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sanstropfremir · 3 years

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would love to hear ur thoughts re. these street woman fighter's performances and who you would personally vote as the "better dance crew" in how they interpreted each other choreos and the song.

this was for their first elimination round (ep4) and it was interesting to hear from the judges + why they gave the points they did. (i'm not entirely sure if you're watching the show's episodes. they are roughly 2 hours long. so if you would like more context, pls let me know! i wrote brief comments underneath each one as well as the winners [spoilers ahead!]. assuming you are not: for this mission, each crew is paired with another crew and they have to choreograph one of the soloist songs. songs were "split" into two parts: part one [would be one song] and part two [another song]; one crew would choreograph one part and follow the other's crew choreograph for the other part.)

1. boa - eat you up (want choreo) + better (ygx choreo). dance crews: ygx vs want

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCfK_qWAhM0&ab_channel=MnetTV

winner: ygx. boa gave 151 pts to ygx and 49 pts to want (the biggest gap in points between crews), sharing that although want choreographed eat you up, ygx was more cohesive (pointing to how want wore hats and it was messy). additionally, ygx had better stage presence and was able to capture the camera more. also, because ygx is the only crew to have a b-girl and use it in their routine, the judges applauded want for doing the best they can.

2. cl - doctor pepper (wayb) + hello bitches (prowdmon). dance crews: prowdmon vs wayb

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEEpZ9SrvaE&ab_channel=MnetTV

winner: prowdmon. judges shared that doctor pepper's routine is a trademark of wayb and that they should have been the standout. however, they felt like prowdmon did it better.

3. hyuna - crazy (4minute) (coca n butter) + i'm not cool (hook) + lip and hip (hook). dance crews: hook vs coca n butter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1ikpPKEA30&ab_channel=MnetTV

winner: hook. the two dance crews are VERY different in terms of style. coca n butter is described to be more hip-hop while hook is definitely more reflective of the current/newer trends. (when hook was first introduced in the show, they were known as the crew who was famous only for tiktok dances.) the judges shared that hook was more fun and interesting, given their stylistic choice of wearing the pink wigs. whereas it seemed for coca n butter, they felt like something was lacking (they showed something but it didn't feel they did.)

4. jessi - what type of xx (lachica) + nununa (holybang) + gucci (holybang). dance crews: holybang vs lachica

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtZzI11oyqc&ab_channel=MnetTV

winner: lachica. (this was the only battle where both crews came in v close pts. whereas for the other crews, there were huge point-gaps.) judges had a hard time choosing, sharing that for lachica they were more detail-oriented while holybang had better teamwork.

imo, i agree with the judges' choices. though i would have to say i think wayb did their routine (doctor pepper) better than prowdmon. they stood out to me then, but when it came to the second part (hello bitches), prowdmon was better. i loved lachica's performance - it was v clean + reminded me of something a kpop group would do (which like, the crew largely works with kpop acts like chungha, boa's better, etc. so it makes sense).

this was LONG. thank u if u do read it and post! i miss the kingdom "era" when u would post weekly reviews. the two are v different but this new mnet competition show is the only one i'm invested in. i'm not sure if it's big internationally? i know it is v popular in korea right now. while i've only seen i-fans talk about the show as it relates to chaeyeon (want) because she's an idol. - swf (streetwomanfighter) anon :]

omg this is so long and well organized, forget me writing reviews anon you should do it!! i'm not currently watching the full episodes but i've been catching the few clips that pop up in my youtube recommended occasionally, so i definitely don't have all the context but i'll take a crack at it!

ok so my assumption/from what i can tell, they have a bit of leeway to alter the competing group's choreo as needed to better suit numbers and formations. i also went and found the individual versions of these because why did they make them so small on the split screen, don't they know i'm old and wear glasses. also: MNET FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY STOP MOVING THE FUCKING CAMERA. WE DO NOT NEED SCROLLING VERTICAL BOOM SHOTS OF THIS. just keep the same lens at eye level it's really not that hard. this is like, one of the worst possible ways to shoot dance it is SO annoying. ok i'm done bitching about that let's go.

1. boa - ygx vs want i agree with the big point gap on this one, and i think want made a couple of choices that were not cohesive enough, and obviously they also got set up to fail by ygx. actually i think both groups made choices that were not particularly good, but ygx had more of the skills to back up what they were doing than want did. breaking is very difficult and requires a lot of upper body strength and a higher centre of gravity, which are two physical traits that are less common in women. personally i wouldn't have tried to break to better because although boa songs do have more of a beat than other idol music, it's still not at all the right type of music for breaking. it's gotta be fast, breakers rely on speed, because it's all about momentum; they're literally throwing themselves around the stage. here's the final from battle pro 2019 for example. the music is basically beats only; heavily lyric based music, like idol music, is bad for battling in general because there isn't a lot of consistency. i have more to say about this but i'm getting off track. basically by choosing to handicap the other team (because they don't have a bgirl at all) they shot their own bgirl in the foot because the song is too slow to properly show off her skills. i applaud want for making bold choices, like the hatwork and attempting the breaking, but ultimately when combined with their styling the performance looks disjointed. also they have some formation cohesion issues that make it look a bit like they'e struggling to keep up, even with their own choreo.

2. cl - prowdmon vs wayb i agree with the judges, i think prowdmon bodied the wayb choreo. i actually thought that was their choreo at first. they have the best presence that i've seen of all the groups and the performative "hard bitch" attitude fit in with their genre setting. wayb had several mistakes and synchronization issues that in my opinion made them look sloppy in comparision to prowdmon, who were sharper and had two more people to put into formations. 3. hyuna - hook vs coca n butter ok personally i don't like either of these choreos, but i'm agreeing with the judges here, i think hook's was the mildly more engaging. i can tell that they're very young and do mostly short form tiktok content because i see a lot of eye catching moves, but i don't see a lot of strong connective tissue between those moves. they have good ideas but they also really struggle with putting people into formation and balancing it out well. it doesn't help that they're a seven member crew going up against a four member one, so they have three extra people to figure out what to do with. there's a lot of empty space where there are members waiting in position for a group formation. it also doesn't help at all that they (mnet) appear to just be rawdogging the songs together without any kind of mixing, which is a huge detriment to groups that have to choreograph for two in their section. i'm not cool and lip and hip have two totally different feels and kudos to hook for at least trying to get them to at least visually be cohesive when mnet is go girl giving us nothing sonically. coca n butter has much more of an old school hip hop style, so putting these two up against each other was (probably a random lot draw) an interesting choice. personally i would have been more interested to see hook against want with the boa tracks and ygx against coca n butter with the hyuna tracks. however, i think the reason why coca n butter's stage felt like it was lacking is because they tried to emulate hyuna, without having the stage presence or the weirdness of hyuna. it feels like they're trying too hard and there isn't really any personal character in the piece, versus with hook, who embodied hyuna's weirdness a little more authentically and took a completely different direction. 4. jessi - lachica vs holybang lachica took this one easily, although their formations were a bit wonky for nununana, they covered it fairly well and i think they managed the best transition between songs (between nununana and gucci). they were sharper with good stage pictures and had a good gimmick with the double fringe on the gloves and hats. holy bang had some issues fitting their extra person into the what type of x choreo, but they did well with their own choreo. however, like with coca n butter and hook, because lachica took a new visual spin, this felt too derivative of jessi, so it wasn't that interesting for me to watch. i do think they are one of the groups on the stronger end of skills and presence. --- as far as visually what performances i liked the best, since would this even be a writeup by me if i didn't talk about design, here's a quick breakdown:

prowdmon - got some rudimentary setpieces, got a theme, got some fun variations on a uniform look; excellent for what i assume was limited budget capacity and also it's a dance crew show.

lachica - great continuity of effect in costuming with the fringe, and using the gloves as a mouth/lip effect was one of the most interesting choices of these routines.

hook - the pink wigs and the black latex on the checkered floor was a nice gimmick that was a bit of a nod to hyuna's weird without being too derivative. i'm not expecting a whole lot because these are dance crews but i think this was a decent amount of styling effort.

want - they made a bold choice with the hats and even though it didn't quite pay off for them i still respect it.

coca n butter/ygx/holybang/wayb - ygx and wayb did basic hip hop type styling and while it's absolutely fine, it's just boring. holybang went for a directly inspired jessi look, and although yes bodysuits, overall it wasn't that interesting either. coca n butter get props for doing a costume change and actually incorporating that into the choreo but it feels too much like it's trying to be hyuna weird with the caution tape strapped over their tits and asses.

---

as a final note/question to you, my lovely invested swf anon, what's the format of the show? are there stages like this every episode to review? if these were from the fourth one only, is there anything worth me reviewing in the first three? i'm not particularly interested in the aggressive competitive nature of the show and editing so i don't particularly want to watch the full two hour episodes, but if you think it's worthwhile for me to review stuff then i will. otherwise if there's a set structure (like with kingdom) i can seek out the stages specifically and review them if i know what i'm looking for.

#street woman fighter #swf #swf reviews #i dont really know what the international reception is. the very few people ive seen talking about it on twt #have been insane kpoppies disrespecting boa. so not the best ifan showing so far #am i back in my review era already???? we shall see #(while i still have like EIGHT different asks left. if you wonder why im taking so long to get to some of them. that is why)#(OH plus the first half of the stylings post. and the fabled fave choreos post. so many things in my drafts rn)#(but also please dont stop sending me questions it makes me very happy. the gerbil in my brain is just slow)#dear anon who just asked me about red lights and kink. mwah you are welcome to slide into my dms anytime you like #wait by putting kink in the tags did i just invite a bunch of pornbots onto this #whatever lmao #might need to start a new organizational tag for this because it's only kpop adjacent. thoughts for later #text #answers #ngl these group names are gonna drive me insane. why are all dance crew names so fucking weird

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madame-fouquet · 3 years

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2020 Anime Retrospective

With the end of the year here, and all the anime that came with it now behind us, I feel like looking back and reminiscing on it. So, following the style of ANN's own yearly retrospectives, may I present my 2020 anime in review! Enjoy.

Best of the year: Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken

This is actually not the first time Yuasa and his crew of, let's be honest, visionaries have rolled something special out right at the beginning of the year in some weird power move against everything else that has to follow it. They did it back in 2018 with Devilman Crybaby, and then they hit us this year with Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken. You ever have one of those shows where you're just constantly in awe of everything it does? Where you never found yourself chasing merch or hunting after content based off it online, but you consistently find yourself thinking about it? Yeah, that's what Eizouken did to my brain after I watched it. It was such an earnest love letter to anime and anime production, to animation in general, that I couldn't help but get sucked into its imagination and enthusiasm. The way it was able to so perfectly illustrate that pure, boundless, childlike joy that one can derive from the simple act of creating, I'd be lying if I didn't say that it had a powerful effect on my own desire to continue creating. (Corny as that sounds, it's true.) The sheer amount of love it contains, and the equal amount it puts out into the world make it so I know I am going to be thinking about it again and again for a long long time.

Runner-up: Akudama Drive

I don't know if it's really quite a matter of my two favorites being opposites, but there are definitely some pretty sharp stylistic and tonal differences between my two top shows this year. Akudama Drive's cocaine-fueled bender of an intro episode made it very clear what it's intentions were and what it wanted us to be prepared for. That doesn't mean I had ANY idea of where it was headed narratively, but I did know I was in for one hell of a ride. And it delivered is spades on that promise. The twists and turns, no matter how insane, illogical, or steeped in tropes they were, were all such a colorful energetic spectacle that it would be hard to hold anything against the series. Every character was such a force that I didn't really consider any of them a weak point. Yeah, some of them were more or less cardboard cut-outs of antagonistic elements, but when the cardboard cutout looks REALLY FREAKING COOL, it's hard to get too torn up over the details. It's a show that oozes style and knew EXACTLY what it wanted to do and be, and I have to respect that.

Runner-up-up: Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun

The next few entries aren't really in any sort of order, I actually found it near impossible to sort anything below my top two. Hanako-kun however does hold a bit of a special place for me though because, at least from a stylistic standpoint, it hits so many of my buttons. Just visually this show is the exact kind of thing my younger self would have latched onto immediately, even before knowing anything about the actual content. I suppose not much has really changed though. I'm absolutely in love with the animation style of Hanako-kun, and I got really lucky that there is an interesting story and delightful cast of characters underneath that visual splendor. Along with the sharp lines, intense colors, and soft characters, I'm also a sucker for contemporary supernatural mysteries. That's a fancy way of saying one of my favorite shows as a kid was The X-files, but both make the point pretty well. The world of Hanako-kun has a lot to offer, and I can only hope it gets a second season so we can continue to delve into it's beautiful and terrifying mysteries.

Runner-up-up: Kaguya-sama: Love is War Season 2

I know a lot of people will be talking about this one when it comes to “Best of” lists. I know a lot of people were talking about the first season when it reminded us just how funny anime can be back in 2018. Absurd high school comedies (Is that a genre?) could definitely be considered my favorite. Hell, of my top five favorite anime of all time, THREE of them fall under that category. So believe me when I say Kaguya-sama absolutely deserves the deluge of praise it receives. For what describing something as “laugh out loud” is worth, this show had me constantly needing to pause it just so I could finish laughing at whatever ludicrously funny misfortune had just befallen it's cast of lovable morons. The thing is though, Kaguya-sama understands that you can't just earn love and goodwill on laughs alone, there needs to be a beating heart at the center of all the shenanigans. And when this season had me actually cheering on and feeling sorry for Ishigami of all people, I knew that beating heart was present and accounted for. Look, the cast are all self-centered idiots, but I'll be damned if they aren't also my dear children who I delight in watching slowly grow and become slightly less self-centered idiots.

Runner-up-up: Dorohedoro

When the Dorohedoro anime was first announced, a lot of my experience was watching a group of people online scream about how they were so pumped that it was finally getting an anime. I had never heard of it before, but the excitement was very real and tangible. And I gotta say, sometimes you need to believe the hype. I've never been one to shirk a series just because it was CG animation, (Watch ID-0 dammit!) but Dorohedoro makes a strong case for why people shouldn't sleep on something based solely on it's animation. The dirty, grease-encrusted world of Hole is brought to life with plenty of flair and style that, I feel, the CG didn't hold back at all. What I had seen said was that for a long time Dorohedoro was kinda considered “unanimateable” but I think MAPPA did the iconic manga a fair amount of justice. Even if pulpy ultra-violence isn't normally your thing, I still highly recommend giving Dorohedoro a look, it might just end up being a hole worth going down.

Honorable Mention: Show By Rock!! Mashumairesh!!

I know what you're thinking, but hear me out. The first Show By Rock!! was definitely an indulgence for me. While not something I considered a high level series by any stretch: messy plotting, shallow characters, a weird isekai angle, a lackluster finale, and an even MORE lackluster second season, it still got is hooks into me with its sheer energy and fluffy charm. So despite the, as mentioned, rough second season, I was more than happy to check out the new series in the franchise. And boy was I glad I did. Mashumairesh!! takes all the heart and sweetness that worked for the first series and dials it up. It then took a hard look at a lot of what DIDN'T work in the first series, and manages to fix most of the issues. Removing the isekai angle and the whole existential threat thing, and just letting the series be a “slice-of-life but in an electric animal filled music world” did wonders for the direction and consistency. Add to that more properly fleshed out characters, and you get a series that is far stronger than it's progenitor. The next series, Show By Rock!! Stars!!, will be adding back the cast from the first series, and that could very well be a sign that it will be falling back into its old habits, but the presence of the Mahumairesh!! girls gives me hope that it might have a chance of staying the new, far better course.

Worst of the Year: Digimon Adventure:

This one really hurts to say. What hurt more was how quickly I knew what show I'd be electing for this position. One thing to clarify is that I would not nominate a series that I'd only watched one or two episodes of, that's just not fair. So the award was bound to go to something I had at least dedicated a decent amount of my time too. And in any other year this may have gone to something that was more my “least favorite” or had an ending that disappointed me. But unfortunately I have to be honest and sit here and tell you that the newest entry in the Digimon franchise was easily the worst thing I watched this year. I have been a long time Digimon fan. Ever since I was but a wee lass watching the original Digimon Adventure premiere on Fox Kids at a family reunion, I have always considered the franchise a sort of cornerstone of my anime fandom. So please understand the excitement I had felt when I found out they were doing a full on remake of that flagship series. Imagine how absolutely pumped I was when the bombastic movie-like premiere of Digimon Adventure: wowed us with everything it delivered, and all the promises of what was to come. And then imagine my disappointment, my despair as the show devolved until it showed us what it really was during the finale of the Fake Tokyo arc. I would call it a production meltdown, but considering the precedent that got set back in episode 10 during the already shaky Ultimate Evolution arc, has been so clearly informing everything up to the current episodes in the early 30s, I have to be honest with myself and admit: this is what we were going to get all along from day one. All of the heart that had made the original series so endearing, despite its own flaws, just isn't present here. What you get here is just a non-stop (and I mean non-stop) string of barely related fights with poorly-defined stakes, or sometimes no real stakes at all. It's just one ugly set piece fight after another as the children chase after vaguely implied evils. I think the most damning thing is how much more I could say about just how much this series has let me down. Like I said, this one hurts.

Best Theme-Song of the Year: Night Running (BNA)

My opinion of BNA as a series is complex. But my opinion of its ED, Night Running, is simple: Its a god-damned bop! I could spend this whole section talking about the artistry of the ED animation itself, its fun and creative use of color, the slight variations for certain episodes, the focus on character, or the fact that it was done by an American animation team. I could even talk about the song's importance to the series as a whole and its place in the narrative. I won't though. The fact of the matter is that even without all that, I STILL probably would've picked Night Running as my best of the year because as a song it is just that much my jam. This is the kind of shit I could listen to on repeat for hours, days, weeks, and still keep coming back to it. Don't get me wrong, Ready To is a damn powerful and catchy tune that goes hard, but at the end of the day, I'm a sucker for a soulful pop tune like Night Running. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWTFfEnMCCc

Best Character: Sayaka Kanamori

This was actually probably the hardest category for me to decide on. It was stuck hard between Eizoken's Kanamori and Akudama Drive's Doctor. I know those are a powerfully different pair in basically every way, but it was specifically for their startling differences that both characters stuck out to me so much. In the end though, it was the poignant rounding out of, and emotional hooks of Kanamori's character that let her triumph over her delightfully two-dimensional opposition. Kanamori already had me from episode one. In a show that I wasn't really worried about the usual diversions of anime ingestion like picking a favorite character, Kanamori sealed herself as “Best-girl” from the word go. I have mad respect for a girl who knows what she wants, and has a clear idea of how she's going to go about getting it (See also: Doctor.) But Kanamori was more than a driving desire for success and money. Underneath her unstoppable ambition there was a very real, very relatable driving impetus. She stood apart, and yet still believably vulnerable and invested in the people she associated with. It was always a blast watching her suffer as the only thing keeping the more creative minds on track, and yet she was never reduced to a simple task master; her love and respect for her friends was always clearly visible. I could go on and on about how Kanamori is a nearly perfect character, but I hope I've said enough already without having to resort to senseless rambling.

Best Moment: Howan confesses her feeling to Himeko (Show By Rock!! Mashumairesh!!)

By the time episode six rolled around, Mashumairesh!! had already shown marked improvements over its progenitor in basically every area. Not only was the story in a better place by focusing on what had worked in the original series, (Ya know the BAND part of this show about bands) but the cast was also doing a good job of standing out from their seniors and feeling more equally rounded out. Where the original series had just kinda been the Cyan show with guest stars, I felt like I had an actual grip on all four of the main girls now. There were however the usual issues that come with a cute-girls-doing-cute-things series, chief among them the “ambiguously gay member of the group who constantly reacts with clear romantic interest towards the main protagonist but the writing will never actually do anything with those feelings” trope. Retoree had spent the better part of the first two seasons fawning over Cyan only for nothing to come of it and, despite the increased focus on all of the girls this time around, it looked like we were going to get the same old song and dance with Himeko's feelings towards Howan. But then the climax of episode six hit and, midst a really intense subplot about Himeko's abandonment complex, Howan comes out with a straight up love confession. And I kept waiting for the usual dead-ends these moments always seem to have. The “I love you! I love the girls too! I love the band!” Or a “I love being with you.” and the dreaded, “I love having you as my most precious friend.” But none of that happened. It was a full on heart-felt, “I love you, Himeko. I want to stay with you forever!” I'm just not used to getting that sort of straightforwardness from my silly little band shows, so I was shocked, but also completely overjoyed. And frankly the series just kept getting better from there. The evolution of their relationship built off that moment, no dreaded resetting of the status quo. I daresay it was on the power of this moment alone that I wanted to include this series in my top five at all. If there was anything I would want other anime to take from Mashumairesh!! it's that it's okay to introduce radical changes to character relationships partway through a season, and it's okay to let characters unequivocally state their feelings for each other. People will respond positively to that earnestness, I promise.

#anime #keep your hands off eizouken!#sayaka kanamori #akudama drive #toilet-bound hanako-kun #kaguya sama wo kataritai #kaguya-sama love is war #dorohedoro #show by rock #show by rock mashumairesh!!#howan #mashima himeko #digimon #digimon adventure:#BNA #Brand New Animal #Night Running

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misdre · 5 years

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Aoki Takao website translations post #1

i come with actual content today, we were discussing the bakuten shoot concept art that aoki has published on his website and there was some really goddamn funny stuff in there that i haven’t seen translated by anyone here so i just started doing it myself. here’s the first three pages where aoki talks about the early manga and stuff. i made these translations pretty fast so the language isn’t super perfect or anything but who cares lbr. texts in square brackets are my own additions. (i’ll translate more later, i got actual things to do today!!)

Preface

"While a manga is in the manuscript phase, it belongs to the author. Once it's become a book, it belongs to the readers." That's always been my philosophy for doing manga. I didn't talk much about Bakuten Shoot Beyblade after the serialization ended in 2004, so I only hoped that the characters would keep living on in the readers' hearts. However, since the RISING sequel was serialized in 2016 in CoroCoro Aniki, and in 2019 it's been 20 years since Beyblade was first serialized, I decided to celebrate the anniversary by showing how it got to the present point and release the character creation stories and concept materials little by little.

- Aoki Takao, 5 May 2018

Manga Bakuten Shoot Beyblade: Page 1

Preface

In spring 1999, CoroCoro Mikku offered me the opportunity to begin the serialization of a new hobby manga about beigoma spinning tops (beyblades). When I tried playing with the prototype of a beyblade before they were officially launched, I got the image of a martial arts-like sport. I decided to include the spirit of the sports anime I used to watch as a child in the series. A story about a main character who can use cool special powers and grow by fighting against rivals and cultivating friendship with them.

The presentation of Beyblade

Beyblades were officially launched in July, and the serialization started around the same time. I wasn't familiar with the readers of CoroCoro yet, so I had no idea whether they would find the series charming. I created the characters of Beyblade with the thought that I somehow needed to make the readers empathize with spinning tops that are so tiny they fit on the palm of a hand. I used the four Chinese gods of the four directions (Seiryuu, Suzaku, Byakko, Genbu) as a motif and made them into the four holy beasts dwelling in the beyblades, and made it a story about the bladers chosen by them. Like this, the concept of it being a story about four main character boys happened very naturally.

The three characters

Before the manga was planned, there was a promotion for a Game Boy Color game about a Beyblade game as “the next generation of beigomas”. I decided from the beginning that the three characters I designed for the game would also appear in my manga.

(Takao, the protagonist) An energetic and cheerful boy who loves Beyblade. Uses the bey “Ultimate Dragoon”.

(Kai, the rival) The cool leader of a gang named Shell Killers who hates Beyblade. Uses the bey “Frostic Dranzer”. [?? idk if frostic is right?]

(Shippuu no Jin, the mysterious ninja blader) Uses the bey “Saizoo” [??]. There was no image of Jin, so I’m using one I’ve drawn later.

However, the manga serialized on CoroCoro was not a comic version of the game but a completely original work. I got to freely work on the personalities and personal histories of the three characters. Therefore I constructed the world of the comic without paying much attention to the game’s contents and didn’t play the game.

This is the complex explanation behind the main character sharing my own name, “Takao”.

Creating the manga characters

I started from adapting Takao and Kai into the concept of the four holy beasts.

Main Character “Takao”

His bey is Dragoon (carrier of a dragon musket) so his holy beast is Seiryuu. To match the wu xing theory, I decided to make his surname Kinomiya to match the element of wood (“ki”). His personality is very CoroCoro protagonist-like, he’s energetic and cheerful and always tries his best. He loves bey battles. His skills are of high level. He lost his mother when he was very young, and his father and big brother are archaeologists working on excavations and doing research abroad. He lives together with his grandfather from his father’s side.

Rival “Kai”

Since his holy beast is Suzaku, I derived his surname Hiwatari from the element of fire (“hi”). He has a cool personality and his skills are on the same level as the main character’s, or even higher. His family owns a big company. Since the game’s concept of him hating beyblade was very unique, I decided to use it and make the reason behind it his antagonism with his father. (Details about him were the same as in the manga.)

Since he hunts beyblades as an act of revenge, I made the setting such that he has subordinates (the Shell Killers).

Shippuu no Jin

Since I thought it unreasonable to make Jin, who was an adult, a rival of the elementary school kids, I made him Takao’s older brother who watches over his little brother from the shadows. “Jin” is the Chinese reading of the kanji in his name, so I made his real name “Hitoshi”. [hitoshi is the Japanese reading of the same kanji]

Since the bladers of Byakko and Genbu appear much later, they didn’t have character designs yet.

So I created the Beyblade expert “Kyouju” and Takao’s grandfather “Ryuunosuke” next.

Kyouju

He’s Takao’s classmate and a Beyblade researcher. I created him after the image of an elderly university professor.

Kinomiya Ryuunosuke

Takao’s grandfather who lives with him. The master of the Ryuushinken sword.

Story

I wanted the story be like 里見八犬伝 [i have no idea what that is ngl] where the protagonist fights through several rivals, keeps running into legendary bladers, and once all four are present, the story takes a dramatic turn.

Like this the serialization began in 1999, first with a special in the August volume of CoroCoro Mikku and then as a monthly series starting from the September volume.

Manga Bakuten Shoot Beyblade: Page 2

Special techniques

When Beyblade began its serialization, I kept in mind that I needed to convey the charm of beys to the readers somehow and wanted to make the battles feel real. However, I struggled with the manga not really getting popular. I felt like, despite trying to convey the realism of how fun and intense the battles were, in practice it didn’t feel the same as it would have in real life, so I decided to take it to a more dramatic direction. I made them use special techniques where the spinning causes tornadoes, flames, thunder and other such unrealistic effects to happen. This is how the special techniques that are now used in the currently serialized RISING originally came to exist.

Max and Rei

I had planned that the bladers of Genbu and Byakko wouldn’t appear until much later, so I hadn’t yet created characters for them when the manga was serialized. However, since Takara Tomy created beyblades for the four holy beasts to fit the manga series, I had to come up with the other two characters.

“Max”

His holy beast is Genbu. From the wu xing element of water (“mizu”), his surname is Mizuhara. He has a cheerful personality and he’s always smiling. I modeled his battle style to rely on defense based on the tough shell of a turtle. (Details about him were the same as in the manga.)

“Rei”

His holy beast is Byakko and wu xing element metal, so I named him Kon Rei [“kon” is one reading for the kanji for metal; also aoki uses the kanji for plum for “rei” here]. He’s Chinese and from a clan of people with fangs. He’s extremely agile and his bey battle skills are top level. Originally I was going to give him a braid, but I settled down with the current style with the image of a tiger’s tail in mind. His personality was such that outside battles he was only going to eat and sleep but having another mute character clashed with Kai, so Rei got more lines little by little. The above pictures are from the beginning, but his design somewhat changed as I drew more of the manga.

Like this, I made Max and Rei appear in the manga a lot earlier than intended to match the release of the parent beys of the four holy beasts.

Manga Bakuten Shoot Beyblade: Page 3

The big four of Shell Killers

“Hiruma Makoto, Tsukuba, Motegi, Suzuka”

These four characters basically appear to emphasize Kai’s strong presence and make him appear stronger. There were originally only going to be one or two of them, but as I doodled character designs at the bottom of the manuscript, I was so pleased with the drawings that I decided to increase their number in the opening scene of the next episode. By the way, in the last volume of the comic (vol 14), Takao’s future child is named Kinomiya Makoto, but the name is not related to Hiruta in any way. I had completely forgotten that I had named Hiruta “Makoto” in the past, so it was my mistake. The names of Tsukuba, Motegi and Suzuka come from race track sports.

“Mizuhara Tarou”

Max’s father who runs a hobby shop. Back when he first appeared together with Max’s first appearance, I hadn’t yet made any plans concerning his wife (Judy). In RISING I drew him with a smaller beard so he has a somewhat more youthful appearance.

“Daitenji Kogorou”

President of BBA (Beyblade Battle Association). He appears in vol 2 as a representative of the organization in charge of battle tournaments. The image behind his character is a kind old man who watches over the young blader boys and girls. The model of his design is detective Hercule Poirot as played by the famous actor David Suchet in the British television series “Agatha Christie’s Poirot” in 1998—2013. I loved the way Suchet’s Poirot was playful while overflowing with kindness, so I used him as reference. By the way, the name Kogorou is also linked to the detective theme and was derived from 明智. [no i don’t know who that is either]

“Hiwatari Souichirou”

Kai’s grandfather. The chairman and director of the Hiwatari Enterprise, he’s not only a dictator of the company but also has a dominant attitude toward his family. He’s an important character regarding the discord between Kai and his father (Susumu). He’s not modeled after anyone in particular, but the name Souichirou is from the founder of Honda, the car-making company.

Bit chip characters

In 2000, the line-up of Beyblade toys was expanded with lots of new products. I was requested by Takara Tomy to design more characters for them. I had no plans to include them in the manga, so they became bit chip characters rather than holy beasts.

Design concept for “Mechanical Seiryuu”. Regarding the number of its claws, Takao’s Seiryuu is designed after the imperial dragon with five claws, so I gave this one three to make a difference. I later used it as a bit chip character in the model used by Shippuu no Jin, Metal Dragoon.

“Armed Dragoon, Dranzer, Draciel, Driger”

I was requested to design armed versions of the four holy beasts. I also didn’t have any plans to include them in the manga, so they are bit chip characters only. They have been used in video games.

#beyblade #bakuten shoot beyblade #im wheezing at max and rei just being fucking.....randomly put together trash

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preserving-ferretbrain · 5 years

Text

The Lexicon Issue: A Retrospective

by Dan H

Tuesday, 15 March 2011Dan is up to date as ever~So a little while ago a concerned citizen popped up to say that they (I'd say she from the LJ handle but one doesn't like to presume) felt they should tell me that they had “laughed so hard at my cluelessness” in this article. She/he also kindly provided me with some links to discussions of the case, which I duly read and from which I was forced to conclude that, in the language of this commenter “cluelessness” means “being broadly correct about everything.”

What I objected to at the time was the fact that Rowling's objections were stupid and irrelevant, and people who have a better understanding of the law seemed to agree. There's a rather good list

here

of the various points people brought up at the trial, conveniently broken down into “stuff that is legally relavent” and “stuff that isn't”. You might notice that high up on the list of things that aren't relevant is “how lazy, sloppy or inaccurate JKR considers the Lexicon to be”.

Now this is mostly water under the bridge, the verdict is in – although it's possible there's appeals going on. A lot of people had good reasons to think that the court's rulings were a bit shonky in places (several people with actual law degrees were confused by the fact that the court ruled that the Lexicon wasn't a derivative work) but to be honest I think it all came out right in the wash – some decent analysis

here

sums up the key points pretty well and what it boils down to is “the Lexicon copied too much.”

Ironically, the Lexicon was – as the judge observed – a victim of its own enthusiasm. The basic concept was legitimate but it used too much original language (a good example from one blog is describing the sounds made by the “clankers” - the things that scare away the blind dragon in Deathly Hallows – as “like tiny hammers on anvils”). If Vander Ark had been more willing to mess with the Holy Writ, he'd probably have been absolutely fine.

But mostly, what I want to talk about here is copyright law, because I think it's kinda cool, and I'm kind of on a roll here with articles about stuff I know jack shit about.

Derivative Works

One of the most peculiar things about the Lexicon ruling was that it held that the lexicon was not a derivative work. The basis for this is rather obscure, but it seemed to be that a compilation of information about a work was considered sufficiently transformative that it was not considered a derivative work. This seems reasonable to me, but also seems to conflict with US legal precedent (specifically with

Castle Rock vs Carol Publishing

in which a Seinfeld trivia book was ruled to constitute a derivative work, and therefore to be in violation of copyright).

I suspect that this basically comes down to that old aphorism about laws and sausages. The definition of a derivative work is unclear (and the definition of fair use even more so). The strongest interpretation seems to be that even making reference to copyrighted material makes a work derivative – this seems peculiar to me, unless you're going to argue that “derivative” means “contingent upon the existence of”. This seems to be the logic that held sway in Castle Rock - the court ruled that the “fictional facts” of Seinfeld were protected by copyright. This is a peculiar idea in and of itself and one to which I will return shortly.

Of course the weakest definition of a derivative work – a direct adaptation to another medium – is also unsatisfying. Intuitively, it seems reasonable that fanfiction, for example, be considered derivative (in the legal as well as the literary sense), and certainly few people would dispute the fact that only JK Rowling has the right to produce an eighth Harry Potter book.

Where this becomes problematic is that “derivative work” is actually an extremely powerful term in copyright law. Authors are assumed to have an absolute monopoly on derivative works. This is a big deal – monopolies are generally a bad thing and it's relatively rare for them to be protected by law. Given the stakes, it's entirely predictable that while one court feels that Castle Rock Entertainment has the right to control the production of Seinfeld trivia books, another feels that JK Rowling does not have the general right to control books of information about her fictional world. It's a murky area of law and one with no clear right answers. Most people would – I think – accept that JK Rowling has the right to decide who can make movies out of her books (although Derek Bambauer argues

here

that she shouldn't – at least from an economic perspective) but I suspect most people would also accept that she has no right to decide what people write about her books.

Fictional Facts

One of the strangest aspects of US copyright law I dug up in my recent trawling through the intarwebs was the notion of “fictional facts” - this was a key element in the Castle Rock case, in which it was ruled that authors (or in this case entertainment companies) do retain copyright over matters of fact in their fictional worlds.

I have a policy when it comes to matters of law, which is to assume that if it looks like the law is made of stupid that it's probably covering up something else which is even more made of stupid.

Because on the face of it, the idea of “fictional facts” seems – well it seems pretty made of stupid.

We'll leave aside for now the fact that it's an oxymoron of the highest order, and focus on the weird implications. If I'm understanding the precedent correctly, the statement “Harry Potter is a Wizard” (or for that matter “Dumbledore is Gay”) is protected by copyright, due to its being a “fictional fact” created by JK Rowling. Now most uses of that statement will wind up being protected under fair use but it still seems to be based on the principle that authors (at least in theory) have the right to control information about the contents of their books, which seems perverse.

I don't want to go too far into slippery slope arguments here, but it does strike me that treating “facts” as copyrightable puts spoilers in a difficult legal position. I don't actually think that anybody will ever get sued for spoilering, or that any court in the land would uphold an anti-spoilering case on copyright grounds, but by a strict application of logic, spoilering looks a lot like it breaches copyright. A spoiler consists of the repetition of a fictional fact (which is copyrightable material), the act of spoilering cannot be said to have transformative value (indeed many argue that spoilers detract from the value of the original work), and a case can be made that spoilers directly compete with the author's original product (insofar as a person could, quite reasonably, decide not to read a book or see a film as a result of having been spoilered for it). A sign bearing the legend “Snape Kills Dumbledore” is, in essence, a derivative work which – since it consists only of copyrighted material repeated without commentary – may not be protected by fair use.

Again I should clarify that I don't necessarily think this is a problem. In America at least, a Snape-Kills-Dumbledore sign would be protected by freedom of expression, and the constitution trumps copyright last time I checked, but it does highlight some of the weirder implications of this idea of “fictional facts”. I also suspect that the distinction between a “fictional fact” and a – for want of a better term - “factual fact” is a narrow one. Part of the reason that the Castle Rock ruling went against the defendants seemed to be that their Trivia book had focused exclusively on episode content and not on questions about (for example) the cast or sets – such questions would clearly have been matters of factual fact and not protected by copyright. So perhaps what it boils down to is that while “Dumbledore is Gay” is a fictional fact protected by copyright, “JK Rowling declared in interview that Dumbledore was gay” is a factual fact and therefore fair game. This seems like a silly distinction, but it probably matters rather a lot.

For a start, people will in fact pay for fictional facts. One of the biggest points against the Lexicon back in 2008 was the fact that it had reproduced a lot of information from Quidditch Through the Ages and – that one about magical beasts the name of which I can't be bothered to look up – both of which were sold primarily as books of fictional information. The fact is that people do like to know More Stuff about fictional realities, and they will pony up real cash to find out More Stuff. The Harry Potter Lexicon does tell the reader a lot of Stuff about the Wizarding World, and much as I hate to admit it, some people really do read novels purely or primarily to acquire facts about a secondary reality (I think these people are culturally moribund, but they seem to exist) so from a certain point of view it does make sense to see the “fictional facts” of the Potterverse as having value and requiring protection.

On top of this, if “fictional facts” are not protected, then it becomes very difficult to see how the law protects authors from things like unauthorised sequels. If “Harry Potter is a Wizard” is not on some level protected by copyright, then it becomes difficult to see why I cannot write a book about a Wizard called Harry Potter with as much impunity as I could write a book about, say Napoleon Bonaparte or Abraham Lincoln. If we accept the (seemingly common sense) idea that the basic facts of fictional settings should be fair game for use and commentary we tacitly allow people to recreate other people's work from whole cloth. If I have unlimited license to refer to the facts of somebody else's creation, then in practice I have unlimited license to reproduce their work (since after all, any text is just information about the content of that text).

All of this leads to a rather difficult situation. Copyrighting facts seems dangerously close to copyrighting ideas (which would be a terrible, terrible precedent), but not copyrighting facts seems dangerously close to not copyrighting anything.

Who is Copyright For Anyway

Copyright is one of those areas of law that everybody thinks they understand but in fact nobody does. Intuitively we all get it. You create something, it's yours and you get to control it. A lot of people take this as a kind of moral axiom: these are the people who literally believe that JKR has the right to call the shots in all things Potter related, be it the production of reference guides, Dumbledore's sexuality, or whether or not Snape was redeemed. This is the “it's her world, we're just playing in it” doctrine.

The thing is that this is a naïve approach to the law. We can't just say “playing with other people's toys is naughty, so ban it”. Copyright exists for quite important economic reasons and, contrary to popular belief, those reasons have comparatively little to do with stopping people from bootlegging stuff.

Copyright is generally considered necessary because in a perfectly competitive marketplace, the price of any good tends towards its marginal cost of production, the price of creating one more unit. As long as you can sell a unit of a good for more than you spent to make it, you should and somebody will. This works great for bananas, coffee tables, bricks and door handles, but it doesn't work so great for books, music and video games. The marginal cost of producing a copy of a book is very small indeed (and the marginal cost of producing a copy of an ebook is effectively zero). If authors were not allowed a monopoly over their work, they wouldn't be able to sell it, because any price they could sell it for, somebody else could sell it cheaper.

Just to be clear here, this very much isn't about piracy. Piracy is a crime (well actually it's probably a tort, but let's not split hairs here) and crimes, sort of by definition aren't prevented by the law. Copyright doesn't stop people illegally reproducing copyrighted material because, well duh. FACT and its associated bodies would have you believe that Copyright Is Good because it Protects Authors from Bad People. This is stuff and nonsense. Copyright is good because it protects publishers from other, better funded publishers.

Consider: you are Bloomsbury, on the verge of bankruptcy you discover a promising children's author by the name of Rowling. These books get inexplicably popular. You celebrate.

Consider: You are every other publishing company in the world. You notice that Ms Rowling's books are getting extremely popular, you also notice that Bloomsbury, having paid the author an advance, paid the salaries of editors and proofreaders, hired cover artists and so on, has incurred a great many costs which you can avoid, simply by taking their product and reproducing it (using the resources which, as a large and established publishing company, you most certainly possess). The resulting competition drives down prices, which is fine for you but not so great for the company that has paid the substantial setup costs. Every other publisher in the world makes a tidy profit, Bloomsbury goes bust.

Worse, nobody wants to pick up the option on the next book in the series, because everybody knows that their competitors can sell flawless copies of the book more cheaply than they themselves can afford to sell them. Even if JK Rowling wanted to sell her next book, nobody would buy it, because everybody would know that whoever published first would incur large costs for little reward (this is true even given the substantial first-day sales for popular books, many ordinary customers would rather wait a couple of weeks and pay half the price).

Conventional publishing and distribution models are founded on the notion of copyright. The problem is not, as many assume, that people wouldn't write books if they weren't sure they'd make a lot of money from it. Thousands, probably millions of people are working on novels right now with no guarantee of financial reward. Thousands of people put their work online for free as a matter of course, and an awful lot of people actually pay vanity publishers for the pleasure of seeing their work in print. Copyright isn't there to reassure authors that they'll be paid, it's there to reassure publishers that they'll recoup their losses.

Now of course you can argue that the conventional distribution model for novels and the like is inherently broken because, well take your pick, information should be free, corporations shouldn't tell us what to like, whatever. Speaking personally, though, I actually have a lot of faith in the conventional models of publishing, at least for the mass market. Indie and self-publishing is great for niche materials (the indie-RPG industry, for example, works well because it services a small community and everything it puts out is effectively peer reviewed by the community it serves) but not so great for novels and the like. Anecdotal evidence

here at Ferretbrain

supports the observation that self-published books really are less good than those that are published conventionally.

The public interest is generally served by allowing authors, and by extension publishers, to control distribution of their work. This means that the commercial interests of publishing companies are served by seeking out high quality authors (allowing them exclusive control of a valuable resource) rather than by seeking out more efficient means of distribution (allowing them to better exploit the resources developed by others). It is not so easy to see how the public interest is served by allowing authors to control derivative works, particularly if the term is defined so broadly as to include things like reference guides. Put simply, I do not believe that one single person has ever been dissuaded from writing a novel by the fear that somebody might write a reference guide to it at some point in the future. Nor do I believe that any publisher has ever refused to publish a book on such grounds.

From this perspective, derivative works rights are a lot harder to justify. While it feels intuitively right that you shouldn't be able to make Harry Potter tie-in material without JKR's say-so, it's not immediately clear why: sure it might make her upset, but “it will upset people” is generally not a good reason for legislation. A hard economic argument would say that if there is a market for something, and the production of that thing will not be generally detrimental to the public good, then people should be allowed to make that thing. Ultimately, shouldn't it be up to the Invisible Hand to decide whether – say – a fan-made guide to a fictional setting is worth producing? This might lead to a market inundated with trashy cash-ins, but if there's a market for trashy cash-ins then those cash-ins have real economic value. Of course they might harm the value of the individual property but to my (admittedly limited) understanding, that becomes a trademark rather than a copyright issue (I can't go around putting the coca-cola logo on things, but that isn't because it's copyright, it's because it's a trademark which is a subtly different thing).

This article doesn't really have a conclusion beyond “good lord copyright law is complicated and unintuitive”. I shall end, therefore, by sharing the irrelevant tidbit that “uncopyrightables” is the longest word in the English language which uses all of its letters exactly once.Themes:

J.K. Rowling

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Arthur B

at 15:40 on 2011-03-15

This is indeed an oddity, and to be honest I think it's something that could happily have been avoided. UK law has evaded this by and large by looking at the work done by the producer of a copyright work, and considering how much the person producing the allegedly infringing work is freeloading off that.* In the case of someone writing a book, the effort involved entails

does

entail cooking up a bunch of fictional facts if you're writing fiction or researching a bunch of actual facts if you're writing nonfiction, but the key isn't whether you've replicated the same facts so much as whether you're using someone else's brainstorming or research to make your own job easier.

Two cases which help illustrate the point are Ravenscroft v Herbert and the Da Vinci Code case. In Ravenscroft v Herbert, James Herbert lost because

The Spear

was found to have infringed the copyright on a pseudoscientific book of kook history by Trevor Ravenscroft about the Spear of Longinus, because he took the narrative presented by Ravenscroft in the book and used it as the basis for the background and prologue of his novel. How Ravenscroft came up with his facts (a mixture of conjecture and psychic mediumship, as it turned out) wasn't relevant: the fact was that Ravenscroft had put in all this effort to put together this narrative which he put forward as being nonfictional, and then Herbert had simply taken that narrative and copied it wholesale without attribution or permission to get the basis for his novel.

In the Da Vinci Code case, on the other hand, the guys who wrote

The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail

sued Dan Brown on a similar basis and lost because they didn't show that Brown was freeloading off their work - the court deciced that he wasn't simply taking their narrative and replicating it in the book, but was using those facts and combined them with others (from other sources and of his own invention) to come up with his own work.

The point is that the "fictional facts" - or nonfictional facts - aren't the issue, the issue at stake is the effort that authors put into obtaining/inventing those facts and stringing them together. The Castle Rock guys would have probably lost in the UK too because all they did to make their trivia book was to pick answers out of the scripts and they didn't really put in much in the way of original effort of their own. Rowling can't sue you for making a sign saying "Snape Kills Dumbledore" because the amount of effort it actually took her to come up with that fact is trivial. A sign with extensive quotes from the actual death scene? Now you're talking.**

* This is also relevant to derivative works. If Vander Ark was writing all the text in all the entries in the Lexicon from scratch then it would have been extremely unlikely that Rowling would have been able to make anything stick if she'd sued in the UK. If he directly copy-pasted great swathes of her text, he'd be obviously trying to make a quick buck when she in fact had put in almost all of the work in producing the text in the first place. Obviously there's a big grey area between those extremes, which is why these cases are decided by judges and not machines, but one of the considerations would be how heavily Vander Ark relied on the effort Rowling originally put in. If he wasn't very, very clear about where he was quoting from the original text and where he was making up his own stuff that'd probably also count against him.

** It's actually interesting whether you'd fall down on copyright if you wrote a book about a wizard who happened to be called Harry Potter but who didn't actually have that much in common with the actual Harry aside from the name. Also academic, since Rowling would have a much easier time suing you for "passing off" - because you wouldn't be freeriding on the effort she'd put into establishing her characters and setting so much as you'd be trying to freeride on the reputation she had established surrounding the Harry Potter name.

the constitution trumps copyright last time I checked

Actually, it doesn't.

The Constitution in article 1, section 8 empowers Congress to, amongst a whole lot of other things, "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries". Granted, the First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech and of the press too, but both copyright and free speech are conceptually enshrined in the Constitution; neither can necessarily trump the other. (Also the "limited Times" bit is getting increasingly laughable...)

In my professional experience the better someone understands the copyright system, the more embarrassed they are by it. At the moment it is a complete shambles.

Also, bravo for coming up with the best explanation of copyright I've ever seen from a non-IP professional. I'll have to kill you to protect the Guild's aura of mystery but I'll keep it painless. :)

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http://sunnyskywalker.livejournal.com/

at 23:41 on 2011-03-15

While it feels intuitively right that you shouldn't be able to make Harry Potter tie-in material without JKR's say-so, it's not immediately clear why

Maybe this is a case where it's more similar to a trademark: too many fictional works set in the Potterverse by people other than Rowling could constitute "brand dilution" or however they explain that. Although I'm trying to remember how it works for fictional characters/locations - you can have a cartoon mouse, but you can't make your own Mickey Mouse movie even if you give him entirely different adventures from his Disney* original, because the totality of the character is copyrighted. Or possibly trademarked. I'm not sure which. *really should remember this since I know I learned it*

*Speaking of the limited times bit "getting increasingly laughable..." Disney really, really doesn't want any of their copyrights to expire. And what a coincidence - copyright duration keeps getting extended, and Mickey is still private domain! This makes it even funnier that someone has made an educational film about copyright and fair use entirely composed of Disney clips:

A Fair(y) Use Tale

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Dan H

at 18:21 on 2011-03-16@Arthur

Actually, it doesn't.

And the ironic thing is, I'm pretty sure I actually knew that. I think it's just that "the constitution trumps copyright" sounded punchier than "the American judicial system is generally pretty strongly invested in the idea of free speech, such that it seems unlikely that they would uphold the precedent that spoilering constitutes a breach of copyright, even though it might be argued to under current legal precedents."

@sunnyskywalker

*Speaking of the limited times bit "getting increasingly laughable..." Disney really, really doesn't want any of their copyrights to expire.

Yeah, so I've observed. It's difficult because I can sort of see that even really old copyrights do definitely have a *value* for Disney - the question is whether it's in the public interest for Disney to retain those copyrights.

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Arthur B

at 18:38 on 2011-03-16

To be fair it is kind of an oddity because the First Amendment says that Congress absolutely isn't allowed to curtail freedom of the press, but then the powers it does invest Congress with to give authors copyright protection can't exactly be exercised or enforced without curtailing freedom of the press. It's almost like the Founding Fathers were fallible human beings who were kind of making it up as they were going along or something.

There is probably precedent law I'm not aware of which settles the contradiction.

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Dan H

at 23:09 on 2011-03-16Presumably a big part of it is that "freedom of the press" is quite hard to define. I mean you could argue that requiring journalists to have any kind of ethical standards at all goes against freedom of the press.

I suppose the thing about it is that "freedom of the press" is all about the government not being able to stop particular stories or ideas from being published, there's a big difference between that, and trying to stop them from being published by *specific people*. I mean it's not censorship for the law to prevent newspapers from publishing articles which have been copied directly from other newspapers.

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http://sunnyskywalker.livejournal.com/

at 17:54 on 2011-03-17I guess that goes back to the debate over whether stopping people from shouting "fire!" in a crowded theater is not really restricting freedom of speech in some technical sense, or whether it is but it's an okay kind of restriction. If one newspaper copies another's articles verbatim, then stopping them doesn't actually kill the articles - they're still out there in the original publication. And sense it wasn't the copier's speech in the first place, their speech isn't being restricted. Or something.

One of the complicating factors with Disney is the person vs. corporation issue. It's much easier to see how an author benefits from a copyright which lasts for a certain percentage of his or her lifetime (or, if it's "life plus x years," the family can pay funeral costs, I suppose). Since individuals have limited lifespans, it's easier to grasp what might be a reasonable limit for copyright. It's a lot less clear when the copyright holder is a corporation which could exist indefinitely, other than "well, it would be better for the public for it to expire... sometime..." Although if they're legally supposed to be treated much like people, then they'll just have to suck up losing their copyright after 120 years max.

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Robinson L

at 15:15 on 2011-06-01

Speaking personally, though, I actually have a lot of faith in the conventional models of publishing, at least for the mass market.

Fair enough Dan, but I don't think much of your reasoning, as evidenced by this article.

Anecdotal evidence here at Ferretbrain supports the observation that self-published books really are less good than those that are published conventionally.

For the purposes of argument, I'll agree self-publishing tends to foster terrible writing a lot more than professional publishing. On the other hand, we've had plenty of evidence here at Ferretbrain that professional publishing also tends to foster terrible writing (check the first theme handle on this article). Professional publishing is less prone to it, but surely we can do better than this.

I'll go one step further. In response to one negative review of “Deathly Hallows” (I think it might've been Mike Smith's recap) somebody posted a link to a guy relating a conversation about editing. Basically, Party A argued that Stephen King's writing has gone to shit in recent years (anecdotal evidence

here at Ferretbrain

supports this observation) and that a good editor could make it much better. Party B rejoins that a good editor isn't going to touch a big name author because they'll rake in the cash anyway, and an editor's meddling might make the author sell less (or might coincide with the author's loss of popularity), or might piss the author off and convince them to take their business elsewhere. So now we have an example of a situation where the professional publishing system as it stands now actively blocks improvement rather than just enabling mediocrity.

Self-publishing obviously is not an improvement, but surely there's another possible system which could do better?

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Dan H

at 15:59 on 2011-06-01

On the other hand, we've had plenty of evidence here at Ferretbrain that professional publishing also tends to foster terrible writing (check the first theme handle on this article). Professional publishing is less prone to it, but surely we can do better than this.

Except that there's actually a world of difference between bad professionally published literature, and bad self-published fiction. Very little professionally published fiction is *actually incompetent* in the way that self-published fiction so often is. J.K. Rowling actually *isn't* that bad a writer - she's written a great many books that I personally dislike, and her writing is often pedestrian, frequenly overwrought and on very rare occasions actively clunky, but it is still genuinely head and shoulders above the vast, vast majority of amateur fiction.

The fact that somebody once said that Steven King had gone downhill and that somebody else suggested that this was because he'd got too big to edit is not evidence of any flaws in the publishing industry.

Once again, I'm very, very leery of any argument which assumes that popular things are only popular because the people who buy them are stupid sheeple. The publishing industry is not broken just because things I don't like are sometimes more popular than things I do like.

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Arthur B

at 16:10 on 2011-06-01@Robinson: If you think another system would work better would you care to propose one? I'd argue that the number of authors who, like King and Rowling, could pretty much dictate terms to their publishers are in fact quite small. And the reason they got that way in the first place was that they gave the reading public what they wanted.

The problem isn't instituting a system which prevents crap books from being published, because you can't, not in a way which isn't totalitarian. The problem, as a reader, is in tracking down books which you personal would enjoy and want to read. The world of professional publication is actually quite good at helping you do that, because publishing houses want to target the books they publish at those sections of the public who'll pay money for them, and even if your particular niche isn't catered to by the major publishing houses there will be niche small press publishers who are more than happy to crank out the sort of book you want. And on top of that, the more widely distributed a book is, the more likely it is that you'll have reviews to use as a guide.

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Robinson L

at 00:00 on 2011-06-02Okay Dan,

that

strikes me as a more compelling argument. I'm not really interested in arguing the the merits of the current publishing industry versus a hypothetical alternative model – I just found your argument as presented in the article rather unconvincing. Thank you for clarifying.

#Ferretbrain #J.K. Rowling #Harry Potter #The Harry Potter Lexicon #Copyright law #Dan H

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thehappyspaceman · 5 years

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The Dragon Prince Recap/Review (Season One)

Hey guys, Spaceman here. I know you’re probably wondering where my Favorite Christmas Songs video is by now, or where really any content whatsoever is. Well, the truth is that I spent the first part of this month and most of last month preparing for an entrance audition for a particular music college, whose name I can’t currently disclose (I want to be sure I get in before I talk about it), hence the lack of new content. But that’s all over now, so I’m prepared to get back to work on videos, art, and possibly even music! Yeah, remember when I did music? Anyway, while I’m working on that, I thought I’d write something to keep you guys interested.

Many of you may be aware of this, but from August to September of last year, I really got into Avatar: The Last Airbender. It’s my current obsession and even took the title of my favorite animated series of all time from the previous holder, Gargoyles, which was no small feat. It got to the point where after I finished watching it, I felt a bit of a hole in my life and needed to find something else to replace it. This is when I heard about Netflix’s series The Dragon Prince, which was described as being similar to Avatar, as well as being created by Avatar’s director Aaron Ehasz and featuring the involvement of some of Avatar’s cast and crew. I watched it and… thought it was okay? Just okay, but not great. This month, however, news was released that it was getting a second season, and I was interested, so I figured I might as well watch it again and type out my thoughts. How was it? Let’s take a look.

The Story

The Dragon Prince is set in a world where humans and elves are in conflict. There’s a lengthy explanation for this, which the show thankfully provides at the start of the first episode.

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Don’t worry; you don’t have to watch this in every episode. Anyway, the egg of the dragon king is presumed destroyed, and is imminent war between the elves and humans. As both sides prepare for the war, the elves attempt to assassinate the human King Harrow and his heir, the young Prince Ezran; however, during the attack, fifteen-year-old elf Rayla discovers that the egg was not destroyed, but rather stolen. Rayla teams up with Ezran and his half-brother, Callum, to deliver the egg back to the dragons. Meanwhile, Harrow’s advisor, the mage Lord Viren, is intent on war, and sends his own children Claudia and Soren after our heroes.

That’s just the really condensed version of the plot. During the nine episodes in season one, there is a lot of exposition and a lot of other things happen that I haven’t even mentioned. I would do an episode-by-episode recap for this show, but honestly, they all kind of blend together. Unlike with other animated shows I’ve watched recently, there aren’t really any standalone episodes I can think of. Each one kind of just moves straight into the next, which I guess makes sense for a series on Netflix, a service notorious for encouraging binge-watching.

The very first thing I noticed about The Dragon Prince was that it doesn’t really have any true antagonist on either side (at first). Like, you can’t really say, “Oh, the elves are evil,” or “Oh, the humans are evil.” I was super skeptical when the intro described that the humans were to blame for a lot of the problems, including discovering dark magic and slaying the Dragon King, but the intro also pits the elves in the wrong, showing them banishing all the humans instead of just banishing the few who discovered dark magic.

That leads me into discussing a major theme that’s prevalent at least in season one, the theme of prejudice and tolerance. From the few things that the humans know about the elves, they are painted as horrific killers. Humans think of elves as being bloodthirsty killers—literally and figuratively—and the elves are similarly shown holding stereotypes about humans. The fact that Callum and Ezran teamed up with Rayla was only due to the circumstances; it takes several episodes before they are able to fully trust one another. This is a theme that I’ve also seen done well in another favorite fantasy show of mine, Gargoyles.

Admittedly, a few parts of this story seem rather derivative, such as the six primal sources of magic being reminiscent of the Four Elements from Avatar, which leads me to the next topic…

The World

I will admit that it’s not entirely fair to judge a TV show based on its first nine episodes. Granted, I usually hold the policy that if a show’s first five episodes don’t get you hooked, then you should not be required to keep watching (take note, Steven Universe fans). The thing is, this show did get me interested, and I want to see it continue to develop, because what we have so far isn’t much. It kind of just feels like a standard fantasy world, with elves, dragons, castles, and assorted monsters, which, okay, is a tried and true formula by Tolkien and others, but after the world of Avatar, with its focus on Asian culture, its unique animals, and its nearly steampunk technology, I can’t help but feel like this is a slight step down.

That’s not to say that it’s bad, of course. There are a few things that make it really pop out and feel real. The background art, for one, is incredible. Some of the monsters feel unique, too, like those on the Cursed Caldera—one of them even kind of looks like a graboid from Tremors. Also, I like what they did with the elves’ design here. They could have easily just made them pale humans with pointy ears, but instead they put a lot of detail into it, giving the different groups of elves different skin colors, horns, and having them have only four fingers instead of five. Those are some nice touches.

The Characters

Let’s move on to the characters, starting with Rayla, who is easily my favorite character of the group. She admittedly has a bit of a Zuko thing going on, as she was assigned to hunt down the main characters but turns against her original group to help join the main characters on her mission. Other subtle details are similar, too, like her long-lasting inner conflict with her past and her use of dual swords. That said, her journey is a little different; for one thing, Zuko took nearly the entire run of Avatar to fully go through his heel-face turn, only switching sides halfway through the show’s final season. With Rayla, she joins the heroes in the third episode, which cuts out much of the emotional journey but also lends itself to more interactions with the human characters. She’s much funnier, for another thing, giving her share of snide remarks but also scoring a bunch of laughs when she goes undercover disguised as a human in one of the episodes—can you say, “How do you do, fellow kids humans?” Paula Burrows delivers a great vocal performance, which adds to the character.

Next up is Callum, the main human lead. Now, it’s incredibly easy to draw comparisons between his character and Sokka: Both are goofy, “normal” teenage boys in a world filled with magic, not very adept with fighting but good at planning things. More importantly, of course, is the fact that Callum is literally voiced by Sokka’s voice actor, Jack DeSena. Comparisons… were gonna pop up, is what I’m saying. And I’ll admit that the first time I watched The Dragon Prince, it was super jarring to hear Sokka’s voice coming out of Callum every time he talked. But there are some differences. While in Avatar, Sokka is the most responsible member of the group and the only one with any real degree of survival training, Callum is more inexperienced and callow, not good with a sword and only starting to learn magic. He’s also noticeably more chill and less panicky than the Sokka of season one of Avatar and shows that he can actually draw much better. Though considering Sokka’s drawing ability…

…that’s not really saying much.

Now to move on to Ezran, Callum’s half-brother. I have to admit, of the main characters, he’s probably the weakest, at least to me. I don’t know, he kind of feels a bit flat as a character. All I remember about him is the fact that he can understand animals, which is unique, but he doesn’t really have much of a personality aside from just being your typical kid. I know, it’s not easy to characterize a small child whilst making them believable… though again, Avatar managed to do so well. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t keep comparing these two shows, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t super easy.

Not helping is Ezran’s pet, a glow toad named Bait. As far as animal sidekicks go, I definitely prefer Appa from Avatar; hell, even Momo managed to get a few asskicking moments. Bait kind of just lies around and eats stuff. Several times, he manages to get the main characters into trouble, which I found a little bothersome. The one good thing about him is that his glowing abilities do come in handy a few times to temporarily blind enemies, though… I’ll get back to that later.

The trio is pursued by siblings Soren and Claudia. Soren is a young knight and a bit of a dumb jock but has a heart of gold. Claudia, meanwhile, is a nerdy mage who comes off as a bit awkward. They are always fun when they are on screen and have a believable relationship. It’s also worth noting that early on, Callum is revealed to have a crush on Claudia, which… oh boy, let’s hope the shipping discourse in The Dragon Prince’s fandom doesn’t get as bad as the Avatar fandom. I can already see a potential clash between the Claudia/Callum and Rayla/Callum crowds. (Full disclosure: I’m on the Rayla/Callum side.)

The other characters were cool, too. For as little time as we got to know him, I liked King Harrow, Ezran’s father. Even for his cringey dad humor, he was an intriguing character. It’s hinted that there was a lot of stuff in his past that we don’t know about, like his involvement with dark magic. Also intriguing was Lord Viren, Soren and Claudia’s father. It’s easy to see that he was once good and still has some good in him, as shown by his friendship with Harrow, but he has been corrupted by his use of dark magic and is too far gone. Finally, Aunt Amaya, Callum and Ezran’s deaf aunt who’s a solder on the frontlines, was another character I wound up loving. It’s rare that we see people with disabilities get good representation in animated series (another thing I loved about Avatar with the blind character Toph).

But okay, if we’re going to talk about this show, then I might as well bring up the one criticism that every other critic has already made about it. You know exactly what I’m talking about.

The Animation

Yes, among all the mixed reviews of this show, one consistent criticism was the animation. It seems to be CGI, but is going for a 2D, hand-drawn look; unfortunately, the way the pull it off is not necessarily the greatest. Take a look at the trailer for an example of what I’m talking about.

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No, your computer is not glitching out; that is the framerate they went with. And this choppiness is something that seems to be a trend with certain CGI shows outside of this one, with Rooster Teeth being the most notorious offender. If they really wanted to make it look 2D, they should have actually animated it hand-drawn. Doing this just pulls me out of the moment. (Oddly enough, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse does something very similar with its framerate, yet I don’t have any problem with that movie doing it.)

To be entirely fair, this is something that Aaron Ehasz has acknowledged. Apparently, season one was given a very low budget, and he has promised that season two will have a steadier framerate. Judging by the trailers I’ve seen for season two… yeah, it already looks way better. Also, with my second watch of season one, I found it much easier to look past. Maybe I was just used to it by then?

Assorted Other Stuff

Warning: This section goes into minor spoiler territory. I would highly advise not reading past this if you want to remain spoiler-free when you go into season one. Got it? Alright.

One other complaint I have had is the comedy, which is really hit-or-miss in a lot of places. As I mentioned before, the scenes where Rayla is disguised as a human are hilarious, and some of the snarky dialogue is also witty as hell, but there are other moments with awkward puns and some potty humor that just feel forced to me. There’s one scene in episode six where Callum is obviously having an erotic dream about Claudia, which seemed unfitting for this show… though to be fair, Avatar also had its share of adult humor.

See also.

Another awkward tidbit is that twice, when Ezran is about to use Bait’s ability to blind his enemies, he says the line, “Say hello to my little friend,” an obvious shout-out to the classic 1983 gangster film Scarface. My question is, why is that line thrown in there? Are most kids going to catch that reference? Call me strange, but regardless of what adult fanbase this show will capture (which, let’s be honest, it will), I highly doubt its target audience is watching Brian De Palma films.

Though maybe they should be.

Speaking of strange homages… well… take a look.

Your eyes don’t deceive you. Rayla is doing the infamous Naruto run, where you extend your arms out behind you as you run forward. And she and the other elves do this run multiple times during the show, too. It is neither practical nor particularly cool-looking, so I don’t know why this was done in the original show, and I genuinely hope this was only meant as an homage, because… again, it’s really damn silly.

The soundtrack of this show is rather nice, I will say. It’s not as memorable as Avatar or Gargoyles’, but I did find myself humming the end credits theme song after finishing watching. Speaking of which, during the credits, we get some cute drawings of the characters, some of which connect to the episode, others are apparently meant as foreshadowing for later episodes and plot points. If you watch this show, definitely do not skip the credits.

Now, as for stuff that I hope for the new season. I would like to know more about the cube that Callum and Rayla found at the winter lodge. It seems to have some kind of connection with the Primal Sources. Also, the mysterious magical mirror, I hope we can find out something about that. It was foreshadowed pretty heavily in episode eight, so I doubt they won’t do anything with it. Speaking of magic, I’d love to see Callum do more magic in the new season. It probably won’t be more wind magic, since he destroyed the sphere to birth the dragon, but Callum clearly has potential to become a great mage. Also, I would love to find out more about King Harrow’s past, as well as more about Callum and Ezran’s deceased mother, the Queen. We see Viren and Amaya mourning her by her gravesite in one scene, and Callum drawing her in another. How did she die? What was she like? These are all worthwhile questions for season two, or for future seasons after season two depending on how long the show goes for.

Conclusion

The Dragon Prince is a worthwhile watch. It’s nowhere near as great as Avatar or Gargoyles yet, and it is still clearly paving its own identity, but I still find it enjoyable enough and feel that it has potential for greatness. My main criticisms would be to up the animation quality and to develop the characters more, though my guess is that both will already happen in season two, which will be dropping later tomorrow, February 15.

But yeah, you have my attention, show. Don’t screw it up.

~Spaceman

#assorted thoughts #the dragon prince #recap #review #season 1 #tdp callum #tdp rayla #tdp ezran #tdp spoilers #tdp claudia #tdp soren #tdp amaya #general amaya #lord viren #king harrow #tdp harrow #tdp viren #tdp bait #can't wait for season 2

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scrawnydutchman · 6 years

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Paradise P.D: Animated Series Review

I’ve reviewed a lot of animated - and live action - shows and movies on my blog. Nearly everything I’ve felt the need to comment on has been seen in a positive light. I don’t shy away from harsh criticism nor do I actively avoid notably poor content; it just so happens that the things I’m most interested in discussing are things I have mainly positive comments on. Paradise PD has come along to break the mold. The genuine disgust I have for this series is a first for me. I hate this show. This is quite possibly the worst show I’ve ever given a complete watch. The characters are either heinously cruel or insultingly generic. The premise is cookie cutter and derivative as hell. The humor is forced, predictable and just depressing more often than funny. The animation . . . . oh God, the animation. I’ve had non flavored rice cakes with more taste than this show. It’s like anti-creativity. Even as I’m typing this Ii’m getting riled up just thinking about it again. Alright, let me calm down. Let’s break this show down piece by piece, starting with the writing.

Writing

*ugh, the animation in these gifs is terrible. I’ll get to it when I get to it.*

Synopsis: Kevin Crawford is an aspiring young police officer who is determined to prove himself to his dad, Chief Randall Crawford of the Paradise PD. Chief Crawford has a hard time trusting his son because of a firearms accident that occurred when Kevin was very young (the less details you know about that the better) but his ex wife mayor Karen Crawford forces Randall to bring Kevin into the department anyway. Kevin thus joins a motley crew of . . .ahem . . . “”””hilarious””””” cops including Gina; the badass uber violent super cop who’s both the sex appeal of the show and has a fetish for morbidly obese men (yes, seriously), Gerald Fitzgerald; the Cleveland Brown of this show who’s basically just a well mannered token black guy, Dusty Marlow; the morbidly obese innocent cop whom Gina constantly harasses sexually (and yet when male characters harass her on the show she threatens to beaten them for pervy comments, so . . . hypocrite), Stanley Hopson; an elderly officer whose whole schtick is being senile and doing gross shit . . and finally Brian Griffin-I mean Bullet; the canine unit who’s also a drug addict . . . and being a drug addict is basically his whole shtick. They get into a bunch of wacky shenanigans, a lot of gross stuff ensues, yadda yadda yadda

So admittedly, this isn’t a bad premise for a show of this style. If Brooklyn 99 has proven anything it’s that a police department is a great and refreshing setting for a sitcom with tons of potential for jokes as well as diverse characters having great chemistry with each other. Plus it’s an archetype I don’t see very much of (I’d like to point out that I consider this different from the “buddy cop” archetype which is literally everywhere, because rather than focus on two cops it involves an entire precinct). This show is kind of like if Seth Macfarlane made a Family Guy spinoff centered around Joe Swanson (except that sounds a million times more amazing). But while Paradise PD sounds like a good concept for a show on paper, it’s execution is poorer than poor. Ironically for being such an off-the-beaten-path premise for a sitcom the show doesn’t take very much advantage of it. It’s not like the case in every episode is particularly interesting and it’s certainly not like Archer or Brooklyn 99 where the humor comes from the mundane nature of the job that nobody really talks about (filing a lot of paper work and performing basic job duties). Instead it’s premises about banging police cars that have AIs that behave like abusive girlfriends . . .which is a premise we’ve seen before. Or it’s about a father not understanding his child’s hobbies . . .which is a premise we’ve seen before. Or it’s about a fighter being overly confident in the ring only for his cohorts to discover he’s rigged to lose in the next fight . . . which is a premise we’ve seen before. Here lies the biggest problem of this show: it’s so rinse and repeat it’s insulting. For every episode this series has at the moment I guarantee the Simpson’s has done it and has done it better. Or Bob’s Burgers has done it. Or Archer has done it. Or Brooklyn 99 has done it. Hell, Family Guy and American Dad are the most comparable shows to this besides Brickleberry for obvious reasons and as much as I have distaste for those shows even they do these recycled premises more justice than Paradise PD does. Basically the only thing giving this show a real identity is it’s intense gross out visuals which, given this shows shockingly limited animation style, gets stale very quickly. But what is Paradise PD missing that all those shows have in common (besides maybe Family Guy/American Dad)? The answer of course is likable characters.

Characters

*it’s worth mentioning that the intro is the only bit of decent animation this show has. In fact it’s deceivingly good. Be patient . . . I’m getting there.*

If the synopsis I gave at the beginning is any indication it’s that every character suffers from one of two problems; they’re either intensely unlikable or are bland overly used archetypes . . . sometimes both. Gerald Fitzgerald, Dusty Harlow, Stanley Hopson and Bullet are all archetypes you can find in every animated sitcom ever made. It’s the token black guy, the morbidly obese dumbass, the senile old man and the drug addict/self centered misogynist. They all have one joke and one joke only dedicated to each of them. They are walking talking punchlines. So is every character in this show, though everyone else to a lesser extent. Gina is my favorite because her backstory episode is the only one where I felt even a little bit intrigued about how one of these assholes came to be. Our leading man Kevin is a bland standin. He’s just an overly naive, wide eyed kid with a dream. He’s an empty husk for literally any kind of viewer to step in (except for women when it comes to the love interest stuff). The chief is an angry, pompous asshole. In fact every character is just a horrible human being. Even characters that are either overly innocent or are meant to be good natured like Kevin or Dusty are constantly selfish or arrogant in some way. I get that that’s just the way the show is written comedically and in truth all comedy is rooted in the flawed. It’s why a lot of sitcom scenarios are written around characters acting selfishly or stupidly. But there’s being flawed and then there’s . . . being relentlessly cruel. It makes it hard to root for any of these characters in the end, especially since the show also occasionally tries to have a moral center and because . . .well . . . y’know . . . everyone is bland as shit.

Cast Performance

So this is by far the best aspect of the show and the number one thing it has going for it. Why? Because the show has a cast that’s . . . depressingly a bunch of all stars. Tom Kenny, Spongebob himself, voices the chief and he does a great angry authoritative father. Grey Griffin, the actress behind such favorites as Daphne from Scooby Doo, Frankie from Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, Vicki from Fairly Odd Parents and Azula from Avatar: The Last Airbender, is the mayor and also turns in a great performance for what she has to portray. Not to mention the occasional guest like John Dimaggio and Tara Strong. If you’re any fan of voice acting chances are you’ll find a favorite of yours in this cast if not a handful of them. I say this is depressing because all of these people could do so much better. I get it, a paycheck is a paycheck, but . . . . imagine the immensely creative and stunning projects they could have been a part of instead. If a contract with Netflix is what you want, hit up Alex Hirsch! He’s signed on with them now and I bet he’s got something worthwhile! There’s not a whole lot to say about the rest of the performances, mainly because again, it’s hard to care about any of these characters.

Visuals (Animation, Design, Composition, Visual Storytelling, ETC.)

sigh . . . .okay . . . let’s talk about the animation. Before I go into it I just want to be real and sentimental for a second. I’m an animator. I just recently broke into the industry by working with Copernicus Studios . . . and it’s been nothing but a sincere pleasure. I’ve learned more about animation and Toon Boom in 4 months than I ever learned in 4 years of freelancing. It put into perspective just how much thought and effort goes into even the most minimal of shows. It’s a popular trend to shit on professionally animated content for looking such a way or moving in such a way but if those people only knew the countless hours and passion that goes into even just a couple of seconds of footage they’d never talk shit about these shows ever again. Not only that, but I’m an admin for an animation study group on Facebook with thousands of members from all over the world. Animators from every country and every skill level share their work for constructive feedback. Through this I’ve met many people who work in the industry . . .including someone who worked on Paradise PD. And I know them to be among the most skilled and masterful animators on the page. For all of these reasons, I will NEVER call animators lazy or unskilled if they produced a show like this. It’s typically the result of a certain type of direction or method of moving the production pipeline along. I have no doubt on my mind that every animator who worked on this show is wonderfully skilled and will do well in their careers going forward.

But this show does not demonstrate that. Far from it. This show goes out of it’s way to be lazy. It cuts so many corners they’ve made a perfect circle of hell. Just take a look at most of the gifs I’ve posted in this review. Notice the popping of proportions and lines in moving pieces. Notice certain features like noses or eyes that move around for no damn reason at all. Look at features like eyebrows where there’s no easing or seamless transition or any basic understanding of the 12 principles of animation aside from perhaps arcs. Just watch a couple of seconds of this show and count how little frames are in every motion. If you told me this show was made in Go! Animate I would believe you. This makes Family Guy look like Studio Ghibli. Maybe this show could have been more pleasant to look at if it had vouched for motion keyframes instead of what appears to be the occasional stop motion keyframe (users of Toon Boom or Flash will know what I mean) but even then there’s nothing to look at really. Add to that the eyesore of a colour scheme, the uninspired character designs that if I put them in silhouette you would not be able to tell what show it’s from, the absolutely barebones backgrounds that look like early 2000s Newgrounds cartoon sets and the unimaginitive shot composition that consists almost entirely of wide shots and medium wide shots and you have what can hardly even be defined as animation by mainstream televisions standards. The last show I reviewed was Matt Groening’s Disenchantment and while I had my issues with that shows animation, at least they were only errors a trained eye could see in a show that was otherwise appealing. Paradise PD is just a tragedy. The only positive comment I can make about the animation is that the FX department did a great job animating the blood and the boogers and any type of nasty body liquid . . . .and I am depressed that that is my one positive comment.

Audio (Soundtrack, Sound Mixing, Sound FX, ETC.)

*In case you thought I was joking about one of the episode summaries I gave earlier*

Like most of the stuff I review, the audio isn’t particularly notable in this show. There’s no memorable soundtracks to speak of. The sound mixing is fine. That’s really all there is to say. I’ll be honest; I’ll talk about remarkable soundtracks in this section or clever/bad sound mixing when I can, but I mainly just include this section so I can score what i’m reviewing in a way that adds to a 10.

Conclusion

Paradise PD is the worst show I have ever given a review for and quite possible the worst show I’ve ever made an effort to sit down and watch. Almost nothing is redeemable about it. It’s the lowest common denominator for animation and it unsuccessfully trades any hint of originality for unfunny shock humor. It fails not because of missteps, but because of a refusal to make the necessary steps in the first place.

Writing - 0.5/2- Below Average

Characters - 0.5/2- Below Average

Cast Performance - 1.5/2 - Above Average

Visuals - 0.5/2 - Below Average

Audio - 1/2 - Average

4 out of 10 - My most hated show thus far.

#netlfix #netflix original #Paradise PD #Paradise P.D #Cartoons #Animation #2D Animation #Review #Film Review #TV review #brickleberry #Scrawnydutchman

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sophieakatz · 6 years

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Thursday Thoughts: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Coming-of-Age Stories, and Where The Heck Are The Adults In This World

Recently, I finally watched all sixty-one episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender (ATLA) - a show that literally every friend I’ve ever had has been surprised to learn I never watched as a kid.

(Returning readers will already know that I never watched most TV shows as a kid. I’m making up for lost time now.)

Overall, I enjoyed ATLA. It’s an emotional adventure with complex morals and strong positive themes like the power of friendship and family. I had a lot of fun finally discovering the contexts for all the memes I’ve become familiar with because of Tumblr (like “Sparky Sparky Boom Man” and “That’s rough, buddy”).

But I also felt uncomfortable while watching, for one specific reason: how young everyone is.

Aang is twelve years old. So is Toph. The other protagonists, and several major antagonists, aren’t much older. It hit me in the middle of the second episode that I was watching kids play at war – a thought that I know wouldn’t have occurred to me if I had been watching as a twelve-year-old myself, but one that stuck with me for the rest of my watch-through. ATLA is a story about kids in a world of absent or incompetent adults, with the fate of the world in their hands. And that kind of weight just plain doesn’t belong on the shoulders of twelve-year-olds.

The show makes some ventures towards confronting the topic of the kids’ age, and how circumstances have forced them into adult roles far too soon.

Aang was taken away from childhood play because of his destiny as the Avatar and the monks’ fear of the impending war.

Sokka and Katara’s mother died when they were little, leaving Katara as the only “mother” Sokka can remember. Their father left to fight the war after that, leaving Sokka as the only “man” of their village.

Zuko’s father treated him not as a preteen son, but as an adult inferior, and physically tortured him in public over a perceived slight.

The show points at these situations as unfortunate, and in Zuko’s case outright states that it was wrong. But then it keeps going, as all stories about child heroes do, and shows that it’s necessary for the kids to save the world. It’s unfortunate that Aang and Zuko and the others were taken out of childhood so soon, but even when they do go to adults for help, they are turned away and told that only they can solve the problems. It is their plot-driven destiny to be adults before their time.

ATLA also gives us a supporting cast of children whose too-adult qualities are portrayed in a completely uncomplicated, even praiseworthy way.

Suki and the Kyoshi Warriors, Princess Yue, and Jett and his Freedom Fighters all are treated by the narrative as though in being responsible “adult” figures they are as they should be, even though none of them could possibly be older than fifteen.

Toph’s entire character arc revolves around her hatred at being treated like a child by her overbearing parents, and the narrative unquestioningly supports her – the only moment in which it seems her parents might actually support her (the letter from her mother) turns out to be a lie, and leads to Toph achieving her destiny as the world’s first metal-bender. There is no middle ground, and we never actually see or hear from her parents again.

And the villainous Azula, though she displayed a frightening level of competence in every other episode of the show, is finally defeated when she starts behaving in an age-appropriate childlike way. I might be reading too much into this (I am an English major, after all), but the four-episode finale arc left me with the impression that the show was condemning childhood. When push comes to shove, no matter how old you are, you better grow up, or else.

To be fair, this is a coming-of-age story. Naturally it’s pro-adulting. Also, twelve-or-so is the normal sort of age for these stories. That’s when Gregor enters the Underland in Suzanne Collins’s Gregor the Overlander, and when Lyra and Will’s daemons settle in Philip Pullman’s The Amber Spyglass

For a twelve-or-so-year-old reader, as I once was for both these books, it feels perfectly natural. As Neil Gaiman said about his book Coraline:

Reading audience number one is adults. Adults completely love it and they tell me it gave them nightmares. They found it really scary and disturbing, and they're not sure it's a good book for kids, but they loved it. Reading audience number two are kids who read it as an adventure and they love it. They don't get nightmares, and they don't find it scary. I think part of that is that kids don't realize how much trouble Coraline is in -- she is in big trouble -- and adults read it and think, “I know how much trouble you're in.”

A kid reading these coming-of-age stories sees “someone like me saving the world” and goes along with it, not having the external perspective necessary to stress about whether or not the child hero will be able to save the world.

But me? I’m twenty-three. I’m too old to see Aang and company as “someone like me.” I don’t connect with Katara or Toph nearly as much as connect to Uncle Iroh, the closest thing this story has to a constant responsible adult figure. I look at the child heroes and I think, “Where the heck are the adults in this world?”

The adults are gone, as is necessary for the plot. In order for a “kids save the world” story to take place, the adults must be absent or otherwise incompetent, as nearly all the adults in ATLA are. They’re dead, or they’re off fighting another part of the war in a distant land, or they don’t understand their children, or they’re just plain stupid. It puts me in mind of the make-believe games the next-door-neighbor children I babysat in high school would create: in those stories, their parents were always dead.

In her book Good Girls and Wicked Witches: Changing Representations of Women in Disney's Feature Animation, 1937-2001, Amy Davis examines the tendency of parents in Disney films and other fairy-tale kinds of stories to be either absent or otherwise unable to protect their children. This lack of adult guidance is what creates the circumstances for those children to go on an adventure. Grown-ups can’t solve the world’s problems, so kids must step up and solve it.

Or rather, the kids must step up and be grown-ups, and solve it.

But take it from a twenty-three-year-old: a twelve-ish-year-old is not a grown-up, no matter what they’ve been through.

When I was sixteen, it suddenly hit me that it’s ridiculous that Lyra and Will’s daemons settle at age thirteen. Settling indicates that their personality is done changing, that they are who they are and they’ve finished growing up. But at sixteen, I could tell that I wasn't the same person that I had been at thirteen. At twenty, I wasn’t the same person that I had been at sixteen. I’m different again now, though less dramatically. I’m still figuring things out, and there are still adulting steps that I haven’t yet taken, but I’m much more a grown-up than I’d ever have called myself at thirteen.

I can see the value in “kids act like grown-ups and save the world” stories. They’re not written for me, who’s beginning to find them troubling. They’re written for kids, who don’t find them troubled, because they don’t see the dangers that the child-heroes face. They see that the child-heroes succeed.

My mother doesn’t like The Lion King because it’s about a child being told his father’s death is all his fault. She told me so when I was little, and my response was that it’s okay, because we know Scar is lying and that Simba will defeat him in the end. I’m closer now to my mother’s perspective than to my younger self’s response in regards to how I watch ATLA.

We do need to tell kids that they can and will grow up to do great things, and the best way to do that is to show them people their age that they can relate to doing great things – even if it makes adults feel uncomfortable. While the adult behavior of the children might be unrealistic, the ideal that it encourages in them, to become people who save the world, is absolutely realistic.

ATLA is not a story intended for me, though it might have been if I’d watched it then. I’m content to recommend it to children Aang’s age, and to derive an entirely different kind of enjoyment from it by over-analyzing, critiquing, and otherwise completely picking it apart. As I said, I am an English major, after all.

By the way, I highly recommend Amy Davis’s book. It was an instrumental piece of my thesis research and a super interesting read.

Come back every week for a new Thursday Thoughts!

Got a suggestion for a topic? Send it my way!

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#thursday thoughts #avatar #avatar the last airbender #atla #tumblr originals #reviews

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doomedandstoned · 6 years

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CHAINED TO THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN!

~Interview by Shawn Gibson~

Forward by Billy Goate

At Doomed & Stoned, we live for moments like these, when we discover a band that isn't just good, but remarkable. Meet the savage four-piece act Chained To The Bottom Of The Ocean from Springfield, Massachusetts. If you missed their crushing September debut, 'Decay and Other Hopes Against Progress' (2017), I suppose you could be forgiven, seeing as how packed a year it was for compelling releases. Plus, it's not like the band is itching for the spotlight. Their monstrous release kind of flew under the radar, as it wasn't accompanied by the usual hype and hoopla that a band is expected to expel nowadays in order to grab hold of the coveted PR cycle. It seems CTTBOTO are content with the small, but steadily growing, fanbase they've nurtured thus far. In fact, they were surprised to hear from Shawn, who hunted them down for a rare full-band interview. The transcript of their conversation below has been lightly edited for clarity and flow. Enjoy!

Decay and Other Hopes Against Progress by Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean

There’s a lot of despair in that name, Chained To The Bottom Of The Ocean. Reminds me of Clinging To The Trees Of A Forest Fire or Dragged Into Sunlight. Where did that come from?

So we're just gonna answer questions as a group, because the music, for us, is more collaborative and not about the individual person. We feel more comfortable answering questions as a group, [thought it’s] not like our total personal views on everything, for sure. We can tell you it’s a THOU song and we do derive a lot of influence from them. I think it's more the imagery that those words portray that gives us a lot more depth and meaning.

It's an amazing name! Makes me think of doom, terror, and depravity. You dropped an album last year called, 'Decay And Other Hopes Against Progress.' What’s the significance that title?

Generally, it's just progress against disruption. It's kinda where we're at currently. Feels like everything's kind of falling apart.

The band’s slogan is, "Send every God and King to the Gallows."

Yeah. I think the way I interpret that is, a lot of political figures, entertainment figures, and people have become adulterated. There's an undercurrent taking everyone down a peg.

Your artwork is as spectacular as your music – the picture of a lion holding swords. It almost looks like a tarot card.

Thank You! I think we attempt to as much of our endeavors, into art. We don't create it ourselves, we try to find artists, tattoo artists, design artists, locals on a small scale. We give them a concept and let them run with it. For sure, there was a tarot card in describing what we wanted, referencing the nine swords and all of that, as well as a lot of undertones of medieval woodcuts. I guess we warned to go with a simple, aggressive, oldish design – that sort of feeling.

The pin itself looks fucking regal! Pretty dignified thing to have on your jacket. Proud to wear it!

The pins came out a million times better than we thought they would.

They shine! They're on point! And your cassette tin, is that lavender in there?

It is indeed lavender. We didn't really anticipate this going as well as it did, so we wanted to make a special version of Decay And Other Hopes Against Progress that really gives the effort that it deserved. Ultimately, we'd like to press it on vinyl, but I guess that's a less intimate version of like doing a deluxe cassette, where we sat down and did everything ourselves and made all the decisions. The idea was to convey like a lot of intimacy with people who share our music. They're willing to support us and spend money on us, so we're willing to put in the work and make something unique and nice for them.

So what are some damn good books you guys have read?

I got one. I recently read this book that I'm going to explain very poorly, Candide by Voltaire. What I got out of it, basically, is just because you exist the world you live in is automatically the best world you can live in, simply because you're there. So it's not worth other possible worlds. It’s about how you can live in absurd times, but it’s still the best thing that you could ever experience. To make the best of things, you know? I'm pretty into Vonnegut, too.

When you guys do live shows, do you wear those chains like in the picture?

You'd be surprised how heavy those chains are!

I bet! I saw the picture and I was like, "God damn, that's some hardcore shit!” Bands like Dragged Into Sunlight, they've got ski masks. Void Meditation Cult has the blackened faces and hooded cloaks. If those are real chains, your heads must weight 25 or 30 pounds! (laughs)

I think that set of chains weighed at least 60 pounds.

Shit!

They were old, they were heavy, and they were very dirty. It was definitely more a concept piece.

Is this an effort to preserve the anonymity of the band members?

We're not trying to be anonymous. You can come to our live shows and see who we are and meet us. By no means are we trying to hide our identity. It plays into the concept that we're pieces of a greater whole. It's not about any one individual band member -- where we've been, who we are, where we come from -- it's more about what we do together and what we can create together.

You guys got anything works right now?

We're playing Stoned To Death Festival in March with Black Pyramid. It's in this really pretty church with stained glass windows.

Sick! The band playing any local shows?

We really try to limit ourselves playing locally too often. We don't want to have oversaturation in a small area; could be detrimental.

What’s was one of your favorite shows?

We've had incredibly good shows! A month after the new album came out, we put a whole thing together ourselves, rented a room at this church, and brought bands we wanted to play with. It was really good to play a release for your album surrounded by people you wanted to be there.

I take this question seriously and asked it all my interviews throughout the years: What makes you guys laugh uncontrollably?

Laugh uncontrollably?

Yeah, you chuckle, snort, pee your pants a bit. Something hilarious to you, funny images in your head.

Let me think about that for a second. I'm going to say The Eric Andre Show. (laughs)

Yeah he's pretty funny. That guy gets pretty nuts! Some of it, I think, is dumb, but man he's got some big brass ones! The episode where he has a grizzly bear on his show as a guest, he's like: “Fuck it, I'm out. Skit’s over!" (laughs)

That's a wicked hard question! There's this picture of a Chihuahua and his face is scrunched up it says something like, "How I feel when the sun goes down at four o’clock everyday" or something like that and people send it to me all the time and I lose it no matter what I'm doing.

That's what I'm talking about! I had a very, very embarrassing moment in high school, in a 10th grade biology class. The substitute teacher and assistant principle walk in the room and announce that our Biology teacher had passed away. I burst out laughing! It was a nervous laugh. The whole class turns in the chairs, staring at me. I felt so terrible, literally like a Southwest Airlines commercial, I wanted to get away!

This is going to be a dumb answer. I don’t know how old you are or if anybody else in the band remembers, but there used to be this show where comedians get up and do two-minute sets and the point of show was if you could make it two minutes without laughing, you'd move on to the next round. I think that had a serious detrimental effect on my young age, because I find a lot of things not funny and I'm able to not laugh aloud. I end up laughing at a lot of things that shouldn't be funny, though, like violent scenes in movies that weren’t meant to be funny, end up making me chuckle.

That's all I have for you guys, do you have anything else?

We'll probably be recording some songs in the next give or take, two months, it's not super out there, but one of the songs is a Devo cover.

Oh wow!

After that, we're pushing for a full-length and see where we go from there, but we're not going away!

Hell, yeah! You've just had your first record come out in September and you're already talking about another on. Great news!

We're doing stuff, playing shows, we'll be around! How'd you come across us?

Through Bandcamp. I'm a big fan of BC and found a lot of bands that way. When I had my radio show, I'd be on BC until 2 or 3 am scouring for bands.

We looked on Bandcamp real quick under the discover tab -- didn't realize we're #4 under all metal!

You are?

Yeah, what the fuck? (laughs) When the album came out, we were at #7 under doom metal and shit. We were wicked stoked, because the Primitive Man single was close to us! I can’t believe we had our album logo next to it. It's remarkable.

You're up there, dude. You got the goods, you're going to Hollywood! I'm proud of you guys for that.

Thank you very much!

Thank you for your time, I appreciate it!

Follow The Band.

Get Their Music.

#D&S Interviews #Chained To The Bottom Of The Ocean #Springfield #Massachusetts #Doom #Metal #Doom Metal #Shawn Gibson #Doomed & Stoned

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gotgifsandmusings · 7 years

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the way you guys handled the racism part of the podcast was just. awful i couldnt even finish the rest of the podcast bc i was so offput. expected better from you :/

I’m so sorry to hear that, seriously.

I don’t want to hide behind excuses; if our tone or words were hurtful, that’s the way of it, and all I can do is apologize for it and learn why. It was not our intent, and as we said at the start of it, we’re more than open to a dialogue.

I’ve received positive and negative feedback for pretty much every portion of the podcast, however (it’s not like “oh yay, person X agrees so we’re fine!” or anything, of course), and I do think there’s some value in digging into that.

Julia and I tend to be more forgiving of Martin, not that we’re asking anyone else to be. And given the virulence with which we go after D&D, I understand how hypocritical this can come across as, and how frustrating this can be too. But the reason we are is basically two-fold:

One is that we believe there’s a value to his books. Now, there’s also a value to the political discussion on Bill Maher’s show, for example, but yet amazingly, decent political commentary shouldn’t come with a side-serving of Islamophobia. I don’t watch his show, so why should I accept and praise books that don’t handle race well? That don’t handle female sexuality that amazingly, particularly in the cause of wlw scenes? That oftentimes do feel like the sexual violence could be easily toned down, or it’s unnecessarily gendered, or it does fall into unfortunate patterns with things like dead mothers?

The answer to that ties into the second reason, which is that his pattern is getting better. FeastDance felt more thoughtful, felt like there was more of an emphasis on female and other marginalized voices, and it felt like there was great intentionality on Martin’s part to do so. I haven’t read all his interviews; I can’t guess at what’s in his head beyond what his body of work shows us. But you can bet that if he was coming across as someone who was unwilling to reflect and engage with his own shortcomings, I wouldn’t be as invested.

I could be wrong about him. I’ve said this a lot before, but I could be really, really wrong. For now, he has my benefit of the doubt. I’m not asking you to bestow yours.

Back to the problems at hand though, and the value of his books. No, they’re not perfect at all. There’s a lot of issues, and these are issues that a more intersectional author likely wouldn’t have. To be perfectly honest, I think we’re starting to have a tendency of expecting perfection in every area from our media now. While I love that we’re finally in a place where our cultural dialogue is pushing for the change we want, and that storytellers are actually listening (look at like, Clexacon’s mere existence, for instance), I think this can easily become a double edged sword, where you’ve got the fandom raising pitchforks about Steven Universe not doing well with butch representation.

ASOIAF is no SU. It’s a book series written by a white dude in his 60s that spans twenty years. Which is why Julia and I put so much stock into the pattern and direction the books seem to be headed, because our social dialogue shifts so much. Well, depressingly not as much as it should, but I think it’s hard to deny that there is far less tolerance for bullshit in our media, and far more expectations of representational media that are not just once again glorifying the white male lens.

I don’t believe the book series simplistically does that at all. I find there to be feminist takeaways in Martin’s critique of the patriarchy, and in the way Martin holds up a lens to the bullshit assumptions by this society, which is one uncomfortably reflective of our own history (though certainly not highly accurately so). I wouldn’t say my willingness is to forgive the issues in the books, but more like say, “these are here, these are problems, but I still find this text valuable. I still find the close-POV different and worthwhile.”

I can’t speak for Julia, but I can at least say this is what we had hoped to convey in the podcast. I believe we failed spectacularly. I think our tendency not to plan or overly structure our episodes went heavily against us here. Everything we were saying was in a larger context of “and this is a problem,” but wow we really didn’t make that clear.

What we did was basically raise the problems in turn, talk about what we think his intent was and what its function in the story has been, and then conclude on “this could have been better,” which after you know…like ten minutes of what probably sounds like rationalizations was not exactly going to come across as particularly meaningful. Had we structured more, I think we could have been clearer about “and it did not land.”

Showing Dany as completely unable to comprehend the political situation she was in, and being over her head with the complexity, did *not* require a lack of Essosi POVs, even if we suspect that’s partially why Martin made that choice, for instance.

But of course that didn’t come across, especially when there were some downright flippant things said that we also didn’t clarify. Like Julia mentioning she didn’t want a Dothraki POV, probably because it’d be very close to one as distressingly violent and patriarchal as Vic, which is simply unpleasant to read (and I’m also not sure I agree; I would have loved Dany eating the heart from a POV of someone in the Dosh Khaleen, for instance).

We know each other well, and we know the intent and place we’re coming from when we’re saying something, so I think that led to us not explicating stuff that absolutely needed to be explicated. Again, there’s no excuse. I wish we had planned and presented everything differently, and it seems pretty obvious now how badly we needed to do that. I’ve learned a lot just in the past day, and all I can do is try to be better.

However, I will say…I suspect there’s also going to be content disagreements in the conclusions Julia and I land on. I’ve seen this with the fandom dialogue about the issues of sexism in the books before, and we’ve often received criticism for defending how he writes the patriarchy and women. Or for how women in the past basically are these pure, idealized victims, or they’re forgotten. We believe that’s to a point most of the time, that being one that provides a fuller picture of Westeros’s bullshit patriarchy (unnammed Mama Martell as an exception because there’s no reason for that at all), but we know it’s a point that doesn’t land.

Then there’s stuff like Arianne’s ‘hypersexuality’, which I simply don’t agree with. In my view, and something Gretchen and I were just discussing, Cersei is far more sexualized (she just tends to view sex from a manipulative standpoint always, instead of deriving pleasure from it, Jaime aside which is clearly unhealthy), and the degree to which this is a problem for a Dornish POV to have these traits (which I think is played up in the fandom) is one where I part ways with a lot of people. I can’t answer how I’d feel about it if I weren’t white, so I do my best to acknowledge that lens whenever I can. But in general, from what I can tell, my lens is also just a bit less Doylist than where some land.

And that’s fine, too. We’re all just engaging with the books how we like to do, and taking from it what’s there for us. There’s no objective takeaways, and not to belabor the point, but I could be so wrong about these books.

Why am I all Doylist with D&D? Because Watsonian analysis is useless in GoT, sure, but because they’ve violated my trust and my benefit of the doubt so thoroughly. I’m not there with Martin, and maybe that’s a problem. I suspect I might even be too Watsonian for my own good because of how engaged I find myself with certain aspects. Half of why we recorded that podcast was to kind of slap ourselves in the face with some Doylist realities, but I do now think the tone ended up being too dismissive, and I don’t feel good about it.

Anyway, this is just a super long-winded apology, as well as a meek explanation I suppose. Certainly not an excuse. This episode was requested a lot for us, probably because of how defensive of the books we get, and I feel like in our attempt to talk every angle of the issue, we ended up just coming across as doubling down on that defense. Moving forward you can bet your ass I’m going to be far more cognizant of this.

What’s funny is, feeling defensive actually wasn’t my experience at all recording it. Hell, even just pulling your asks for it, I was like, “wow this all really sucks,” and found myself getting a good deal more nervous for TWOW coming out. Because…god…I think I might be wrong. I’m back in that place I was in during season 5 where I was wondering if Sansa was going to get raped by LF (obviously a different context than the show), or if we’re not supposed to see Tyrion’s misogyny.

I’m not ready to give up on Martin yet, but I’m sure as hell not asking anyone else to forgive him. And if nothing else, I know now that at least a few takeaways we had were certainly not his intent, but the result of our own engagement and projections onto the media. I think I might be wrong (and where’s TWOW).

#I'm so sorry guys #asoiaf #got #anonymous #asks #rape mention tw

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analysis-by-vaylon · 7 years

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Vaylon's Crazy Theory #1: Pony Head will die, and Marco will use her horn as a weapon.

I told you these theories would be crazy, even for me.

First, a disclaimer: the contents of this post are sold as-is. Not guaranteed to actually predict the future, end shipping wars, or bring total enlightenment. Read at your own risk. May cause drowsiness or confusion. Void where prohibited. All sales are final. NO REFUNDS.

(This will be a long post.)

Perhaps you're thinking to yourself, "Vaylon, you crazy person, you, how on earth could you even begin to possibly justify such an outlandish theory?!" Well, what if I told you that it starts all the way back in episode 1b: "Party with a Pony"? But before I can tell you that story, I have to tell you this story: let's talk about the Holy Grail.

Not This @#$% Again!

If you're a regular follower of my blog, then I'm sure by now you're sick to death of me talking about the Holy Grail theory and how I think Lekmet's horn will come to play a big role in future seasons. Well, too bad! It’s a good theory, and I’m proud of it. There’s plenty of evidence for it, in my opinion -- but I missed something related to the Grail. Something big.

You see, I'm kind of an idiot for not realizing the possibility of this Pony Head theory sooner. The answer is literally right in front of my face every day. Have you ever seen my profile picture? It's the Lance of Longinus from Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Evangelion's Lance is based on an actual legend in medieval Christian tradition. The legend says that a Roman soldier named Longinus wanted to make sure that Christ was really dead, so he stabbed him in the side with his spear. (The use of the word lance instead of spear is debatable, but I like the alliteration, so I'm going to use it.) All sorts of stories and magical powers are associated with this weapon, and lots of different relics claim to be the "true" Lance. But here's the thing I had forgotten: in order for the Grail to catch the blood of Christ (and thus become the Grail), there has to be a sizable wound. The Lance, then, is what causes that wound.

The Holy Grail is only half of the picture! You can't have the Grail without the Lance; they go together. I felt like a fool when I realized the connection I’d been missing -- the hint was right in front of me the whole time.

In Arthurian tales, the Grail and Lance often go hand-in-hand -- one or both are depicted as continually dripping with blood -- and there have been lots (and lots) of books written about the symbolism behind the two mythical objects. One reading is that the Grail and Lance symbolically represent feminine and masculine aspects, respectively. Or, more irreverently, they represent Venus and Mars. Any of this starting to sound familiar yet?

I've written previously about Star being associated with the goddess Venus. Marco, then, of course, is associated with the god Mars; not only is his name ultimately derived from Mars, but he has a strong connection to the color red and to martial arts. The Roman god of war is depicted as carrying a spear as a weapon -- indeed, it's part of his symbol, which has now become the traditional symbol for "male." If there is indeed a Lance in Star vs. the Forces of Evil, then it seems only fitting that Marco -- the Lancer of the series -- comes to wield it.

Once I started thinking about the Lance, it was easy to find references to it (some more subtle than others). I've divided the theory into two sections: the first part will deal with connecting Pony Head to the Lance (and hence to Marco). The second part will deal with the foreshadowing of Pony Head's death. Let's begin!

Pony Head and Marco

Remember "Party with a Pony" -- the very first episode we see Pony Head in? Do you remember what game Pony Head and Marco play at the Amethyst Arcade?

Lance Lance Revolution! I was stunned when I recalled that scene. (I also wonder if it's a stealth reference to the opening of Revolutionary Girl Utena -- watch for the flying horses!) Notably, Pony Head loses the game to Marco. Indeed, for what it's worth, there are a number of references to sharp objects in "Party with a Pony":

The series is trying to establish a comparison between lances and Pony Head. Sound far-fetched? Perhaps -- but that's the point (so to speak) of this post. This theory's reading opens up the episode to a lot of irony in lines like this, for instance:

Pony Head: Look here, Earth Turd. This night is really important to me. You mess that up, and you’re gonna get the horn.

Marco could literally receive the horn from Pony Head. And there is another line in "Party with a Pony" that is much, much darker upon re-interpretation, but I'll save that for the second half. For now, let's move on to some other episodes.

Both Star and Marco make use of Pony Head several times throughout the series as a tool:

Her role as a tool in "St. Olga's Reform School for Wayward Princesses" and in "Pizza Thing" could foreshadow the eventual use of her horn as a weapon. "Pizza Thing" is particularly interesting as it focuses on Pony Head and Marco's relationship -- indeed, every time we see Pony Head on-screen, she is somehow causing trouble for Marco -- and there are odd lines in it like this one that seem to hint at something else going on:

Pony Head, however, does have a sharp edge to stab someone with. Marco using her horn as a weapon would be symbolic of the friendship between him and Pony Head; we would think of her every time he uses it. This shot is probably the most symbolic one in the episode, however:

Bowls, as I noted before in my post on the Holy Grail, are symbolic of the Grail; the symbolism, I think, is reinforced by Pony Head putting eggs into it. (Pizza dough does not ordinarily have eggs in it!) Remember: the Grail and the Lance go together. They are a pair, just like Star and Marco.

Finally, there's a pretty unusual passage in Star and Marco's Guide to Mastering Every Dimension:

It seems likely to me that the writers intend far more meaning behind Pony Head and Marco's relationship than is apparent at first glance; if this theory is correct, then perhaps Marco and Pony Head will become much closer than they are now just before she is killed, and he will commit himself to keeping her memory alive in a way she would have wanted.

Word Associations

I think "The Bounce Lounge" -- another often-overlooked episode -- is important, too, for establishing darker themes associated with Pony Head: that of old age, finality, and death. Yet, before we get into those themes, there's something odd going on in this episode, something that I've previously remarked on: shot-for-shot, "The Bounce Lounge" and "The Hard Way" have similar composition. (If you play both episodes at the same time, you'll see for yourself what I'm talking about.) In particular, I would like to focus on these two shots:

Visually, Pony Head is being compared to a pillar. Pillars play an unusual role in the series; for one thing, they're connected to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade -- a film about the quest for the Holy Grail. For instance, the pillars that mark the clues that Indiana Jones follows are echoed in the second half of season two of Star vs. the Forces of Evil:

Pillar is a word with an interesting etymology. As you can see, it's ultimately derived from the Latin pila -- a word with some interesting connections (among them: mortar and pestle, pistil) -- but, more to the point (again, so to speak), it’s also etymologically connected to the Latin word pilum -- the famed javelin of the Roman soldier. Both pila and pilum probably have their origin in the proto-Indo-European root *peys- meaning "to crush."

The word pillar is ultimately derived from a root meaning "to crush." If you’re skeptical about the significance of this, just consider what a pillar does at the end of "The Battle for Mewni":

Yeah.

I don't think there's any need for us to balk at this sort of word association -- with cleaved in "Storm the Castle" and Janna sleeping in the grave in "Bon Bon the Birthday Clown," the writers have clearly demonstrated that they're aware of the meanings and etymologies of words. (As an aside, think about how much importance the word crush has in episodes like "Sleepover" and "Starcrushed"!) If Pony Head can be compared to a pillar, then she certainly can be compared to a javelin (or, more aptly, a spear).

The amount of suffering in "The Battle for Mewni" -- and the sheer number of times that the words dead or kill are used -- hint that the series as a whole is moving toward a darker, more serious tone. Would the death of a supporting character really be that out of place? There are some elements scattered throughout the series so far which hint at Pony Head's death; let's take a look at them.

The Shadow of Death

Even from the beginning of Pony Head's introduction, there's an air of danger and death around her; after all, in "Party with a Pony," she does try to kill Marco:

In the same episode, Marco responds to Pony Head with some violence of his own:

If this theory is right, and Pony Head is destined to die, consider how darkly ironic King Pony Head's incredible line at the end of "Party with a Pony" becomes:

King Pony Head: Ah, kids... You have 'em, and then you... wish they weren't around.

And that episode isn't the only one like that; as I noted earlier, "The Bounce Lounge" is entirely themed around old age, finality, and endings. There's a crow in the decrepit Bounce Lounge, an omen of death (if you watch the scene, note how the sound travels to the left channel, drawing your attention to the crow):

There's some visual metaphor going on as well: when Star starts to cry, all of her glass unicorn figurines shatter into pieces. Could this be foreshadowing Star's sorrow at her best friend's death? Indeed, the entire episode seems dedicated to priming the audience for -- something -- some kind of major loss or death:

Furthermore, Milly Sparkles says "six customers" -- and the show wants us to pay attention to what she says and how she says it -- but there are actually seven characters present:

At first, I wondered if something would happen to Marco, since he's the only one not reflected in Milly's shades, but in light of this theory, I now think it's Pony Head. A stretch, admittedly (isn't it all?), but it's hard to deny that "The Bounce Lounge" is a grim portent. To a lesser extent, “Running with Scissors” also presages death in what could be an ironic fashion:

This theory of mine about Pony Head may also help explain something I'd been puzzling over for quite a while during the season two finale livestream, which featured Marco and StarFan13 talking about Easter eggs to watch for during "Face the Music" and "Starcrushed":

StarFan13: Did you find all the Easter eggs? Did you find the unicorn skull, the pizza nuggets, and the shoulder tassels?

As far as I know, there's no unicorn skull in either "Face the Music" or "Starcrushed." However, there are some bones near the flytrap-like plant in "Face the Music":

But those don't look like unicorns to me; look at their teeth. (Also, the clues indicate we're looking for a single unicorn skull.) Perhaps this connection is far-fetched, but I always thought the hint of "unicorn skull" prefigured some other death -- and now I think it may be referring to Pony Head's eventual demise. (If someone has an alternate explanation for the unicorn skull hint, I would be happy to hear it!) But this is just a minor point compared to what I think is the biggest clue of all...

In a post about "Starcrushed," I wrote about how, among other things, the Magic High Commission and Star's group of friends all seem to run parallel to one another:

Emergency Friend Meeting: Star, Pony Head, Kelly, Janna, and StarFan13. Magic High Commission: Moon, Lekmet, Omnitraxus Prime, Hekapoo, and Rhombulus.

Thanks to Moon in "Return to Mewni," we know for a fact that Lekmet is gone for good:

Since "Starcrushed" implicitly compares Star's group of friends to the Magic High Commission, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to posit that one of Star's friends could die as well -- and the closest one to Lekmet in terms of kind and symbolism is Pony Head.

Lekmet is associated with healing (as is the Holy Grail); similarly, real-life legends about unicorns are also associated with healing -- their alleged horns were valuable, sought-after items believed to be cure-alls and were purchased by medieval nobles wanting to protect themselves against poison and disease. Both Lekmet and Pony Head have prominent horns, although Pony Head uses hers for magic, and it hasn't been revealed -- yet, anyway -- whether or not Lekmet's horn is magic (but I think it will be soon).

If Lekmet's horn is to be used as a magic item by Star, then is it really that much of a stretch to imagine Pony Head dying and her horn being used as a weapon by Marco?

How It All Goes Down

From what I've been reading, plenty of fans dislike Pony Head; in any case, I would certainly not characterize her as a popular character. I think she's fine in small doses, and at times she can even be hilariously off-beat: her appearance in "Running with Scissors" attests to that! A moment of redemption for her -- something to truly bolster audience opinion of her, perhaps even a heroic sacrifice -- would fit perfectly, I think, into the development of an otherwise unlikable character. It makes a whole lot of sense to me.

And, if it is to happen, then it seems obvious how: Miss Heinous. From "Heinous" -- an episode that I love due to how utterly off-the-rails demented it is -- it's clear that Miss Heinous is quite involved in the process of losing her grip on reality, and she's also become far more bloody-minded than previously shown. Here's a possible chain of events:

Miss Heinous threatens to kill Marco.

Pony Head sacrifices herself to save Marco.

Marco takes Pony Head's horn for revenge.

Implausible? Sure. I freely admit that this theory is crazy -- it's in the title, after all -- but I absolutely think it could happen, and that's what makes it so deliciously tantalizing. Given the show's running theme of transition, I think it would also be influential in terms of character development for Star if she lost her childhood friend; not only would it be symbolic of her transition to adulthood, but it would provide Pony Head a means of redeeming herself and allow the show to reveal just how dark it can truly be. I can’t wait for November!

I hope you enjoyed reading this! Feel free to complain here (or just send questions). Until next time! Take care of yourselves.

#star vs. the forces of evil #crazy theory #pony head #marco diaz

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kakooshi · 7 years

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Ereri/riren ;)

OH MY GOD ILYSM RIGHT NOW ASDFGHJKL….*TURNS INTO A TITAN*

AHEM…ANYWAY….

Whoo boi, prepare for a long one…

• When or if I started shipping it:

I was searching for some Youtube videos shortly after watching the first few episodes of Snk, as I usually do when I show interest in a series. Eventually, I stumbled upon that fateful video of Levi beating Eren up in court. Being the nosy person that I was, I scrolled through the comments and was a little surprised to find out that people shipped them because I wasn’t aware at the time that Levi was saving Eren from getting his ass killed. Then, I saw that scene where they were sitting at the table in ep 24 and I was still skeptical because damn, Levi sounded older than he looked. But then, I saw this thumbnail:

Look at that. LOOK AT THAT. IS THAT BEAUTIFUL OR WHAT!!??? The desire in Eren’s eyes…the tenderness in which he cups Levi’s face…That picture got to me. It got to me so hard all my doubts faded away, and at that moment, I was screwed. Before I knew it, I finished the first season of the anime, read fanfics and metas, gawked at the number of official art they were in together, ignored the antis, and you know the rest :)

• My thoughts:

It scares me a bit how strongly I feel about Ereri. I don’t think another ship will ever ignite such tremendous joy in me more than these two. I’ve gained more ships during the years, but none of them repeated the same excitement I felt for the two imperfectly beautiful monsters that stole my heart. For me, Ereri is the kind of romance you wouldn’t see coming, the kind that starts out with uncertainty and rough edges but eventually falls into something natural and beautiful as it grows. And yes, I ship it in canon. No amount of hate is ever gonna derive me of that.

• What makes me happy about them:

I’m happy that there are a lot of quality content in art and fanfics in the fandom despite Eren and Levi’s limited interaction in canon (AUs are the best). I’m also happy that the shippers are willing to protect and stand up for each other amidst the spamming and the hating and whatnot. I’m at least glad that the ship isn’t based on fear and abuse because of the way Levi looks after Eren (please read the manga), and how Eren still respects Levi even after knowing who he really is as a person and not as Humanity’s Strongest. I mean come on, what kind of “abuser” gives his “victim” pep talks and half-assed poop jokes just to make him feel better?

• What makes me sad about them:

I’m sad that Ereri is hated as much as it is loved and that most fans overlook their actual and more meaningful dynamic because of works that portray their relationship poorly and how they think the ship only revolves around sex or bdsm or whatever. I’m also sad to see that there’s not much going on in the Ereri tag other than reposted art and more crosstagging from the antis (shoutout to @dinklebert and @aurieackerman for bringing life to the tag though). The thing that upsets me most is how other ships are pitted against Ereri in such a hateful fashion.

• Things done in art/fic that annoys me:

Gee…I usually suck up to anything but let’s see:

- Erwin (or any other character) being used as a plot device for a love triangle

- “Shitty brat” (or Levi being more of an asshole than he usually is in the series smh)

- Eren being written as a fragile shrinking violet like seriously, the kid is NOT a shoujo moe character. He’s a serial killer-in-training. (credits to @accidentalyandere )

- Grisha’s A+ parenting

- Eren and Levi instantly doing the do without any development whatsoever.

• Things I look for in art/fic:

CANONVERSE! CANONVERSE! CANONVERSE! THERE IS NEVER ENOUGH CANONVERSE ERERI IN MY LIFE. Can’t I just get these two badasses fighting side by side, drinking tea, dashing through the woods with their 3dmg, riding on horses into the sunset, sparring incessantly to the point where a crowd gathers to watch their incredible skills, treating each other’s injuries, having loads of desperate, loving sex, Levi doting on Eren, Eren doting on Levi…just…canonverse gives me life okay? Also a sucker for slow build….

• Who I’d be comfortable with them ending up with, if not each other:

For Eren, I’d be happy with him being with either Armin, Jean, Mikasa, or Historia. He deserves an ocean full of love regardless of who he ends up with. For Levi, I’d want him to be with Hange, because they’ve been through so much together and they’re the only one Levi has (Well, if we’re talking veterans here)

• My happily ever after for them:

As sad as it makes me to say it won’t happen, I just want them to settle down in this nice, little cottage and live a happy, domestic life together hunting for game and looking after orphans. Or maybe stand on top of Wall Maria as they look over the world like in the Lion King or some shit. That would be good too.

• What is their favorite non-sexual activity?

I’d like to imagine Levi and Eren challenging each other over practically anything on a regular basis, like who makes the best tea, or who cleans the quickest, or who handles the 3dmg like a beast (Levi would no doubt roll his eyes at this). Oh, and cuddling. Cuddling is good.

This took a while, but I had fun. Thank you, and keep shipping :))))

#snk #ereri #rivaere #eren jaeger #eren yeager #eren jäger #eren yaeger #levi #levi ackerman #eren x levi #attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #ereri meta #sort of #ask #reply #attackonstalking #thank you babe #ship meme

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theironweasel · 7 years

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Fullmetal Alchemist: And Why I’m worried Avatar has spoiled me.

SPOILERS!

This was the series more than any other anime I had seen that I was hoping that could live up to the quality of the Avatar franchise. It was an Action/Adventure series about the same length as both series and it was even TV-PG, allowing even darker situations and themes, and it had a strong starting concept. Once again, however, I was ultimately disappointed.

The Humor. This is a rather small complaint in the grand scheme of things, but I felt the humor in FMA fell pretty flat most of the time. I think there are two reasons for this, first most of the jokes are just repeated time and time again and are the one comedic note a character has. Edward gets mad when someone calls him short, Armstrong has his weird physique obsession, and Hughes loves to go on about his daughter. The other issue is the tonal shifts the humor creates. I’d describe the humor in FMA as exaggerated, with background changes, chibiesque faces and other anime humor tropes. However this doesn’t really gel with the serious and dark tone of the rest of the series, this is why the humor seems to work better in the small number of “comedy” episodes such as the Flame Alchemist. Compare this to both Avatar series. In each, characters also tend to derive their comedy from one particular place, but it isn’t limited to a single joke. Sokka has his cynical sarcasm, Toph has her blind jokes, Katara has her deprecation of her brother, Bolin has his naive silliness, and even Mako get’s his overly uptight attitude and awkwardness. But they don’t just repeat the same joke over and over and the reactions of others is also a huge part of the jokes, from annoyance to anger to confusion. Additionally the jokes don’t tend to break from the tone too much. Sokka’s sarcasm is usually a result of the bad situations he tends to wind up in, and Katara tends to get on Sokka’s case when she is annoyed at him for some reason. These jokes are also much more subdued and realistic, they feel like real human beings who have these personalities would say these things in the situation they are in. In FMA, most of the time, it feels like characters become caricatures whenever their humor moments emerge. Also, a lot of humor relies on the reactions of other characters with FMA it's very easy to predict the over the top reactions that will happen. One of my favorite jokes in Avatar is when Bolin is checking to see if Aiwei is in his house “He's not home. Or he's hiding in there. (gasps) Or he's invisible.” To which Mako gives him an amazing look of annoyance that is simply expressed in a pursed mouth and a cocked eyebrow but the timing and sincerity of it always make me laugh.

2. The Pacing. FMA has a problem I rarely even talk about or notice, because I tend to find as long as the pacing is consistent it doesn’t matter much how fast or slow it is. With FMA the pacing is all over the place. At first The Pacing was quite good, letting a single story last only 2 episodes at most, but shifting from a continuing arc to one off episodes relatively well, though the time skip is bizarre. However this changes once the Lab 5 arc begins. 4 episodes are almost entirely in one building over one night with a continuous story that creaks along at a snail's pace. This was the beginning of the longer arcs that would mostly comprise the rest of the show. The worst offender was the Izumi arc which lasted 8 episodes, and the locations that were visited were: An island, a house, some streets, a meat shop, a military base, a bar, a mansion and some sewers. Basically each episode averaged one new location. By comparison, the Ba Sing Se arc in ATLA minus Appa’s Lost Days, was 7 episodes and covered many more locations: The Drill, the outer walls, the lower ring, a tea shop, Zuko’s apartment, the Gaang’s house, the palace, Lake Laogai, a zoo, a haiku club, a restaurant, a fountain area, a spa, The Dai Li headquarters, The Jasmine Dragon, The Water Tribe camp, The Eastern Air temple, The Catacombs and several other locations. Additionally, The entire second half of Book 2 could be considered a single arc that’s 11 episodes long from The Library to The Crossroads of Destiny, however while there is an overarching plot, each episode also has it’s own plot where a number of aspects are resolved each episode, making each feel like a complete story even if the larger story is only slowly developing. FMA has a habit of arcs essentially being one story broken into a number of parts which tends to kill the pacing. It could be argued that LOK is essentially 4 season long arcs going from 12-14 episodes each. While this is technically true, each episode feels independant from each other while also building on the overall plot. While people complain that the pacing gets slow in the middle of Book 2, it isn’t as bad as some of the FMA arcs and bounces back quite well in the second half. And Book 3 is one of the best examples of a slow buildup with an amazing payoff that I’ve ever seen.

3. The Villains. I’m going to be blunt here, the villains of FMA are pretty bland and boring, which is a real shame.There really isn’t much going on with these villains, at best they aren’t completely one dimensional and have some tragedy in their backstory. At worst they have one, continuous boring note they hit and that's it. This is such a waste given the naming convention for most of the villains. We have 7 villains named for the 7 deadly sins, there is so much that could have been done with this, exploring the nature of these concepts from the obvious to the imaginative, to the subtle. We could have seen how a being that is supposed to be an embodiment of a vice interacts with humanity, or how these supposed vices could also be virtues in certain situations. There are a million things that could have been done with this, but for the most part this just plays out as: a guy who will eat anything, a woman who dresses kind of sexily, and a woman who talks like she just woke up. One of the strengths of Avatar are the villains though each series handles them in different ways. First, ATLA tends to have more traditional villains, save for Zuko, though Azula teeters the edge between traditional and humanized, though this is what makes her one of the best villains in fiction by combining pure evil with humanity and tragedy. Back to my point though. Most of the villains are pretty simple, and all of them are essentially aspects of Ego. This is the exact opposite of FMA, taking one concept and exploring it in different ways. Zuko is about the infliction of one's ego on another person and how that can screw someone up and learning how that ultimately, feeding that ego won’t lead to real contentment. Zhao is a bully who enjoys inflicting suffering on others to boost his own ego and his actions both for and against his nation's interests are simply to serve his delusions of grandeur. Long Feng is all about control as an extension of his ego, he rose up through society to prove himself and demanded complete control of Ba Sing Se as an extension of himself. Azula is about the control of Ego as well as how it becomes a defense mechanism to replace a lack of love from those around her, showing how it is ultimately unsustainable because when it is stripped away there is nothing left. Finally, Ozai represents the power hungry nature of Ego and how it will never be satisfied, abusing and manipulating those around him for power and eventually being driven close to madness by a belief in his own power and invincibility. I love this aspect of ATLA as it examines all the aspects of Ego from subtle to extreme, with Ozai being the climax and showing just how terrifying and horrible an absolute devotion to Ego is. LOK takes an opposite approach, each villain represents a different ideology that is taken to an extreme but also humanizes them more than in ATLA. Amon represents how a devotion to extreme equality is misguided as it requires punishing the naturally gifted even though they may choose to use their gifts to help others (Like the Krew) and that in any political movement a figurehead is required and it can be the ultimate weakness. On the other hand it also shows how Amon started as a good person whose ideals were warped by abuse and even though he wants to try and start again he is ultimately killed because of the inevitability of repeating the mistakes of the past, while he may want to change in the moment, all it takes is temptation for the whole thing to start over again. Unalaq is a pretty boring villain but at least he does believe in the need for spirits to be a part of the physical world only taking it to an extreme. And we at least got Vaatu as a pretty cool embodiment of ultimate Darkness and Chaos. Zaheer is extremely interesting in how humanized he is without giving him any real backstory. All this comes from his actions which reflect someone who cares deeply about his friends and loved ones and genuinely wants to help people, but is also ruthless and willing to do ANYTHING to get his way even if it is hypocritical. He also represents a kind of violent Individualist Anarchism that is relatable in how it advocates for total freedom in the midst of an extremely oppressed society. However, it fails to account for how people, especially those who have been oppressed for a long time, don’t tend to act responsibly. More importantly, most people want safety more than freedom and are willing to turn to a horrible dictator to feel safe if necessary. Which brings me to Kuvira, a representation of Fascism who emphasizes Strength, Order, and Military might, from her jackboots to her mechanized army, with a face that could cut glass and an intimidating voice that will make you pee your pants. Seriously, while Hitler was a powerful Orator he didn’t have much else going for him, Kuvira is like if an Übermensch was also the Fuhrer. But beyond that, while her humanization is limited, the final reveal of her character while minor, ties all of her actions together as someone desperately seeking validation in opposition to her abandonment complex. Seriously, look at how long I went on giving just a brief description of each of the villains of Avatar and I could go into much more detail. FMA’s villains are so boring that I could use the same space to write about every single detail we know about all of the villains from backstory, to powers, to motivations and I would at most miss a few minor details.

3. The Plot. The plot starts out simple and interesting, however it eventually becomes way too convoluted with multiple factions with different motivations and goals that aren’t always made apparent so that we aren’t always certain what is going on and why. While it is okay to have some of these things, too much and you start becoming unsure what exactly is going on in relation to everything else. Another unfortunate effect of this is that there are a number of plot points that revolve around one group knowing some information that other groups don’t know. Again while occasionally okay, it is done too much. ATLA has a very simple plot with only a few twists occasionally, but for the most part, most episodes are self-contained stories so it’s difficult to get lost. LOK has more complicated plots, but each one only lasts 12-14 episodes and there is still plenty of stories that wrap up well in one or two episodes and the plots are all pretty interesting and engaging.

4. The Characters. This is more of a mixed bag, I like both Edward and Alphonse and think the relationship between them is pretty great. I do wish the show had taken more advantage of this and focused more on it, because the closest I came to crying watching this show was early on when Alphonse quietly lamented to his brother how he can’t feel anything anymore, specifically he can’t even find physical comfort in his own brother. However there are way too many side characters and most of them are kind of boring and onenote. A huge red flag for me is when Hughes died, this was probably the most likeable of the side characters and this should have been gut wrenching, but I only got a little misty eyed and mostly because of the kind of exploitative child crying during his funeral. It also feels like a number of characters who were supposed to have a bigger arc really didn’t, like Scar who winds up not really changing at all and stupidly plays into the villains’ plans. ATLA was pretty smart in knowing how to handle characters, have a small number of complex main characters with a ton of minor characters with a lot of personality who aren’t seen often, so they are memorable but their schtick isn’t over used. LOK didn’t have quite as interesting main characters, but made up for it with great side characters such as Lin Beifong, Tenzin and Varrick.

5. The Fights. While decent, I got rather tired of Ed using his arm blade to fight and all of the other Alchemists using just one ability the same way over and over. While I understand the specialization of the Alchemists, I wish they would use other abilities more or use their specialization in more creative ways. Avatar was always excellent about coming up with creative ways to use bending from the specializations, to just the imagination of how to use bending from utilitarian such as using sweat as water, to the fantastic, such as firebending magic shows.

6. The Tone. While FMA is praised for it’s dark tone, I think it has a habit of kind of wallowing in it’s darkness too much, especially in regards to the Ishvalan war. While it’s good to have dark moments and even an overall dark tone, I found FMA to not really utilize it’s darkness well. I often felt like the darkness was just dragging everything down into a kind of depressing miasma. The best example I can give with Avatar is Korra Alone which is the most consistently depressing episode of the entire franchise but it is all born out in Korra’s character whereas with FMA it’s mostly worldbuilding/ character development for side characters and doesn’t go into it enough to really justify how relentlessly dark it can get.

7. Winry. Ok this mostly comes up in one episode: Her Reason, but it is essentially just an exaggeration of her normal problems. She comes off as selfish, conceited, and acts like the world revolves around her. She doesn’t consider the emotions of others and never apologizes when she makes a mistake, letting those around her take the blame. At best she just comes across as a kind of boring love interest. Compare this to Avatar, where even the most love interest focused characters such as Yue, Suki and Opal are still pretty strong characters even if they aren’t super deep. And they have the ability to rebuff their love interests if they are acting like jerks without resorting to violence, something that Anime characters seem to have difficulty doing.

8. Izumi. OH MY GOD. If there is one thing I HATE about FMA it is Izumi. She is hateful, hypocritical, uncaring and oh yeah ABUSES CHILDREN! Now I get that in a dangerous world sparing is necessary even if they get their butts’ kicked. However, leaving two prepubescent boys on an island by themselves for a month with a guy who kicks the crap out of them IS ABUSE and no life lesson is worth the trauma that would have resulted from this in real life. There is also the insufferable tendency of the show to follow up her abuse with kindness which is the exact thing an ABUSER would do to fuck with their victims emotions. I could go on for awhile about Izumi, but instead I will compare with Avatar. Iroh is one of the most amazing characters in fiction, at first he may seem like the wise old mentor stereotype but it's quickly apparent that he is a bit of a goofball, but also deeply kind and caring, even putting up with his largely ungrateful nephew. And as we learn, Iroh used to be a very different person and his journey reflects the journey of other characters. In LOK we have Tenzin who is a rather flawed mentor in that he takes himself way too seriously and is rather inflexible in his ways. However he deeply loves his family and culture, learns a lot over the course of the series, and while he is a bit stiff he is also kind of a doormat so that even when he is acting his worst, it never comes across as malicious because if people were really fed up with him they could just ignore him and all he would do is harumph.

As for the Movie, all I will say is that while I liked what it did with the kind of silly plot point at the end of the series. However I don’t think it did enough with it, I wish that most of if not all of the characters had been universe swaps. And in addition, I wish it did more with this concept, turning Hughes into a stick in the mud, single, Nazi was a bad move. It would have been fascinating if they kept the same characters but showed how might they react in a vastly different situation. For example what if Hughes was his usual self, with a family, and because of this he is terrified that the weakness of Germany is a threat to his family, hence why he would reluctantly join up with the Nazis. Ideas like this could have given a lot of depth to the story. Oh, and the villain sucks. Yes FMA made a dimension hopping Nazi boring, with her entire motivation tying into the on the nose moral of “Racism is bad M’kay?”

However, despite all this, I don’t think Avatar has spoiled everything for me. When I look back to Trigun I remember how invested I became in the characters to the point of being moved to tears on multiple occasions and I consider Vash, Wolfwood and Milly to be characters I will always remember and love.

#fullmetal alchemist #edward elric #alphonse elric #winry rockbell #izumi curtis #Avatar The Last Airbender #legend of korra #korra #aang #bolin #iroh #uncle iroh #tenzin

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lancecarr · 5 years

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Seismic Rumblings In Video Production

A view of Cine Gear 2019 at Paramount Studios.

Video/digital cinema production in 2019, to me, feels as if there are some groundbreaking changes underway. I’m not sure if you have felt this lately, but I definitely have.

BMD Resolve 16.1 public beta has some interesting Ai features that are supposed to preemptively help editors cut more efficiently.

Seismic Change #1 – Has Ai Finally Arrived in Editing?

As you may or may not be aware of, Blackmagic Design had major new product announcements recently. Buried within those new announcements was word that Resolve 16.1 public beta has been released. Contained within Resolve 16.1 is the new Smart Indicator. The new cut page in DaVinci Resolve 16 introduced multiple new smart features, which work by estimating where the editor wants to add an edit or transition and then allowing it to be applied without the wasted time of placing in and out points on the exact locations of the clips. While I’m not positive, I believe that the language Blackmagic Design is using indicates that these new features are at least a basic form of Ai, in that the software anticipates some editing decisions that the editor might want to make and then does them.

This is supposedly faster because the software guesses what the editor wants to do and just does it by adding the inset edit or adding a transition to the edit closest to where the editor has placed the CTI. The problem is in complex edits, where it’s hard to know what the software would do and which edit it would place the effect or clip into. This is where the new smart indicator provides a small marker in the timeline so customers get constant feedback on where DaVinci Resolve will place edits and transitions. The new smart indicator constantly live updates as the editor moves around the timeline.

The Boring Detector in Resolve 16.1 public beta is supposed to alert the editor if their timeline doesn’t have enough edits and it also helps to detect jump cuts.

The other feature notable in Resolve 16.1 is the Boring Director. DaVinci Resolve 16.1 introduces a new Boring Detector that allows the whole timeline to be highlighted where any shot is too long and would be boring for a viewer to watch. The boring detector can also show jump cuts where shots are too short as well. The analysis is constantly showing which parts of the timeline are boring so as editors work and add shots to their edit, they can see the remaining parts of the edit that are considered boring. The boring detector is great when using the source tape, as editors can perform a lot of edits without playing the timeline, so the boring detector will be an alternative live source of feedback.

The question is, how do you feel about your editing software functioning as a sort of Ai powered assistant versus a passive tool? For me personally, I’m all for it. If I’m editing a piece, in the end, all that matters is if the edit works and if the visual and narrative story is engaging. I don’t really care that much about the process of how I got there. All that matters to me is if my clients and the audience like what they see. However, keep in mind, editing, for me, is a means to an end. I’m not a full-time editor who only edits for a living; it’s just a component of what I do. If I was a full-time editor, I might feel differently. Or I might not. How do you feel about this development from Blackmagic Design?

The Impending Death of the Camera is reflected in the numbers tracked by the Japanese camera industry organization CIPA. The numbers are grim—the average consumer is no longer buying cameras but are using their smartphone camera more than ever before.

Seismic Change Number #2 – The Death of the Camera

If you haven’t heard about this, you will be soon. I won’t go into all of the detailed analysis because that would probably be pretty boring to read, but let me glean a few headlines for you about what’s been happening in our industry:

Since 2010, the worldwide camera industry has dropped off 84 percent in sales volume over the past 9 years.

There was a 24 percent drop in the number of cameras shipped in 2018 from 2017.

Canon and Nikon saw camera sales fall more than 17 percent for the first quarter of 2019 compared to the first quarter of 2018.

Global digital camera shipments in February 2019 came in at only 935,148 units compared to the 1,001,398 shipped in January 2019. This is a more than a 30 percent decrease year-over-year.

What conclusions can we draw from these numbers? Keep in mind that these statistics and numbers are global and that they focus more on consumer cameras than professional digital cinema cameras. It’s obvious that the majority of the camera market hasn’t disappeared, but it has changed platforms, obviously to smartphones. A lot of buyers who would have previously just bought a digital point-and-shoot now are just using the increasingly capable cameras in their phones. The cameras in the highest-end smartphones especially have grown to be better and better as far as image quality and features.

As a consumer of professional cameras, why should all of these numbers concern me? The problem is, we have a trickle-down effect at work here. Canon USA recently laid off a sizable amount of its workforce and closed their Jamesburg, New Jersey, service facility. Sony has been dragging their feet, not introducing any new digital cinema camera in 2019, although they did introduce the Venice in 2018. Panasonic did introduce a new mirrorless 6K camera, the S1H, at CineGear 2019, but no new digital cinema camera from them this year either. Nothing but a $6k price reduction on their older Varicam LT.

As you can plainly see, the massive shrinking of the consumer camera market is affecting the professional digital cinema camera market as well. We’re also seeing the encroachment of the Chinese into the pro digital cinema camera market with new cameras like the Z Cam E2 and the Kinefinity Mavo. Both of these manufacturers are offering features and specs that were recently only available on the very top of the line cameras like the RED lineup, but for a fraction of the cost.

Is the camera market actually dying? I guess that depends on how you view the camera market. For traditional camera manufacturers, yes, this is a very difficult time as sales volume has dropped off tremendously. For professional users, we’re facing much longer product refresh cycles compared to the frantic pace of new cameras and innovation over the last few years. For some of the newer and smaller players, the camera market worldwide still presents opportunities to flourish, but the rules of the market and what the customers expect are changing rapidly. Witness Blackmagic Design who just introduced their new Pocket Cinema 6K camera at $1,500 less ($2,495) than Panasonic’s S1H 6K camera that isn’t even shipping yet. Stay tuned to see what craziness will envelop camera buyers next.

Disney Plus is the next big thing in streaming services from the hungry media conglomerate.

Seismic Change #3 – What’s Happening to Filmed Entertainment?

In a nutshell, consolidation, competition and streaming ascend. Consolidation is really all about the D-word, Disney. Is there anything that the Disney monolith hasn’t yet swallowed? Star Wars? Check. Pixar? Check. Marvel? Check. Fox? Check. Next up is the launch of the Disney Plus streaming service that will go head to head in the marketplace with Netflix and with Apple’s upcoming TV Plus streaming service. The players are changing as traditional studios like Sony, Paramount and Warner Bros. are being somewhat passed over by these new streaming monoliths. Sure, the old “traditional studio” players will still be around and providing content for the new players, but the days of theatrical and episodic television over broadcast being considered “Hollywood” are drawing to a rapid end.

What does all of this mean for us content creators? It’s hard to say. All three streaming services will have a huge appetite for new original and derivative programming, which is good for us. The competition is intense, though, as almost everyone is now more interested in pitching content to the new players than the older established studios, so it’s not like there’s a huge welcome mat on the front door of each streaming service inviting you in to pitch your series, movie or web series.

I predict a wholesale shakeup in the kind of programming that will be popular though. In the era of streaming, it feels as if the audiences will have more to say about the kind of content they watch since they’re more in charge than they were in the previous era. Audiences today aren’t afraid to activate a streaming service just for watching a particular series or event, then turning their subscription to that service off before moving on to the next show, series or outlet. There’s very little loyalty to a single streaming service like there used to be for watching “must-see TV,” so the landscape is becoming more fractured and individualized.

There have been some bright spots: The global theatrical and home entertainment market generated $96.8 billion in 2018, a 9 percent increase on 2017, according to a new report from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). As you’re probably aware, gaming surpassed filmed entertainment about 15 years ago and ever since then, filmed entertainment has been on a long, slow downward trend, so seeing that much year-on-year growth is encouraging for us all. Here’s to that number increasing!

The post Seismic Rumblings In Video Production appeared first on HD Video Pro.

https://www.hdvideopro.com/blog/seismic-rumblings-in-video-production/

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recentanimenews · 5 years

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The Hero has Arrived: The Rising of the Shield Hero Premiere is Ready to Take Us to Another World!

Finding out that you’re a mythical hero summoned from another world is probably confusing enough, but what happens when you find out your legendary weapon is… a shield?! In Rising of the Shield Hero, that’s exactly what happens to Naofumi Iwatani, who ends up summoned to a mysterious new world after examining a book he found about four legendary heroes. Naofumi has a bit of an unfortunate and unusual start to his adventure in another world, as he doesn’t seem to be a flashy, heroic figure like the other three summoned people are--instead, he finds himself without any adventuring companions, no offensive weaponry, and so many unanswered questions!

Rising of the Shield Hero is based on the popular light novel series of the same name, with 19 published volumes, and is currently published in English by One Peace Books. The upcoming anime will start in January 2019, but at Crunchyroll Expo, fans and attendees were able to take a sneak peek to see what the buzz over this isekai series was all about! Before the nearly hour long first episode premiere, there was a Q&A panel with Junichiro Tamura, the producer, and Kevin Penkin, the composer of the show’s music. Read on to see what they had to say, along with some thoughts of the premiere!

What did you feel when you first heard that you’re going to be working on The Rising of the Shield Hero?JT: Rather than getting told to be working on Shield Hero, I pitched the project after I heard how popular how popular Shield Hero is overseas, so I’ve been thinking a lot about the overseas market and trying to make stuff that you all will enjoy as well as Japan.

KP: I’ve been working on Shield Hero for over a year now, which is pretty crazy; it’s a pretty big project! We were just finishing up another show called Made in Abyss before, and as that show was basically coming out, the staff was like “Let’s do another one!” and I was like “Oh, okay!” (laughs) It was maybe like a week where I wasn’t doing anything, and then, all of the sudden I had to go and work again. It’s been a good ride so far! It’s super intense, but totally worth it.

Since you both have been working on this for quite awhile, any interesting moments that you can share while working on Shield Hero?JT: The episode that we’re going to watch here, episode 1, I’ve actually been working on it for several months; it took a lot to get it perfect, so I hope you all will enjoy it!

KP: The PV for Shield Hero was released this morning, so I can talk about that without revealing any spoilers. I almost accidentally gave away a huge Abyss spoiler last month when I was in a convention in Germany; someone had to basically had to cut me off before I talked too much! (laughs) For Shield Hero, there were some interesting moments with the instrumentation, because they wanted symphonic rock, but they also wanted some Spanish Flamenco guitars at times, so trying to make that work was an interesting sort of experience, which you can totally hear on the PV. It’s very different from the previous stuff that I’ve worked on, but it’s been an interesting challenge!

Some of us may not be familiar with The Rising of the Shield Hero, could you talk about a bit more about the story before we watch the world premiere?KP: With Shield Hero trying to explore some of the more raw emotions that the main character feels at times, exploring what it’s like to be betrayed and incorporating that into the music has been pretty interesting. Obviously, it’s an isekai, and looking into the history of isekai and how stories have unfolded within those projects, but also figuring out how this one could be different and how we could push new and provocative sort of emotions and circumstances.

JT: Unlike most of the isekai projects that have girls and are a harem, this one is different and a lot darker; the main character has to go through a lot of hardships. I would like everyone would like go through these hardships and rise along with Naofumi, and it’ll be more of a cathartic experience for everyone once you get through the hard parts.

Kevin, your recent work in Made in Abyss became a huge hit! What kind of soundtrack should we anticipate from The Rising of the Shield Hero?KP: Don’t expect the same! (everyone laughs) I’ve always been interested in creating a consistency of experience, but never a consistency of sound. While there are some personality traits as a composer that you may have, trying to get to the same emotion in a very different way, I think is really important. The reason for that is if you do the same idea twice, it becomes flat; whatever magic you may feel from something the next time you hear the same thing, it’s probably not going to give you the exact same experience. Shield Hero is a pretty big departure from the Made in Abyss music at times, but hopefully it still does its job well, and actually still gut punches you when it needs to!

Tamura-san, you previously mentioned that you’re actually the one that made this project happen! What were some of your roles and responsibilities in making The Rising of the Shield Hero happen?JT: I pretty much everything and anything that needs to be done for the project: I gathered the staff, managed the budget, apologize if I need to! (everyone laughs) Unlike Hollywood producers, who are pretty executive, I’m in the bottom rank. I’m the first to go and act in order to get stuff done.

You mentioned you had to do a lot of talking with a lot of different staff. How’s your working relationship with the animation studio Kinema Citrus, which brought us a lot of works in the past?JT: With the big success of Made in Abyss, I’ve been working with the head of Kinema Citrus, Muneki Ogasawara, for 10 years, and we’ve been talking about trying to do a big project together, and it finally came to fruition!

Kevin, you’ve obviously worked with Kinema Citrus for Made in Abyss. How is that gonna work with this relationship moving on to another project?KP: Kinema Citrus are really cool people, because first off, they gave me a job, which is great, so I can pay rent and eat! (everyone laughs) They definitely took a chance with hiring me, because I come from making video game music, but anime is slightly a different beast in the sense that you’re trying to map out an entire series in your head and without a lot of precedence to really start that process. In Made in Abyss, they didn’t know what they wanted in terms of sound, and so it was up to me to find something that I felt was consistent with the series in terms of aesthetics and values. Shield Hero was the same, where they might have an idea, like symphonic rock with some Spanish guitar, but how do you make that work? How do you make that a consistent sound throughout the entire series? They’re a very trusting company, and obviously, you have to deliver and do the best work possible, but they are very kind people to work with.

As you mentioned, sometimes you’re not really sure what to make out of it, so do you often get the source material, or do you get to see some of the behind the scenes stuff before you compose the soundtracks?KP: Reading the manga is very important at times, but I think I would have to have conversations with someone like Tamura-san and try to get to the bottom of what is the core essence about the material is a good starting point. Those core values end up shaping some of the early pieces of music to try and get to that baseline to work from, no pun intended! (everyone laughs) It’s sort of like a skill tree in a way, that once you have the foundation, you can spread out and put variations into the tracks. So yeah, conversations are really important; discussions with the director involved, so you can have some really detailed discussions. Background art is very important as well; if you look at the color aesthetics of The Rising of the Shield Hero, it’s pretty varied at times, which you can focus on that and develop ideas from the color palette. There are quite a few ways you can derive what direction you should go in, but communication is key.

Tamura-san, The Rising of the Shield Hero anime is an adaptation of the light novel series. For the readers, what should they anticipate when they watch this anime series?JT: I can’t quite spoil where it’s going to end, but there’s quite a bit of source material to go through; this part will only go through a portion of it, as there’s a lot of drama and character development. Hopefully there’ll be a season 2!KP: Let’s get through the first season! Let’s not jump the gun there! (everyone laughs)

Any notable anime that influenced or inspired you? What inspired you to work in the anime industry?JT: I have been inspired by Space Cobra! Space Cobra is my favorite, even though the content may not be the same sort of series as Shield Hero.KP: As you were answering that, I had a little revelation in my head… When I was a kid, I watched Pokémon, Digimon, Dragonball Z, and I didn’t really know what anime was at the time, because it was just on the TV at the time. But… the first anime I watched, knowing that it was an anime actually was School Days! (everyone gasps, exclaims and laughs) And I was like “Okay, this is kind of interesting!” And obviously at the end, something happens, and I won’t spoil it, but something crazy and messed up happens. I realized that the sort of whiplash that I saw there is maybe my kind of my aesthetic, where I really want to put people in a comfortable false sense of security and then whap them over the head! So yeah, that might have had a little influence influence subconsciously! Studio Ghibli is a huge influence as well, which solidified my passion for animation.

What should fans keep in mind as they watch the world premiere screening? JT: Rather than standing up here and keep talking, I’d rather you just watch it! I’d love to see all your reactions, because unlike Japan, you’re all open pretty open about how you feel. (everyone laughs)KP: Really?!JT: Yeah! I actually like you all more than Japanese fans! (everyone cheers) Once it starts streaming on Crunchyroll, hopefully you’ll all come back to watch episode 2 and the rest of the series. Promise?KP: This is about a good 12-15 months of work going into 48 minutes of film. It’s going to be very interesting to see the results of it. Have fun!

With that, the premiere of episode one began. We don’t want to spoil too much for those of you who couldn’t be there with us, but let’s just say that Shield Hero gets things going in a way that really takes isekai stories and turns them on their head! Naofumi is apparently a legendary hero summoned from another world, but his life seems to be pretty miserable in his new role, and ignoring his odd equipment, he’s treated pretty unfairly from the start. The idea of a hero who can’t use any offensive moves, magic, or weapons is certainly pretty unique, and seeing Naofumi struggle to learn how to progress with his shield and its potentially secret abilities was quite interesting. Sadly, Naofumi doesn’t fair overly well when it comes to other people in this first episode, and by the end he’s left to fend for himself, but the premiere kept us guessing on what would happen next, as Naofumi seemed to be about to have a fateful encounter with someone new.

The animation quality for this first episode looked great and really helped build an exciting, vivid world for the story to unfold in! And, as expected, the music was quite nice to help set the tone and mood of what was going on during the story, creating a serious fantasy atmosphere that blended the odd circumstances of the action on screen with the emotional moments of Naofumi’s seeming misfortunes. Following the episode, we were treated to a PV of upcoming scenes and conflicts, and it certainly left us wanting more!

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Thanks again to the Kinema Circus crew, Tamura-san, and Kevin for helping kick off the premiere of Rising of the Shield Hero in a big way! It certainly left us wanting more, and it seems that Tamura-san has some big plans for the series with a Simuldub accompanying the release of the show! Make sure to tune in for more Shield Hero in January next year exclusively here on Crunchyroll, and we’ll keep you posted on any news, previews, and teasers that might drop along the way!

Are you excited for The Rising of the Shield Hero? Share your hype in the comments!

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Nicole is a features and a social video script writer for Crunchyroll. Known to profess her love of otome games over at her blog, Figuratively Speaking. When she has the time, she also streams some games. Follow her on Twitter: @ellyberries

By: [email protected]

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

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healthytalkzone-blog · 6 years

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