange star on SNL, his very public statements about his battles with mental health and substance abuse and the recent ongoing saga of his tabloid-fodder relationship with now-ex Ariana Grande have made Davidson more of a personality star than anyone I can think of in SNL history. Pete’s never been the most polished sketch guy (although he’s improved), and his Update pieces as himself have always been his best showcase, especially since he’s sharpened up his material beyond the adorable stoner little brother schtick he started out with. Here, with newly-dyed hair and the elephant of his recent, much-publicized breakup hanging over his head, Davidson delivered a solid series of political takedowns in advance of the Tuesday midterm elections. Sure, they were all cheeky appearance smack (NY Republican Peter King looks like “a cigar came to life,” Florida candidate Rick Scott looks like “if someone tried to whittle Bruce Willis out of a penis”), but, for a young comic staking out political material for the first time in his life, it’s funny stuff. And since SNL has made hay all season long about Davidson’s rising media profile, his genuinely sweet and decent-sounding appraisal of ex Grande was both de rigeur and unexpectedly touching.
Melissa Villaseñor made the leap to the main cast this year, but hasn’t had much opportunity to show off her mimicry skills or her comic chops much on the young season. So, taking a page out of Heidi Gardner’s playbook, she debuted a specifically targeted character piece on Update, with her “Every Teen Girl Murder Suspect on Law & Order.” Honestly, it’s such a specific Gardner niche at this point that I was surprised to see Villaseñor in the chair, but Melissa did fine, as her Brittany—ostensibly there to talk about young adult literature—squirmed and equivocated about what happened to her friend Logan at that “big alcohol party.” Not to harp on the comparison, but Brittany wasn’t as immediately memorable as any of Gardner’s similar turns, even if Villaseñor delivered on the premise with a uniformly strong performance.
Just when I think I’m tired of Kenan Thompson’s Big Papi, he pulls me back in. It helps that there’s a reason for his appearance tonight, as, you know, the Red Sox won the World Series again. (That’s, like, what, four in 15 years, right? Huh. Cool.) Petty sports partisanship aside, Kenan’s performance as retired and beloved Boston slugger David Ortiz has never been the problem. Kenan’s Ortiz, with his nonsensical endorsements, gap-toothed ebullience, and food obsession, is an all-time belly laugh, his infectious enthusiasm for baseball, food, his spokesman deal for the concept of spokes, and simply being Big Papi is impossible to hate. (Presumably even for Yankees fans, whose team got clobbered in the ALDS 3-1, including a humiliating 61-1 loss on their home diamond.) But the jokes don’t change much (as in, at all). Thankfully, it’s been a while, the Sox won the series, and it was nice to see the big lug again. Mofongo all around.
Best/worst sketch of the night
Look, some of you are going to clamor for a “worst” tag on Kate McKinnon’s teacher sketch. You’ll point to both its unexplained weirdness and its languorous pace, and how it never quite announces its authority as something that should appear as early in the show as it did. Well, shush. This was great stuff, not as much for the sketch itself (it really could have used more writing punch to match McKinnon’s performance), as for how it represents the sort of oddball conceptual idea Saturday Night Live desperately needs to encourage. The premise of someone acting weird while other people comment on it is hardly new SNL territory, but, as McKinnon’s overly dramatic drivers ed teacher sprawls on the classroom floor and rambles on about her predicament and its meaning, it was like a cool drink to realize that the sketch wasn’t going to go out of its way to hammer the premise home with explanations for the slowest possible viewer. It was just weird for weird’s sake, and McKinnon, accusing her charges at laughing at her “like this was some episode of Friend,” worked within the framework of the sketch to craft an enigmatically loopy character whose comic integrity isn’t over-explained. There is room on SNL for a lot more shades of humor than its current template generally allows.
This week’s branded content sketch, on the other hand, was pretty unnecessary, even if some of the performances livened it up a little, as another NBC property got some free advertising. Not watching interminably long-running televised talent shows as a rule, I’m not particularly invested in how the celebrity judges were impersonated here (although Kyle Mooney’s perpetually amazed Howie Mandel got a laugh). But at least the joke that there are only a very few possible narratives to every contestant’s journey on such shows took the piss a bit, and Cecily Strong, Kenan and Leslie, and Jonah Hill all sang their hearts out as the contestants who are probably terrible—but then are shockingly not terrible!
Also not terrible but not that surprising was the newscast sketch, where Cecily Strong’s weatherperson is nonplussed by boyfriend Hill’s decidedly unwelcome on-air proposal. Hill manages to create a nicely realized character is his unimpressive suitor, unwisely wearing a green shirt in front of Strong’s green screen and even more unwisely busting out a proposal rap. And the bit even has a decent turn, when Strong reveals that her refusal was only because she’d planned an elaborate on-air proposal of her own. I kept waiting for the reveal that Strong’s too-perfect twist was only in the downtrodden Hill’s head, but the sketch decided to let the improbable duo have their happy ending, so that’s nice.
“What do you call that act?” “The Californians!”—Recurring sketch report
Adam Grossman, Big Papi.
“It was my understanding there would be no math”—Political comedy report
With SNL’s resident guest Trump Alec Baldwin otherwise occupied (and pointedly joked about), the show opened with the always more-profitable tack of doing Trump without Trump. With Kate McKinnon adding Fox News talking head and smirking white supremacist Laura Ingraham’s glint-eyed provocation to her long list of current right-wing a-holes (“No, you’re an a-hole,” McKinnon’s Ingraham responds to her viewer mail), the sketch ran through the usual roster of weekly outrages. Finding ways to satirize the news at this point is a thankless task since reality is so far beyond satire that our pals at The Onion can essentially just transcribe stuff. Here, the jokes leant on hyperbole to make comedy out of Fox and friends’ (and Fox And Friends’) daily klaxon blare of racist bullshit designed to make white parents vote against their self-interest. Like Trump’s ginned-up, racist, Hail Mary, pre-midterms caravan, which Cecily Strong’s appropriately wild-eyed Jeanine Pirro’s claims contains such terrifying, non-white figures as “Guatemalans, Mexicans, the Menendez brothers, the 1990 Detroit Pistons, Thanos, and several Babadooks.” Similarly, Kenan Thompson’s cowboy-hat-wearing disgraced former Sheriff David Clarke showed footage of the caravan in the form of a swarm of migrating crabs. “And those are humans?,” gently presses McKinnon’s Ingraham, to which Clarke replies, “Basically, yeah.”
Unlike Baldwin’s uninspired Trump, which serves as a crutch for some very one-dimensional writing as a rule, the satire here is more layered. There are the performances, which are uniformly great. (McKinnon and Strong don’t need more praise at this point, but they are both outstanding, nuanced comic actresses). And the sketch casts a wider net, encompassing Ingraham’s fleeing sponsors (and the reason why), leaving her thanking warm ice cream, nurse’s sneakers, and White Castle. (“A castle for whites? Yes please.”) And, divorced for now by Baldwin/Trump’s absence, the cold open works to lay the groundwork for some recurring satirical themes for the rest of the show. There’s GOP voter suppression, here prodded along by Ingraham giving non-white voters the wrong advice. There’s Fox’s feverish efforts to mock the very idea that Donald Trump is a bigot. (“Except for his words and actions throughout his life how is he racist?”) And there’s the transparent propaganda of Trump’s latest “brown people are coming at you from below” propaganda, with McKinnon claiming that Trump’s try-hard gung-ho operation is actually named “Operation Eagle With A Huge Dong” and bragging that there will be “five armed soldiers for every shoeless immigrant child.”
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Hey, there’s a midterm election coming up on Tuesday, so vote in that. Pete Davidson ended his amiably goofy Update stint by urging everyone to vote, as did musical guest Maggie Rogers (via T-shirt), and, in the Vote Blue campaign ad, so did a roster of very fucking nervous Democrats. While polling shows that maybe, perhaps, enough Americans are motivated, pissed, and goddamned terrified enough to actually go out and vote on Tuesday (yes, this coming Tuesday, you) to put some checks in place against Donald Trump and his GOP accomplices in dismantling democratic norms, environmental regulations, and civil rights of any kind, well, we’ve seen sweaty Democratic overconfidence explode in our faces before. That’s the message here, as the person-on-the-street interviews parroting optimistic election messages all veer into a series of forced grins, shaking hands, binge-drinking, eyes-averted mumbling, and, in the case of Heidi Gardner’s tremble-voiced suburban mom, hair-trigger panic. “Get inside until Tuesday!,” she snaps at her frolicking children, while Hill’s anxious doctor tries to take comfort in the fact that Nancy Pelosi predicted a big victory on Colbert, and Leslie Jones grits her teeth in her stated faith that “white women are going to the right thing this time.” Pitch perfect stuff, right down to Aidy Bryant hauling off to slap teenaged son Pete Davidson when he jokes about forgetting when Election Day is. (It’s Tuesday. November 6. Check here for all the necessary info you need to vote. On Tuesday.)
“HuckaPM” continued SNL’s baffling comedy position that literally every woman involved in the Trump administration is secretly ashamed of her role in, well, every shitty thing Trump and the Republican Party does. You know, despite the fact that there is no evidence to that in the public or private actions of any of them, including (or especially) the sketch’s target, White House Press Secretary and sneering daily mouthpiece for whatever bigoted nonsense dribbles out of Trump’s Twitter account in the middle of the night, Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Still, this sketch works because of Aidy. Good god, is Aidy Bryant great at physical comedy. Even if one can’t follow the show’s premise that there is some glimmer of humanity in Sanders’ soul somewhere, Aidy sells the hell out of the idea that only a sleeping pill loaded with quaaludes and “what Michael Jackson’s doctor called ‘one-and-dones’” can knock Sanders out after a day of claiming that “CNN spelled backward is ISIS” and that Trump’s caravan boogeymen includes ravenous chupacabras with a trio of outstandingly timed and committed falls. Sometimes performance overcomes everything else.
The off-Broadway show short film trafficked in a sort of joke that never doesn’t work on me, so I’m going to allow myself to be pandered to. The main joke—that an actor-written topical revue is not very well written—is fine. (I loved how at least two of the numbers shamelessly aped Hamilton). But I’m just a sucker for jokes where scathing review blurbs are read out as if they’re raves by an enthusiastic voice-over guy, and these had me laughing. “This is helping no one,” and “Whose parents paid for this?” were good, but the New York Times critic’s economical “Jesus Christ!” got me out loud.
I am hip to the musics of today
Maggie Rogers came out flat in her SNL debut. Like, vocally, very flat for her first song of lilting, pretty pop. It was the sort of wobbly beginning that could knock a fledgeling performer right off her pins, but, to her credit, Rogers came back stronger in the second number. It helped that that song was more uptempo and didn’t highlight a delicate introductory vocal, but, still, props to Rogers for pulling it together. As Adam Grossman might bellow, “Redemption song!”
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Most/Least Valuable (Not Ready For Prime Time) Player
Ego Nwodim got a line. Keep plugging, new kid.
Otherwise, in an exceptionally strong night for the female cast, Kate wins it by a whisker, edging out Cecily and Aidy.
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“What the hell is that thing?”—The Ten-To-Oneland Report
While it’s no “Whiskers R We,” “Wigs For Pugs” ably carried on the ten-to-one tradition of doing adorably weird stuff with animals, as Hill and Cecily Strong played a couple of clearly mobbed-up entrepreneurs whose pug toupee business is in no way “a front for something.” Mainly, it’s just pugs in wigs, with a succession of very chill pugs getting carried out in their hairy finery, but sometimes that’s enough. And Hill, Strong, Aidy, Mooney, and Kenan (as a guy making pug beards) are thoroughly committed to their characters in a broad yet deadpan way that adds another level to the premise. Pugs in wigs. What more do you need, people?
Stray observations
Kenan’s Clarke cites his caravan sources as “the crows from Dumbo,” echoing Clarke’s description of his current state as “unpopular with my own people.”
McKinnon’s Ingraham refers to Baldwin as “disgraced former actor Alec Baldwin” and shows a clip from “Canteen Boy” to explain.
Che claims that the country would be doing better if red state parents would stop “sending all their liberal kids to coastal cities to do improv.”
Pete Davidson, addressing his new blue hair, claims he looks like “a guy who makes vape juice in a bathtub,” and “a Dr. Seuss character who went to prison.”
Melissa Villaseñor’s teen suspect finally breaks down, telling Jost that she only stabbed her dead friend as a joke, “but Logan took it the wrong way and started bleeding.”
Big Papi for Apple Watch: “You gotta watch your apples or a monkey’s gonna steal them, man!”
Vote on Tuesday.
The Red Sox won the World Series.
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Source: https://tv.avclub.com/jonah-hill-joins-the-five-timers-club-on-a-uniformly-fu-1830206395
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